Introduction

Paris is supposed to be the capital of fashion. New York is supposed to be the capital of finance. San Francisco supposed to be the home of technology. India is supposedly is to change us spiritually? In fact India did change my life.
Somewhere, somehow in my life, I always put me last. I never consciously thought that putting me last was a good idea or a good life plan, but at some point in my life, it just started to happen. I started to live my life not as myself anymore, but as the person who was here to help “fix” and I was on a mission.
India was a place where I didn’t want to wear any more masks and to find my own face/soul. For many years, prior to India, many were fooled for I wore a thousand masks. I had these masks so people never could know the real me. Pretending that things were ok was second nature to me. I may have given anyone the impression that I was secure, that all was sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without. That my confidence was my name and coolness was my game. That the water was calm; I’m in command and need no one. But beneath these masks I wore laid a soul and heart of full confusion, fear, and aloneness. But I hid all this, and not many people saw me with my mask off. Time to time I would panic at the thought of my weaknesses being exposed. This mask was the only thing that could liberate me from myself, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It was the only thing that assured me of what I could not assure myself. So I played my game, my desperate pretending game, a trembling child within. And prior to India, the glittering but empty parades of masks becomes my front. If you really wanted to know me you had to listen to me and hear not what I was not saying, but what would have like to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I couldn’t say.

I don’t like games. I want to be genuine, spontaneous, and me, but it took all of me to let this guard down. There are a certain amount of people that have held out their hands even when that was the last thing I seem to want. Only these certain people can wipe away the tears from my eyes, my blank stare of the breathing dead. Only a certain few have brought me into aliveness. Each time they are kind, gentle, encouraging, every time they are trying to understand me, my heart begins to grow small wings, very small wings, very feeble wings- but my wings begin to grow. With their power to touch me, into feelings, it enabled them to breathe life into me. The people I encountered in India showed me ~ that being me was absolutely terrific. And so the story begins…