With two years distance between now and the last time I travelled up to Samye Ling Monastery to participate in this retreat I knew it was going to be a drastically different experience, and the energy of it began way before I set off from Suffolk to Scotland. It was around three weeks before the retreat, in a meditation, that I connected to the Chenrezig practice one morning and it was literally like I was there in the shrine room sitting and chanting the sacred words.
Then as the day approached I noticed that although we had back to back retreats up until the eve of my departure, I was immensely calm. Nothing was ruffling me, and everything seemed to effortlessly fall into place (even though there was more than usual going on).
As I sat on the 12:30pm from Euston to Carlisle being waved off by my amazing sister and darling four year old niece I flicked through Facebook one last time before I removed the app from my phone. As I scrolled one post stood out from the rest and resonated so deeply that I took a screenshot of it (before I went offline for a couple of weeks); Bentinho Massaro said,
“Once your inner teacher has been activated by your outer teachers, and your ability to discern through the mist of your own ignorance has been regained, you don’t need anyone else but you to take you higher into Self-Realisation.”
I understood in that moment that I had landed three weeks before into the loving embrace of pure awareness; I no longer needed anything from anyone; I was completely self-sourced.
There was no desire to get off the train first; I was no longer that type of person
There was no compulsion to ask for a better room; it simply didn’t matter
There was no urge to even talk to anyone for I was in retreat to do just that; retreat FROM everyone/thing
And I knew that this year there would be no craving for food or water during fast days
THE CHARGE HAD GONE
The need to fix, change, alter, improve; all dissolved
It was beautiful
And all of this BEFORE the first session and beginning of the actual practice!
This is how powerful going on retreat is
The energy changes long before you physically arrive
Your human body is trying to catch up to where your consciousness has already shifted to on the quantum
This retreat was so totally different from ever before
For there was NOTHING that I wanted FROM it
I was in a place of total surrender
And I literally couldn’t wait to see what would happen when this powerful practice actually began. More on that in my next blog…
Member Quote Of The Day.
Read here something that has been said by one of the Quantum Sobriety Online Programme members over in our lively private forum:
Three years ago (🙈) when I joined QS i never imagined I would get this far . But slowly and surely I progressed, days between lapses turned into weeks , into months and to a point where I was just frikken ready to transcend addiction in a really quite huge quantum leap forward ! The growth that I have done since that moment of freedom has been UNBELIEVABLE… I moving at light speed now ! Nothing is holding me back!
I’m so grateful to Jo you really are a saint and so given much support and love and encouragement to me over the years! Thank you 🙏“