Last Letter From India--Coming Home

O, Servant, where dost thou seek me?
Lo, I am beside thee.
I am neither in the temple, nor in the mosque,
neither am I in rites and ceremonies,
nor in Yoga, nor in renunciation.

If thou art a true seeker,
thou shall at once see me.
Thou shalt meet me in a moment’s time.

Songs of Kabir (Rbaindranath Tagore)

My dear Friends, I am preparing to leave India and to come home! In these few short months, there is too much that happened . I can’t express it all in an email; but I am coming Home. This long pilgrimage is over. It didn’t begin on October 28, 2010, when I departed Miami International, nor did it begin on the last trip to India in 2008. It was a 40 year search for what was already there within my own heart. What I was seeking, I was carrying. It is the perfect love given each of us as descendants of Love Itself.

THOU SHALT MEET ME IN A MOMENT’S TIME

This line could come from the Course in Miracles. It was what I experienced yesterday, in an accidental meeting with someone who owns a travel agency! In that embrace of recognition from 2008 when I was here in India, a miracle was demonstrated for what it really is. I saw Hanit the first time, in a bookstore 2 years ago. She is the President of a travel agency here in Dehradun and she came over to me where I was seated with a Khenpo, the principal of our college here, who was making his own travel arrangements. She remembered, as do I, our short encounter from 2 years back when she was in the depths of grief over he father’s death. Yesterday, Hanit was overwhelmed in finding me there, and holding my hands, tears unselfconsciously fell from her eyes. We had this instant greeting of heart to Heart which lifted her out of her grief over a death and which lifted me out of my own exhaustion and self-absorption that I was not able to conquer alone. In the moment that our eyes met, we both reached out and connected in the only way any of us can join - through extending love to one another. We were both the teacher and the student; we were both the patient and the medicine. Hanit stayed with me holding my hands and this very busy workplace was then engulfed in the Embrace of the One Love. I was overwhelmed that she remembered me and by the deep and honest way she reached out to me. We spoke of death and of grief but in speaking about this, we both remembered Something Beyond It. She asked me to lunch but I was already committed and I told her I was leaving for Delhi to return home on Friday-that was the other Miracle. She excitedly told me that she would be at her Delhi office later this week, and that she would have her driver pick me up at the train station in Delhi and we would have lunch. We will have what the Sufis call Sohbet and speak of the Friend, of This Divine Thread that runs through our hearts and that joins all beings. We will talk more of her own healing path to overcome grief and of our shared determination to find peace.

Mind you, this last detail, of getting to the airport from the insanity of the train station, was on my mind. That detail was lifted from me and I was shown very clearly what compassion and the at-one-ment really is; that instant we see the Beloved in the eyes that are looking back at us. Who was helping whom? One hand in Hanit and one hand in Nellie; both hands were joined at the sacred heart of Hearts and that Merciful One, that Compassionate One, the Christ, the One that holds all beings beyond words; it alone remained.

I experienced this as a lifting. The Miracle I asked for that morning, to help my own mind, was given to me in the only way it can be shown; through the “Other.” Each interaction has the capacity to teach us this when was are simply open to seeing the Truth in each other and forgetting who is giving what to whom, we become an empty vessel so that unlimited Love be exchanged and that vessel become fulfilled; it is full of the love we are seeking when we join with anyone.

I come home - to find a home, now. I return with a determination and a new stability and to find sustainable work. And, I thank each of you, and all of you, who have watched me over these years and who have supported me in the most specific and mundane ways and in the more subtle way of thinking such unconditionally loving thoughts for me. I dedicate this journey to you all and ask that any, and all, benefit be yours. May this love now extend to those we love in this instant. May it then extend to those we do not love, but in this instant overcome that separation. May it then extend beyond all distinctions; that we find ourselves in that Great Field of Love itself and in this New Year dedicate ourselves to being that Joyful Messenger of Peace.
May we all make the intention together of bringing peace; of being peace-filled; and may that peace descend on each of us in this very moment! How great

with Great Love and thanks!
Nellie

PS- I leave 31 December for Delhi. I will be out of touch for a few days, until my arrival in Miami. My flight, the 1st of January (an auspicious day to begin anew!) I arrive in the US the same afternoon. I will stay in Hypoluxo, Florida, until I secure work and more permanent living arrangements! I will begin to find ways to use the Course in Miracles as our template for finding what Kabir found in this very great prayer and poem: THOU SHALT MEET ME IN A MOMENT’S TIME, and teaching only Love, hope to find you in a room with me soon, chanting and contemplating this Gift of Life.

Until then. PEACE