I am back after quite some time…
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In my previous blogs I wrote about the Virgin Mary because that is what I learned from my mother when I was growing up. I talked about the miraculous apparitions in Italy and Portugal; I believe they were manifestations of the divine feminine which appears in different forms depending on the religion and culture of the country. At about 17 I began questioning what I had learned and wanting to form my own opinion. In a typical youth impetuosity fashion, I would say things like “who said Jesus is the son of God”, which raised eyebrows in my family!. At 19 I left my hometown in southeastern France for London where I spent a year attending classes in English. On my return I moved to Paris, France. A colleague at work lent me a book by the French philosopher Edouard Schuré, I think it was “The great initiates”. The book talked about Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Jesus. I can’t say I understood everything in the book, but it made quite an impression on me. A couple of years later my roommate in Paris introduced me to some members of a Japanese Buddhist sect which I joined; I heard about karma for the first time and started practicing. I continued in Rome when I moved there. My Paris roommate and friend left Paris for New York, but we stayed regularly in touch; one day she wrote to me about some yoga philosophy classes she was attending. She was very enthusiastic about it and thought I would be interested; during a trip to New York I had the opportunity to go to a class with her. I continued after I moved to New York myself.
Several years later I began a devotional practice which comes from the Vedanta School of Philosophy. It consists in worshipping, i.e. making offerings and praying to a chosen image that would appeal to me and is a representation of the Divine for me. I chose a small Tibetan sculpture in an Indian and Tibetan antiques shop; it represents a Tara, a powerful female deity in the Buddhist pantheon..
What It is really remains a question for me, but I use it in my search; my worship consists in making offerings, meditating on It and bringing It in my heart several times a day; I feel a presence, it is strong and beautiful.
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