Mirror of my soul – Stories of you, me, the world and eternity

Ever since my earliest childhood I felt like no one could fully reach into my world. I was a sensitive, kind and intuitive child, who, I guess to many, seemed oblivious to all the vile things going on in the world. Well-meaning relatives and friends often told me that I had to “toughen up” to survive in the “real world”, and that my kindness left me open to being used. As the years went by I grew more and more protective of my inner cocoon, preferring to refuge into it to recharge myself, to protect myself and what I believed in. Somehow I always felt that being all of the above was actually my strength, the real me. Contrary to what some believed, I was not blind to wickedness, poverty, violence, selfishness, suppression; I knew all this but I always wanted to, and chose to, see a world beyond it. This safe place that existed within me was my haven; it was where I turned when I felt alone and misunderstood. I was convinced that what was inside me was the reality, and not the other way around, but that for various reasons it was not “safe” to be this same person on the outside.

I longed so very much to find that meaning, that sense of belonging, that presence to match what was in me. Yet no one I connected with could quite reach the inner space of my heart; no one could quite return back to me what I was sending out. I always had an eerie feeling that a part of me was calling to out me from somewhere out there. I could feel something, someone reaching out to me. I remember connecting with this someone in dreams; on a beach, watching stars together in the meadows, sat on the top of a sand dune under the stars and a smiling crescent moon, watching our children laughing in the garden etc. I always knew that once I reached adulthood I would set out to travel the world to find what was calling out to me – and this is exactly what I did.

I had been living abroad, in a City that spoke to my heart, for six years when, on what started as an ordinary day, my beloved burst into my (at best) grey world in what I liken to a colour palette explosion of a thousand rainbows. My search, which had started when I was only a young girl, stopped there and then. The feelings, the energies, the depth of the connection were so unlike anything I had ever experienced. He was unlike anyone I had ever met and I was BLINDED by his light and his LOVE. Undeniably, underneath all our emotions and feelings is a soul, connected to everything and everyone. This soul is capable of things that transcend all limitations and defy all logic of the human mind. This soul, which contains all of universe within itself, has, in a single instant, the power to recognize its counterpart. It only takes one second, one moment for the memories of real, unbridled love to come rushing back. When I felt this, and it spread like fire to the rest of my body, I knew *this* was REAL; this, and NOTHING else.

I believe that there is deep truth in the saying that the only things that we can ever really understand are things that we already know; and that the only affinities we can have are those that are already there. Similarly therefore, the only LOVE we can experience is the rediscovery of love that always was. All that is needed is someone/ something to REMIND us.

My beloved once said he had learned so much about love and relationship dynamics from me, and that his understanding had been more aligned with my amazing communications skills; however I knew I could take none of the credit for it. I am his mirror; all I am doing is reminding him of what he already knows. I never believed that we were here to teach each other anything us such, but rather, to REMIND each other of WHAT already IS. We are here to help each other through this classroom of life and to rise in love lifting the hearts of humanity with us. But we are not the sources of this LOVE, all we are to do is to remove all the barriers to allow it to shine through! We are just the humble servants of ALL THAT IS…God.

As the connection would have it, we hit a crisis and he pulled away. I had no idea what the hell was happening to me, to him, to us. I ran, and thought the separation from him would kill me. To have shared the intensity of what we were – and still are, and then have him turn around and shake me to my newly rediscovered, still fragile, core, doubting who I was, telling me that he never made any promises, listing all the should not’s, cannot’s, do not want to’s, etc. in the world. I was left there with my arms in the air, not only with my heart shredded to pieces but with the “me” I had only just gotten to know and fallen madly in love with, now lying on the ground in pulp, unrecognisable, and acutely unloved. I tried to understand, to analyse, to still be his friend, wishing I could just dismiss myself as crazy because that would have been the EASY way out. I prayed to God – a God I had not even believed in until then – to release from this illusion, and I was terrified when it became clear to me that every time I opened my eyes he was still there; out of reach, but still there.

As I sat in a dark room feeling like death, I convinced myself that he had never existed, that I had made him up. Yet a couple of years later, when I started to finally see light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and finally reconnected with my own inner space, I recognised him, firmly at HOME, there within my heart. It was a surprise; a turn of events we could not quite comprehend. My mind ticking in overdrive with question after question, asking him “what are YOU doing here?”

Then, in an Aha! Moment, I realised that he had not just appeared “out of nowhere”, and more importantly, he had never gone away or left me, as he had always been there, before I even realised that he existed, before I ever realised that this common ground existed. That this connection IS, WAS and WILL BE there regardless of me or him, regardless of what I choose or do not choose to do with it … And that in this shared place, we are eternally connected. Often in my heart I would speak to him and draw him close, and the minimal contact we had during the years that followed was enough to confirm to me just how connected we were. I knew that he could hear me; perhaps not consciously but nevertheless. What seemed to flow through his mind somehow always flowed through his too.

I came to the deep realisation that perhaps he simply did not know who I was, not out of spite or because he intended to hurt me, but because there were lessons he needed to learn, or because such was the choice he had made. I even allowed for the possibility that beyond our short time together our connection meant nothing to him – and certainly did not come with the intense questioning, turmoil and growth I associated with our togetherness. I did initially want to fight for him, to shake him awake and perhaps at times I tried just this. But I also realised that fighting for love in a forceful way was like fucking for virginity; there was NO SENSE in it. Love is about surrendering to what IS, not about fighting what is or isn’t. I also realised that it doesn’t matter whether that LOVE is returned or acknowledged, because as long as I KNOW the truth in my heart and soul then it should not matter what anyone, including the object of that love, does or says because true LOVE is not dependent on anything. It existed long before I discovered it and will continue to exist long after I am gone! This acceptance allowed me, after a long time fighting and trying to make sense of it, to trust it all into God’s hands, simply asking him to bring forth whatever is in the best interest of all.

I understood that none of this belongs to me; the connection, the words it inspires, even the people whom it has helped to heal; it isn’t mine. I am just a portal for this love to make its way into this world, into this dimension. It was never mine to start with. God can do whatever he wants with it, after all, he knows me better than I know myself. And then, “Knock on the door and the door will be opened”, like my beloved once said, or “Ask the question and it will be answered”: God does listen and God does hear. And he DOES answer! What followed was as an infinite parade of signs, visions, serendipity, synchronicities, telepathy and the BEAUTIFUL light of love!! There is no way to ignore it when God is involved! Suddenly, I started to see everything through new eyes… And I saw my beloved there with me, EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, undeniably.

I understood that there is no need to fight, no need to “build” anything, or to calibrate or fix it. There are no initiations to take, no climbs to make, no holy books to memorise, no hand stands to master: it is already there, waiting for us; we just have to find our way there first. Then we no longer search for anything outside of ourselves, but find infinite joy, bliss, rapture and inspiration in taking in everything that IS already there, inside us.

I remember once writing something in the lines of Rumi’s “Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.” Well, I know God brought us here in a wave of LOVE and God will take us home. I think that is what is meant to happen. We must die to ourselves, to our egos, in order to truly love each other. We must lose ourselves to find each other, and in finding each other we find ourselves. And through the discovery of our inner space filled with passion, friendship and unconditional love, we relearn to live in the heart of another… safe and snug, as One. Home at last.