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The Om Journal is filled with questions and answers about the primordial sound Om. I asked the questions. My Higher Self answered, a transaction I would have considered impossible during most of my life. The journal, which I illustrated, took four months to complete; learning that I had a Higher Self and then learning to trust and correspond with it with took nearly half a century. How this happened is a lesson in itself.

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I was in my late forties and desperate to be free of my rankest emotions. I was angry at almost everyone and the angriest at God. Since early childhood (I’d been the lonely only child of sickly parents), I’d been certain that my slightest misstep led God to punish me. Life under such an all-powerful tyrant was chilling and as an adult I trod various spiritual avenues hoping to be convinced that God wasn’t a sadist. I was at a meditation retreat when a teacher said that God dwelt within us, for us. He called this divine presence the Self.

 

I should have rejoiced at the news. God was bliss and love and lived in my heart. The teacher had admirable credentials, a PhD in philosophy, another in theology and still I didn’t believe him. At my lowest moments and there had been many, I’d begged for God’s help and had never detected a response. Even so, keen to have a happier opinion of life, I continued to visit the center.

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There are parables in Judaism that are a variation on a theme. The king’s son rides off. He gets lost in the woods and after a time he forgets who he is and takes up the ways of the forest. His father mourns his absence and sends a party of ministers to find him. By then the prince’s garments are torn and muddied. His hair is matted. He wanders in circles and mumbles gibberish. In other versions he walks and clucks like a chicken or crawls on all fours. In every tale the ministers recognize the boy. They inform him of his true identity, bathe and adorn him and lead him back to his father. Without my realizing it, this was happening to me. I had not been demeaned, forgotten or ignored. God and I were engaged in a reconciliation.

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One night the teacher said we’d come into the world equipped with a sacred presence that could remove our inner blight. The Goddess Kundalini, her name means coiled-one, lay dormant at the base of our spines and once she was awakened she would take us to God.

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“This awakening can be spontaneous or initiated by a spiritual master,” the teacher said. Ours would occur during a meditation retreat. “And after the Goddess Kundalini is awakened, she’ll gently spiral through your chakras dislodging negative thoughts and behaviors.”

 

I didn’t believe in goddesses but I was cranky, prone to depression and desperate for a thorough internal cleaning.

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“You have to do your part,” the teacher said. “You have to nurture your newly awakened Kundalini by meditating daily.”

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A small price to pay I thought and so I sat with closed eyes for half an hour each day. Despite my tendency to check my watch every few minutes, I began to feel a gentle spiraling movement inside me. I was not alone, forever weighted by my traumas. The Goddess Kundalini was slowly removing the blockages that hindered me. My inner grime concealed my inner light and once she completed her mission I’d be radiant. I craved an instant transformation, the perennially glum woman becomes forever after exceedingly gay. Instead the progress was barely noticeable. Yet these tiny improvements added up.

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One Sunday I took part in a workshop at the center. We sat in tight rows on folding chairs and faced a chalkboard as though we were about to learn something as mundane as time management. Our tools were a pen and a piece of paper. The method was equally commonplace. We were told to write a letter. But here is where we veered toward the sublime. The letter was addressed to the Self. We were told to ask the Self a question, listen for the answer and jot it down.

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“Ask about something that concerns you deeply,” the teacher said.

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Participants who wanted to, read their answers aloud. A divorced man had asked about his daughter.

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“She lives with me because she can’t get along with her mother,” he said. “She’d like to cut her out of her life completely. I asked if this was wise.”

We nodded in sympathy. The mother, no doubt, was a difficult woman. How sad for the girl.

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The father read from his notebook. The Self had responded by saying that because we’re like our mothers in part, it’s important for us to learn to love our mothers if we want to love ourselves.

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“Anyone else?” the teacher asked.

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Usually I was the sort who joined in and even hogged the arena. This time I kept mum. I’d been worried about finding work. It had been years since I’d had a steady income. I couldn’t understand the turnabout and I was anxious to know when or if my prospects would change. I’d told this to the Self and in return the Self had told me to enjoy myself and spend money.

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If this is a joke, I thought, it’s not funny.

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I wrote other letters during the workshop and was horrified by the harsh replies. My long-held assessment had been correct. God was venomous. Shaken, I showed these writings to my teacher.

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“Those answers came from your mind,” he said. “They’re not from the Self. The tone would be different. The Self is always compassionate. It’s we who are hard on ourselves. Try again. Sometimes it takes practice. Not everyone gets the hang of this right away.”

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I kept at it and months later I heard words that were beyond my level of reasoning:

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         You were born to right your wrong impressions. You are here to revel in life and become less contracted.  You are here to breathe color into your cheeks and your heart and your chest. You are here to know the Divine and to share that knowledge with others on earth.

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I’d received my proof. A holy force did live inside me, did know more about me than I knew about myself, did care for me and had undoubtedly made itself known.

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I began to write to the Self whenever I was troubled and I amassed a collection of notebooks laden with healing replies. When my meditation teacher asked us to study Om instead of turning to books, I questioned the ultimate expert. A friend had given me a journal which had shimmery orange cover. Orange was the color of fire. It was the color of the sun. In India orange signified courage, service and sacrifice, traits I longed to embody. I had other blank notebooks but I chose this aptly colored diary for my Om project.

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On a hot summer morning I opened my journal and wrote what is Om?

 

Om, I learned, was not just a sound we made when we chanted.  It was not a distant phenomenon that had once hummed above the universe, bringing it into existence. Om was the continuous pulse of love and creation. It throbbed inside us and kept us alive.

 

The Self gave me a miraculous gift in the form of the Om Journal. The answers to my questions are eye-opening, life-changing and as the Self said, they are meant to be shared. Please spread the word.

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