I’ve never been one to speak up.
When it comes to sharing my experiences with others, it’s never been something I’ve been comfortable doing. Growing up, I wasn’t encouraged by my family to share openly, and I developed the belief that if I was to share anything, it could only be positive; difficult or negative things couldn’t be shared for fear of judgment or punishment. As a result of this belief, I’ve chosen to hide many experiences and aspects of my life from others, particularly anything I decide they might view as negative. It’s only because of Rohini that I’ve started learning what it means to share honestly, and why it is so important.
This is the second time I am writing this guest blog. The first time Rohini asked me to write a blog, I produced a piece of writing that wasn’t genuine, and I missed the point of what she was asking me to do. True to my system, I hid behind carefully placed words instead of using the blog as an occasion to share my true voice.
Rohini has given me another opportunity to share honestly. And I want to use it to express how much an active participation in class is necessary for me to learn and grow in my sadhana. This has become overwhelmingly clear to me lately, and it won’t let go.
I have the amazing opportunity to learn from a true Guru, but I need to step up to the plate and engage in order to do it. That’s where sharing comes in. I can’t learn if I’m not willing to investigate my own experiences and share them in class. I can’t learn from writing a guest blog if I’m not willing to write honestly. Rohini demands honesty because it’s a necessary first step in accepting reality, facing facts, and moving forward. Withholding and stinginess only perpetuate dishonesty in me; they ensure that I remain locked in a shrunken unreality.
Sharing is not about being perfect or having all the right answers, because I’ve seen that there is so much to learn even from sharing when I’ve messed up. This became obvious to me in the recent Lessons & Questions class “Sure Voice True Voice”. In that class, Rohini gave me the chance to open up and be honest about how I wasn’t honest in the first draft of my guest blog. I had tried doing the blog my way, I had tried attending classes my way, but it was undeniable that morning that my way hadn’t worked. There was only one way forward: I had to speak up and share honestly what I had done, so that I could move forward and recover the agency required not to do it again. That experience was incredibly valuable for me.
When I avoid sharing in class, I miss out on such experiences. I don’t get to see where my wrong understanding misleads me, I don’t get to learn from my mistakes, and I don’t receive the grace of the Guru that I desperately need to know who I truly am and live my life fully. If I merely show up, the most that happens is that I ride the shakti. But it’s always temporary because I go back to doing the same old things when I don’t learn, when I don’t allow Rohini to shine a light.
Everyone else in class also misses the opportunity to learn from my experiences when I don’t share. And this is particularly sad, because I’ve learned a tremendous amount from other people in class over the past four years. I so appreciate those who are here to share and learn, because it actually helps me, too. When I consider this, it makes me want to do the same for them.
Fraz’s guest blog is a related example of how someone else’s sharing has helped me. It came at a perfect time while I was rewriting my blog, and it blew me away with its honesty. I could feel the honesty of his words when I read it. It was less about the words on the page than the vibration I felt beneath them. I see that that is what Rohini meant when she explained how someone could tell that my blog was dishonest just by reading it.
Rohini always says that the classroom is the laboratory, and now that statement has a new depth of meaning for me. Her classroom is the place—indeed the only place I’ve ever been—where I can be completely honest, share my experience whatever it is, and receive Love in return, every time. Rohini meets me precisely where I am, no matter what. I don’t have to worry about the outcome of my sharing, I just have to be willing to do it honestly, and accept the Love she always provides.
Share this Post