Are You Here To Be A Successful Author? 141
My teacher told me to hold on to the sense “I am”
tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I
did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short
time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I
did was to remember his teaching, his face, and his words
constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness
of the mind I saw myself as I am — unbounded.
I simply followed (my teacher’s) instruction, which was
to focus the mind on pure being “I am,” and stay in it. I
used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the “I am”
in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-
embracing love became my normal state. In it all
disappeared — myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world
around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable
silence.What event or series of events lead to your discovery?
When I was young I had a really tough life, but I always knew that there
was something more. I started out happy, and then it started to get tough.
When I was about 19 years old I was really deep into drugs, and I was
thoroughly stuck. I called my brother up and cried over the phone (he
was living in Los Angeles and I was living in Northern California). He
said to me, “Janet, I just found something so wonderful, and don’t worry,
everything’s going to be okay.”
Four days later, I heard a knock on my door and it was my brother.
He’d driven all the way up to Northern California with all of his
belongings in his car. He packed me up and we moved to Santa Barbara.
It was there that I learned how to meditate using the Transcendental
Meditation® technique. That was really the beginning for me, when I
experienced what they call an awakening (Being awake – Being more
conscious).
I love what Maharishi Mehesh Yogi (founder of the
Transcendental Meditation® program) said, “Meditation is the direct
means of enjoying the greatest happiness, and it’s the only means to
quench the thirst for happiness on earth. Meditation is the only means to
the harmonious development of the body, mind, and soul.” I love this
quote as well: “Meditation makes the man divine and brings the divine
to the world of man.”