Dear James,
It’s been so long since we’ve spoken last and yet I thought about the Satsangs and everything more than a few times. I hope this message reaches you well and I bet that a lot of things happened in those past couple of months. How have you been? How was/is (online) teaching and everything else?
Apart from catching up I write to you because I want to let you know – once again – how grateful and thankful I am for Vedanta and stumbling over your Satsangs. I still think that it’s quite funny how I flew to India (crying, hesitant and a bit reluctant) to attend my very first Satsang with you merely because someone recommended it to me. I will never forget the face of that lady sitting next to me when I asked her after the first two days what Vedanta actually stands for and what it means. Little did I know what I signed up for but I am sooo glad that I did and how it all went from there on.
Looking back now I can see the errors in my thinking and I bet in a few years I will say the same. But it has gotten so much easier to relax and let it all unfold by itself. There’s so much that has sunk in over the last years. When I came to Vedanta with my sweet 21 years of age I was troubled by an eating disorder and some other things. I wanted to be free of the suffering but like most people didn’t know how. So one big breakthrough for me was when I could finally stop fighting all those emotions and thoughts that I suppressed and let them just be. For a long time I thought that freedom meant being free of emotions and it took a while to correct that thought pattern and try otherwise. Now I can experience it all again while knowing in my core that I will be ok. That everything is ok and that everything will pass and yet stay the same. Honestly, I am lacking the words to explain it but it is a gift nevertheless.
And I want to thank you for your support on the way. You probably won’t remember some of the things you said to me when we got to talk outside of the Satsang but they stuck with me and got me thinking. Honestly, the biggest gift was when you told me to that hearing more Vedanta wasn’t the way to go and to go back home and live a normal life. That was a blessing and now I can see how important it was to work through stuff and let what I heard sink in. To apply it all. Many of those things that we talked about inside and outside of the Satsangs started to make actual sense and not only on an intellectual level. They also guided me through hardships and I consider them a lifesaver.
I am aware that a simple thank you isn’t doing what I really want to say justice but I hope this message expresses the gratitude that I feel at least a little bit.
Hope to hear from you again!
All the best,
Ute
