I am not in Kansas anymore!

When I arrived at the ashram I was shocked at how easily I slipped right in. It felt natural. It felt like home. It was almost as if I had never left except for one thing... my love.  Even though it was hard to wrap my head around the concept of not being with her (physically), I did still feel a sense of peace, belonging, and inner knowingness that this move is far bigger than I could ever imagine.
  
I fell straight into production mode with the production team anxiously awaiting my arrival. We had a DVD to complete and were on the verge of a major trip to Australia to continue filming the documentary which had begun in San Francisco only a few short months ago. To put it mildly there was a lot to get done and much to work through.
 
The very next day, with Pranananda and co., we went to the beach to do some additional filming for the opening sequence of the DVD. It was fun and a good way to get into the swing of things. Especially since the following weeks were going to be dedicated to creating the DVD menus, special features, and cover art.
    
After a week of intense work, I was blessed to spend Thanksgiving with my love and her mother. I drove to Las Vegas only to have my car die and I ended up selling it to a mechanic for $250. The loss of my car was also precipitated by a loss of another $20,000 in Forex (foreign currency) trading.  This was by no means as big as my previous loss but it was a large chunk of what I had earned back in the past 10 months as part of recouping those losses. I could have protected myself except that the documentary production was already maxing me out financially as we have not been able to start the fundraising yet.
   
This was not by all means the end of my financial devastation but certainly painful nonetheless. It is part a stripping of all things material. Pranananda, my guru, had forewarned me that I was going through a rite of passage know as "Sunyasi."  Traditionally this is where the Master strips the student of all material possessions and sends them out into the world as a beggar to survive, and ultimately trust that the universe will provide for them.
  
Not exactly what I had intended moving back to the ashram but what was I to do? I am being stripped bare naked of all that I have, pushed to my financial limits, not as punishment, not because there is something wrong me, but basically to force me to expand my consciousness to receive so that I can manifest my dreams, and to break me of any scarcity consciousness that has not allowed me to step forward... to bad it doesn't feel that good. Only a week or two later I lost my consulting contract as well. That my friends put me in a tizzy for now I, and my production team, had no income or even a car between us (another story), and I have an extraordinary amount of debt to service.
  
No one might say just get a job but over the past three months, with having moved from Hollywood, to Las Vegas, to Laguna Hills, to then go to Australia for 6 weeks till mid January, does not lend itself to getting work easily especially when the production has, and is, a fulltime job at the moment.  The game plan will change upon our return and fundraising will be the highest priority amongst the work that we do to get by.
       
Overall, thanksgiving was a lot of fun. During those few days of playing board games, playing Blackjack in the local casinos (not with my money FYI), I discovered that I was really there to make peace in my mind with my love and our strained relationship. I needed to reconcile my guilt of being comfortable with being at the ashram and feeling like I had abandoned her. As strong as I was, when we came to terms with how our path would look, I could never have anticipated how it would actually feel and how it would rip my heart open. 
  
On the last night that I was there we spoke and I felt reconciled although I personally did not like being apart from here this is just the way it is. What hurts most;  is not knowing for how long; is it temporary or permanent; and how will all this look and turn out. The mind is a nasty thing but none of these questions are unreasonable. Tomorrow is promised to no one, and with my over the top life nothing is predictable... nothing at all.
      
I must say however that being in the ashram has been good. To get back onto a fully vegan diet, being surrounded by a group of amazing people who want nothing but to grow and become the best that they can be, is supportive and awesome. The thing about living there is that nothing is ever as it seems, everything is about healing and growth, and there is nowhere to hide. Intense is an understatement.
  
Pranananda's ministry, our ministry, is about training masters... plain and simple. It is one of the few ashrams that has that as its primary focus. It is primarily the reason why it has remained relatively small, with little outreach for so long. It is because it is dedicated to very intense and rapid personal transformation of those closest to the Guru in preparation for the expansion to come. All the service work, all the humanitarian projects, all the pilgrimages and events fall second to that. They, if anything, are vehicles that are used to facilitate each person's self-realization and let me tell you... it is not easy.
  
Over the years, I have watched people (including myself) come and go, seen the most resilient and seemingly loving people fall apart and be forced to face things within them that they never imagined even existed. Breakdown and uplift, break down and uplift... each being to the degree that each person is willing to dig deep and not buy into the illusion for the ego does not like to be challenged. If you keep your hat in the ring, the blessings are insurmountable. It is literally a parallel world that is like Alice in Wonderland...  I am not in Kansas anymore.
   
     

Z