11. I Thought I Was Saving the World. I Was Losing Myself.

I was in the midst of the online inner awakening program and I felt so alone. The world was social distancing, wearing masks. And the only friend and family member I saw in person was my cat, Mica. I spending 14 hours a day in an online program, receiving initiations, on zoom calls with thousands of people around the world, going into breakout rooms to practice our intuitive gifts. I genuinely believed our prayers and practices we were doing were going to save the world. I felt a duty and responsibility for it.

There was a group, we called the Train, who was in the program who was meeting separately and doing extra activations and multidimensional exploration to clear things in the higher dimensions to activate unique abilities and to support humanity through this time period. Clifton was in the group with a handful of others and later on they recruited me.

Clifton opened up his unique channeling ability even more. He was not only channeling the deity Kalabhariava, but began channeling other deities I'd been singing about for years in my Kirtan devotional practices. Ganesha, Maha Deva, Durga, Kali, Hanuman, Krishna. It was unreal. Each one had a distinct character, energy and way it activated in his human energy system as he was channeling. Each one also had its own message for us as a group.

I didn't have the ability to channel in that way, I doubted myself for years because of it. My intuitive gift is claircognizance, or clear knowing, without knowing how you know. It doesn't come in with a grand vision, or clear message I hear, it's just a knowing, and I've had it my whole life so I literally didn't see much difference in my reality from working on this gift more, other than learning to trust it more and learning that I've had it the whole time.

I did what I'd been already doing with the two of us, I made sure all the group channeling sessions were recorded and then made it my responsibility to transcribe them (there were several hour long sessions throughout the day), made a project management board and made sure we were following through on the actionable steps.

The leader of this group also did 1:1 & group healing sessions for us on higher dimensions as the channels channeled the various quests.

Many of the messages we received during the pandemic were very ominous, fear was prevalent in the collective at that time, as was mass uncertainty and chaos. Maybe it was also vibrational match for my vibrational state at that time, so it was easy to get sucked in. We were given messages that NY was going to go through mayhem, that there would be riots weeks before they happened. I was instructed to leave New York City because of it. I went upstate to be with my grandma.

I was calling friends and family warning them to stay home and not go to work. They probably scratched their heads and were like what's going on with her? I think they worried I had joined a cult, and the truth was I did, I just didn't know it. I just thought it was a part of advanced spiritual development.

Having said that, all of the messages we received end up being true, but you sound crazy if you're the first to say it. I genuinely feared for their safety and wanted to "save" New York. I was initiated into a unique healing modality by the guru. And went out on my roof to put NY in a protective bubble before going upstate with Mica.

What I did not know back then that I know now is that you can channel energies from various ends of the spectrum, and even though they are helping with your spiritual growth, they also can seriously unground you and make you prioritize the 3D world less and less, encourage you to get rid of belongings and stop caring about your body, any matters of the flesh and what's going on in your material world in favor of the spiritual. I would see this prevalent in the conscious community for years after having my own personal experience with this.

Clifton and I really missed each other, and we were working together as part of this group. And decided if we were going to be locked down, we wanted to spend it together. We received the message that it was time for me to drive cross country pick Clifton up in Salt Lake City and head to LA by a certain date. I made it there in record time, 2.5 days, leaving my cat with my grandma. I left not even bringing a bathing suit or proper clothing for LA weather. I had no clue how long I'd be there.

I picked Clifton up and we arrived in LA by the date mentioned. The big reveal of what we were headed there for by that date was actually that it was time to return any of our guru related belongings back to the big temple in LA. The whole group that we were working with had all received the guidance that it was time to leave the sangha at the same time.

In the same day we returned all of our guru paraphernalia to the temple, we arrived in Topanga Canyon, LA, where Clifton was staying prior.

All Air BNB's were closed and no friends or family were able to take us in with the quarantines, except this house that was next door to where Clifton stayed just before the pandemic started. We stayed there in exchange for Clifton doing some work on the host's project.

I'd stayed in LA for about a month, ended up leaving the Train group too, though very transformational, I would say did not have full appreciation and recognition of my gifts and there was a clear hierarchy that formed in there. It built a resilient core in me though of trusting my own inner guidance more and understanding what projections to accept and not tolerate from others, who were "more spiritually advanced" than you, but not open to any feedback whatsoever for them, just being the ones who wanted to dish out all the feedback. Clifton and I again split because of the pressure, this time from this group and he was instructed by them not to talk to me.

I learned so many important lessons from this chapter of my life:

I learned what makes an important distinction between what is and isn't a cult. If it's not a cult, you can come and go at any time you wish, and members of the group are not pressured to stop engaging with you. If it's not a cult, the person leading the group is open to receiving feedback for their growth and adapting as well. Neither was the case here with the sangha, nor the train.

I learned that you can channel energies from various ends of the spectrum, and even though they are helping with your spiritual growth, they also can seriously unground you and make you prioritize the 3D world less and less, encourage you to get rid of belongings and stop caring about your body, any matters of the flesh and what's going on in your material world in favor of the spiritual. I would see this prevalent in the conscious community for years after having my own personal experience with this.

And I learned about spiritual bypassing, spiritual ego superiority of having been exposed to certain modalities and having certain experiences that others had not gotten to in their spiritual journey.

I spent 2 more weeks in LA by myself after that, considering if this was my new home and how long I wanted to stay there. It felt like the right place, but it also felt scary. I really enjoyed that I was able to be out in nature freely, walking on trails and walking on the beach, rather than cooped up in my Brooklyn apartment with only a small park nearby with social distancing. I enjoyed the weather here and some of the conscious community I'd met here. I no longer had any sort of job tethering me to NY, and because of the lockdown could no longer see people in person in NY in the practice I was building.

But I had to make a decision and deal with the responsibility I had left at home. I had an apartment that I just left in NY that I was paying for, my cat at my grandma's while I figured my life out and my uncle's car with me. There was pandemic related unemployment assistance I was eligible for that I had to get set up. So I had to return and make a decision and stabilize.

The day before I left, Clifton called me and said he wanted to get back together with me.

I told him I was considering moving to LA, but I wanted to move for the right reasons, not just because of him.

It felt scary because I didn't know many people here. It was also scary because again, I didn't know who I was, and had just left the sangha and then the train, any stabilizing factors or structures in my life were once again removed.

I had an awakening drive back home to NY. I wept as I processed all the change, transformation and uprooting I'd experienced in the past 16 months. Though it was a tumultuous time, I was grateful for it too. Because it finally got me out of my box and helped me make the move to California I'd been wanting.

As I drove in the car, I wondered what was I going to listen now after a whole year+ of "brainwashing" by the guru? I found the Eckhart Tolle books "A New Earth" and "The Power of Now". I had many transcendent realizations while on the drive, and many many times I found myself in the present moment staring out at the road smiling.

I enjoyed how simply he explained what your purpose is. It is coming into a state of consciousness, awareness of the present moment. That's your primary purpose. And your secondary purpose is to help others do that as well. That was everything I needed to hear and was looking to find all these years of searching, said so succinctly and plainly.

I came home, and within a month I packed up my apartment, gave my family the news, gave my uncle his car back, bought a car, sold or donated all of the belongings that wouldn't fit into my car, left my cat with my neighbors until I got settled in my new home, and drove back across the country to my new home, California one month later.