So who’s it gonna be?

There are points in life when one makes a decision. Whether we are aware of it or not in this crucial moment we take a step – and this step determines the direction of our life. I have missed several of those steps/occasions in the past. For me it was either stepping into who I am, God, and having my life change completely or … remain with what I know, what’s familiar and safe. Being blissfully unaware that there was a decision to make I would simply float along, down the path of least resistance, until I was brought back to my senses weeks later, usually by Brooks, who would call me to tell me that I fell so hard that I barely have a soul left. Yesterday I walked Ghani, my dog, late at night, and I looked. There were things going on in me these last few days, for about a week now. Lots of movement, lack of structure, no foothold, lots of emotions without reasons … last night as I walked I thought: this is the moment, the moment of decision, who am I? Who am I going to be in my life? Am I going to be who I am fully, completely, out there where other people are, out there in reality, or will I remain Pausha, the graphic designer, the occasional artist? Remaining Pausha the designer seemed oh so much easier, so much safer, I knew just what to do to be this person, and I knew I could do it well, but … well, being aware that there is a choice sort of spoiled it for me. Once I was aware of the choice there was really no choice, I had to be myself. Second thought was: I am changing, shifting, reorganizing, I am growing into myself more and more … and then came the realization: I do no such thing! I am myself, I am who I am. I don’t change. The movement, the sense of things changing and transforming – its trauma clearing out, its mind readjusting. It is not me. I am me. I was me before this body was born, I will be me after the body dissolves into other forms. I am who I am. I am God. I understood just what Anandamayi Ma meant when she said: “Before I came on this earth, Father, ‘I was the same.’ As a little girl, ‘I was the same.’ I grew into womanhood, but still ‘I was the same.’ When the family in which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, ‘I was the same.’ … And, Father, in front of you now, ‘I am the same.’ Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change[s] around me in the hall of eternity, ‘I shall be the same.'”