Does a tree, ever hate its fruit?
A rare and complicated dilemma brought this classical dancer in her 40s to me. Avanti (name changed) had been plagued with this intriguing question for over a decade, but with no answers. Despite her devotion, she gets perturbed by her guru’s subtle and some obvious put-downs. What’s more, lately for past few years, each time she shares the plans of a dance project, or an upcoming dance performance with her guru, somehow it fails to come to fruition or sometimes collapses. Sometimes if nothing her health fails her, she is unable to understand, why? It happened too many times, before she could no longer ignore it as a mere superstition or a blasphemous idea.
The guru has had an illustrious career as a Padma Award-winning dancer, however after some years the student discovered the missing soulfulness in her art, and moved away to develop her own dance style. That’s when things started going really wrong between them.
A few years ago she had a dream, wherein she saw her guru as a queen in a large palace, and herself along with her. Then the queen sets off wild dogs on her to get her killed. After the dream her fear of dogs subsided but she could never figure out, what was the reason. She wanted to explore now..was ready. As we explored a lots turned out to be wrong in their relationship despite being a seemingly sacred one.
Since she already had a powerful image of dream in her mind, we used it as an induction device. She is being bitten by rapid dogs. Gradually the story unfolded.
It was a kingdom, where in same large palace, both of them were queens. They were not queen consorts, but secondary queens always fighting for king’s attention. Trouble started when the king started favouring the subject. This prompted the troubled queen, her present guru to snub her, or scheme to demote her, which went on for many years. However, when she herself got demoted, and subject came even closer to the King, she decided to get her killed. Someone from her home state was arranged for rapid dogs to be tactically set at the subject so that it appeared to be an accident.
Subsequently at the death scene, her body was healed, wounds cleared and fear of dogs, conspiracy released. We had to find the source of the story, so we went back further..
To another lifetime in village, where she found herself living a hut amidst the large farming land, which her husband owned. She has a son, husband looked stern, and made her fearful, reminded her off her first dance guru. The turning point in that life, was when she saw her husband beating her inside the hut, abusing her doubting her character due to a friend, holding her by her hair. Once he left, I asked to call her the soul of the friend, due to whom husband beat her. A man came in and offered her water and started soothing her. She felt better. He said, I am your friend. She asked her soul about the person, who caused the misunderstanding. She got the name of her guru, thus her guru’s soul was also called in. She said, “I can’t see you happy…” Soon the story was revealed, just because she was jealous of her happiness, she wanted to grab hold of the land and the husband, so slowly she instigated him, created misunderstanding and pulled him towards him, and they were already living in a hut in the village.
Subject tried convincing her let go of her husband, but she refused. Nevertheless, that lifetime was healed and all the hurts, pain and fear of conspiracy released again.
The village temple becomes the setting for an important soul dialogue. In the presence of her Spiritguide, the soul of her present guru is called and counselled that her bad karma are only going to harm herself in the long run. She realises her mistakes, and repents,” I troubled you for so long..and nothing good happened to my life.” Avanti asked her, “For how many lifetimes you have been troubling me?” Answer came: 14!!
After the forgiveness session, unhealthy chords or “karma bandhan” between them were released. Both the soul received healing, and left smiling. Just as guru’s soul left, her husband walked in looking for her. They walked back home together. Giving a befitting closure to the session.
Interestingly, the subject is a far better dancer, artist than her guru, whom too I have seen performing. Very intellectual, but little soul content. So over the years, she has been pulling the student down, by making her feel small. Whenever the subject tries to break away from pure classical to contemporary form, she discourages.
The soul of guru has been trying to bring the subject down for many lifetimes, but the subject is shining through. Like this time as well, through her dance, she has outshined her guru. This time it is showing up as professional rivalry. Sadly, the guru’s soul blinded by her jealousy and insecurity is causing herself misery, as her lifetimes got worse due to karmic baggage. No inner peace or true joy in life, despite external facades of well being, abundance and spirituality.
It has taken Avanti many years to see what was really happening, even after seeing the glimpse in the dream.. she resisted. Now she is clear.
For years she was blinded by the traditional reverence around the guru-shishya relationship, unable to see her guru as a human being as well, filled with contradictions and diabolical traits. Finally she saw that, dropped her idealism, embraced realism and in turned helped her guru’s soul too heal. They both are free now. How this plays out however in their interactions in future, would be interesting to watch.
Inner Journeys 