There are points in life when one makes a decision. Whether we are aware of it or not in this crucial moment we take a step - and this step determines the direction of our life. I have missed several of those steps/occasions in the past.
For me it was either stepping into who I am, God, and having my life change completely or ... remain with what I know, what's familiar and safe. Being blissfully unaware that there was a decision to make I would simply float along, down the path of least resistance, until I was brought back to my senses weeks later, usually by Brooks, who would call me to tell me that I fell so hard that I barely have a soul left.
Yesterday I walked Ghani, my dog, late at night, and I looked. There were things going on in me these last few days, for about a week now. Lots of movement, lack of structure, no foothold, lots of emotions without reasons ... last night as I walked I thought: this is the moment, the moment of decision, who am I? Who am I going to be in my life? Am I going to be who I am fully, completely, out there where other people are, out there in reality, or will I remain Pausha, the graphic designer, the occasional artist?
Remaining Pausha the designer seemed oh so much easier, so much safer, I knew just what to do to be this person, and I knew I could do it well, but ... well, being aware that there is a choice sort of spoiled it for me. Once I was aware of the choice there was really no choice, I had to be myself.
Second thought was: I am changing, shifting, reorganizing, I am growing into myself more and more ... and then came the realization: I do no such thing! I am myself, I am who I am. I don't change. The movement, the sense of things changing and transforming - its trauma clearing out, its mind readjusting. It is not me. I am me. I was me before this body was born, I will be me after the body dissolves into other forms. I am who I am. I am God.
I understood just what Anandamayi Ma meant when she said:
"Before I came on this earth, Father, 'I was the same.' As a little girl, 'I was the same.' I grew into womanhood, but still 'I was the same.' When the family in which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, 'I was the same.' ...
And, Father, in front of you now, 'I am the same.' Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change[s] around me in the hall of eternity, 'I shall be the same.'"