“A” 5 years of my life and then some

So I promised to write about the father of my eldest son…I had promised you it a long ago but writing this blog or part of the outline of my intended book is strenuous, to say the least. I have to deal with my own wrong choices in a whole different light. Being honest about my lust for money and power and esteem after having to have lived off 100 dollars a month,  not too bad in India at that time by the way. I, as a Buddhist, have to acknowledge that my intentions and desires set the hell alight with fire for myself.

 

I, and I alone, am to blame for all that went wrong and also the good things I can merit myself but the hurt and shame and difficulty, lies in accepting my own responsibility and that I have no other to blame but myself.

 

To move away from a view where “A” is to blame, to a more healthy believe where he is a mere puppet in a theatre I directed the play myself. Life is always a play, a self-created illusion if you like but in this case, my time with him seems like a movie and I played all the parts in it except his. I antagonized a man you should maybe not antagonize. I defied his control and his elegantly controlling ways. Not maybe consciously but just being my spontaneous self which initially attracted him to me, I am sure of that! 

 

“A” was many things, charming & controlling in subtle and sensible ways. So reasonable and strong with words it’s uncanny, it was what attracted me to him, his intelligence, his wit, charm, and extreme logic. At the end of the 5 years, I spend with him it was exactly all these traits of his character which had exhausted this very feeling and intuitive and happy go lucky girl. I was broke in more ways than one both financially and emotionally bare to the bone.

 

It did cost a lot of life energy and that all for not heeding my guru’s words. The only time my teacher gave me unsolicited advice directedly and with a huge warning, I did not listen. There is no use in blaming myself now as great lessons were learned from it and helped me choose a more suitable partner. “A” also gave me my eldest son, needless to say that most mothers are happy with their children even if had with a less suitable partner.

 

“A” and I were far from ok. Both of our reasons for wanting to be with the other were probably not intertwined with the best or clear intentions and love was not maybe involved at first. Lust, and promises of another life and the numbing of my pain for having to have left my boyfriend and the disappointment in the Tibetan community yes even in Buddhism due to the Tibetan political issues since 1995 were all huge factors. A promise of a more rich and exciting life and the sexual gratification also had me hooked, next to the charm offensive he let loose on me trying to win my heart.

 

“A” was the most charming person I had ever met apart from my guru. He was willing to fulfill my every desire, he was rich at the time I met him. Getting presents and tickets for traveling, from that point onward,  compared to having to the ” turn every penny twice” lifestyle I’d known practically all my life was a welcome change. You see it had the makings of a trap. I was ready to be trapped. maybe I even willingly closed my eyes and wanted so very much to believe the responsibility for my life could be borne by someone else.

 

In general, “A” did me a great favor, 5 years of learning much about life. About finances and how not to do things and at the same time he fostered this woman’s working abilities and my work ethic. It wasn’t all bleak but as the years grew, the smaller the funnel got and how less happy I became.

 

Not having the money or actually not knowing if we could provide for ourselves, his family (more than some 200 odd members all living in India) the business travels, the running operation of yet another company to make the success he believed he could be in the shipping world. It all drained me from energy and the worries started to reign over everything. I had no more energy to be my intuitive self but I had to take care of my firstborn and myself and needed to cut myself loose to be able to hear my own heart again and my inner voice and even my thinking was clouded by his voice. 

 

So when presented with the chance I jumped the gun and left with my son to go and live with my mum in the Netherlands. 

 

The years that followed I lived in fear of him coming to get his son and punishing me for my disloyal ways. He never did but as time passed and we had to reconnect for the sake of our child – 5 years of no contact passed – I finally learned to lay down the rules with him and let my own needs and those of our child be his first and foremost priority as I stipulated how and where and what he could do when visiting his son. 

 

Years later His son kind of became my guardian as he clearly told his father he would break all contact if he didn’t stop complaining about his mum, him being a Buddhist or the fact that he already called another man dad since he became 3. “A” took his son’s words on this serious and when I heard him say it on the phone to his dad I had tears in my eyes. My first born had done what I couldn’t do for myself, stand up for me, in front of “A” . The circle was round and some deeper healing had begun. 

 

The Story of “A” in a nutshell at this moment I don’t want to give him more space on this blog and I have to feel and think what writings about him are worth being finalized, scrapped, published, etc. 

 

My self-worth and standing up for myself are issues which he laid bare to me very much. In that light, it is maybe worthwhile to elaborate more. Describing a situation and looking at why I let things happen, what needs more he fulfilled more than the promise of an easy life in luxury with enough money. Which was soon gone after I met him. So why di I stay and what does it say about me. Interesting to explore more. 

 

One thing I can take away from it is that I am a very loyal person – even though I left –  and till this day I can reconnect with “A” over work, humor, our child and feel a warm feeling for him when time shared in the present. Even his thinking distortions  (as perceived by me) bring a compassionate smile to my face. Seeing for what he is, ambitious and stubborn to a fault. A man with great hunger and even bigger dreams, however, slowed down by his heart disease gotten a few years ago. 

 

In many ways, I even feel I left him broken and confused and wondering what had happened but never asking himself the question why. Even when later we both did manage to touch upon the subject of me leaving him.  He didn’t understand my reasons at all, unwilling to see it from my point of the heart, a scared and burned out 25 years old who needed stability for herself and her son. Needing not to drown and she clung to a piece of driftwood until she found a boat that brought her to safer shores.

 

by the time I left him, I was still only 25 and still not grown up and at the same time, my inner light had dimmed tremendously. Not to say, almost all of it was gone

 

Maybe if our life together had been financially more stable I could have stayed and be the supporting loving wife I can be and he needed so much .. but rivers dry up waiting for “What if”. 

 

20 years later I am happy we have a functional connection over a grownup son we both aren’t that responsible for anymore and who is accountable for his own life and doing great. 

 

“A” I wish you all the best and pray you to stay healthy and have the opportunity to fulfill your wishes for the benefit of your mum, family and children. 

Enjoy a great weekend 

 

Love  – Radia “The Unusual Yogini” 

 

PS: How do past relationships affect you? especially the bad ones. How do you see your part and what have you taken away from it in a positive sense? let me know. 

 

 

No past, no present..no future?

Not quite sure what to write next, I have been pondering, the past is something of the past and as Buddhist, we should live in the now. Now is the past, not something to be discarded but we should be careful not to cling and to reminiscence just for reminiscence’s sake. I have been wondering I have not dwelt too much on the past. Now for the sake of the book, I do look to the past for answers and inspiration but the more I dive back the more I see the correlation between the decision and its results. I feel that the more I dive into my own past the more my present changes. It’s maybe hard to explain but the perception of why I did things, partly motivated by these men in my life and my own patterns of reaction toward them which I more and more start to see emerging from thinking and reading my own blogs back. They start serving as a useful tool to understand myself more. In a way, these blogs are healing my past regrets and pains hidden in my memories now released and brought to the surface. Memories seem like rocks in the water pressing down on memories waiting to be pushed aside release them to the surface.

 

Anyhow still don’t know what to write about next. I have started a great many writings still unfit to be published I found after reading them. Editing them makes no sense as they would alter the specific story so much it wouldn’t be my story anymore.

 

The closest story I could still write about my past would be about my deceased father..my deceased grandfather both of whim I have already written about as well. The story of the biological father of my eldest son is difficult to tell even tough 18 years ago it is also such an integral part of my son’s life and identity and I am certain these underseas rocks are still too heavy. I mean it got me a beautiful son, a great many discovered working abilities, many other great things I experienced but the darkness of that period is also still great and I notice when I start writing about it I can only do so little by little. Writing about my guru will never be complete enough or clear enough or good enough. I can do glimpses and maybe anecdotes but my need for control what you make out of it is too much and for I can’t control what you think about my writings I am unable to publish it yet.

 

So you see my dilemma probably….

 

My guru plays an immense great deal in my life and has done so since I was very young. The very idea of becoming a Buddhist with the fact that I started to follow him, not physically but started from then onward slowly depending on his guidance more and more seems in this life whenever somebody seeks freedom and independence an act of revolution in itself. Many of the people I have met in my life including the Tibetans themselves have not grasped or understood why in heavens name you would do such a thing….follow a guru and indeed at times it was and still is very trying but due to the evidence I have lived, of this path being easier for me than without a guru, I make the effort.

 

I have tried to explain before that the fact that I aspire a spiritual path, and a very far ahead of myself goal of becoming a Buddha which is very difficult to attain or your own or even with a guru in this time and age. It’s a long winding path but so rewarding. Writing about a guru relationship might be controversial, as in our society of following your own path and finding this out by yourself through the less exotic modern-day gurus are being hailed by the thousands. Figueres like Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, spiritual and lifestyle gurus are all the fad nowadays. We tend to forget however that many of them have gotten the instructions to their enlightenment mostly from great Asian masters and traditions like; Buddhism, Hinduism, Yoga etc.  Surely they have done away with a lot of the “perceived” unnecessary cultural and ceremonial ballast to come to the essence of what frees us and made it, therefore, more digestible.

 

To follow your own path takes courage and that some spiritual masters including my own guru call it the path of the warrior doesn’t seem so strange anymore. To conclude I haven’t written about my present or indeed about my past but this writing (over several days) shows me I should follow through and be courageous. I’ll write about my eldest son’s father next. I try to be as honest as possible and no offend my son or indeed not offend the person in question. After all, I’ve learned a great many skills from him and learned a lot about myself in retrospect looking back at that relationship.

 

I have given you no real story, story today but just thoughts on how to continue which has given me the conviction of courage and how to carry on. But In two weeks time, a story about a lost girl, who left Dharamsala in a hurry and basically on her way home to the Netherlands ran into someone else’s very ready arms. So disillusioned and so hungry for some success she was that this man was able to blind her even further and swallow up her pain of having to have left L and the place she’d already come to love dearly.

Loving what you read? any ideas or feedback do so in the comments

 

Love and be loved… Radia – The Unusual Yogini

 

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