 
### The Road to Nirvana

### A Memoir of Transcendence

### "The purest love is the deep silence of unified Self."

### Oday Kingsavanh, EdD

### Published by Oday Kingsavanh at Smashwords

### Copyright 2017 Oday Kingsavanh

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

### Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

### Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Pendulum

Chapter 2: The Review

Chapter 3: Pregnancy

Chapter 4: Possess

Chapter 5: The Writing Experience

Chapter 6: The Storm

Chapter 7: Die Away

Chapter 8: Krishna

Chapter 9: The Apocalypse

Chapter 10: Ordinary

Chapter 11: Déjà vu

Chapter 12: Head Cut Off

Chapter 13: The Release of All and Nothing

Chapter 14: Spaciousness

Chapter 15: I Am This

Chapter 16: Blown Out

Chapter 17: Nirvana

Conclusion

Acknowledgment

Author's page

Author's other book

Introduction

In 1983, my family and I came to the U.S. as refugees from Thailand. We were originally from Laos, but lived in Thailand for many years in a refugee camp before we came to America. We didn't know much English, but my parents were hard workers and took factory jobs to support my sister and me. The main thing us kids had to do was focus on school. With much dedication and a determination to succeed academically, I earned a doctorate degree in psychology in 2009.

My knowledge of psychology came in use with understanding myself and those around me, especially working with my clients. However, it wasn't until I ended an unhealthy relationship that I was truly motivated to understand myself deeply. I began to read more philosophical and spiritual books, including going to counseling to heal my emotional wounds and better understand my own thought processes and the world around me.

Then, I met a friend who meditated. After hearing about meditation through people, media, and other sources, I became curious.

By 2010, I was immersed in meditation and learned how to face myself by becoming mindful, aware, and cognizant of the underlying causes of my inner conflicts. This focus (along with the help of guides from beyond, such as Vishnu, Shiva, and Jesus, to name a few) led me to self-realization.

After I became enlightened, I didn't know what was in store for me. My awakening was powerful and transcendental of unconditional and indescribable love and utter bliss that words alone can't describe. The indefinable awakening left me breathless and in deep surprise. Who I really was, was beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

A few months after my awakening, I wrote my first memoir All and Nothing, which discussed how I came to question life at such a young age, endured tremendous transformations, and met with guides who revealed who I truly was. All I needed to do was be open to understanding and have the courage to come to who I truly was beyond transitory states of being.

All and Nothing described how I came to realize life and death were illusions and there was no others or (non-separation) before I became nothing until I awakened. My conditions, desires, attachments, and perceptions were suspended so I could become empty or absent of life and death, in a place where thought was weightless in order for me to welcome and embrace the powerful force that radiated through me, overtook my entire being, and opened my eyes to my true Self.

Little did I realize enlightenment wasn't the end of my path, but a gateway to all dimensions and the eternal truth of who I really was.

Despite the fact I now had this newfound awareness, understanding, and knowing, I still had to undergo the process of healing, peeling off conditions and facing my attachments, similar to what I had done before, so I could find a balance between being and non-being; emptiness and fullness.

My second memoir, The Road to Nirvana, is a survey of this progression of self-understanding, remembering, and the self-transformation process of continually facing myself. This memoir continues the journey after my awakening and leads readers through the course of my inner changes through transcendental meditation sessions, self-examination, and discussions with guides and my life companion Sean (who has been enlightened for many years and through many lifetimes. This lifetime is his last).

My personal journey reveals how ordinary, empty, still, innocent, and transparent I became when my conditions, attachments, thoughts, desires, and perceptions were examined, confronted, and put away one by one before transcending separation into non-separation, three dimensions (Earth, Hell, and Heaven) into one, and destructed the physical, mental and spiritual realms, to become united and whole during the meditative process.

The endless candles of my conditions, attachments, desires, and viewpoints were all blown out. Thoughts of who I was fell away like leaves from trees to the ground. What was left of me became more than anything that can be distinguished, known, translated, or described.

Following an influential meditation where I reached the door to Nirvana, I had a desire to write the second memoir (The Road to Nirvana) sharing all that I am without limits or boundaries in a story that moves beyond right and wrong and good or bad.

Nirvana is not somewhere far away. It is not a place you need to go to or search for; it's the very essence of Self - here and now at this very instant.

Chapter 1:

### The Pendulum

After Sean and I talked about my awakening, we got ready to go babysit my niece and nephews, but before we left his room, he said: "Your aura is turning purple. It is still clear.

You're still in emptiness."

"Oh," I said and didn't add much to his comments because I was in deep and undisturbed love, calmness, peace, and oneness that was within me.

He continued, "You need to find a balance between non-condition and condition, nothing and everything. The pendulum is going to start swinging." Unsure of what he meant by 'swinging', I listened. However, I didn't think anything of it; no thoughts were behind it. Until I came to it myself, I wouldn't know.

When we arrived at my sister's house (I was living with her at the time), I continued to be in the utter silence of indescribable love. My nephews and niece greeted us. They were happy to see both Sean and me, especially the youngest one. He quickly crawled to me wanting to be held as soon as I stepped inside the house. Around dinner time, my niece spilled milk all over the table and floor while trying to pour her own glass. Rather than getting mad at her or trying to show her how it could be done differently, I didn't think anything of it and cleaned up peacefully without saying a word. This awakening to who I truly was couldn't be described even if I tried.

Babysitting was over when my sister and brother-in-law returned from their night out. Sean and I were about to head out to rent movies. However, my youngest nephew started to wobble back and forth unsteadily. It looked like he was doing some kind of dance while holding onto the black, metal gated fence. The situation was hysterically funny to everyone; I laughed for a few seconds. We all stood watching until he finished. Sean wiped tears from his eyes from laughing, but I was done laughing long before the dance was over and just observed the scene.

When Sean and I were in the car, he said: "That dance was for you. He's happy for you." I listened without uttering a sound. When we got to the movie rental store, I picked at least three or four different movies. Some of the movies were almost three hours long. When Sean saw them, he said, "Why are you getting so many? These are long movies."

"I don't think I can sleep tonight or perhaps the next night, either. I don't know if I can sleep at all," I responded.

"I'm going to just watch one, then go home and go to bed. If I fall asleep while we're watching it, don't blame me," he told me.

After Sean left to go home, I stayed up all night watching those movies. After I finished them at about three in the morning, I looked for more movies from the drawer below the television stand and watched them until the sun came out.

When I looked outside, I saw my sister rush to go to work. I haven't slept. Maybe I should try. Could I sleep after something indescribable had taken place? Could I return to the location where it had happened; the place where I found myself, where I had encountered the love of all love and the immeasurable bliss of all bliss?

Fortunately, I was able to sleep for a couple of hours then woke up staring at the ceiling, waiting for the movie store to open. When it did, I was the first customer inside searching for more movies. Approximately three days after enlightenment, the pendulum swung. I moved from emptiness, not feeling any emotion to feeling emotions (everything) for a brief moment. Then, it was gone. Feeling then not feeling continued throughout the day, so I wasn't sure what was going on and chose to stay inside my bedroom to listen. By nighttime, I was in pure hell. The swinging from emptiness then fullness made me want to take my own life as I sat in the bedroom looking for an object to take my life with; a knife, a bottle of aspirin - anything that would end this pure pain. There wasn't a lethal object anywhere, but even if I had found one I couldn't follow through. The desire faded as quickly as it came.

I couldn't stand up even if I wanted to. The swinging left me sitting motionless on the bed. I was unmoved, yet I was moving on the inside. I felt then felt nothing in fast mode; still then not still rapidly almost at the same time.

A while later, I made myself call Sean.

"Hello," he answered.

"I want to die. I can't live anymore. I'm in hell," I shared and paused because there was no desire to talk anymore. I became still, nothing - empty without a desire with great intensity that couldn't be described in language. He encouraged me. "It will get better. The swinging will slow down."

Maybe I need to go to a psychiatric hospital.

It was though I was going insane, enduring a pure pain, an agony which I'd never encountered before. Internally, I was in an extreme intensity which I couldn't truly describe to justify the situation. The process of feeling and then not feeling sped up again. It was immensely fast to the point I couldn't tell the difference between them. So, I sat still, listening, and enduring the pendulum swing.

Then Sean asked, "Do you think you made a mistake?"

It took me a moment to bring myself to answer him.

"I'm going insane. I don't know if I can live," I answered and paused since I couldn't speak. The desire was instantly gone. Sean understood, so he waited until I could respond.

Although this swinging was excruciating and unbearable, I could never go back to where I was. The world I had known was like death, with everything predictable, routine, and known.

"No, I didn't make a mistake. If this is the price for knowing myself, then let it be," I answered and continued to sit, motionless.

Sean had to go to work the next morning. He bid me good night while I sat completely still with the intensity of feeling and not feeling that was split seconds apart.

That night, I sat up most of the night listening and being with this inescapable, intense pain. At times I held my blanket together, staring motionlessly into space, fearing I was going crazy, and that I might really end up going to the psych ward, but I didn't have a desire to move. When I did have a desire and just as quickly, I didn't. I was unmoved, but moving rapidly almost at the same time.

The next morning was different. Once again, I was connected to everything. I was enhanced or even maximized, you might say. When I ate, I was one with the food. There was a tremendous, indescribable love radiating through me. If I was to give everything away to someone, it wouldn't matter. It would be the same as giving it to myself.

Somehow, it seemed the world before me was in a deep sleep as I drove through the city early in the morning after getting coffee. I went for a long drive to a small town, enjoying the white clouds and colorful leaves that fell at the end of autumn; the bright sunshine and happy birds flew through the open, white skies. I was totally connected to them all. We were one.

However, a week later, the pendulum swung again. This time, I lay on the floor. The intensity was incredibly extreme to where I couldn't physically move. Once more, I felt an emotion then no emotion only seconds apart. I was in pure pain; a hellish state that wasn't describable.

Sean continued to support me, but no matter how supportive he was, I had to endure the swinging on my own. The only thing I could do was go through it. There wasn't much else to do.

Once the pendulum slowed down, I crawled into bed to rest. The next day, I was at the movie store again looking for long movies to watch, searching every row and every aisle checking the movie titles, their descriptions, and, of course, the duration of the films. If they were only a couple hours long, I'd rent enough of them to hold me through the night.

Sometimes I felt some emotions very quickly before they were gone just the characters in the movies, however, most of the time I just watched and observed, not thinking much of it.

Since I couldn't sleep until morning, I didn't get out of bed until noon or later in the afternoon. When I woke up, I'd listen and watch what was going on within myself. Weeks later, the pendulum slowed down to where I was able to laugh and cry for more than few seconds. Sean reminded me that it was a positive sign the swinging was slowing down.

Strangely, I began to feel deep anger though I wasn't sure why. One day, Sean's dog followed me everywhere, so I became annoyed. The little white dog stared at me when I ate, looked at me while I sat, waited for me when I came out of the bathroom. The dog's constant attention led to anger then rage. While I stood in the kitchen drinking a can of soda, the dog was right there, staring. I looked back at the dog and said in my mind, Get the fuck out of here! I glanced at a knife on the counter wanting to kill the dog with it.

Moments later, I rushed out of the house to cool down by taking a couple of deep breaths. What was happening? Why was I in such a rage? When I calmed down, I walked back inside and went upstairs to Sean's room. The dog followed. Sean was watching his shows while I sat there unsure of what was happening within me. Fortunately, the little white creature went to snuggle with Sean.

"Why did I get angry to the point where I could feel it in my skin, spine, and ears? It felt like fire was coming out from my ears. It was intense," I asked Sean when he drove me home later.

"Maybe this is the first time you've allowed yourself to feel anything completely. You have suppressed and ran from how you felt, in the past. Maybe you are facing it now. At least, you're moving to the 'being side', so your emotions are lasting longer than before," he explained.

His answers made sense. It was true I had experienced anger, although it was never to this degree. I remembered one time, when I was in my mid-twenties, I kicked in the front door of the apartment and almost broke it because of the anger inside me. My sister had called me 'evil' because of this. Sometimes my family was intimidated by my anger, so they refrained from sharing their true opinions.

It was about three weeks before I could make myself go to the library to study for a licensing exam that was coming up in a couple weeks. At first, I didn't want to walk in, so I paced outside the college library, feeling overwhelmed by the awakening. Eventually, I made myself go in.

How could such a deep and indescribable love be so overpowering? I rushed to the basement to find a quiet place to be with myself and study. The usual place to study was on the purple sofa, but that day I sat in the back table near the emergency exit door.

After studying for a while, I closed my eyes to rest. Immediately, green energy swirled everywhere, so I immersed myself in it by flying into it with open arms. The immersion reminded me I had always been me. It didn't matter what I was being: I was still myself. Then I opened my eyes, absorbing the blissfulness flowing through my entire being.

After I finished reviewing for my counseling license exam, I went to see Sean once he got off from work and apologized to his dog. The dog came to lie down next to me and I petted its head, and noticed I was more affectionate towards it than I had ever been. The tension between the dog and I diminished drastically; it converted to a loving relationship instead. This was because I allowed myself to feel without holding back, as well as being mindful, aware, and understood the reasons behind my reaction and non-reaction.

Chapter 2:

### The Review

It had been a while since I last meditated after my awakening, so I decided to prostrate myself on my pillow and turned on meditation music.

After closing my eyes for only a few seconds, I stood in front of a door, which I opened. Then, I saw myself walking on a red carpet like the movie stars from Hollywood. Corners of the room were dark, though there were lights shining directly on me and where I walked. People were taking pictures as I could see the flashes from cameras. Life is a movie and a dream: it's only an illusion.

Then, another door appeared. I opened it. A couple of big robots were marching back and forth while I stood watching. The sky was dim. I was in a big open room with no physical structure surrounding it like a real building. "Nothingness, emptiness, non-being," I said.

Instantly, another door appeared. I opened it. There was nothing there except another door that was far away, which I had to walk to. Once there, I didn't open the door like I had done previously. Instead, I knocked on it then saw myself at the entrance. I had tears in my eyes.

"Thanks," I said when she (myself) opened the door. She didn't say a word and went on her way to work. I didn't fully observe what she was doing. There was a hallway behind her workstation, so I walked down it.

Soon after, I came into a room with screens on the left side with treasure chests on the right-hand side. When I looked at one of the screens, an image of a baby playing appeared, but I didn't think much of it and approached one of the chests then opened it. It held jewelry, maps, and other things I couldn't exactly remember. I closed it before I walked on.

Soon I arrived in an open room that held a ship and a gigantic blue man who was sitting in a glass-walled holding Baoding balls (Chinese medicine or meditation balls) in one of his hands, rotating them.

Immediately, I understood the message. It was all about perception. Everything depended on the way in which I chose to see it. Whether I wanted it to be big or small depended on my viewpoint; my perception. After I grasped the message, I turned around and saw twisty strands; I made my way to them.

When I came close, I realized they were DNA helix strands. There were tubes there as well. One of the tubes was open, so I decided to peer in and saw the world with everyone and everything in it. I can feel everyone's feelings and emotions, if I choose, just like my own. There's only one. Following my understanding, I turned around walking toward the ship.

I stepped onto it and sat down on a bench looking out to the sea. No one was navigating the ship, so I stood up and went to operate it myself. Suddenly, I said, "I'm the creator. I create my own life." I was the captain, directing where I wanted to go in whichever way I chose.

Then I was in a semi-darkened room. The room had no physical structure; it was just energy. There was no roof, yet my feet were on a foundation - it wasn't bottomless. As I continued to walk, I witnessed exercise machines and muscular men working out on them, lifting heavy weights. One of the men put more weights on top of those he held and screamed as he lifted them. His muscles were bulging under the stress.

Ahead, a gigantic, muscular blue man that looked similar to a genie hovered over the room. He threw down his weight, which shook the whole place. I tried to grab onto something because I was about to lose balance from the shaking. "All great and powerful," I spoke softly. Momentarily, he disappeared. While looking around, I witnessed a female who seemed to be operating on someone nearby, I moved closer. The person on the operating table was me as was the woman in a white surgical outfit performing the operation. She (myself) proceeded to cut my arm off and put a new one on, then cut the other arm off and put a new one on while I stood watching. After observing for a while, I became disturbed by the images. I opened my eyes.

In the evening, I chose to share these visions with Sean to gain deeper understanding. Surprisingly, he said, "Wow. You can be powerful: both the creator and destroyer." While I understood his insights, I needed to come to it, experience it and be this myself. Until then, it was only talk, nothing more, but just an understanding of who I was.

Chapter 3:

### Pregnancy

In the next meditation, fireworks went off. I looked to the sky in awe of the bright, colorful lights illuminating the open atmosphere. Strangely, in the same place, there were Christmas trees, a statue of Santa Claus, and presents wrapped and tied with ribbons under those trees. This particular meditation was a reoccurrence every time I shut my eyes, so I decided not to meditate for a few days.

Moreover, the meaning behind it didn't seem important enough to pay attention to. When I looked up its meaning on the internet, it said something about "relating to family" and "celebrating being with family." Christmas was coming which meant I was going to spend time with family.

One afternoon, before heading out to study, my sister asked if I wanted to take a pregnancy test, since I was a couple of weeks late. "No," I replied. "I've been late before and it was nothing."

While I was at the library studying, I felt anger surging through my whole body. It was bothersome to where I stopped studying to pay attention, although I wasn't certain what had triggered my emotional reaction. I clenched my fists before covering my ears because it felt like smoke was burning through them. Afterward, I called Sean to ask him. As soon as he answered the phone, "Why am I so angry, on and off?"

"I don't know. Could you be PMSing, too?" He asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "It's never been this bad, though." Around dinner time, I left to eat pho noodle soup (a noodle soup common in Vietnam) at one of my favorite restaurants. It could be I ate too many hot peppers since I had severe heartburn afterward. My chest felt undeniably uncomfortable from the burning sensation. It wouldn't stop even after I drank a cold glass of water.

I rushed to the bathroom and sat on the toilet rubbing my chest until I desperately felt like vomiting, so I knelt in front of the toilet, letting it out. After feeling a little better, I walked out of the bathroom, paid the bill and dashed to the car still experiencing heartburn.

When I arrived at Sean's house, I sat on the stairs while still in pain before going up to his room. I had the feeling I might be pregnant, but I ignored my intuition.

After Sean and I stopped talking about our daily routines, I shared a dream with him about being pregnant and wearing the outfit I wore at the time - sweatpants and a gray t-shirt with my hair tied up.

"Exactly this outfit," I told him.

"We need to go get a pregnancy test now," he strongly urged.

Three tests confirmed I was pregnant. We were overjoyed. I felt happy for a short period of time, but then it faded. By the time we visited his parents to tell them the good news, I wasn't displaying much emotion. Sean did most of the talking and sharing.

When we went to see a doctor about the pregnancy, the due date was estimated to fall on the Fourth of July. During this time I didn't pay much attention to the meditation's message, until I discovered I was pregnant.

My early pregnancy symptoms weren't nearly as uncomfortable compared to other women's experiences. I experienced some morning sickness, but exercising regularly and eating healthy helped me avoid discomfort. However, after fourteen weeks of being pregnant, I experienced what they called 'inner ear syndrome'.

Before I acquired the syndrome, I had a head cold for about two weeks. Usually, I didn't get sick like others around me, but once I became pregnant it was hard for my immune system to fight illnesses.

At about five in the morning, I tossed and turned with severe dizziness. My head began rolling back and forth uncontrollably, which made the room turn upside down. The ceiling spun quickly then I started to cry. It slowed down later, though I was afraid to move. When I did, I vomited, which made me feel better, but I tried not to move fearing it might happen again. I felt profoundly dizzy even when I moved slightly.

Soon, vertigo returned stronger than ever. My head rolled back and forth several times, the ceiling spun crazily, and the room turned upside down. It felt like I was riding on a broken roller coaster I couldn't control. As I closed my eyes while crying and holding myself, I witnessed myself leaving my body to go sit in front of the window in my room, looking at my body. I panicked.

Afterward, I crawled to the bathroom. When I came back to lie down on my bed, the severe dizziness returned. My head spun several times. Again after closing my eyes, I witnessed myself sitting, looking at my body being tormented. Then, I threw up and was relieved.

I called upon Giant, one of the guides who helped me with the enlightenment process and asked, "Giant, tell me what's going on. Please give me alternative outcomes." Giant appeared. I felt comforted. He showed an image of me wearing a hospital outfit. I yelled, "No! I'm not going to the ER. Show me something else!" He showed me getting an IV and lying on the hospital bed. "No. No!" I cried.

A while later, I picked up the phone slowly and gently, dreading I'd go through severe dizziness again, and called Sean. When he answered, I cried:

"I'm in pain. I'm sick. Please come over. I don't want to go to the hospital."

He took me by surprise when he responded, "You'll be okay. Get some rest."

"I'm not okay, I'm not okay. Please come over," I begged.

He added, "I'll be there in a couple of hours."

"Please come now. I can hardly talk. I won't be able to walk to the door to let you in. My brother-in-law will let you in, just knock. Please come now."

"Okay," he finally said.

When Sean came into my room, I was unmoving. Vomit was all over my blanket, bed, part of my hair, and down one side of my face. "We need to go to the hospital, now!" he demanded.

"No, I will be fine. Just stay with me. I'll be okay, it will go away."

"Either I take you or I will call the ambulance," he told me as I lay in bed. So, I agreed for him to take me because I didn't want to go to the hospital by ambulance. He helped me to the bathroom and got me washed up to prepare to go to the emergency room. While waiting to be checked in, I worried about the baby in my womb. I closed my eyes while I put my head on the chair before an image of a baby in a room, playing happily by him or herself appeared, which made me realize the baby was safe. I felt relieved.

Chapter 4:

### Possess

In winter, I took the licensing exams again and still didn't pass those grueling tests. Unlike before, I wasn't worried about how it would affect my career nor did I feel like a failure. Deep down, I realized practicing mental health therapy was no longer a career interest for me. At the same time, I was still in a non-being - more so than being - so this didn't disturb my wellbeing; unlike before, where I would be up at night and depressed during the day, feeling negative about who I was as a person.

Approximately three months after the awakening, most of my dreams were about writing. During meditation, I'd observe Jesus writing. He'd crumple papers and throw them in a wastebasket, then start writing again. Curious, I went to pick up the crumpled papers to see what he wrote. They were nothing but scribbles. Then he said, "Start somewhere" before I chose to come out of meditation.

The next day, when I closed my eyes to rest, Giant was writing at a desk with his back toward me. I understood their messages, but how was I going to start writing when I didn't know where to begin? I chose to ignore this for a few weeks until I couldn't disregard it anymore. I'd write a whole book in my head from beginning to end, then I'd start again a few days later.

I'd write in my mind about how I came to question life at such a young age and how life's inquiry pushed my heart to search for answers. I'd talk about major life events that happened and how meditation brought insights and wisdom to help me realize who I truly was; deeper than what I had been taught about myself from parents, teachers, society, and so on.

Another peculiar thing that occurred when I shut my eyes to rest was seeing myself talking to people about my awakening, answering questions they had about themselves. When I closed my eyes to wash my face, I was surrounded by others who yearned to understand who they were beyond what they learned from cultures, traditions, churches, and temples.

In meditation, I continued to see and hear them asking for guidance. Sometimes I talked to them in group settings, but most often I was in an open area, speaking in front of many. I stopped meditating for a while.

One day, Sean and I drove out of town. We normally did this once a month to get away from the sameness of the town, people, and routines of daily life. On this particular trip, we passed the Hindu temple I normally visited either when I wasn't working or during the summer when I wanted to go find peace. So I asked him to make a stop there before we reached our destination, to pay respect to the Hindu deities. When I entered the beige stone temple, I went to the upper level where all the gods were. The first deity I gave respect to was Lord Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Strangely, before I left to make my rounds, he said: "Share."

When I was close to finish my greeting to the gods, I heard people's voices from everywhere in the temple asking for help. They said they were lost, without direction. When the voices got louder, I responded, You're not lost, you're not lost. Shortly after, I rushed out of the temple and got in the car.

Sean asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I don't know. I've been seeing people asking for help in meditation whenever I close my eyes. Sometimes I write a whole book in my head. It's been going on for a while," I disclosed to him while trying to settle down.

"Maybe you need to start writing," he suggested. On top of this, some of the movies I rented were about writing books and authors' stories. One of the movies was about Shakespeare and his desire to write and share. This is similar to me, I thought, but I didn't even start to scribble. At night, before I went to bed, I closed my eyes to wash my face to get ready for the night. The images of people asking for help appeared again.

"Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh," I said as I tried to finish my routines. Then I shouted with a towel covering my face: "I will share, I will do it. I will write and share. I will!"

The next day, I was at a coffee shop, writing. It didn't matter how I began, I was going to write somehow. Astonishingly, I wrote almost ten chapters because I was in a zone and didn't even notice the time. When the coffee shop was about to close for the day, it surprised me I wrote many chapters. The voices and images of others asking for help no longer consumed me. I was glad to write. It turned out to be liberating, I said "Thank you."

Since I was four months pregnant, I wasn't able to sleep on my stomach. Sometimes in my dreams I'd say, "Wake up!" When I woke up, I was almost on my stomach. To resolve this issue, I bought pillows and placed them on both sides of my back and front.

The strangest phenomenon also occurred was hearing the voices of two people talking in manly tones. The conversation between them was loud it would wake me up in the middle of the night, but I wasn't certain what was happening. Why was I hearing two men talking? When I woke up, they disappeared. It happened regularly, so I finally asked Sean. He informed me my unconscious and conscious were communicating. The conversation would help the conscious understand what the unconscious was showing to the conscious. The unconscious wasn't too far ahead of the conscious. Once I understood this, the talking slowly faded.

Being pregnant also helped with my lack of sleep. Instead of sleeping for a couple of hours, I slept for six to seven hours per night with naps during the day.

When I was surrounded by others, especially at coffee shops, where I spent most of my time, I became more of an observer. I was in the picture yet not a part of it. However, when I wanted to, I could choose to be in the scene although some days I noticed I was starting to experience more emotions. The pendulum must have swung over to the being side.

My emotions ran high when a regular customer at the coffeehouse blew his nose and put dirty tissues on his table without bothering to throw them away. This annoyed me. I got more irritable when he continued to pile his disgusting, bloody tissues on the table. The table was soon covered with his dirty tissues.

He sat not too far from where I sat as I tried to eat my soup. After witnessing this sight, I stopped eating. He didn't seem to care about those around him. When I came home, I complained about the incident to Sean.

People close to me asked me why I was often angry and irritable. To prevent myself from becoming even more short-tempered, I walked away from them. At times I became impatient with people who weren't able to understand and who were too attached to their beliefs, thoughts, and actions. My friends were my niece, my nephews, and Sean. However, I connected with people on superficial levels at supermarkets, restaurants, and coffee shops. I was friendly with everyone and vice versa.

Chapter 5:

### The Writing Experience

One night, I experienced cold chills and shook uncontrollably. To calm down, I held myself though it didn't work. Later, I covered myself with blankets, but to no avail the intense shakes persisted. Then I began to fear for myself and for the life of my baby. When nothing helped, I involuntarily closed my eyes. Immediately, I saw my late grandfather sitting in front of a bonfire.

"Come and sit by the fire, quick!" he insisted.

"What's happening?" I asked, still shaking.

"Drink this warm soup, now!" he urged.

I did as he suggested, and within minutes I was able to calm down. The shakes slowly subsided and for the moment, they were gone. Gradually, I started to feel warm again.

"Thank you," I told him.

"Rest," he suggested.

In meditation, my late grandfather (who became a Buddhist monk before his passing appeared in my meditation as a monk) walked with me through a forest. It was dense, which made it hard to see the sunlight through the thick, green leaves. He said, "The only way to get the new is to burn down the old forest." I understood immediately, but how could I burn down such an immense and thick forest? It was endless from what I could see. To examine how far and wide the forest was; I climbed a tree to look around. There was no end to the dense, thick forest.

When I came out of meditation, I realized how much I missed my grandfather. Lately, I hardly meditated, so that particular meditation was a powerful reminder.

As my pregnancy progressed, Sean and I looked for an apartment and found one close to my family. The building complex turned out to be one I've always wanted to live in. There were plenty of green, lush trees surrounding the old cedar shake sided building. It was close to grocery stores and restaurants: a perfect start.

Once we were fully moved in, I started writing more. Sometimes I finished eight or nine chapters in a day. When the first rough draft was completed, I gave birth. The birth of my son reignited the unconditional love I came to when I first awakened. At times I had to remove myself from my son's sight because of the overwhelming, intoxicating of love.

However, about three months after giving birth, I started to feel emotions more intensely than before. Had I swung to the being side completely? Anger, rage, resentment, loneliness, self-hate, and sadness came back and hit me like a ton of bricks. Negative thoughts, feelings, and perceptions had returned in full strength.

It was odd this happened because I self-realized, but then again I wouldn't know. It wasn't like I had been enlightened a few times in my life where I could reflect on those events for clarity. I thought or hoped becoming enlightened would take all of the unwanted emotions away at least. My mind would somehow be as clear as daylight and my misery would fade away or end.

One night, I asked Sean, "Why am I feeling everything again? You know, the same old feelings that I'd rather not feel? I thought this would go away after I awakened. What happened?" He, of course, laughed as if my question was silly, childish, and naive.

"It doesn't take anything away. You're just more enhanced. You have more tools and skills, now, to handle all this," he answered.

"What? I have to continue from where I left off?" I knew because I saw visions of my frozen bodies in morgues at the temple where I went through the enlightenment process. This was where I had suspended my conditions so I could become empty before enlightenment.

"Exactly. You need to face conditions and get back to when you were enlightened and stay there," he responded. He looked at me and saw my disappointment, so he added: "Enlightenment opens all doors. It is only the tip of an iceberg. You have just arrived. It's nothing. Take a seat."

He tried to console me by saying I should feel proud for having the courage to undergo such tremendous transformation, but how could I, when all I had gotten to was the bottom of Mount Everest?

"I would have ended my life if you hadn't been with me that day, and if I could have moved. I went through such an excruciating, incomprehensible pain that my mind, body, and soul could have never imagined. How could you say it's nothing?" I reacted, wanting Sean to acknowledge that it was something, so I argued by pointing out how he had tried to end his life for relief from unbearable pain three different times when he went through the process himself.

"Yet, you say it's nothing?"

He went on preparing milk in the kitchen for our newborn son, Santi, and responded, "Yep," as if it truly wasn't anything at all while I sat on the sofa, disillusioned.

"How long will it take for me to get back?" I asked with tears in my eyes. Not only was I distraught from realizing I had to continue to understand and face myself, I was also lost, confused, without direction. I thought I knew everything, but it seemed I didn't know much.

"It's up to you. It could take years or maybe even a lifetime. It's up to you. The all-powerful La can do anything she wants," he went on. He was right to observe conditions \- attachments, thoughts, and perceptions of myself and the world - were covering my eyes. I wasn't able to connect with others as one, as well as I wasn't in utter peace, love, and wholeness like I was when awakened. Often, I wondered why.

"You need to continue being mindful, aware, and understand the causes of your problems," he encouraged.

"That's all that I am day in and day out and minute in and minute out. It's like there's no break," I shared.

"Just keep going," he said while going to get our son. "Enlightenment was the big door you opened for yourself."

That night I felt deeply upset I hardly slept despite the fact I hadn't rested much because of my newborn. Not getting enough rest also started arguments between Sean and I; mainly about how neither of us were getting any sleep and what we should do about it. Should we give the baby regular infant milk or should we mix breast milk with infant powder to make it thicker so the baby could sleep soundly at night?

On top of all this, I struggled with an engorgement that hurt as much as the C-section surgery. Several times, I woke up crying and screaming in pain. Although it was excruciating, I continued to breastfeed, to give my son the most nutrition for his growth.

When the pain waned, I started to go over the draft for the book. Every time I reviewed it, I became overly critical of myself, feeling discouraged I couldn't write my book the way it was supposed to be written or make it sound the way good books needed to sound.

Since I never attended school to become a writer, I had no idea what readers wanted from their authors. When Sean helped make corrections on the second draft, I became critical of him for not knowing how to write proper English since he was a native English speaker. We went over the draft for many nights until it was finished.

Then, I searched for an editor and found one, but the editing wasn't what I hoped for. We lost a lot of money by paying this editor and didn't have much left to hire another one, which led me to look over the draft again, for the third then fourth time on my own.

A friend from social networking suggested someone, so I hired him not knowing much about his religious beliefs. He ultimately quit after he read one of the chapters pertaining to Jesus. I was heartbroken. So, I started all over again looking for someone to assist with editing. Subsequently, many months later, I found an editor who helped with my writing in many ways.

I listened, looked over the phrases and sentences she had corrected, then read and re-read what she had suggested for improving the memoir. Mainly, we wanted to keep my voice. During the process, I made an effort to find a literary agent, although I couldn't find one who would represent the book despite sending out innumerable query letters. Of course, I criticized myself for it, thinking the book wouldn't go anywhere.

The intense feelings of rejection and failure kept me up at night. While they weren't as severe as before, it wasn't pleasant to say the least. Sometimes I even questioned whether I deserved to be a mom to such a beautiful boy who I couldn't turn my eyes away from even for a second. So I'd avoid sending emails to request literary representation and focus on editing instead.

To help with writing more clearly, I read about how to write, but this didn't pique my interest. I thought the only way I could write well was to write from my heart instead of writing what sounded interesting. Still, I learned how to write using proper grammar. It was difficult to learn, but learning it struck me as a good beginning.

After writing and re-writing, it felt like my book was getting better. Somehow I still found ways to be critical, such as thinking my writing was too simplistic and was something even children could understand. The writing still seemed way too simple. Even though I had earned an advanced degree in psychology, I thought I should somehow know how to write intelligently.

Chapter 6:

### The Storm

One night, I was deeply angry with Sean. Unsure what I was angry about, but I couldn't sleep, because I wanted to go scream at him in his bedroom waking him from his rest; however, I strongly held back. While lying on the sofa in the living room, I could feel blood rushing through my skin, veins, and bones as the anger turning into rage. So, I lay there clenching my fists, feeling the rage inside me. Then I tried to sleep during this, but I couldn't for a while. I must've finally dozed off later still furious because I dreamed of a storm raging in the ocean that almost blew me away.

Then, I became fearful and screamed for help. I could see the enormous, violent waves in the ocean, felt the heavy rain, and heard loud thunder rumbling behind dark clouds. The extreme wind's force looked as though it was uprooting, knocking down trees as I could see they were bending. Jesus appeared in front of me as I knelt on my knees crying in fear and rage.

"Help me, help me, please!" I begged. He lifted me up and said,

"Calm the rage inside you, now! Calm it! Calm it! You're destroying everything!"

It seemed he was affected by it too. His clothes were soaked and his long, wet brown hair draped over his face.

"I don't know how. I don't know how!" I replied, shaking and trembling all over as I was losing control of myself while surrendering to this rage inside me.

"Deep breaths. Take deep breaths, now," he encouraged.

As I took several deep breaths; the waves slowly calmed. It was still a little windy with dark clouds, but I could see the waves in the ocean gradually subsiding.

Soon after, I woke up to a deadly storm with forceful winds, heavy hail falling on the deck, and strong thunder shaking outside the apartment. This frightened me because the severe storm could blow the apartment away. While hugging the pillow tightly as the lightning flashing outside with loud thunder, I thought. Maybe I should wake Sean up. The next day, many trees had fallen and power lines were down. Local newscasters announced it was one of the strongest storms of the year.

Was this just coincidence? I looked outside and saw the fallen, destroyed trees in the neighborhood. Many people gathered around the apartment complex, watching fallen trees getting chopped up into logs and hauled away by the tree crew. Approximately a couple days later when I took Santi for a car ride along the country roads, there were many more fallen trees, and houses were stripped apart, sheds torn, and one of the houses was completely demolished.

Since I hadn't meditated for some time, I took the opportunity to do so while Santi napped. As soon as my eyes closed, I witnessed Jesus riding on a white horse descending from the skies wearing a king's robe and a crown.

"Wow," I whispered as he came towards me.

"You're like a king coming down from heaven."

"Heaven is where your heart is," he responded.

I gently smiled to thank him for this reminder. After he dismounted, we looked at a cottage in the valley below the clouds.

"Look at yourself. See how beautiful you are," he said, pointing to the trees, the birds, the sky, the clouds, and the valleys with gently flowing streams of water. Shortly after, he took out a piece of paper that read "Agreement."

"Sign it," he said.

I did so without question. When I came out of meditation, I wondered what the agreement was for, but I didn't think much of it.

Unfortunately, a couple of days later I found myself becoming overly critical of my writing again as I worked on finishing the book. While talking to Sean about my fears, I became emotional.

"I'm not sure if I can do this!" I cried.

"You need to believe in yourself. Don't worry about the outcome, just enjoy the experience," Sean comforted me.

His wisdom didn't provide relief; I felt like giving up. Mainly I feared I would fail, and would feel like a failure. Following our conversation in the kitchen, I went to lie down on the sofa in the family room to rest from a tension headache. While resting, I thought about just giving up altogether. It seemed as if I couldn't follow through with this book and perhaps I wasn't the person to write it.

Then, I closed my eyes. Jesus rode toward me on a white horse with a white sheet of paper in his hand. He gave it to me. As I glanced at it, my name was on the agreement, in which I'd promised to carry out this project.

"This is not fair. I didn't know. This is a trick. How did you know I was going to give up, or would want to give up?" I implored him.

"You signed it. You need to carry on with the commitment," he stated. He then looked at me and asked, "Do you commit?"

"I don't know if I can do it. It is too much for me!" I cried.

"Do you commit?" he continued to ask. After a long pause, I finally said I would commit to getting the book finished and published. Then, he vanished.

The following night, I stayed up while the baby was sleeping, sending out more query letters after reading through some of the chapters the editor returned to me. Although I truly wanted to give up, I knew I wouldn't. Jesus also helped to inspire me.

Though my life was becoming hectic, between taking care of my son and two young nephews, I continued to work on the book to get it done. Many times I was deeply stressed with the responsibilities of helping my family, but I chose to bottle up those negative emotions. If I didn't help my family, I was afraid I might not get to see my niece and nephews as often. Moreover, I didn't want be labeled as a 'bad' or a 'selfish' person. The repercussions of that were too much at the time.

On one occasion, in meditation, I walked to Hell. The Underworld was a deserted land where heavy, dusty wind blew. This made it difficult to see where I was, but I sensed I was on the outskirts of Hell's realms. As I made my way forward, the wind continued to blow heavily, still my searching eyes managed to catch sight of a lighted house. I walked inside it. No one was there, and I felt I had no business in this empty place, as well. I had moved on a long time ago. So, I left.

Next, I found myself in a white room lying in bed. Everything was white - the bed, sheets, pillows, and my clothes. As I tried to lift myself up, I saw Jesus sitting in a white chair, eating with a white outfit on. Curious, I walked toward him to see what he was eating; it wasn't anything special just rice and potatoes. He ate with his hands.

"They have forks now. It's a new era. You can order pizzas, too," I informed him. He didn't respond and kept eating. When I looked out the open window, I saw a big, red beast with horns, looking no different than a devil. Afraid at first, but with some courage, I reached my hand out the window to touch its face. It was the other side of me; my darkness and my rage, something I had always been fearful of.

"I need to make friends with you. I don't know how, yet," I told it.

Sometimes the excruciating pain came back unexpectedly to the point I'd lie on the floor for a while. I'd watch my son playing in the corner by himself as I lay there unmoving, allowing deep despair seeping throughout my body. At times I wasn't sure when the excruciating pain would permanently leave. It would hit unexpectedly, so I couldn't do anything to prepare for it. On some level, I recognized I would have to go through this until there was nothing left of it. Once the deep despair left, I'd swing to a non-being side.

The wild emotions I experienced were gone. If any sensation surfaced, it disappeared almost immediately. The fights with myself were no longer present, and I enjoyed not feeling for a while. However, once I swung back to a "being" side, I'd feel emotions intensely, though I made sure to be mindful and aware of all of it, despite the fact it was difficult to allow these emotions to go through me without fighting, resisting, or running away by distracting myself with unnecessary things, such as watching movies and shows every night or playing word games.

This was who I was: aware, knowing, and mindful. At times, it was extremely draining with constant reminding, remembering, being mindful and aware, accepting as well as understanding all angles of what I was facing. The process was continuous and non-stop.

In the following meditation, I found myself going back to Hell. Why was I so comfortable with this place? As I neared Hell's territory, I witnessed a big storm turning into a twister in no time. The sky was getting dark with clouds moving, so I became afraid as it wasn't far ahead of me.

Then, the twister formed itself into a face and blew me back to where I came from.

"You don't belong here! You're not welcome here! Leave!" it shouted in a big manly tone.

Flying through the air, I screamed loudly. Soon, I was on a motorcycle crossing the bridge. Other people riding on their motorcycles were moving in the opposite direction. I wondered if these were parts of me that couldn't let go, that I had been kicked out of Hell and was no longer welcome. I came out of meditation.

After living in the apartment for about two years, Sean and I wanted to purchase a home. I'd agreed to help take care of one of my nephews in the Fall again. The older one had to go to preschool because it was too difficult to simultaneously care for three young children under the age of four. My desire was to finish the book and take care of my son, which was why I hadn't gone back to work. Since I was raised to help family and take care of my parents, I obliged.

My cultural traditions didn't match with what I wanted for myself, though. When my father went to the hospital, I became even more stressed between juggling frequent hospital visits, translating, taking care of my nephews, working on my book, and handling phone calls from the hospital. It didn't matter how stressed out I was, I continued helping - ignoring the fact I was overwhelmed by all the responsibility. Now and then, when Sean and I fought, I'd be in a rage. I'd scream and yell. I could feel the flow of my angry emotions going through my veins as I was out of control.

He would say, "You need help. You're not just angry; you're in rage."

After my father was discharged from the hospital, I was relieved, but he continued to rely on my sister and I to translate for him as well as coordinating his care. Besides the fact he couldn't speak English, he also couldn't hear well. As a matter of fact, he was diagnosed as having profound hearing loss. However, he didn't care to wear his hearing aids despite I had to yell before he could hear. Of course, this stressed me out, as well, since I took him to many appointments to get them. I hoped he'd at least wear them so he could understand what others were saying to him about his health.

In short time, summer arrived. This meant I would have a break from babysitting, could work on editing and finishing the first memoir, and would have time to look for a house to buy. Above all, I would have time to work on myself. Frequently and consistently, I meditated and faced conditions, perceptions, and attachments surfaced during the process.

Chapter 7:

### Die Away

In late summer, we found an older home. Our offer on the house eventually went through, after a long and overwhelming wait for the seller to sign the contract. The house had a small creek with trees in the backyard to give us shade in the summer. It was a foreclosed home in a nice neighborhood that had plenty of room for the three of us, as well as a big yard for the little one to run around. Since growing up in small apartments crammed with four people, having a bigger living space was nice.

Before we moved into our new place, I was becoming still with less desire and emptier inside. There weren't many emotions nor had lingering thoughts about situations happened daily. For instance, if our toddler didn't eat enough that day, I wouldn't think anything of it. Ordinarily, I'd stress out and try different ways to get him to eat. Since I was longing for a big change internally; it finally came only after facing my ongoing conditions, thoughts, and attachments, unendingly for almost three years following my awakening.

Meditations often involved me being in the operating room where I self-realized while sitting, lying down or walking around. Nothing was different about the room except Giant and my grandfather weren't present, and I wasn't being operated on. The light still shone in the open room, but it held no physical structure. The operating table and equipment were gone except for the wall. It hadn't dawned on me to question what was behind this wall until Sean said something after I shared the meditations with him.

"I wonder what's behind that wall?" he commented.

The question sparked my interest. It made me want to find out what was beyond it. The next time I meditated, I was in the room again. This time, I tried to push the wall forward with my two arms, but I couldn't. Then I tried to run through the stone brick wall, still with no success. I fell backward.

After I came out of meditation, I told Sean, "I have no success in getting through the wall."

"Just break through it," he suggested.

"I can't, I've already tried. I got really bad headaches after that meditation," I replied.

When I meditated again following our conversation, I took a hammer and broke the stones apart piece by piece. After a long time of smashing and tearing down the wall, I entered into another room that was also bare.

It had no pictures, designs or decorations. Every time I meditated, I'd be back in the room, so I made myself at home by adding a cozy queen-sized bed, a modern lamp on a nightstand, a warm comforter, and a book. Once its interior design was finished, the room looked no different than a hotel suite. Often I lay in bed reading, resting, and looking around the spacious room. After a while, blank screens appeared and the room grew in size. The comfy place now looked like a big, roomy warehouse. I sat facing the screens. Shortly, images of lions walking appeared on the screens. Instantly, I realized lions represented strength.

This was a good sign I was getting stronger. After confronting my insecurities, lack of confidence, and past resentments, I was making progress at last, although I understood more conditions, perceptions, and attachments still needed to be confronted, examined, and understood.

Sometimes in this room, besides watching a lion on different blank screens, I'd see a female stranger talking to me. I'd attentively listen to what she was saying, explaining, and expressing. Afterward, I understood how she behaved, her perspectives, her gestures, her beliefs, and her tone of voice all stemmed from what she learned and been taught. Nothing was personal.

Every now and then, while in the warehouse, I wrote on the blank screens. It was odd because as soon as I wrote something, the writing slowly disappeared.

Meanwhile, in my physical life, sad news came from Laos. One of my brothers passed away from a terminal illness. His passing didn't bother me as much since I was empty and still inside. If any emotions surfaced, they would soon fade. I'd be a blank slate again.

Moreover, I barely maintained connections with my family after leaving Laos at a young age. One of the reasons I didn't keep in touch was due to my brothers and sisters asking for my financial support. With no money to give them, and their consistency in asking for money stressed me out, I avoided contact with them.

Unfortunately, more depressing news from Laos knocked at my door. My older brother died of cancer approximately two weeks after the death of my other brother. These heartbreaking circumstances took place while we were in the midst of getting ready to move into our new home, which was only a week away.

A few days later, I broke out into tears while lying in bed with Santi during his nap, although my sorrow didn't last. Besides that I was empty, still, with less desire, I was able to accept their deaths more readily since I understood deeply there was no death - only transformation - and this realization helped me to accept these occurrences. My brothers were close to my heart.

Despite losing my brothers, I didn't call my family to see how they were handling the losses due to my fear they would talk about money. Strangely, one of my deceased brothers came to me in my dreams to reassure me this wouldn't happen, I called home.

My older brothers and sisters, along with my grandparents, raised me when my parents weren't around. My parents were often away working. Besides farming, I was too young to understand what type of work they did. The positive memories of my childhood were those where I spent much of my time around older siblings, catching frogs in rice paddies, fishing, taking care of cows and buffalo, and helping plant rice in the fields.

When I finally called, my other brother who was close to my age answered the phone. However, he didn't talk about the deaths of our older brothers. Instead, he asked how I was doing and if I wanted him to send me money. I wasn't sure why he was discussing money: maybe he wasn't ready to accept the deaths of our two brothers or maybe he was just excited to hear from his younger sister he hadn't heard from for so long.

He asked, "Do you want me to send you money? I have saved some; I can send it to you since you're not working."

"No, thank you," I responded.

He insisted I take it because Sean was the sole provider for the family, but I declined.

In meditation, both of my deceased brothers were my guides. In one particular meditation, they showed me how to turn a rock into snow. One of them held a rock in his hand and it changed. I gasped since I was astonished by the transformation. We were out in an open field where snow was slowly melting from the bright, warm sun. The weather must've still been cold because we had our coats on. We sat in front of water that was melting from the snow.

When it was my turn, I was nervous. Not to mention, I was also embarrassed about even trying. Me? How could I turn a rock into snow? Nonetheless, I gave it a chance. First, I stared at the rock. It didn't change. Then, I held the rock in my hand and waited for it to transform. Once again, the rock wouldn't turn into soft, white snow, so I looked away, feeling insecure about my performance, but my brothers watched patiently. It didn't seem like they were letting me off easy. When the rock didn't change after many tries, I came out of meditation.

When I meditated the next day, we were at the same place. My brothers waited for me to do what I hadn't succeeded in achieving yesterday.

Turn, Turn!

Still nothing happened. The stone didn't budge, not even once. Eventually somehow, after many attempts, the miracle happened. The rock finally transformed into snow despite it took a very long time before it did. Mostly, I just waited for the rock to become snow while I sat there quietly looking at it, after I told it to turn. Then I looked away hoping the solid mineral would transform into soft, flaky snow by itself, not by my command.

When my brothers observed this, they said, "You need to believe it. Nothing will transform until you really mean it."

In the following meditation, I was in a control room. In front of me was a middle-sized performance stage with a flood light directly shining in the middle of it. An actress appeared. She must have felt cold since she was wearing a winter coat. Snow was falling and soon, a cold wintery snow blew, which made her even colder. Assuming the role of controller, I searched for control buttons to raise the temperature so the actress wouldn't freeze. As I tried to control the temperature for her, my brothers came in to watch. After a few minutes of observing what I was doing, they told me to turn everything up rather than lower it or set it at a temperature in between.

"Crank it up. Go totally and completely: not just here and there. Go all the way," they suggested.

"Okay," I replied understanding their message.

Increasingly, things weren't bothering me as much as before. I wasn't emotionally attached to people, places, things, or circumstances. If I experienced any emotion, I experienced it intensely and in totality.

Sometimes Sean would say, "You're being intense and dramatic."

"I learned it from you. You're intense and dramatic, too. You hold nothing back," I yelled not wanting to accept what was going on with me, wanting to prove I wasn't the only one experiencing emotions completely and deeply.

After experiencing my emotions without holding back, I recognized when the same emotions returned, I didn't feel them as strongly as before. If there was anything left to feel, I'd do it mindfully, with awareness as well as a better understanding of its cause. For instance, if I heard someone call me "Stupid," I was neither emotionally attached to the word nor did I take it personally like before when I felt it fully.

"Why should I ever hold anything back?" he responded.

In my meditative process, my brothers were working in the basement cutting down pipes, putting in new ones, and polishing dusty ones. While observing what they were doing, I understood what was happening. I was letting go of the old to get the new. My deceased brothers weren't the only ones helping me to understand myself. My grandfather was, as well.

In one meditation, my grandfather helped me cut down old trees into logs and burn them. Then he said, "Don't just cut down the trees. Take out their roots, as well."

He meant I couldn't just look at the issues, but needed to understand their underlying causes and face the emotional attachments in order to let them go completely without holding anything back.

As I became emptier, had less desire, and still inside, when my family and I were out shopping for items to furnish our new home one day, I observed people were characters in movie scenes. Everything I observed wasn't real.

In addition, I was becoming ordinary - nobody just as transparent as air, lingering everywhere. My conditions were melting away bit by bit as I continually faced them. What I used to know about myself and the world - what I had learned, seen, smelled, and touched - were fading.

In my meditation, my brothers continued working on the basement. It was getting larger. They continued to polish and installed shiny, new pipelines that shimmered when they were finished. Besides watching my brothers at work, there would be other times I'd be in a different scene where Jesus was flipping through books in a big, bottomless library.

Watching him from behind as he looked at one big book, I moved to stand next to him to observe what he was doing. The book didn't contain much writing.

When I shared this meditation with Sean, he said, "You are putting away old conditions."

"Why am I like a zero or no one at all?" I asked.

"That's where you want to be. You are peeling off your conditions, and you'll come to know yourself in a different way, now - not by what you have been told about yourself."

The new changes taking place were strange to me, I became afraid. At times I'd feel sad, like I didn't truly know what was going on. I'd feel lonely, lost, and hollow. The transition between letting go of the old, welcoming in something new was uncomfortable. This was a new territory, I came to who I was beyond what had been taught to me. Despite fearing the unknown, the only thing I truly wanted was to be myself so no fear would block my path from becoming who I truly was completely.

The sorting process was coming to an end when my brothers were putting away their tools. The basement looked sparkly and polished. At the library, I selected a couple of books to keep while putting away all the old ones.

Little by little, it seemed as though I was totally naked and transparent as a child. It was as though I was learning how to walk, to see, and to talk like I had been reformatted and transformed. My emotions came and went; they didn't last and they didn't seem to mean a thing. What had been taught by temples, churches, parents, brothers and sisters, and neighbors to me weren't true. These teachings were completely false; illusions.

Many changes were happening. When I talked it was as though I wasn't talking; when I walked it was as if I wasn't even walking. I took care of my son as though I wasn't really taking care of him. I was just air. Sometimes I would say to Sean, "I'm not here."

One day I even questioned whether my son was really my son, since I was air, not real and intangible. Is he any real?

What I had learned was imaginary. I had been told there was good and bad in the world only to find out there was neither; it was only an imagination. I became disillusioned by the fact there wasn't anything real, that I wasn't even real just an illusion, a mirage - so I didn't know how to accept this. Through my journey, I came to realize I was a movement; a change that had no beginning or ending.

One particular afternoon, I was in the middle of getting ready for the day while Santi was watching his favorite cartoon, I experienced deep despair from the alternating emotions within me. Earlier in the morning, I felt different types of feelings - happiness, sadness, irritation, anger, and so on. Later, I'd experience them all over again, one by one. However, each time I experienced these feelings, they'd speed up. For example, I'd feel happiness for five minutes before it switched to sadness, then to irritation, and so on. Sometimes I would go give Santi a kiss when I was happy and would ask what he was doing, but when I experienced sadness, I'd stay in the kitchen, wanting to be left alone.

As the morning continued, the rotation of feelings became faster, almost non-stop. By late morning, I lay on the bathroom floor in deep pain, holding myself.

Oh, my gosh. What is happening?

Minutes later, I got up after some relief from the misery. Thinking this was the end of the pain, I stepped into a shower. Unfortunately, the emotional roller coaster came back, moving even faster than before. I felt like I was going out of my mind.

Who is going to take care of my son if I go insane?

Quickly, I grabbed my toothbrush and brushed my teeth as the emotions inside alternated faster and faster; it felt like my head was spinning, which almost made me throw up.

Oh, my God. I'm going insane!

Soon I became very dizzy, then I lay down on the floor so I wouldn't vomit. The emotions rotated in a fastest speed to where I couldn't tell which emotions were going through me, causing such deep chaos, suffering, and despair inside me. Later, when the spinning feelings slowed down, I quickly texted Sean to ask him what was happening, almost asking him to come home from work because I was losing my mind as if I was in deep oblivion, not knowing what was occurring as if I was truly losing my sanity. Instead, I asked him: "What's going on with me?"

"You're sorting out your conditions to see which ones you want to keep. Enjoy it. The experience doesn't last," he replied.

Enjoy it? Was he crazy? I stood staring at the wall after texting him.

Moments later, the emotional wheel of chaos came roaring back, moving completely at a quick speed worse than before. If it kept going, I wasn't sure if I could return.

Oh, my gosh. When is this ever going to end?

Then I screamed, "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

I felt like I couldn't handle it anymore. This was extremely intense, almost too much to bear. As I was saying, "Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh." Moments later, it slowed down drastically. I lay back down on the floor. Then I got up slowly and came out from the bathroom to look at my son.

I can't leave him.

At dinner time I shared with Sean what happened. He said, "You should have just gone through it."

"What about Santi? Who was going to call for emergency?" I asked.

"He will be fine. You'll still take care of him. You came out to gain strength," Sean clarified.

"I truly thought I was going insane." Frankly, it seemed like I was in the abyss with no way back.

After hearing Sean's comments, I was disappointed with myself that I wasn't strong enough to go through the transformation process. At the same time, I also wondered how I was going to put myself back in the same situation so I could go through it, all the way.

Although I had doubts, I'd find a way. Then I followed Sean like a little puppy, asking him whether I would make it despite the fact I didn't know what "making it" was. I supposed it was whether I was going to be my true self, though I wasn't sure of what that was, yet.

"Just continue facing your conditions," he suggested.

Bedtime was another story. My mind raced faster than anything I have ever come across before. It kept me up all night, giving me a huge tension headache for a couple of nights. One morning, I searched for an aspirin bottle. I thought about everything and anything in the fastest speed. The outcome was almost the same; it was insanity. I thought about different reality shows, characters in movies, the weather, hair colors, different movie genres, songs, news, continents, whether the car needed to get fixed, Sean, Santi, my family, and so on.

I asked Sean, "What's happening? I can't even sleep. My mind runs faster than the speed of light."

"Let it run, if that's what is doing," he said.

So I took Sean's advice and just watched. Eventually, my racing mind slowed down.

Although I continued to feel lost, disillusioned, and afraid, I gradually welcomed my new self. At the same time, I let go of what I used to know of myself and the world. Since there were changes taking place within me, it seemed like I had no control. No doubt I was in an unfamiliar land.

In our new home, I became obsessed with cleanliness. I picked up everything on the floor, wiped down the counters, mopped the floor, and put all the toys away immediately after Santi was done playing even if he stopped for just a second.

When people visited the house, I made sure to tell them to take off their shoes. I went so far as to watch them do so to see if any dirt fell from their shoes and onto the floor. When they left the house, I wiped the areas their shoes touched.

If they forgot to take off their shoes when they came in even to go wash their hands and quickly leave afterward, I would text or call to remind them. Their forgetfulness caused me to have anxiety. Before family came to visit, the ones who forgot to take off their shoes were reminded of the rules a few days ahead of time. Sean was asked to remind them several more times before they arrived at the house, especially if the guests were his parents since they often forgot.

Sometimes my anxiety made me tense, so I'd pace; however, I'd be mindful of this. It surprised me how I could experience this much anxiety. More and more, I came to observe conditions as just conditions, experiencing them without thinking much about them.

Chapter 8:

### Krishna

In the next meditation, when everything was renovated, my brothers rested in a familiar house that resembled a barn. It was the barn I had been to before; however, it wasn't the horse barn I rested in when I went through the enlightenment process in meditation. The barn was bare with one big room and had new hardwood flooring. This was a rest stop before our next endeavor. While we were resting, I went up on the roof to overlook the town at night. Sometimes I'd walk along the top of the roof and jump to another roof nearby. The town appeared peaceful.

Then, in one of my meditations, I found myself at a train station dressed in white, one-piece pajamas unsure about where I was going. Fog was everywhere. I continued walking until I came to a river. There was a wooden raft there; I got on it and paddled, but I didn't get far before I fell into the water. Shortly afterward, someone with blue skin wore a gold crown reached out his hand to help me back onto the raft. Unsure of who he was at first, however, I had a feeling he was Krishna. It was astonishing to see his image in the water, the skies, the clouds, and everywhere around me.

He is everything.

Afterward, I followed him into a small room decorated with many ornaments, though I wasn't sure of the purpose of this vision or its message. Soon, we were at an open market. He told me to pick out what I wanted. There were a few old, empty, Western-style houses on both sides of the street, yet no one was around. Many things were on display: scarves, clothes, foods, and so on. When I spotted a little messenger bag, I selected it and put inside it a handkerchief I also picked out at the market.

Next, we came to an open area; Krishna took out a wooden flute to play. He gave me one and asked me to try playing it. When I tried, the flute didn't make a sound. Then, I dropped it. Immediately, I picked it back up then blew into the instrument again, but the sound was off - and, of course, I dropped it again. He said: "Keep practicing," before he vanished.

After I came out of meditation, I looked up the meaning of a handkerchief on the internet. It represented "sadness and tears," which was unsettling because I understood this journey wouldn't be a breeze.

Since Krishna hardly appeared in my meditation, I wanted to find out more about him and asked Sean.

"Krishna is a trickster; a joker. He's pure God. Mostly, He will trick you," Sean told me.

"What?" I asked in surprise. "He's my guide right now. He told me I would be totally unrecognizable. Don't scare me. He can't be as bad as Shiva. I fear him."

"You're Shiva," he responded.

Whenever Sean told me I was Shiva (a Hindu God and lord of destruction), it made me uncomfortable. Many times when Sean reminded me of this, I'd give him a nasty glare or leave the table. This was the side of me I feared the most. Shiva, the destroyer of illusion, tended to create drastic situations, so I could face the conditions that blinded me in order to grow, be renewed, come to know, and be who I truly was. Even so, I was afraid of him.

Some days, though, it seemed like I didn't belong in this existence, as though I wasn't here and didn't exist. I was clear and blank. I'd sit motionless, feeling nothing. When I watched TV with Sean and Santi, I'd stare through the screen as though the images on TV weren't even there as if I wasn't watching. I'd wash dishes as if I wasn't even handling them. When Santi and my young nephew played, I'd sit still, blankly, looking at nothing and thinking of nothing.

Sometimes I'd sit by Sean and Santi because I didn't want to be alone. The changes were strange and new. It was like I started a new job and didn't know where I fit in or what my role was. In other words, I was lost and uncertain.

At home, I became cleaner besides my issues with shoes. I'd clean the floor even though no one stepped on it. It seemed as if I had no control. When Sean said something I didn't like, I'd become anxious and start an argument.

He would say, "Relax! Your mind is working overtime. You're freaking out about the changes in yourself."

One night, while putting clothes away, I told Sean, "I'm not here. I'm air. I'm breath."

"I'm not here either," Sean responded.

"Nothing is here. There's nothing. No life, no death."

Each day, I welcomed the changes occurring within me. My emotions didn't last and were short-lived. My mind still chattered even though it wasn't anything like before. The emotions I had were only there so I could relate to others. Krishna didn't appear consistently in meditation, so on many occasions I'd be at the foggy train station, sometimes walking on train tracks.

In one particular incident, I watched the trains going opposite directions. Uncertain why I would think they were going crash into each other - but they did. The fronts of the two trains broke into pieces and fell off the tracks. The incident shocked me that my thoughts could create disasters. Jesus soon appeared and said, "Watch your thoughts! Your thoughts are powerful!"

Next, I found myself riding on a yellow school bus with Jesus during wintertime, carrying a suitcase and wearing white, one-piece pajamas. As we rode through rural roads, I observed snow-covered train tracks, trees, and the countryside. When we came to a town, at first there weren't many buses or cars on the streets. Moments later, we came upon so many of them, they literally blocked all sides of the roads and sidewalks; we couldn't get through.

Since we were stuck, I tried to look for ways for our bus to get by, but we were completely jammed. We waited for a while before I became impatient and irritated when there wasn't a way to get out of the predicament we were in.

"Jesus, what should I do?" I asked. He didn't respond, as though I needed to figure it out on my own. My conditions are blocking me. I can't go far. A thought suddenly came to me: Maybe I should call Krishna.

"Krishna! Make way for me, please!" I shouted.

Then I was on the same bus, traveling in the same neighborhood and streets. Jesus wasn't with me.

"Déjà vu. What the fuck?" I muttered.

As we were coming up to the bridge, I thought we were going to get stuck again, but surprisingly there weren't any buses or cars in the way. The road was completely clear.

"No way! Is he this powerful?" I spoke softly as we passed the bridge.

Krishna opened the road and I silently thanked him and was surprised by his abilities.

In the following meditation, I was at a factory with a conveyor belt. Many items passed by as I tried to sort them; however, I didn't exactly remember what the items were. The factory was dim, but there was light where I was working and on the conveyor belt. The conveyor was going too fast, so I slowed it down by hitting the switch on the side of the conveyor, because I couldn't keep up with it. Krishna appeared; he didn't speak. While I worked, I thought about how tiring it was to be continually working on myself. It was a never-ending process. It had become my life: facing my conditions, perceptions, and attachments, being mindful, aware, knowing, and understanding of their causes. It never stopped.

After I was done, I went to sit down on the chair away from conveyor belt. Krishna came to put different arms, legs, and a new head on me. When he was finished, I looked like a human with a horse head, face, and mane. Since I didn't find it amusing, I just went along with it to find out how unrecognizable I could become. A couple of times in meditation, we traveled by school bus in my new form. I became ashamed of this image.

On this particular journey, Osho, an Indian mystic, came along. He talked to Krishna near the front of the bus while I sat in the back watching. My insecurities hindered me from joining in the conversation with the two men, since I never thought of myself as important enough to be part of anything significant (Krishna was God, and Osho was highly enlightened and wise), so I sat quietly. However, I immediately understood what they were helping me with: low self-esteem, lack of confidence, and feelings of worthlessness.

When I wasn't meditating, I'd listen to what was going on within me. Sometimes I'd feel sad throughout the day. Deep inside, I was leaving and going away. This could be because I was grieving, moving forward from the past while becoming who I truly was.

In meditation, Krishna was now operating on my brain on an operating table, with only one light close to my head. The image of my head being cut open, where I could see my brain clearly being operated upon, was disturbing; however, I had gone through a similar process before when Giant operated on my body and took out my insides, so the scene didn't overwhelm me. He was, without a doubt, a thorough surgeon because every time I looked, he was still surgically removing little things from my brain. For two weeks, Krishna persistently took the smallest things out of my head, I said: "My gosh, you're slow." Of course, there was no response. He was too focused.

However, I noticed I didn't need much sleep, now. I'd sleep deeply for three hours and feel fresh the next day as though I had eight or nine hours of sleep.

"Amazing. I can't believe it," I told Sean.

I'd wake up regularly in the middle of the night to meditate and work on understanding myself, since I was busy taking care of my two-year-old son and my eight-month-old nephew during the day. The feeling obligated to take care of my young nephew to help my family was burdensome.

Although I tried to work on this particular attachment for a long time, but my resentment for being responsible for others lingered. I was mindful, so the emotions of resentment reduced. This helped me to continue watching my little nephew three times a week until my brother-in-law finished with school. In addition, I also helped my father at least twice a week before his dialysis appointments, getting his food and clothes ready. Sometimes I took my anger out on him for relying on me.

One day, while my baby nephew was napping, Santi and I played with his hot wheel cars on a carpet road map he got from Sean for Christmas. On the map, we kept starting over on the track after we were done. Then, I had a feeling of what Krishna might do. He might lead me back to myself, which it wouldn't be a surprise.

In meditation, Krishna was nearly done with the operation. My brain looked clean, clear, and shiny. In fact, it was astounding to have witnessed his work. My body was thin after he drained out my blood and took out my insides. His approach was similar to Giant's work. After he was completely finished, I was bald, looking like an eleven-year-old, white Caucasian girl wearing white one-piece pajamas.

"Thank you," I said.

Now, it seemed I was more transparent than before as though anyone could see right through me because I was pure air. The rapid changes made me question who I was. Krishna had warned me I would become unrecognizable. Even my voice wasn't recognizable. I lived as though I didn't live and existed as though I didn't exist. I walked like I wasn't walking and talked like I wasn't talking. Despite these changes, there was still chaos within me.

"Krishna just finished with the operation. I looked like a white ten or eleven-year-old girl. She often appeared in my meditation. Sometimes she gets on the train or on the bus. I'm scared to accept that she's me," I shared with Sean.

"It is you. Your pure self," Sean responded.

"Can you see me?" I asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"I feel so naked like anyone could see through me. Sometimes I cross my arms so no one could see through me."

"Of course I can. I don't see people in physical forms. I see who they are."

Although the new changes helped me love and accept myself more, yet the quick transformation left me confused, uncertain, sad, and lost. Krishna reassured he would help me remember. All that was needed was patience. Some days I'd feel hurt, in pain that stemmed from letting go of the past, fear of the unknown, as well as working on conditions that surfaced.

The feeling of being obligated to help out my family often emerged. The emotions attached to them kept me up at night. As long as I could remember, I had been taught by my culture, parents, friends, and elders to take care of my parents, especially when they became old. The traditional beliefs were a burden to my well-being. What had been taught to my parents was now passed on to me, but these weren't my own beliefs. Very often, I internally fought and struggled with them.

Despite the fact I didn't want to babysit, I continued because I couldn't bring myself to speak up to my family due to my fear of losing my relationship with them and being called different names. So, I harbored anger against myself for letting myself down, not taking charge of my own needs, and not respecting my own wishes. The fear of facing the consequences of my actions, what would happen if I told my sister and brother-in-law I no longer wished to help them, kept me imprisoned. In addition to my immediate family's opinion, what would my cousins, my aunt, my friends, and the Laotian community think?

Furthermore, I was also going back and forth about how I should be the one to care of my nephew because of my love for him; I was his aunt. I didn't trust that someone else could take good care of him like I could; however, I dealt with this issue easier than feeling obliged.

"Just tell them," Sean suggested when I discussed my dilemmas with him.

Nonetheless, I wasn't brave enough to follow through, so I continued to struggle. Deep down it was me who needed to accept my own thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions with the situation I was in. This was what I had chosen.

"You have to find ways to accept the path you choose, then," Sean added.

The whole process of leaving the old, welcoming the new, and facing emotional discomforts, thoughts, perceptions, actions, and reactions became tiring and overwhelming. Some days were worse than others. Almost every night I meditated, trying to understand the nature of the conflicts, be mindful of the emotions and aware of all of them whatever they were and whenever they surfaced, especially my anger and resentment. Every so often, it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, since I experienced the same old emotions, encountering similar situations, like before that I didn't want. I told Sean, "I just want to give up. This is so hard." He encouraged me to keep going.

"Nothing is worth getting if isn't difficult," he said.

One evening before bedtime, Sean and I argued. No doubt, I became dreadfully angry with him. He said, "You have an anger issue. You can't progress because you're angry. You're angry with yourself. You find love and comfort from it."

Sean set off a loose cannon because I was extremely tense - I felt like I had no control over anything. Although he was correct, I didn't want to accept and face that fact about myself.

His statements were deeply bothersome. They made me feel bad about myself and the anger inside of me. Since the process was overwhelming, I didn't know what to do. In the middle of the night, I broke down hysterically, feeling all sorts of emotions, mostly anger and disappointment. I was falling apart, vulnerable, and couldn't hold it together. The angry emotions surged intensely through my entire physical being, which made me angrier that I couldn't get rid of this fiery emotion inside me. The anger lasted for a long time until it turned into sorrow and sadness later on.

When I closed my eyes, suddenly I found myself at a conveyor belt, watching my body parts traveling on it - putting away more conditions. It was hard to belief I was at this scene, considering the emotional shape I was in.

Oh, my gosh. When is this going to end? I'm tired of this! I cried.

Two people were helping. One man had almost porcelain skin, as though layers of his skin had been removed. I could see veins all over his face, his arms, and his skull. He continued working; he didn't acknowledge me. Initially, his appearance was frightening; it reminded me of a character in a horror movie. Afterward, I understood what he symbolized: purity after shedding off and letting go of conditions. The other man was at the back of the conveyor belt helping; he didn't say a word. He was too focused. After watching them work for a while, since I was exhausted by the process, I slowly walked to the conveyor to help. We worked for a long period of time, putting away body parts, suitcases, papers, and whatever came through the line. Many tiring hours later, the job was finally coming to end.

What now?

The men and the conveyor belt disappeared. Then, I walked toward the door tired with my hair out of sorts from working overtime, still feeling some emotional pain. I opened the door and went through it, not knowing what to expect. Krishna was playing his flute while sitting on a sofa. He stood up as I entered.

"Krishna! Welcome!" he shouted.

I looked at him with teary eyes because I was surprised, then dropped down on my knees. "What?"

Before he lifted me up, he reassured me, "You were always Krishna, all along."

Once I wiped away my tears, a flute appeared on the table. I grabbed it, sat on the sofa across from Krishna, and played along. The music's tune and rhythm were almost in sync, but not quite. Later, Krishna vanished as I continued playing. It amazed me that I was able to play the flute almost as well as Krishna himself. It felt like it was my flute, like I was not a stranger to it, as though it had been mine all along. When I came out of meditation, I was more at peace. Above all, I was in disbelief about what I came to find out about myself: I was Krishna.

From then on, Krishna would address me as Krishna. In meditation, I drove a car swerving like a new driver learning how to drive and having difficult time staying on the road. Frequently, things got ran over like garbage cans, mail boxes, sheds, and more. This helped me to understand, I was new to myself so it would take time to get comfortable. As Krishna had put it - I had to have patience.

Next, I rode on a motorcycle wearing wind protection glasses with a biker's black jacket on, going somewhere in the morning. The sun wasn't up yet. Fog covered the roads. I was speeding, and heard Krishna's voice telling me to slow down when I increased the speed.

"It's about enjoyment, Krishna," he reminded me.

"I know, but I am excited," I responded and sped up.

Then, I arrived at an open field where there was a tent. I went in. Krishna was having dinner alongside the animals: monkeys, squirrels, chickens, and others. The sight made me smile in amusement.

He is a joker.

Soon, another Hindu god came in; however, I wasn't sure who he was. He had the face of a monkey, wore a golden crown, had dark tan skin, and was muscular. He asked me to go with him; I did.

First he took me to a big building in a jungle that had no windows. The building was deserted. Many animals went in and out as they pleased. It was fascinating to see the thick forest and animals from the building. Monkeys jumped from one tree to another; birds flew in the sky. I went up another floor to examine the glorious site. The monkey king urged me to go somewhere else, I followed him.

Then we were in a building that had expensive jewels. With a task to find a diamond to steal while the monkey king guarded the building, I located the precious diamond after sometime. The shiny, shimmering jewel was in a room by itself with a light shining on it. As I approached, I stopped fearing someone would shoot arrows or fire bullets at me. No one did. When I got closer, I stood still contemplating how I was going to take the treasure while the monkey king was about a foot away.

"Just take it," he urged.

I reached out my hand for the precious, immaculate diamond, which now sat on the king's red robe in the middle of a golden crown. Once I got the diamond, I took the crown as well as the robe.

Shortly after, I found myself wearing the king's robe and the crown holding a diamond in my hand while I was trapped in a small mirrored room looking at myself.

This is Shiva's work, I thought instantly. What business did he have here? It didn't seem like I could get out, but I did without remembering how I did so. Krishna and the monkey king wanted me to see who I was: the king of my own castle.

Then, I was back at the tent putting everything away - the robe, diamond, and the crown, but Krishna suggested, "Let him show you more."

So, I sought out the monkey king. He was shooting arrows at a quiet river with green, lush trees alongside it. When I arrived, he said, "You try."

My performance was poor. Most of the arrows dropped near my feet, they didn't go far when I tried. Some arrows flew sideways, not too far from where we were standing. He then took out his arrow and shot it. That arrow brought back ten mice. My mouth opened wide in awe of his skills.

This time, when I put more effort into it, my arrow came back with three live mice hanging onto it. "Kill those mice," he suggested. I looked at the creatures and didn't want to hurt them. "Do it," he demanded.

"I can't. I won't kill them. I will let them go," I responded. The mice ran off once they were released.

"You have compassion, Krishna," he said before he vanished into thin air.

Some days, I was irritable because of fear of the unknown, healing old wounds, as well accepting the changes taking place within me. The continuous understanding and looking at myself was cumbersome; there wasn't any break. Many unwanted emotions kept coming up again and again to the point I couldn't keep up. Frankly, I thought I had faced them, but when they showed up again, it didn't seem as though I made much headway.

In meditation, I built a fortress next to a tent. Not knowing what it was about at first, and made the fort larger by adding more stones. Other people were helping out, mostly men. When we became tired, we rested in the fields before we continued working.

In the midst of building this fortress, people were heading toward it. One of the men said,"They won't be able to come in."

Then, I understood what I was doing, so I opened my eyes. I tried to shut away unwanted feelings instead of allowing them to be.

My anger, resentment, lack of assertiveness, and inadequacy persisted like they hadn't been confronted. It was exhausting to continually experience similar emotions; therefore I wanted to get rid of them all together. Unfortunately, the more I fought these agonizing emotions, the worse they got - to the point where I felt completely overwhelmed before they switched to anger later on. Then I became angry for being angry since I thought I had moved on beyond this point, after facing myself unendingly, ceaselessly, non-stop. When Sean saw me in great frustration with myself one afternoon, he reminded me, "You can't get rid of your conditions. You can only put them away. These are major conditions that you need to understand and accept."

"I have been doing that. It just feels like it's not getting anywhere, for me. I am so tired and overwhelmed. It's so freaking hard. I just want them to go away," I yelled.

The next afternoon I went upstairs angry and irritable to put Santi down for a nap. While he napped, I decided to be mindful of my fiery emotions before meditation.

Unfortunately, they didn't let me relax. Instead they increased, which made me angrier and more frustrated just like the day before. These unwanted feelings seemed to line up one by one, waiting for me to acknowledge them. It was to where I couldn't keep up. On top of this, I was exhausted dealing with this emotionally draining process of letting go and facing myself day in and day out, minute in and minute out. So, I became impatient with allowing the emotions to go through me before meditation. Despite this, I chose to meditate.

Then, I found myself walking while experiencing an insurmountable anger within me. No matter how hard I tried to be mindful, the anger didn't subside, but persisted.

So, finally, I shouted, "I give up! I am done! Fuck this!"

I screamed while running along the road by the river where the monkey king taught me how to shoot arrows. It was autumn. Most of the brown leaves already covered the ground's surface. Wearing a long black coat with brown boots, I walked and wiped away the tears of disappointment.

Krishna appeared. He walked along with me. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"Nowhere! I can't seem to get anywhere and I don't like myself!" I angrily yelled.

It surprised me to see Krishna since I gave up. My thought was he and other guides wouldn't appear anymore.

He spoke softly like he didn't want me to be any more upset. "At least you don't hate yourself anymore, Krishna," he said.

I broke down crying on my knees. "I'm not Krishna. I'm not the person to do it. Please leave me alone." Feeling ashamed to be in Krishna's presence because I didn't think I deserved it. It seemed as though I wasn't strong enough to endure the process.

"I will always be here when you need me, my love," he uttered before he left.

His comment softened my heart. He was correct, I didn't despise myself; however, I was deeply upset I couldn't handle the intensity of the transformation and truly be myself (regardless of not knowing what that really was despite the fact I was awakened).

When Krishna said he was going to stick around provided comfort to me. His unconditional love made me want to like myself more than ever. Soon, I got up and strolled through the chilly day, broken-hearted.

Afterward, I went back to the tent. Krishna was no longer there. Oddly, a mirror was there, but I didn't want to look at it. Since I could never see myself in a mirror in my meditations, no matter how hard I tried, why bother? I saw everything else except myself. Subsequently, I didn't want to make the effort.

It had been three years of this, I still couldn't see myself although I wasn't sure why, but I thought I should give it another try, since Krishna wasn't around and nothing else could be seen. The animals were gone, as well. As I slowly approached the mirror, I began to see the black coat, my hands, my torso, my neck, and the rest of me. Then, I broke down in tears of joy.

"Krishna, you have brought me back to me. Thank you."

When Sean came home from work, right away I told him, "I give up. I'm done."

He looked concerned.

"Why?" he asked.

"I am here! I'm all here! Krishna has shown me who I am. Everything and nothing is who I am. I just need to accept myself and not be afraid. Most of all, I need to have the courage to love myself. Everything leads me back to me."

"Good," Sean replied.

'Giving up' didn't mean I wasn't going to continue on the path. It simply meant I stop putting too much pressure on myself because I didn't want to feel the uneasy emotions persisted on and off during the process. Even more importantly, I needed to have patience with myself.

Chapter 9:

### The Apocalypse

That night, after Santi went to bed, I began to pay attention to little things; for instance, the way my fingers moved; the sound and rhythm of my breath, and the movements of my feet and toes. In the morning, I became aware of how coffee smelled, tasted, and how it felt in my mouth.

"I came to myself," I said softly.

Later in the evening, I walked upstairs to sit on my bed. Silently as I looked at the clothes, closet, carpet, and mirror, I whispered, "I chose all this." When I looked at Sean and Santi, it was as if I looked at them for the first time. "I chose all this."

During couple of meditations, I watched myself shopping for groceries at a food market where we usually purchased food, wearing the same black coat, brown boots, and white scarf. While walking every aisle searching for food items on the list, I continued watching myself. This helped me to accept myself more rather than running away from who I was. I needed to be aware of my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Each night, I meditated until there was much acceptance within me of myself.

After a week, my meditation changed. This time, I was on a wooden raft paddling along a wide, calming river not knowing where I was going. On the right side of the river were green trees, big rocks, and stones on the lower slopes of the mountains. It wasn't too long before Buddha statues stood on the side of the mountain. "Buddha land," I mumbled. When I arrived at the shore, I got off the raft, then walked up a staircase made of stones. Shortly after, a rectangular straw platform was lowered from a tree. I stepped onto it.

It raised me up to a beige straw hut on top of the tree. It had an open deck. I sat down inside the hut, looking at the green trees, plants on the deck, the mountains, and clear skies. There was a small tree that reached up to where the deck was; I got up to observe it. Next to it was a shower. Soon, Lord Buddha came walking in the hut. "Lord Buddha," I said bowing my head.

"Lord Buddha," he said and made a little bow himself. His gesture surprised me, though I didn't say a word as I tried to accept I was one and the same.

After we sat down to have tea, I took out a flute to play. The sound of it was calming; its melody echoed everywhere. I was quite good at playing, not to mention I was much more comfortable playing it. It felt like the flute belonged to me all along.

"Krishna has taught you well. It was a peaceful sound," Buddha praised.

"Thank you," I responded with a bow. When Buddha made himself comfortable by lying down on his side with his hand supporting his head, I got up to take a shower. As the water wet my body, I looked at Buddha. Suddenly, he switched to my mother's form then switched back to himself, I became disturbed.

"You're scared of her, aren't you?" He asked.

It was disappointing he showed me this, since I thought I had moved on from past struggles between my mother and me. Nevertheless, they still followed. So, I came out of meditation irritated.

When Sean came home from work, I decided to share the meditation with him.

"You need to stop taking your mom everywhere," he commented. "Buddha came in your meditation; that's a good sign. You're experiencing a big shift in yourself."

"I need to accept parts of me that are similar to her: the anger, the rage, being impatient, critical, and having high expectations," I said. In many ways, it was upsetting these emotions still lingered. Deep down, I didn't know how to accept them since I continued fighting with them hoping they'd disappear. However, I understood my negative thoughts and emotions needed to be acknowledged with compassion and acceptance.

"Your anger is much better, though. You don't get as angry as you used to," he commended me.

"Thanks. I am accepting my anger more, but I still resist it when I experience it. I feel like I have to live through this rage and burn with its fire, if that's what it takes."

During the following meditation sessions, I often found myself sitting in a white airplane as it was taking off. Unfortunately, the aircraft didn't go far. After it was in the air for a brief time, the engine eventually failed before the plane crashed to the ground. I didn't see myself die in the crash, but saw myself got on another plane landed in an open field. The plane took off into the skies, looking as though it was going the distance; however, it headed to the ground and crashed.

In another meditative scene, I was back in the straw hut. Buddha was no longer around. He crossed the bridge far away, but I wasn't certain why I didn't follow when I caught a glimpse of him leaving. Many villagers took their cows and buffalo across the bridge. Unsure of what was going on, I went to look and stood on the side watching, before coming out of meditation.

In the following meditation, I walked into a cave in a desert. In the room was a big throne. I sat down next to the stone throne before many people entered the room. Jesus was among them, which made me happy when I saw him. Moments later, Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, my grandfather, Hanuman (the monkey king, I found out his name after I searched on the internet), Buddha, and Osho all arrived and took their seats. While watching them, I thought to myself, Oh, my gosh. Am I this fucked up? Do I need this much help?

They ate food that was served while soft music was playing in the background, but I didn't join the guests for dinner. Instead, I sat quietly in the corner. While the guests were eating their meals, I tried to sit on the gray, stone throne. Suddenly, they all stopped eating looking at me as though they were proud, but I got nervous, so I sat back down. They sighed and went back to eating.

One evening after Santi was in bed, I discussed with Sean how I wanted to truly go all the way despite the fact I didn't know what that involved. It was what I truly wanted.

"I really want to spend time with myself. I just want to be with myself. I can't put other peoples' needs before mine anymore."

"You still have a long way to go. You still have major conditions to deal with," Sean told me, which, of course, didn't make me feel good.

"What major conditions do I still need to face?" I asked.

"Well, that's obvious. Your anger for a start," he answered.

Sometimes, during meditation, I found myself in a peaceful land where everyone was me. They had the same face as well as same physical features as me, wearing farmers' clothing with straw hats as cover from the sun. They all got along and were accepting of one another. They didn't really talk, but peacefully lived their lives. They grew corn, beans, and lettuce while I stayed in a white guest house surrounded by plenty of trees. They smiled and waved when they saw me. The house didn't have much decoration. There was a full-length mirror in the living room. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I could see myself. Once I unpacked my clothes, I stepped outside; there was a train.

When I stepped onto the train, I realized it was a tourist train. I lay on a soft bench seat looking at the skies, stars, and moon through the ceiling.

"The inside and the outside are one and the same," I whispered.

In the following meditation, I crawled through a tunnel before I encountered Jesus.

He said, "Follow me."

Then, I crawled behind him until we stopped in the middle of it. There were old, dirty, tarnished pennies that lay there. Curious, I picked them up to get a closer look if they were really pennies, since dirt covered them.

"It's time to produce gold," Jesus suggested, looking at me. A while later I came to the other side of the tunnel where people were celebrating existence by dancing, clapping, and singing. The celebration was too noisy, which didn't interest me to stay, so I went back to the peaceful, quiet, and calm side of the tunnel.

"This is the side I don't know," I told myself.

In physical life, I continued to take care of my youngest nephew, my son, and worked on finishing All and Nothing whenever I got the chance and hardly had time to listen to myself like I wanted. It was becoming overwhelming waiting for my brother-in-law to finish school. At this point, I was holding on by a thread.

I didn't want to take on others' responsibilities emotionally or physically any longer. This became a daily mental and emotional challenge. It seemed I had done this more than I could handle in my life. What I had been taught to do and what I truly felt like doing were causing huge conflicts. It was time for me to have courage and speak up.

Sean said, "You need to let go of your past if you want to be yourself."

In my dreams, I was often in a war. I'd recruit teams of soldiers to fight invaders that tried to get into the city. We stood on a high gate, guarding our town. I was the general wearing a green army outfit - directing the men to hide in different corners before foes made their way to us. When the enemies came near our entrance, we fired bullets from all corners to keep them away.

This was no different than fighting with Sean, my son, my sister, my father, and my deceased mom, even though I was becoming less - less of who I was and less of who I used to know. I was emptier, still, more airy with nothing and not much desire. To move forward from my past completely, I had to decide to clear out distractions that were in my way so I could truly focus on myself.

Many villagers ran away from their village in one of my meditations. Fires burned their homes and farms. I walked closer to see what was happening as many kept running past me.

One of the villagers yelled, "We need to go. We need to get out of here!"

Ahead, were more burning houses, farms, even trees.

In my physical life, I continued to struggle with not wanting to fulfill others' obligations. This became a burden; a weight that was destroying my sanity.

"I have to tell them. I can't do this anymore. It's really stressing me out," I shared with Sean. For far too long, I put my needs behind me, neglected them in order to please others. I was fearful of being called different names and labels if I didn't do what was taught by tradition and society.

This was coming to an end. No matter what the outcomes would be, it was too much of a self-betrayal. I no longer cared about being seen as a good or a bad person.

In meditation, I witnessed more people running away from villages with their animals. Then, as I walked, I witnessed men working on power lines. In a moment, I understood what this whole thing was all about. I had to end the war inside me.

I yelled, "What are you guys doing? Cut those power lines to pieces now! Burn down the whole village to nothing! Burn it all down! Burn down this whole world!" I commanded. "No more! No more! No more!"

Fire was everywhere. Everything was coming to an end. This helped me to better understand the monkey king's lesson: to be decisive and put away conditions that were no longer serving me. When I witnessed mice running by (according to the internet, the mouse symbolizes fear, insignificance, and lack of assertiveness), I took out a knife and killed them with no mercy. I was done playing around and had had enough. Indecision was one of my biggest struggles. At times I couldn't make a decision, and would get anxious and irritated for fear of making mistakes.

In no time, I walked into the cave by the ocean to check if everything was gone. Nothing was left in it. The animal cages were wide open. Then I realized I'd gone in there for something more, so I dove deep into the ocean, where I saw Lord Shiva in a cage, bound in chains. Quickly, I unlocked the cage, broke off the chains before we swam up. We found ourselves on a little island with a small coconut tree in the middle of the ocean.

We sat there for a bit before I saw a big, shimmering shell in front of me. I thought Shiva was going to grab it because it belonged to him. He always had his shiny, gleaming shell by his side, but I picked it up instead. Then I blew into the shell to make music. Oddly, I was very good at playing it, like the shell had been mine all along. As I continued playing, the melody echoed throughout the whole ocean. I cried at what I felt within me as I began to remember the shell had been with me throughout eternity.

"It's mine," I spoke softly.

We got ready to leave. I saw the shell again in Lord Shiva's bag when he put it on his shoulder. I kept looking at it as though I couldn't keep my eyes off of it.

"It's mine. It was always mine, all along. I remember," I said. At that very moment, I was more accepting of myself as Shiva, the lord of destruction.

Next, I went back to the room where the throne was to sit on it. This time, there was no one there. The room was empty. Despite the fact I wasn't as confident sitting on the throne yet, but I was taking charge of my life. Afterward, I left the cave to go to the peaceful side of the tunnel.

In the next meditative scene, I walked in circles after finished touring the peaceful land. After the train tour, I took a horse tour, then a car tour, and a carriage tour. A villager even offered to take me on tour by foot. Soon I became irritable and went back to the guest's house, which it had been put up for sale. Was it time to move on? Although this was obvious, I decided to live on the side of the street with the other villagers.

While sitting on the street under a big tree with a couple of villagers, suddenly - a gigantic version of myself wearing one-piece pajamas walked toward our village. Everyone took shelter. Every step she took caused a major earthquake, killing and destroying anyone and everything in sight. She even had humans in her mouth while they relentlessly fought to escape. When she came to the beach, she made big, monstrous waves, similar to a tsunami, wiping out the entire village, the beach, and the people who were enjoying themselves. This was highly disturbing. I opened my eyes.

As soon as Santi got up from his nap, I rushed to discuss this with Sean, shaking.

"Why was I doing that?"

"What? Are you scared of yourself? That you can create and then destroy what you create?" he responded.

"I don't know. I don't do that, do I?" I asked.

Then, he said what I didn't want to hear: "You're Shiva."

In the following meditation, two burglars chased me in a building on fire. I ran up the stairs and made my way to the roof. Krishna sat on the side of the roof not making any sound, but I was in a hurry to leave. Immediately, one of the burglars shot Krishna. I ran to where he was as he lay dead on the floor.

He cannot die! I thought. Then I screamed, "Krishna!"

Suddenly, he came out of the dead body and went to sit on the side of the roof as before, like nothing happened. He didn't die. He was telling me I didn't need him at least for now because I was getting stronger and could take it from here. The following guide that was killed was Osho. He also died by gun-shot during a rivalry. Similarly, he stepped out of his body before he disappeared. The last guide to die was Jesus.

As I entered a building to tell a probation officer I was ready to leave, Jesus's body was hanging in the closet in the hallway. While trying to remove his corpse, he came out of his form then told me, "Go tell her that you're ready to leave. Don't worry about this. I will take care of it."

I walked into a room where a probation officer sat at a desk twirling her pen. She wore a blue police outfit, with her dark brown hair put up in a bun. After I sat down in front of her, I said, "I'm ready to move on."

Afterward, I was at the scene where I rode in a garbage truck, driving around the town I knew dropping off garbage bags. Once I finished dumping off the trash, I came to a train station. There, two trains were getting ready to depart. The conductor asked, "Do you want to take a fast train or a slow train?"

I smirked before I said, "I no longer have interest in taking fast trains. I've done that all my life. I'm going to enjoy myself and slow down. I'm taking the slow train." I hopped on

.

Chapter 10:

### Ordinary

Increasingly, I became more ordinary - even more so than before. It was to the point I didn't exist and was no one important; nobody and had no distinction. If someone asked who I was, I wouldn't have an answer. I was nameless, faceless, homeless, invisible, and unseen; no different than a traveler or a lone wanderer without a destination or goal. There was nothing in me, not even one bone or a drop of blood. I was a force; a breath of fresh air that was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In addition, I became more mindless, not remembering appointments, days, dates of important holidays, what I did before, or what I supposed to do next. Those events didn't seem to have significance. When I experienced any emotions, they didn't last and they didn't seem to have importance. Besides, I wasn't attached to them.

For instance, in one incident, a friend asked, "You're Laotian. What Laos food do you cook?"

It took me few seconds to answer because I wasn't identifying myself as a certain race, ethnicity, gender, or religion. Then, I explained to my friend, "I suck at cooking. I hardly cook. I make instant noodles with eggs and vegetables, usually." She laughed at my answer, since by being a woman in the traditional sense, I should know or learn how to prepare foods for my family.

The clothes I wore were plain and simple just like myself. It appeared I had moved on from my old self and became ordinary like a child, simple and pure. I ate when I became hungry, drank when I was thirsty, and slept when I was fatigued. My emotions came and went like the wind.

However, in the midst of my ordinariness, something else happened. There was tremendous love radiating through me, which I couldn't fully describe. I'd be conscious of the smallest things and would be awed by them. For instance, I'd be amazed at how I was able to lift my feet, walk, eat, smell, and see. The ways in which my hands, fingers, and arms moved were all splendid and captivating. This was no different than a child experiencing his first steps, recognizing and seeing his body parts for the first time. Many nights, I'd lie in bed after Santi fell asleep, noticing the rhythm of my breath and the movements of my lips, feet, and toes. I was enthralled by it all. On a couple of occasions, I'd burst into tears while experiencing such deep, pure, and indescribable love within myself.

Very often I was quite surprised by just moving a plate from one location to another and when walking to a nearby park. I was filled with strength, and fell into a state of amazement I could do all these things.

After a couple weeks, it slowed down. I talked and walked normally and was no longer in state of wonder and bliss, like before. Curious, I asked Sean about it. He informed me this happened because I needed to come out so I could get different experiences and understandings of myself in order to continue to remember. However, I could put myself automatically back in the state of pure joy whenever I chose.

Chapter 11:

### Déjà vu

Another phenomenon that occurred was déjà vu. People began to look familiar to the point I knew them and saw them at a previous employment or maybe we went to the same school.

One time, I brought myself to ask an older lady, who was watching Santi playing with her grandson, if she lived in the neighborhood because she looked so familiar, as if I ran into her or chatted with her before, though I didn't remember exactly where or when.

She answered, "I live about two to three hours from the city. I visit my family often. My daughter lives on the other side of town." What was the possibility of me knowing her?

The experience became a bit strange when I shopped for groceries at a supermarket and watched everyone at the produce section. It seemed as if I knew them. When I made my way to the bread aisle, I looked at a couple of people who were there and smiled at them because I thought they'd recognize me, since I seemed to recognize their faces from somewhere. Perhaps I went to school with them or saw them at a coffee shop where we'd chatted while waiting in line. They smiled back, but didn't say anything; they went on with their business.

Shortly afterward, I looked around the entire supermarket. It was as though I had seen all these people before and knew them all, but I wasn't sure where, when or how. I wasn't able to tell the difference whether I really knew them personally or didn't know them personally. It seemed to be almost one and the same.

After I rushed home, Sean asked, "What's wrong? You look like you have seen a ghost."

"Everyone I saw at the grocery store (anywhere I see people, now) looks familiar like I know them from somewhere. I even asked a few of them if we went to school together. What do I do? " I asked.

"Looks like you're starting to pay attention now. They look familiar because you put them there. Accept it."

At night, I looked forward to watching a new foreign movie that just arrived. A few minutes into the movie, it appeared as if I knew all the characters, so I tried to think of what movies they starred in. I even analyzed characters that appeared in the movie for few minutes. As I continued watching, the scenes seemed choreographed as if I had seen them played out before; even the ending of the movie felt as if I had been there myself, directing and acting in it.

Another new foreign movie arrived, I watched it, but it was the same. I had seen all of it and knew all the characters from somewhere before. After many such experiences, I came to accept this, and wasn't as taken aback as I had been. However, I realized I wasn't interested in doing many things because it seemed I had done everything already. This could have meant I was accepting everyone else and myself to be one and the same.

Chapter 12:

### Head Cut Off

In meditation, I was on an operating table where Krishna operated on me. While putting mechanical arms and legs on my body, I noticed how thin and airy my body was - almost down to nothing. Shortly after, the scene switched to a desert where I watched shiny robots walking and marching around. Some of them could fly. "Wow," I softly spoke. This helped me understand that once I become fully comfortable with myself, I'd be able to walk, jump and fly, just like the robots.

Sometimes in meditation, I'd find myself on a hill, sitting under a tree watching people walk by. On some occasions, I'd see myself walk past, I'd smile. Very often, I'd observe myself blowing out candles, although I didn't know the meaning of this until I looked it up on the internet. It meant 'surrendering or letting go an aspect of self'.

All and Nothing was nearly finished; I was terrified. To expose myself to others was not an easy thing. My family had no clue what my book was truly about, or who I truly was neither did my current friends and my Laotian childhood friends. Despite my fears, it seemed like I had no choice but to follow through.

Blogging on my author's website was safe because I didn't invite anyone to visit it yet; however, to post my true thoughts and share them with others was frightening. My first step was to create a page on social media, dedicating it to individuals who wanted to know and understand themselves more deeply. Once the page was created, every single individual on my personal page was invited to 'like' it or learn more about my insights. This big move was so nerve- racking to where I was shaking. So, I didn't post for a while.

Moreover - there was something else occurring within me I couldn't define. I was blank. It wasn't writer's block; it was something else entirely - something foreign and unknown. In meditation, I witnessed disturbing images of my head being cut off, though no blood was dripping from it. Whenever I closed my eyes, more and more of my head was cut off, then put in front of windows on display afterward like mannequins with wigs. In one particular meditation, I witnessed countless images of my head being cut off and put in front of windows for display. This was a recurring vision.

In one of the meditations, I went back to the tent. A mirror was still there; I walked towards it. This time, I couldn't see my face or my legs just my torso. This was a recurring image, as well. When I discussed this with Sean, he said, "Maybe it's your heart that you need to be in, not your head anymore." The light bulb lit up.

"Oh, my gosh. I should've known. I have been blanking for a while now. I had been totally clear. Nothing much is going on. There are no stories behind who I am. I am pure and simple," I shared. This helped me to realize my head couldn't take me where I wanted to go; the only route was through my heart.

Then I made my first post, which titled, 'To share myself is to share my heart'.

It was definitely time to move on and live with my heart. For far too long, I had lived in my head.

It had been a while since I'd been clear and blank with nothing going on inside me. Now it changed to where everything was also going on and in the same instant, there was nothing going on. I was empty, yet I was also full. Throughout the day, I just listened to what was occurring within me.

Many changes were happening. At times, it seemed like everything I did or didn't do didn't matter. Anything I said or didn't say was insignificant. There was no value, no meaning, and no life, just stillness. At the same time, I wasn't still. The more I became who I was beyond what had been taught to me about myself, the more uncomfortable I became.

Since there were many changes occurring, I found ways of distracting myself. There was a drama I liked, and watched it for many days after Santi went to bed. The beginning of the show was good, until the show became boring and predictable. It was to the point I knew what the actors were going to say and how they were going to act - but that didn't stop me from watching it, since the changes happening inside me were unusual.

In meditation sessions, I tried to stand on a balance beam wearing a monk's outfit. My head was shaved like a Buddhist monk. Unfortunately, one end of the beam was higher than the other end. Sometimes I tried to stand in the middle, but it quickly became unbalanced. Then, I tried to sit in the middle, but one end was still higher than the other. When I made an effort to stand in the middle again, the beam became unsteady and I fell off. No doubt I got frustrated, so I came out of meditation, each time.

The time for standing up to my family also came. It was draining and stressful, but finally I mustered up courage and told my brother-in-law and my sister I no longer interested taking care of my young nephew and my father. I helped out for two years so my brother-in-law could graduate. His graduation was coming and my obligation to help was coming to an end.

It didn't seem to go well at first, but I stood my ground. No matter what the circumstances would be, I couldn't extend myself anymore. Nothing was worse than feeling overwhelmed from obligations. The thing was: I wasn't obligated to anyone and wasn't anyone's keeper except for myself. My decision created friction and tension between me and my family. They didn't seem to understand or didn't want to accept what I wanted to do.

Every time they asked after I had given my answers, my reply was: "I'm done! I can't do it anymore!"

It didn't matter how selfish this seemed to others. If I didn't have peace, no one around me would. If I didn't have myself, I wouldn't have anyone.

Chapter 13:

### The Release of All and Nothing

The emotional attachments that came with feeling responsible for others were overwhelming. Certainly, it was one of the major conditions I faced. It took me a while to bring my situation down to a manageable level by being mindful, aware of the reactions, thoughts, perceptions, and understanding the causes of conflicts. Now I had better understanding of my grandpa's message about taking out the roots. That was to cut out what was unnecessary to my well-being, so I could move on. Moreover, I talked to Sean, his family, and a friend of mine about the circumstances, which helped me let go even more.

In meditation, I was in the desert again, walking alongside robots. As I practiced, I was able to walk, run, then eventually, fly just like the robots. There was no difference between us: I was shiny and new, just like they were.

Shortly after, I found myself cooking, setting up the dinner table, and blowing out a candle. The version of me who blew out the candle looked at me.

The next day, in my meditation, I was at a white, small farmhouse surrounded by windmills. The first time I entered the house, it was breathing while I was breathing. What the heck? The house moved to the movement of my breath. As I stood inside the room a bit longer, everything in the house was breathing along with me. When I inhaled, the house contracted; when I exhaled, it expanded. Then, I ran upstairs to look around the house, it was the same: everything was breathing as I was breathing. This was a bit disturbing so I came out of meditation.

In the next meditation, I was inside the white farmhouse again. The fan was oscillating. While looking at it, I felt I could make it go faster if I wanted, so I did. The fan oscillated from low to medium then to high. Shortly afterward, I walked outside the house.

I sat on the old stairs, watching the windmills rotate for a while before I made the windmills spin from slow to fast, until one of them broke. Once I came out of meditation, I talked to Sean to find clarity. He said, "You're becoming one with yourself. You'll come to realize that everything exists because you exist."

"Really? Until I come to it and be it - it's only a discussion, an understanding of it right now," I told him.

"Keep going, don't stop," he encouraged me.

"Why would I ever stop? I can't. I won't ever stop," I responded. Again, I was furious with him for the comment. At times I was uneasy around Sean simply because he knew me more than I knew myself. I wanted to be the one to know myself more than anyone else did.

Since I knew myself by conditions, like what I had been taught, I was sad I no longer identified with most of them. It appeared I didn't have a story; if I did, it didn't stick. Everything I saw, felt, touched, and smelled was an illusion. I was an illusion, not real. My mind tricked me into believing I was something real and tangible when I wasn't. So, I was down for a while and irritable at times as I tried to accept this.

When I was with friends, I could hardly offer anything interesting to the conversation. Sometimes I made an effort to do so, although this didn't turn out well because the desire was gone as soon as I tried. Then I was silent with nothing to say and no story to share. After I let go of my past, I also came to accept I was an intangible force, nothing real, and unseen. In addition, I was becoming much emptier, airy, still, without desire than before.

One weekend when our family went out of town, we decided to eat lunch after visiting places we wanted to see. A waitress came to our table, but I didn't order. Instead, Sean ordered my food for me (he knew what I wanted to eat, since I had told him before we went into the restaurant). After the waitress left, Sean asked, "Why didn't you say anything to the waitress and order for yourself?"

"She's not even there; she's only air. I'd be talking to an empty space," I answered.

"You still need to interact with the world," he suggested.

"I have no desire to, right now," I responded. "What I say or didn't say doesn't have any significance."

After we left the restaurant, Sean wanted to go home, but I tried to make the trip longer by suggesting we take an extended route back. "Why?'' he asked.

"Because everywhere is the same to me. I don't have a home. Everywhere is home," I replied.

A couple months later, my book was finally ready to be released. Re-editing, re-reading, and re-checking were done. It had to be good enough for publishing. This meant I had to take the risk that the way the book was, was what it was meant to be. Some nights I wasn't able to sleep since I was scared, nervous, and afraid to expose myself to the world. It seemed as though I had been hiding, and was ready to come out. I wasn't just ready - I needed to come out.

A couple days before Sean and I published the book, I asked him to wait even though he encouraged me to move on, saying I needed to face my fears of the unknown once more. While he understood this was a life-changing step and being afraid was part of the journey, I still needed to let go. Then we formatted my polished manuscript into an eBook. Afterwards, the book was ready to be released. My next step was to let people know the memoir was out. It didn't matter what religion or belief they held or if they were on my social networking page or not. These people now had the opportunity to learn about the book and its author.

Following my invitation for people to come learn about my memoir through my author's web page, the book's social media page, my personal social media page, and the social networking groups I joined, many emotions surfaced while revealing who I was, as people shared their thoughts about the memoir. It was no surprise I feared rejection and criticism, along with the risk of losing friends who shared different beliefs and views. Sometimes I was up late struggling with my own thoughts and emotions. However, the more I faced them, the less effect they had on me. My nervousness was no different than when I first came out by announcing my enlightenment before the book was published to help people be aware of it.

The announcement was well-received than rejected, even though I was kicked out of some of the online groups I was part of. My announcement caused many negative comments between members about whether my enlightenment was real or not, along with accusations of how I wanted to be a guru or was a "wannabe" guru. Although I expected this, it still affected me and I doubted myself. When I told my friend about it, she advised me not to announce my enlightenment, but of course, this suggestion came too late.

Since the memoir was about my awakening, making an announcement wholeheartedly to share it with everyone didn't feel any different. People who wanted to read the book were going to find out one way or another. After all, I didn't know a right or wrong way to go about it. I just proceeded.

Chapter 14:

### Spaciousness

A few of my meditations now involved me sitting on top of the world, watching people interact with one another. Sometimes I'd go into the picture to be a part of the scene. This was a recurrent theme.

Increasingly, I became very spacious. Not much was going on. My thoughts were now baseless, without any foundation or meaning. They came and went just like the wind. I was neither empty nor full, neither up nor down.

In some ways, I came in full circle - to appreciate who I was as well as the strengths within myself. Since I had more love and spaciousness inside me, things didn't shake me up like they used to.

This image of me sitting on top of the world occurred frequently in meditation, although I didn't know what this truly meant until I decided to share it with Sean. He said, "It's God. You're being yourself - God."

His answer kept me silent. While I understood what he meant, until I came to be this myself. Then it was just a conversation.

Sometimes, visions of Lord Shiva would surface. Certainly, I became a bit afraid. He would typically create traumatic circumstances in my life, so I could face and understand myself through these situations. However, he wasn't in action this time. He seemed so pure, white, and taller than in previous meditations. He wore a gold necklace, bracelets, and sported a gold crown on his head. Every time he appeared, he was either meditating or walking.

When I mentioned this to Sean, he asked, "What is Shiva doing?"

"Nothing," I answered. "He is either meditating or walking around. He is so pure, handsome, and bigger than I had seen him in the past." Nonetheless, Sean's question scared me since I knew it was inevitable Lord Shiva was going to create an upheaval. Every time he appeared in meditation, he meant business.

In the following meditation, Lord Shiva stood over a city in ruins. It was a bit shocking he already destroyed the whole city before I arrived. Then, I became fearful of which attachment and condition I was going to encounter according to this vision. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to be pleasant.

Even though I needed to understand my meditations deeply as days passed, I couldn't. Sean suffered from a kidney stone to where he wasn't able to do much like help out around the house or with Santi.

This put me in an overwhelming and stressful situation, to where I had to take aspirin often for tension-related headaches. Mostly, I massaged my forehead to release the pains throughout the day. Watching Sean suffer without much relief despite taking his prescribed pain medications wasn't fun.

Since there wasn't time to process or talk to him about the changes happening within me, I got angrier. It had been almost two weeks without relief from this ongoing stress. Sean went in and out of the emergency room until they finally admitted him to the hospital. He wasn't able to pass the kidney stone on his own, even after waiting for a while. I pushed for surgery to get it out.

As he was recovering, he continued to discuss the pain of not passing a kidney stone and how he'd had to have surgery to remove the tiny pebble. By then, I got tired of hearing about it, therefore I became furious. At that moment, I asked him not mention his excruciating experiences anymore because I wasn't just emotionally stressed, but physically fatigued. Furthermore, I couldn't depend on him for help. He became angry when I told him my thoughts about his circumstances. We started yelling at each other that evening. He told me I was being selfish, that all I wanted to do was talk about myself.

"That's right!" I screamed. "I don't want to focus on anyone else anymore. I have done that all my life. I can't do it anymore. It is all about me now. No one else. If I don't have myself, I don't have anyone else."

He yelled back, "You need help! You're in rage!"

Afterwards, I went upstairs furiously to where I couldn't fall asleep even after Santi went to bed. I was overly stressed, angry and resentful.

After tossing and turning for some time, I chose to go downstairs to talk it out with Sean after he came back from his drive to get some air. He apologized for his part. I did for mine.

"Man! You're powerful!" He said. Sean had told me this numerous times, but I didn't exactly know what he meant although I understood it; however, unless I was this myself. It wasn't anything more.

Then, I told him I couldn't depend on him or anyone else for help. I had to be the one who was going to do this. At the same time, I couldn't rely on anyone to love or like me. I would have to do it all. "Thank you," I told him, "for allowing me to see that."

The argument opened old wounds that hadn't been dealt with before. When I thought about everything in the past, I unlocked deeper pains that were unresolved. For most of my life, I was a beggar asking for acceptance, love, and affection from friends and personal relationships. Countless times I betrayed myself by doing things I didn't want to do, mostly to keep unhealthy relationships going so I wouldn't be alone with myself, unloved. In addition, I tried hard to make others happy in order to be accepted and acknowledged by them. I was running from the agony of being me because I didn't think I deserved love, even from myself. I wanted everyone else to love me because I didn't think I had enough love in me to love myself. Many nights I stayed up crying, feeling the hurt. When I was around others, I was quiet, faking a smile, although deep inside I was wounded emotionally.

A short time later, another incident happened with Santi. He ran away from school when I went to the bathroom after finished registering him for pre-school. He was happily playing with the other kids inside the gym, so I thought I could quickly use the restroom then would pick him up.

Furthermore, I made the great mistake of telling my friend I was going to the restroom, assuming she'd look after him for a bit. Unfortunately, she ended up going to the bathroom with her daughter, which surprised me.

When I came out, Santi was gone. In panic, I looked for him everywhere before rushing outside of the building. By then someone brought him to me from the parking lot. He was crying hysterically. He fled to the car far away from the entrance of the school, on his own. This shocked me, yet at the same time I wasn't as terrified as I thought I would be, surprisingly.

No doubt I was in agony. My three-year-old child, the love of my life, ran away to find me, but I wasn't anywhere to be found. Again, my error was depending on someone else, thus I was hurt by this, as well. The event kept me up almost all night as I thought about different ways that I could have lost him. Now I wasn't only dealing with the deep wounds I opened up, this trouble as well.

Sometimes, I'd lie on the floor crying, holding myself; however, I welcomed the hurts, fears, and vulnerability with open arms. It also helped to accept the wider implications with Santi over the incident that occurred. Only when I let go of this could I understand the experience he created for himself to grow, therefore, I grew with him. Nonetheless, I still noticed the spaciousness within me; an empty space that couldn't be touched. The more I faced myself, the emptier and spacious I became. Even though the thought of taking responsibility for myself by becoming my own hero was terrifying. I'd do it, as well as facing my emotional attachments of undeserving of love; that I couldn't depend on anyone to love me except myself. At first, I didn't know how to go about it, though the process I knew involved being mindful, aware, accepting, and understanding.

In meditation, I was in a room with swirly zig-zagging tubes putting meat in them from a bucket. Once the meat was processed, it was dumped into a dam. Sometimes my friend would be in the room helping with the process. Sometimes Jesus would appear. It took a few meditations before the process was complete. Afterwards, I slid through a tube then came out on the other side.

When I complained to Sean about how wrong I was to expect my friend to watch Santi to go use the restroom, he asked, "Do you trust yourself?"

"Yes, I do," I answered.

On several occasions in real life, when I encountered my friend, I didn't want to greet her because I was still feeling pain from resurfaced wounds. In addition, I wasn't fully comfortable with the spaciousness within myself. Many things inside of me were changing quickly that I couldn't understand as clearly as I would like. Yet I knew I needed to go through it in order to find an understanding of the transformation taking place within me.

In another meditation, I was in a canoe paddling to a city that was shimmering and new. It wasn't far from the city destroyed by Shiva. As I paddled, I witnessed remains flowing away from the illuminated city, to the city ruined by the Lord of Destruction. The new city was captivating with gold, shining lights in every building, wall, and bridge.

Later, after a tour of the new golden city, I canoed to the city in ruins. The city was now rebuilt, looking almost identical to the illuminated city. I was in awe and mumbled, "It's one and the same: the negative becomes positive. Destruction brings new beginnings and renewal."

In the midst of what was going on, I was clear and blank more so than before. This time, I wasn't able to write or respond to others in words or language as much as I wanted to. Every time I tried to write more than a couple of sentences, I developed tension headaches. It was as though I couldn't even think about things. When I tried to, I wasn't able to. I was blank. The result of trying was more headaches. My responses to people's posts on social media were emoticons. It seemed as if I had a lot to say, yet nothing to say at the same time.

Furthermore, I was still afraid to share myself, every comment and post I wrote made me nervous. Each time I wrote a post to share, it'd take me a few headache filled days to finish since I couldn't think. After it was done, it took even more time to post it.

Chapter 15:

### I Am This

On several meditative occasions, I was back in an operating room getting new legs, arms, and a heart. This time, they were as shiny as diamonds. However, when I tried to walk, I couldn't. When a wheelchair was placed in front of me, I sat in it before trying to roll the wheels using my new arms, but once again I was unsuccessful.

After being in the room, the scene switched to a familiar desert, where I was sitting in the wheelchair as a plane arrived to pick me up. Outside the window, the sun was shining softly and peacefully. Then, the plane landed in paradise where there was more sunshine, animals jumping from tree to tree, birds flying high and free in the sky.

Dolphins were playing, swimming in the sea with other magnificent sea creatures. I was in awe. I swam next to them happily, then in no time I found myself at a shoreline with dolphins, seals, and fish swimming in murky, semi-muddy water. Shortly after, a wooden raft appeared in front of us not to too far from where I was, I got on board. The ocean now turned into a big, quiet, soundless river. As I paddled, Buddha statues and images of him appeared everywhere lying in the sand, in front of me sitting in meditation poses, standing in the clouds and water.

Suddenly, I heard a voice whisper "Nirvana" both from within and everywhere around me. I felt chills. When I arrived at my new destination, I walked up a flight of stone stairs to the temple. Buddha was lying on his side with his hand supporting his head. He lifted himself up as I entered. I bowed my head in respect once I sat down.

He reached for my hand and said, "Let me show you what you truly are about."

"I'm ready. I'm all here," I remarked.

"It's the only way to be here," said Buddha.

As we walked to the back of the temple, I saw some exercise equipment. Someone was using it. Immediately I understood what it was meant for, so I went to use the leg press machine. A few days ago, I released many old, repressed pains that left me feeling truly vulnerable, confused, and lost.

Then Buddha said, "You need to build strength and get strong." He continued to watch me as I added more weights to the machine.

Next, a spiral staircase appeared; I went to climb it. Once I climbed to the top only to land on a small ship. There was no water beneath the ship, just fog everywhere. As I looked around, I witnessed Jesus preparing for the boat to leave.

He said: "I will take you to the shore. Buddha will be there waiting. He'll take it from there."

"Okay," I said. "I'm ready, I'm open." My eyes welled up as I uttered softly, "I'm unlimited. I can't believe that I am unlimited. This is who I am."

Jesus looked at me while I wiped away my tears. "You can't stop. You must keep going," he encouraged.

"I won't stop, I can't. It's too strong. I'm going all the way." While looking up at the sky, I saw glimpses of light through dark clouds, so I flew up quickly to land on top of those clouds. Jesus said while looking up at me, "She's unstoppable."

As I flew back and forth enjoying myself above the cloudy skies, Buddha came. He said, "Let's go."

"Okay," I replied.

After flying through the clouds, we arrived to sit in a small straw hut on the water. The water was clearer, calmer, and still. As I looked closer at the river to observe how clear it was. I saw some rocks and picked them up, then came back to sit next to Buddha. He took one of the rocks and threw it across the water.

It flew back quicker than I could blink and pushed my eye out through the back of my head. I panicked. He threw another. It speeded back knocking out my other eye. I became eyeless. In less than a few seconds, one eye emerged on my forehead. He said, "You have no use for these two eyes anymore. With this one eye, you can see without limits. Learn to see with this eye."

"I will," I responded, despite the fact I was scared about having only one eye. Then, I came out of meditation. A thought came to me suddenly, what is nirvana?

After I read the definition of nirvana, I gained deeper understanding of it than before. However, understanding of it held no significance unless I came to be that, myself.

That evening, things were changing rather quickly. While sitting in the car with my sister on our way to see a movie, everything appeared to be different. I was in the picture, yet on top of it, enjoying myself in it with deep peace. It didn't matter if we arrived late to the movies. I enjoyed myself. During the movie, I observed and watched everything, from how the actors' lips moved as they talked to how their eyes blinked and their emotional states of being.

In one particular meditation, I flew over dark lowland without grass or trees. It seemed more like a swamp; women, men and creatures without hair trying to escape. Some of them were skinless, I could see through their bones. They were dirty, muddy, and meshed with the swamp. Some of the women had things growing out from them like little babies, with sported big lumps and boils all over their bodies. A few creatures had one big eye with long, stretchy, slimy arms and legs. I peered around, unsure of what this landscape was, as the scene seemed a bit disturbing. Soon, I realized I was crossing over to the other side of the Underworld. When I looked ahead, the illuminating sun shined brilliantly. I opened my eyes.

In the following meditation, I watched everything with my one eye including the whole Earth. In awed by its magnificence, I flew back and forth above it, enjoying the view. Then I flew all the way down to Earth, and came back up speedily to the earthly bright sky, landing on a lotus flower made of clouds. Next, I went through the swirly tubes, shooting myself through them quickly, and flying back up to the clouds to land on another lotus next to the one I had sat on before. When I looked back to see what was holding the lotus together, a big, transparent statue of Buddha in clouds holding the two lotus flowers on his palms while I sat on both like a balanced scale.

While I lay in bed waiting for Santi to get up, I closed my eyes to meditate. This time, I paced in a room as dark as a cave. In the dim cavern was a large Buddha statue with light shining on it. There were black and gray bird feathers on the ground; I picked up one to place it in Buddha's palm, but I wasn't sure why I was doing so. I stood in front of the statue, looking to see if there were more feathers - there were none. Then, the statue of Buddha came to life. He stuck a feather in one of my ears. I screamed in fear as it bled. He had me turn my head sideways to drain out the blood. Shortly, I had a new ear to replace the old. He did the same to the other ear. Within seconds, a new one replaced the old ear. Immediately I understood the message: to listen with my new ears, so I could hear new sounds.

Shortly after this meditation, I was in the operating room where I became enlightened, hanging laundry to dry. Jesus appeared, he said, "It's time to leave this place." At first, I had a difficult time understanding what he meant, but I decided to leave with him. Then later on, I understood. I was letting go, moving forward from my past. After we flew up into the sky, the room collapsed into pieces.

It was refreshing to release my memoir; yet it was frightening. At times I'd cry, experiencing the vulnerability of past wounds and the crushing fears of letting go of all what I used to know. As I released the past, I noticed the process of moving on was improving my relationship with my sister. The tension between us drastically decreased, it seemed to me. After all, I took full responsibility for my conditions - the illusions I created to experience and understand myself through them. The more I did so, the calmer I became. A couple of times I asked myself: What do I have after I let go of all the conditions and attachments? What do I have left?

During my next meditation, I was in a room similar to a lecture hall. At the back of the room was a Buddha statue. I sat in the chair writing on a piece of paper, although the writing quickly disappeared after I wrote something. The white piece of paper was blank again. The stack of papers next to me was also blank with no writing when I looked through them.

Then Buddha appeared, sitting in front of me with black boxes decorated with flowers I liked. When I opened one of the boxes, I smiled to see a picture of me sitting next to my grandfather. The best memories I had were with my grandfather, grandmother, brothers, and sisters in Laos. In another box, it held the same picture. Right away, I understood that this was the memory I chose to hold onto. There was jewelry in a different box; I didn't know what that meant.

Suddenly blank screens appeared. They kept growing in size. Then, they became enormous. I flew up to see how much bigger they would become. They were endless. Then, I saw Jesus standing on a bridge between a building and a castle, I walked toward him. Oddly enough, he looked like Lao-Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, writer, and founder of Taoism. His hair was white, with receding hairline above his forehead. I wasn't sure how to address him.

"Hi, guys," I greeted them - they were two men in one form. The atmosphere was full of white clouds, white skies and big white screens. "What are you going to write?" Jesus asked. Quickly, I flew up to one of the screens and wrote 'Love'.

"I am love," I whispered, then flew back to Jesus handing him the marker. He flew up speedily to make a circular motion. My mouth opened wide in disbelief at how he could move so fast and what he could do. Unsure of what his drawing was at first, but then I smiled after realizing he had drawn the infinity symbol, which looked like a sideways eight. He wrote 'Eternal' above 'Love'. When he came back, I took the marker, then flew up just as quickly as Jesus in a circular motion, and wrote 'Beloved' below 'Love'. As I was heading down from the sky, Jesus's jaw dropped when he witnessed what I could do. I was just as fast as he, and was able to do the same things he could. Buddha appeared transparent in clouds.

Jesus looked at him and said, "She's getting it really quickly."

"After over seven thousand lives, I should hope so," I responded.

"I know someone who took longer than that," Jesus said. We smiled at each other.

Not long after, a big bright light appeared that looked like a sun.

"That's my light," I uttered softly when I saw it. For many years, I tried to make it bigger, yet I couldn't. As I looked upon it, I was speechless. Was it possible that it could be this big?

Jesus looked at me before he answered, "It could be even bigger."

"What? Really?" I asked in surprise.

With compassion in his eyes, he said, "You have lived a life of being small and minuscule. It's time to live by not being so small anymore."

Tears ran down my face. "I'm ready," I replied. Then I opened my eyes.

When I reflected on this meditation, I understood what it was like to be small. What it was like not to feel worthy, to the point of thinking I wasn't worth paying attention to.

"I'm ready," I said again to myself. The meditation also reminded me I could make anything big or small, based on my perception. For example, during meditation, sometimes I found myself at a gym lifting weights in a semi-dark room surrounded by energy. On one occasion, I loaded more plates of weights onto the machine, but couldn't lift it no matter how hard I tried and how sweaty I got from trying. The hefty weights on the exercise machine wouldn't move. Soon, I was exhausted. Then I said, "It's nothing," and decided to lift the weights again, and was able to do it effortlessly. At times I was able to lift the weights with one hand, then with one finger. "Heavy or light" was a figment of my own imagination.

In the following meditation, the light became enormous, which I had hard believing because it was to the point that it was immeasurable, with no end to it. Soon, though, the light shrunk smaller and smaller. As the light minimized into a smaller size, it also became clearer, similar to a crystal diamond. Then, the light turned into a small diamond shape and came towards me and entered my forehead. Immediately, I opened my eyes. "What the heck?"

As days went by, the vulnerability, fear, and weakness I experienced persisted. When I was around my friends or others, I wasn't as enthusiastic as I used to be. No matter how mindful and accepting I was, this didn't seem to subside, though I couldn't do anything except go through it. Something was definitely changing; something difficult to recognize deeply or understand, let alone accept. My forgetfulness was frequent. One day, when I took my Santi to the water park, we were there for almost six hours. It didn't seem long as though time didn't exist.

When I meditated again, I went back where I was the last time. Jesus was waiting for me to arrive. Suddenly a big, stern lion ran through the white clouds toward me. "Strength," I said. It was one of the most magnificent, powerful creatures I'd ever seen. When it approached me, I opened my arms to hug it, and soon we were rolling around and playing. Shortly afterward, I was back in a zig zag tube room below the clouds. The swirly, plastic zig-zag tube was longer than before so it took a little while before I came out of the other end. The lion followed behind me although it didn't go into the tubes. The strong, large cat watched me be pushed through every tube. Finally, I popped out. The friendly creature jumped toward me. Jesus watched. When I looked up through the cloudy skies and saw little glimpses of light, I flew up quickly to them, with the lion by my side.

While we were at the top of the clouds, Jesus said, "There she goes again." Next, a staircase appeared; I climbed it. It turned out to be one, long stairway. Once I made it up to the end of the stairway, a train was waiting for us in a dimly-lit train station. We jumped on the top of the train, I wasn't sure what type of train it was, it took off. I came out of meditation.

Later, in the middle of the night, I wasn't able to sleep. I still felt vulnerable, fearful, and weak all in one. This kept me up for hours until I was finally able to rest, close to sunrise. When I woke up, the feeling was still there. The agony of fear and weakness rolled into one. I went through the motions of my morning routine while trying not to break down. After Santi ate breakfast, finished learning his alphabet and I was done drinking coffee, I went upstairs to get ready for the day while Santi watched his shows. I brushed my teeth and cried with a towel covering my face. I trembled with fear I could no longer ignore. While shaking, with tears running down my face, I told myself: "I need to meditate. I need to meditate." So, I went into a room to lie down, covering my eyes with a shirt.

Immediately, I was back on the bridge between a building and a castle still trembling in hurt and fear. This time I sat above the ground next to the building. When I looked around, I saw dark clouds with white clouds where before there were only white clouds with white skies.

Then, I was in a beige straw hut on the water, but didn't see the physical form of Buddha only his clear, transparent, formlessness next to me. He didn't proceed to throw rocks like before. Instead, I picked up a rock then threw it. It flew back faster than I could breathe before it knocked one of my eyes through the back of my head. I threw another. It did the same. Again, I became eyeless. One eye appeared on my forehead. Instantly, I understood what I had to do. I needed to turn everything into one.

Then I returned to where I was sitting next to the building above the ground. Already the transformation started: the black and white clouds turned into energy then swirled into one another.

As I watched, I said, "One Eye, One Mind, One Heart, One Soul." I repeated this phrase faster and faster as I continued to tremble strongly inside. The merging of the two took over the castle and its sides. The union was coming towards me.

"One Eye, One Mind, One Heart, One Soul," I said louder and louder, faster and faster. "One! All is One! All is One!" I screamed. The blending had taken over everywhere. I became more fearful, trembling, and shaking all over like I was going to burst. When it made its way to my side, I panicked, unsure of what was going to happen and what I had to do. Then, I remembered the chant my grandfather taught me to calm myself, when I attended Buddhist temples in my childhood years with my family in Laos.

"Nammo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambhudasa, Nammo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambhudasa, Nammo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambhudasa," I chanted loudly. The transformation was getting stronger. It was now everywhere. I became dreadfully afraid. I yelled, "Help me, please! Help me!" Buddha appeared transparent in clouds with no form. He didn't say anything, but somehow I found comfort he was there. The transformation was approaching behind me then made its way to my other side. "Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh," I cried. I kept on chanting. Finally, I screamed, "Tell me what I need to do, please! I can't take it any longer! I'm going to burst!" My whole body shook as I lay on the floor, holding onto the rug beneath me.

"Leave! Go to the temple and take refuge. Monks will be there waiting to help. Go! Go now!" said Buddha. There was a small opening; I flew through it before nothing was left.

Above the clouds, I saw a temple and made my way to it. The transformation took place there as well. As I came closer chanting and saying, "Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh," I heard Buddha's voice: "You chose this." There were only a few monks left, dressed in maroon-colored robes. When I came to the front of the temple door, still above the ground, I heard within me and from the monks, "Nirvana."

I whispered back, "Nirvana."

"Hurry! You must enter the temple door before it closes. Hurry!" the monks urged.

"Go in, now! Seek refuge!" yelled Buddha from above the clouds. I flew in just in time. The doors quickly closed behind me. "Made it!" I said.

I looked around and recognized I had been here many times before, in meditation. It was hard not to notice the transformation already took place outside the temple, as it was making its way above the clear roof. I wondered if it was going to take over the whole temple. I trembled. Buddha was still above the clouds.

A thought suddenly occurred to me: To whom do I seek refuge? Do I seek refuge in God? I kept walking, chanting with one hand in front of my chest. Then I shouted, "To whom do I seek refuge, God?" Silence. "Then show me the face of God!"

I continued walking, another door opened. I could see through the door in front of me had many more doors behind it. I wondered why there were so many. "Show me the face of God!" I yelled, still trembling and chanting. Buddha encouraged me as I stopped in front of a door, "Keep going."

"To whom do I seek refuge? Show me! Now!" My voice echoed through the whole empty temple as I shouted louder. There were doors upon doors. I kept chanting as I entered each one.

"I want to see the face of God!" I demanded.

"Keep going," Buddha said.

After opening so many, I had a feeling I wouldn't be surprised as I was getting close to the final door. Slowly, I walked on while chanting with one hand in front of my chest. Then, I heard a chant coming from the other side of the door. It was getting louder, then I opened the door only to see myself holding the clearest crystal ball, chanting as I was chanting - however, she wasn't trembling like I was. Tears rolled down my face. "It's me! I Am, I Am, I Am!"

My entire being rejoiced as I shouted, "I Am all that I Am! I Am this! I Am all that I Am! I Am all that I Am!" As I wiped my tears, she handed me the crystal ball. It was a globe that looked like an eye. As I looked into it, I saw the world.

I walked out of the temple, returning to where I was before, by the bridge between the castle and the building. The skies were clear. The transcendence was done. The crystal ball shrunk down into a ball to where I was able to toss it up and grab it. As I continued walking to where Buddha was, I repeated to myself: All in All, All is One, Calmness, Peace, Joy; All in All, All is One, Calmness, Peace, Joy.

Buddha said, "That wasn't a surprise."

"No, but it was nice," I replied as I tossed the ball up and down in my hand.

Then I asked, "So, when you said 'conquer yourself', you meant a total acceptance of yourself?"

"Yes. When you have yourself, you have the world." His answer brought a smile to my face as I looked at the clear ball with the world in it. "There is more to go," he told me. I looked at him with my mouth wide open.

"Fuck," I responded.

I thought about the transformation I went through for a few weeks, which wasn't at all easy. Before he could say something, I interrupted: "I chose this. I will do it."

When I came out of meditation, I had a feeling I needed to start writing a second book very soon. There was peace inside me, yet there was also a residual feeling of fear, nervousness, and vulnerability all in one, as well.

In the following meditation, I swam with green frogs in a green lotus pond. The water was murky. Afterward, I sat on a bench in the pond looking around before Buddha appeared. He walked on a small bridge connecting the gazebo to the bench towards me. He looked no different from pictures in temples, markets, and stores; I was taken aback to witness this sight of him. Strangely, he turned into a big frog, which took me by surprise, before he physically reached the bench. What the heck? I came out of meditation.

When I looked up the meaning of a frog on the internet, I chose the closest meaning that fit with where I was with myself: "renewal; transformation," which helped me understand Buddha's message.

The next time I meditated, Buddha waited at the gazebo, I went to greet him. We looked at the lotus pond despite there was no lotus flower on it. The pond was green, full of lotus leaves; it was peaceful. Then a lotus flower seat appeared. Buddha went to sit on it. Soon another lotus flower seat appeared. I went to sit on it next to him. As soon as I sat, my head spun like a merry-go-round before I fell into the water. Buddha sat calmly on his. Why couldn't I do the same? So, I tried again. My head spun, and once more I fell off the lotus into the pond. I got up from the water, walked toward the lotus seat to sit on it. No surprise, I spun before falling off. As I watched Buddha sitting there peacefully, I understood the message. I needed to be oriented, get comfortable, and accept the changes taking place within me. I opened my eyes.

In the following mediation, I went to sit on the lotus flower seat next to Buddha as he sat calmly by himself at the green pond. My head still spun; nonetheless this wasn't nearly as fast as before. On top of that, I didn't fall into the water. As I continued, I sat on the lotus flower almost as calmly as Buddha. Instantly, the scene switched to where I was following him before he disappeared. An Indian guru arrived whom I'd never met or seen before, but since Buddha wasn't around, I followed him.

He wore a yellow cloth around his waist with no shirt. He had long hair that came down to his neck and his skin was dark tan. On his forehead were three white lines with a dot. He didn't say much, but I had a feeling I needed his guidance.

Then we entered a palace similar to one in the Middle East. The walls and ceilings of the palace were neatly designed, which made it difficult to describe the patterns. He made a gesture for me to take a bath that was prepared when we came into a big room. The white bathtub was big it could fit at least ten people. Once I finished washing and changing into a one-piece white garment, the guru came into the room.

We left to go to a different area of the palace. While looking around, I noticed there weren't any pictures or other decorations, only neatly designed patterns. After a while, I didn't understand why I was there, though I continued exploring the place. Outside, there were big buildings that looked like domes next to each other. The architectural styles of these unique buildings were captivating although I couldn't tell exactly where I was, geographically. After a while of observing my surroundings, I saw through the ceiling and flew up quickly landing on a rocket. I climbed into it.

Moments after it took off, the guru finally said something, "Here she comes." When I looked back I saw five candles, then the guru looked at me before he blew out each candle one by one. With every candle he blew out, I felt an emotional pain on top of the residual pain and fear I had. "Ouch! Ouch! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh," I said as I held myself.

The inner changes were rapid, but I was ready and open. I wasn't as afraid to be who I truly was anymore. The pain, fear and vulnerability, as well as my discomfort surrounding the transformation taking place persisted.

Jesus was my guide in the following mediation. He led me into a room behind a performing stage. The curtains were open; the room was empty with no seats and no audience. It was the same room I had been before, watching innumerable dancers in white outfits performing synchronized and harmonious dance; however, this time - there was a big clear, glass lotus seat in the room. "Go sit in it. It's your seat," Jesus informed me. Quickly, I approached the seat and sat down. As soon as I sat, I was at a different place.

I was now sitting in front of Buddha, meditating in an open sky between two buildings. The castle wasn't there anymore. Suddenly, Buddha stuck an umbrella through my flesh where I could vividly see my red heart caught on the umbrella's sharp edge inside my body. Oh my gosh! Then he made the umbrella open wider. I resisted it. "Oh, my gosh," I said and told myself, "Relax, relax."

Once I was calm, after taking several small deep breaths, he pushed my whole physical form into a dam that was behind me. When I turned around after looking at my form that fell into the high dam, he said, "It's gone, now." Then I looked at myself and saw I had no form. Buddha left.

As I examined my clear, transparent, formlessness, Jesus appeared and looked at me as I was observing myself. He commented, "Now you can go through anything." A tube suddenly appeared in front of us. He told me to go through it. I did.

In no time, I was in a forest on the side of a road, talking to Jesus. He was cooking soup in a bowl. While looking at him, I became a bit emotional because I was grateful for his guidance. I said, "Thank you for all your help. I deeply appreciate it." As I wiped away my tears, I bowed at his feet, "I love you so dearly," I told him.

He bent down his head to touch mine. "I love you just as the same," he said.

It brought a smile to my face to see him use a spoon to eat instead of his fingers. "You must go with the buddhas now. They are coming soon," he informed me. While listening to him, I had tears in my eyes thinking I might not see him again after he took me to another shore. "I will be around," he consoled me.

The buddhas' carriage arrived and stopped to let me on. Inside there were four beautiful buddhas dressed in silk skirts. Their dark hair was neatly put up in buns with gold clips to keep it together. Gold bracelets were on their arms and ankles. My eyes were fixed on how radiant, beautiful they all were since I didn't have form and wore a one-piece, off-white outfit. One of them handed me a copper cup in the shape of a lotus, I opened it. A purple color sprung out like a flame into the air. I was in awe.

"This is your aura. You'll be more purple than blue," she said. Awestruck, I was almost in tears when I watched it float in midair.

Next, I stood in front of a long clear, glass tube with Jesus and a Chinese goddess whom I didn't know, but heard about. I'd seen pictures of her on posts from social networking sites. However, after I researched on the internet, I learned she was known as the goddess of compassion and mercy. They waited for me to go through it. The goddess's peacock hairstyle and the white outfit she wore were from the Ming or Tang Dynasty, but I wasn't sure. As I examined how much smaller the tube was than previous ones I'd to slide through, Jesus spoke: "You can go through it now." He must be right. Since I had no form, which meant moving through the tube wouldn't be too difficult.

As I prepared myself to go in, the goddess added, "This is going to be the longest tube." I looked to see if I could guess where the ending of the tube would be, I couldn't.

Finally, I slid inside the tube. As I slid through it, I realized I had just a little amount of flesh left that was down to almost nothing. The tube got smaller and smaller to where it was impossible to make it through. Then it became completely narrow, I wasn't certain how I was going to get out its other end. So, I tried to figure out ways to move through. "Maybe I could make a hole to get out," I said to myself. "I am very near the end of the tube; why not?" Strangely, a small robot holding a piece of chalk came. I thought it was going to hurt me with it because I didn't realize what it was holding at first. Instead, the tiny thing erased the tube with the chalk. "Thanks," I said with a sigh of relief.

After I made it out, my grandpa, Vishnu, Shiva, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, and others stood on the balcony of a building watching me cross a bridge made of strong tightrope. When the bridge became unsteady when I got to the middle, one of them said, "She'll need reminders."

Below me, it appeared another apocalypse was taking place. Volcanoes erupted, fire burned, and many things collapsed; I wasn't afraid. The bridge became wobblier as I proceeded to walk over it. One side of it was gone. Then my grandpa shouted, "There is no bridge!" His reminder helped me to realize everything was in my mind. I could just walk through it. Nothing is here.

Four Shivas riding in a carriage appeared in the clouds. They asked if I wanted to go with them, I refused. "I'm walking the bridge," I shouted to them. They disappeared. Shortly after, a green monster tried to pull me down, but it didn't succeed. Above all, I wasn't scared. When the bridge got thinner and more unsteady, I decided to create my own bridge.

In no time, a white bridge appeared. I ran to get to the other side of it, yet I still had a long way to go. Then I skateboarded, but it wasn't fast enough. Next, I tried speed crawling, then rollerblading; yet it was still a long journey to reach the other end of the bridge. Again, I ran. Eventually, I got to the other end. Shortly, I saw Jesus skateboarding, wearing only a loin cloth at some skateboarding ramps.

He was thin with fresh, soft skin. His beard and hair were shorter in length; he reminded me of a caveman. After a period of time watching him skateboarding freely, doing different high jumps in the air, I decided to join him. Although I never skateboarded, I did rather well. I was able to do most of the moves he did. I jumped up in mid-air, rotated, then counter-rotated. Later, I went to sit under a tree watching Jesus before I shouted, "I'm here. I crossed the bridge. What now?"

Jesus yelled back, "Buddha is not done with you, yet."

Meditation helped me to understand myself deeply concerning what was transpiring within me. Gradually, I became more at ease with myself. The hurt, fear, and vulnerability that blended into one slowly reduced, but I continued to bear their residual effects, which I had had enough of.

One afternoon before Sean and Santi left to go to the grocery store, I was a bit irritable like I needed to be by myself to listen to what was going on. It appeared that my toddler was testing my patience, so I asked him again to go shopping for groceries with his father, even though his wish was to stay home with me. After they left, I took a warm bath while processing what was going on. It seemed everything I had ever known was coming down to this single moment of truth.

Everything I had done, known, or been was all an image - a figment of my imagination. I wasn't able to hold on to this. It was like holding on to water, watching it drip away in my hand, as if I'd never held it in the first place, as if it had never existed. The fragmented memories were slipping away piece by piece. I broke down crying, accepting this as I let everything go. After changing into clean clothes, I went to lie down to listen to the same song I had been listening to at least three or four times that day.

While the song played, I thought about accepting who I was totally and completely. Who I ever was, am, and always would be was this. "I Am This," I whispered. I closed my eyes to listen to the song more deeply, absorbing every beat and rhythm as I lay on the floor. A couple of minutes into it, images of a mountain, clear skies, and a calm forest emerged.

As I continued to observe the scenery, I witnessed hands folding together as if in prayer. Clouds were moving, and a clear, blue sky mountain with a little snow on top of it became the shape of folding hands. Everywhere whispered 'God,' 'God,' 'God', softly and gently.

Soon I was above the clouds in a tent, wearing a long shawl hanging down to my feet, decorated in gold with at least four or five men. They looked like warriors dressed in brown leather short kilts with seams of gold. They wore no shirts and had lean muscles. Their skins were darkly tanned, their heads were nearly shaved, and they knelt on one knee with both hands resting on the other knee.

While walking around, I found a big golden key. Right away, I took it. As I held it, a door appeared in front of me. I walked toward it and opened the door with the golden key. Then, a golden white light shone in. "I am the key!" I said. The golden key divided itself into smaller keys, so I tossed them to the warriors. Immediately, I ordered them to go unleash all of me, everywhere and anywhere. "I want to know all my potential," I commanded. "Unleash everything and anything. Do it now!" They all flew out to follow this order.

When I came out from the tent, I told them to unleash Heaven, Earth, and Hell while I paced back and forth on the bridge made of clear energy above the clouds. "All of it. Leave none out! Unleash! Unleash! Unleash!" I screamed.

One of them yelled, "There will be chaos!"

"I don't care. Do it!" I commanded. "Do it now!"

The clouds became energy. Below me, Earth was turning itself into energy. Below that, Hell was getting ready.

Then I commanded, "Unite! No more fears! No more fears! No more fears! No more separations; no divisions! I am tired of it! It ends now! Unite! Unite! Unite!"

A voice came from somewhere, saying, "It's chaos!"

I responded, "So be it! Then, let it be chaotic!"

As I paced, I observed everything blending together. It was chaotic at first, but the transformation was coming together as one. I noticed within me I was charged with fearless energy, pumped with strength and might. One of the warriors came to report, "It is chaos. All is unleashed!"

"Let it be chaotic. I want the Ultimate! The Ultimate peace! The Ultimate joy! The Ultimate freedom! Because I Am This! I Am This!" I pounded my fist on the bridge and it shook hard, like a god of thunder had slammed down his hammer.

I continued examining events from the bridge before I flew down to see what was happening.

"I am Heaven, Earth, and Hell. There will be no more division or separation between these dimensions. They all need to be united as One, now!" I yelled as I came down. While on the ground, I turned around only to see the biggest, most monstrous waves were coming toward me like a tsunami. As they got close, instead of trembling in fear, I opened my arms wide waiting for them.

"Come and take me. Here I am!" I shouted and closed my eyes, waited for the waves to take me, but they never did. I opened my eyes again and didn't see any gigantic waves. They were gone. They turned into energy.

What? Where are you? I was disappointed. "They were never there in the first place," I shouted. Minutes later, I laughed so loudly that anyone, anywhere and everywhere could hear my laughter.

Soon, army tanks fired missiles in my direction. As I watched them heading towards me, I lifted my face like I was soaking in the sun, feeling the cool breeze brushing on me in an early spring morning before going for a jog, "Do your best," I said.

However, the missiles didn't come near me; they all disappeared. I looked for them, asking where they had gone, but they were nowhere to be found. They never existed. Then, I laughed as loudly as I could that my voice echoed everywhere and anywhere. I was pumped, charged with power of fearlessness.

Next, I found myself inside a church playing chess with Jesus, concentrating hard.

He said: "Make your move."

"I already did. I already have!" I replied, then slammed my fist on the table before I flew through the ceiling to see where everything was with Jesus right behind me. As he watched me pacing back and forth observing the transformation taking place, he remarked:

"She's in full power now."

While I continued watching the transcendence happening, I shouted: "This is God, This is God. I Am This, I Am This, I Am God! I Am God! I Am God!"

Then, I slammed my fist on the bridge. Shortly afterward, someone shouted from nowhere, "People are going to think you're crazy!" The comment made me laugh as loud as I could.

"Yes! I am crazy! I am so crazy that I am mad! I've gone totally out of my mind!" I continued laughing while ignited with the energy and power of fearlessness.

Once the transcendence was finished, people were getting ready to leave. Jesus was getting ready to go as well. I looked at him though I didn't say a word. Why make a sound when I already knew? I was united.

The warriors put their armor and keys back as I watched them leave one by one. Soon Buddha appeared. I was about to ask if he was going to stay around, however, I already knew the answer so why make a sound? We were the same all along. We never had been anything else but this. Before he vanished, he changed into my form. I opened my eyes.

When I came out of meditation, I was at peace, unafraid, and more confident of who I was. My feeling of fear subsided even more. Later, in the evening, I decided to go for a walk around our neighborhood. Everywhere I looked, I saw myself being everything and anything. This made me smile as I was deeply at peace. The more I remembered and came to who I was, the more at ease and comfortable I became. The transcendence helped me accept myself more than ever before, and was truly glad to come to myself once again.

In the following meditation, people crossing the bridge remarked about how they were able to go anywhere without limitations; that I had connected all the dimensions as one, so they were able to travel freely. One of the men putting lights on the bridge commented: "Without her, I wouldn't know what to do."

Then one of the women crossing the bridge added, "We are thankful she made it possible." I stood looking over endless connecting bridges with sun shining softly.

However, a couple days later, after I finished reading over the transcendental meditation I wrote down, I experienced fear again despite that it wasn't nearly as bothersome as before. This surprised me because I thought after transforming separation into one; the fear would be completely gone.

When I attended my friend's daughter's birthday party the next day, I was quiet. Despite the fact fear still lingered, I was more confident than I ever had been.

The next day, I was empty and still to where I didn't desire to do much other than performing daily routines. After Santi was dropped off at school in the morning, I came home to meditate. I lay on the floor, empty, still, and unmoved until I had to pick him up two hours later.

Strangely, I sang along with every song I heard on the radio then in my head, repeating the phrases that captured my attention. This went on for the next few days, causing tension headaches - but I didn't understand why I was doing this. Was I afraid to fully accept myself? Was I trying to hold on to something or was I avoiding something?

When the sing-along and repeating slowed down, I was left to be one with what was inside me without any distraction. The only thing I needed to do was be with myself (with the emptiness, stillness, and unmoving with very little to no desire), to accept who I truly was. I thought about watching a movie, though I couldn't bring myself to do so since there was hardly any desire. In addition, I already knew the whole movie, which left me unmoving, lying on my bed with nothing to do, nothing to be, and nothing to feel. I was empty, still, and desire-less.

At times when I was emptier, stiller, with less desire, it became intense to where I curled into a fetal position on the floor. However, I couldn't describe the intensity as an emotion or a feeling since it seemed to be something else entirely. There wasn't any emotion for me to feel, which placed me in a deeper emptiness, stillness, unmoving without desire. The only emotion I felt was love for my son, and would spend my time being around him, watching him play, laugh, cry, and smile. When it was Sean's turn on a weekend to sleep with Santi, thus I could have time alone, I asked him not to, so I could be close to Santi and feel my love for him. The only emotion I had left was love - the rest of me was empty.

Also, I recognized the peace and oneness deep inside me. Sometimes while watching leaves fall on the ground, I was in awe, captivated by them. On a couple of occasions when Sean breathed, I was able to connect with his breath as if it was my own breath. I came to accept who I was, which helped me to deeply listen to what was going on inside of me.

Most of my meditations involved me looking at blank screens. There were different colors of paints and brushes at the bottom of the screens. When I tried to paint, the color didn't stick. It immediately faded. Then I drew a heart shape in black ink. It looked like it was done by a three-year-old learning how to draw for the first time.

A few times, I was in a scene where I carried a briefcase on a train or a bus. In it was a picture of my grandfather and me, as well as a couple of other pictures.

In one of the meditations, I stood on the tip of a mountain looking over other mountains under cloudy, lighting skies feeling a little sad. The sadness may have stemmed from letting go of what I knew about myself: my knowledge; thoughts, and perceptions. Then, I took a flute from my pocket to play. In no time, Krishna came to play along, which made me smile inside, happy to see Krishna. It had been a while since he'd last come into my meditation. The sound, the tune, and the rhythm were so in sync, I couldn't tell the difference. It was one. He said, "You remember."

"I remember. I remember who I truly am," I said softly. He left, though I didn't see him leave because we were one all along. I continued playing.

A week later, following the last meditation, I observed myself standing. Quickly, I became bigger and bigger to the point where I couldn't see myself. I became the whole universe itself. Then I flew around in golden energy that was everywhere. A golden Buddha statue in a meditation pose appeared. I went to sit in front of it and meditated.

Many gold Buddha statues appeared on both sides, creating room for me to run between them. I ran while touching some golden statues with both hands. Then, a golden door appeared in front of me although I didn't go through it. Instead, I chose another door leading to open skies. After roaming the clear skies, I was curious where the other door would take me, so I flew back to where the door was and entered.

The golden energy instantly took me into a golden wormhole full of golden light, where more golden Buddha statues appeared. Then I caught a glimpse of the golden Buddha himself, except that his hair was still black. I kept my eyes fixed on him. Shortly, I returned to the straw hut on the water. The river was peaceful. The water was clear with a golden reflection. Buddha wasn't sitting next to me like before, but his image was all around. Then, I went by the bridge. Instead of two regular buildings sitting on each side of the bridge, there were two golden platinum buildings. As I sat on the bridge between the buildings, watching the beautiful sunrise, a golden wormhole appeared. I flew right in.

The golden wormhole took me to a golden place. Golden energy was everywhere. As I glanced around in awe of the place, Krishna appeared. At first, I wasn't sure if it was really him since he wore a decorated crown made of gold and had gold bracelets on both of his arms, unlike before. His garments were also in gold. Unsure if he was Krishna, I kept watching. When he took out his flute, I smiled.

"Krishna," I whispered.

He then reached out for my hand and said, "Let me show you how powerful you are."

"Yes," I responded.

As we flew up to the skies, I landed in a calm, peaceful wilderness. There was a hat with feathers on an outdoor stage; I walked up the steps to pick it up. Then I put on the feathered hat, looking like an Indian chief in charge of a tribe.

The moon was peaceful, the stars were shining bright, and the singing crickets contributed to the tranquility. Since Krishna was not around, I sat with a paintbrush attempting to paint in a little straw hut on a blank, white paper. A while later when I looked up and saw a glimpse of light through the skies, I flew up to it only to see a big lightning bolt strike.

Krishna came. He shouted, "Fly into it!" I did without hesitation. The lightning bolt cut through me, but I didn't see my body because I was the same as the lightning bolt strike.

Nonetheless, I screamed in fear, "Ouch! Ouch! This hurts! Fuck!" Afterward, Krishna flew to where I was. He held me steady when he saw I was disoriented.

"You see, you can neither be created nor destroyed," he said.

"I know, but that still freaking hurts," I replied, a bit surprised I didn't die despite witnessing a powerful lightning bolt slice through me. I was indestructible and deathless. I was This.

Later, we were back at a place of golden light energy. Krishna put a gold crown, bracelets, and garments on me that looked just like his. Instantly, I laughed loudly when he finished.

"We are almost identical, Krishna!" I said and continued laughing.

"Yes, Krishna. You remember you are Krishna. Now you must find out what you truly are about. You are becoming Krishna, but what makes Krishna, Krishna?" he added.

"I am totally ready. Show me, please," I pleaded.

As we walked through some kind of hallway made of only energy, Lord Ganesh appeared with many versions of him next to each other. "Hi," I waved excitedly happy to see him. Next was Hanuman. There were many images of him as well, and greeted him happily. While I did this, Krishna stopped, looked at me and said, "You chose this. You are here because you chose it even before you were born. You can say it is your destiny. Your grandfather knew it. He couldn't keep his eyes off you. His death didn't stop him from guiding you here. Your mom didn't know it, and that was why she tried to kill you before you were born. She couldn't handle such a strong and powerful force inside her."

As Krishna proceeded to tell me this, I listened, but I didn't understand why he informed me of such a disturbing detail. Since the revelation was quite alarming and overwhelming to hear, it threw me off guard, so I wasn't certain if he said my mother tried to hurt me intentionally or unintentionally. Although I recalled what happened when I was an infant; however, I never knew of this.

"Why are you saying all this? Stop! Please stop! I don't remember this part," I begged.

"You don't remember, or you don't want to remember, Krishna?" His question made me pause for a second before I yelled, "I don't want to remember this!"

As I fell silent while pondering, I wanted to come out of meditation. The disclosure was too shocking, but he turned around, looked at me intently and told me, "Don't run. Face yourself once and for all, now. You don't have much left to go. You have repressed this. Your grandpa protected you. He has taken another life to see you rise to yourself, Krishna."

"I know, I know. I am grateful for him. Isn't everyone powerful? I am one and the same," I asked.

"They don't remember," he answered.

"I will remind them. I will do it. I will." As he listened, he pointed to my heart and said, "It is this very love that will take you there."

"I won't run. I cannot. Let's do this. I cannot stop or be stopped. I'm going all the way!" As I wiped my tears, he pointed to a door for me to walk through.

It was a regular white door that was half open with a white light shining through, I walked toward it. Krishna was next to me. Slaughtered pigs that were cut in half hung on both sides of us, like at a slaughterhouse. The place was filled with energy. Immediately, I understood what this meant, and walked by without taking a second look; yet I was facing a painful wound buried deep inside me. It was another condition I had to cut through.

We came to an airplane door that was wide open, where people go skydiving. While putting on my jumping gear, I tried to see the ground; however, I couldn't for the sky was covered with clouds.

"You have to let go. You must face this and let go," Krishna suggested.

"I don't hate my mom. I forgive her, thank her, and embrace the experiences I chose. They gave me strength and built me," I responded.

"Yes, Krishna," he continued. "It is in this very weakness, this deep sorrow, and great pain you have endured that you'll come to know your own power. Now, jump! Let go and be free. Free yourself!"

So, I jumped with a parachute on my back. I flung out my arms, free falling in the open skies feeling the wind on my face. Krishna was right by my side, I turned to him and said, "Thank you, my love."

"My love," he responded looking at me. I opened my eyes.

When I came out of meditation, I was more at peace. In addition, I felt more emotions, which meant I was going towards "being side" since I was empty for a while now; this was a nice change. When Santi woke up from his nap, we went downstairs to his playroom.

While Sean and Santi were playing, I sat quietly next to them processing the last meditation. Sean then decided to talk about not using a plastic bag as a garbage bag and put it on the counter next to the sink. He said it wasn't his preference: he wanted me to use the garbage can in the kitchen closet instead. The garbage can was small. When I put anything in it, it was filled up quickly. Taking out the garbage often wasn't much fun to say the least, I got angry with him.

Later, I apologized for yelling and let him know I was trying to understand the meditation. Moreover, coming out of emptiness often put me in an irritable mood as well. At least though, I wasn't on the floor completely unmoving, going through the purest pain of the swing. Along the way, I asked Sean what balance was and when I'd find it since the swing could be utterly unpleasant. "It's when you are God. When you are yourself," he said.

When Sean talked to me about my meditation, he asked, "Why did you choose such a horrible life for yourself? Why are you so angry?"

"To transform it, to make it one, to turn my anger into joy," I responded, not thinking too much about what I said. It seemed like I was still in a daze.

"Almost," he replied. "Because you are unconditional love."

Why didn't I think of that? He was right. I was This. Whatever it was that Krishna wanted me to face, I was going to do it, no matter what the condition was - anger or sadness. Although my past was hurtful, it also liberated me. It pushed me to delve further into myself in order to become who I truly was. Why wouldn't I embrace that?

When I went for a jog later that evening, I thought about the time I overheard my grandma telling my brothers and sisters about how my mother almost died giving birth to me.

I was listening in the background while playing in Laos at a young age. My mom lost a lot of blood. My grandma was yelling for her to "come back" from the brink of death when my mom was unconscious. She also mentioned I was born on inauspicious night. It was pitch black - no one should be born during that time. It wasn't a good omen, since my grandmother believed in good and bad fortunes.

My mom also said she was in some sort of parade when she was unconscious. She wouldn't have returned if she hadn't heard my grandmother yell for her. My birth wasn't one she wanted to revisit.

Was this what Krishna was referring to? Little did I realize this would affect me tremendously as periodically throughout my life I thought I shouldn't have been born and didn't belong in this world, that I should have been dead. Now, Krishna brought it up again so I could fully face this.

Sometimes Sean would say, "You're angry at yourself for choosing the life you have. No matter what other roads you take, you'll end up here, with what you have chosen for yourself. Stop fighting; let go." His suggestion was similar to Krishna's advice.

It took a couple of days before the emotions came back, which put me in a foul mood. The swinging wasn't pleasant. I'd yell at Santi when he acted out instead of disciplining him. Since the meditation, I also couldn't sleep restfully - facing the wound I had just opened up.

During the day, after dropping Santi off at school, I came home to meditate. This time, I was on a glider going somewhere, with endless versions of myself flying on gliders heading in the same direction. Krishna sat next to me, I asked, "What now?"

"Go and make amends with the parts of you that are still in pain," he suggested.

Not too much later, I walked into the old rundown house I used to live with my family. My mother sat on the sofa as I slowly approached her. The relationship between my mother and I was chaotic, painful, and tumultuous. Like before, when I went through the process of enlightenment, I went to place my face on her lap. She started to hurt me with a hammer this time instead of a knife on my back. Later on, it switched to another version of myself with the hammer causing the pain. My mother was no longer around. The hammer broke through my skin to where I saw my bare bones, but somehow my skeleton was like an old fossil; there wasn't any blood. She (myself) kept at it despite there was no use. Moments later, I came out from my physical form as clear, transparent, formless energy. The version of myself that caused the affliction was surprised.

"You see, I don't have form. I cannot be destroyed. Honestly, I can't even be seen. I take forms so I can see myself." I smiled at her while letting her know who I really was.

"Do you want to dance? It's okay," I reassured her as she sat in deep contemplation.

Slowly she got up walking towards me. As we danced, she tried to bite one of my ears. Instantly, I realized she was still scared, I pulled back. She apologized. She was still in pain.

"I always love you. You are the love of my life," I told her. She thanked me, appeared to be touched by my affection as tears rolled down her face.

Then I said, "I must go now. Krishna is waiting up there." She didn't want to stay, she asked to come along.

"Of course," I replied. She followed behind me. We sat down next to Krishna. He got up to help himself to food being served on the plane. I opened my eyes.

Chapter 16:

### Blown Out

A couple nights later, I decided to meditate. Soon, I walked toward the mirror in the bathroom of our house. I couldn't see myself completely. A part of my face was gone as well as my arms, neck, and ears, so I went to another mirror. It was the same. This disturbed me. Suddenly, my physical body ripped into small pixels. Then, I was everywhere, but I couldn't be seen.

During my sleep, I dreamt of having white angel wings. It was hard to grasp, so I kept looking at and touching my wings. They seemed real. Then, I decided to fly up above the clouds, watching Earth from below. It felt free to fly as I understood what was like to experience flying, looking at the earthly beings from the skies. Afterwards, I became a swan swimming in the quiet pond, enjoying myself before becoming an alligator crawling in the swamp in the deep unknown forest. These were just a few of my transformations.

Soon, the quiet swamp turned into a river with a strong, flowing current that abruptly took me away. I swam for shore, but unfortunately there wasn't one. When I saw a tree nearby, I tried to hold onto it, but it didn't work, the current took me. Fiercely, I kept swimming searching for land despite it was nowhere to be found. The river was endless and vast.

Suddenly, the current became forceful to where I wasn't able to hold onto anything. The strong, roaring current powerfully took me to a whirlpool where I thought I was going be swallowed up and die. No matter how hard I tried to look for things to grab onto, nothing was available. Reluctantly, I allowed the current to take me despite I was terrified, waking up scared and breathing heavily. Then, I practiced mindfulness meditation before getting out of bed; however, my feeling of losing control continued.

When Sean woke up, I discussed this matter with him. He said, "You're a control freak, you know that. A very wise person once told me. 'When you think you're in control, you're actually out of control.' There is no such thing as control." Sean always reminded me of what I told him when we first met - numerous times.

"It was never there in the first place," I added.

He went on, "There is no such thing as the right way to get there. There are many ways and endless paths. For a person who has tunnel vision, the journey could take a long and painful time."

"Because they are not open, they are scared," I commented.

"You're disappearing because the thoughts about yourself are disappearing," he continued.

Depending on the situation, sometimes I was able to be part of the scene by interacting with what was going on at the moment and enjoying myself, but most of the time I was empty with few emotions or thoughts about anything. When I had the desire to do something, I had no desire at the same time, which kept me silent, still. Mainly, many things didn't seem to be important to me as if they didn't matter at all.

In meditation, I flew in a golden land wearing a long, gold coat. Then, a little boy (a cartoon image similar to the little boy who lived in the jungle, who was raised by animals) climbed up a tall tree, as I watched from the top of this tree. He tried with much effort even his shirt was ripped by branches from climbing, but he continued. Finally, he made it up to where I was.

When we found ourselves sitting under the night sky with only a few stars to watch, he made an effort to put more stars in the skies. Unfortunately, not many of them appeared. Nonetheless, I commended him for trying.

Then I lit up the skies with golden stars that shined and shimmered throughout the entire galaxy. Both of us were enchanted.

"You turn everything into gold?" he asked.

"Yes. No more making pennies," I responded.

Shortly, a gate that wasn't there before, it had just appeared was about to close. Curious, I flew over to see. When I looked at the other side of the gate and saw familiarity, which helped me to realize I was closing the door to the past, and was moving forward. The gate was big, tall, and wide. It took many men to close it all the way. Once it was shut, I flew back to where the boy was, then immediately a forceful wind came our way.

The gusty wind blew exceptionally strong, ripping away my physical form. Quickly, I turned into energy as did everything else around me. When I looked at myself, I realized I turned into golden energy, wearing the same emperor's long gold coat, which also had turned into golden energy. Moments later, Jesus, Krishna, my grandfather, and another guide appeared (I wasn't sure who that was, since I was now focusing on shooting arrows).

They stood next to one another watching me trying to shoot arrows into the sky. Following many unsuccessful attempts, I heard one of them say, "She still has violence," as I became frustrated.

Instantly, Krishna responded, "It's losing its effects quickly."

Then Jesus stepped out to help. Most of the arrows were wooden with broken tips lying on the ground. While picking up one of the arrows and was about to shoot it, he reminded me, "Let every arrow you shoot be of love."

The arrow didn't go anywhere again; however, I kept trying by picking up ones on the ground. It was irritating since I had been told again what I already knew. In addition, I also realized what I had to do, but Jesus took things a step further to encourage me.

"Perhaps it's a different type of arrow that is needed," he commented.

"Fine," I replied, throwing down the arrow and bow before I flew up into the air, like a rocket and became an arrow myself.

"That's it!" he shouted as he watched from the ground.

For the next couple of days, I was in an intensity that couldn't be put into words. It wasn't a feeling or an emotion, but I couldn't distinguish or label it. Increasingly, I couldn't even put names or descriptions on what I was feeling or experiencing. It was almost as though I couldn't tell the difference whether I was experiencing or not experiencing, feeling or not feeling. It seemed as if there was no distinction or dissimilarity. One morning, our family was about to leave to do errands, though I couldn't go. It seemed I needed to be with myself and listen. When Sean grabbed his keys, walking toward the door, he was told of my situation. Instead of meditating or going up to my room to be with myself, I decided to talk about my meditation with him. He said, "You're narrowing down."

"It seems like everything is coming to an end. I'm letting it all go," I shared.

"There's no ending to anything. You're scared of the unknown."

"But I am the unknown," I said.

"But it doesn't mean you're not scared."

The transformation happened quickly and rapidly. It seemed I prepared myself for all of it despite still feeling a little fearful. Sometimes I wasn't ready for it, but I was already there. There was no going back, continuing on was the only way.

A friend from a social media wanted to know how I was doing, since I wasn't as active in making posts or comments in the groups anymore. The changes I went through simply couldn't be translated into words, so I didn't know how to respond. I couldn't say what was going on with me, if there was anything happening at all. Moreover, I was empty, still, without desire and with an intenseness which couldn't be labeled or described.

On the same day, a family member asked for emotional support, but I wasn't in a mood to offer anything. I wasn't feeling much or experience much of anything - just very airy, empty inside - but I decided to help. The situation became very uncomfortable, although it also pointed out the condition I needed to face completely: residual feelings of being obligated or being responsible for others and putting myself second. As I felt the discomfort, anger, and resentment, I was mindful and aware, then welcomed it all with open arms.

In meditation, I wore a white off-shoulder monk's outfit with a shaved head, much taller, thinner, and almost looked unrecognizable, sitting in the middle of a balance beam. Then, I walked to the quiet lotus pond. This time, there were lotus flowers blooming nicely above the water. Whenever my head was shaved, it meant I was letting go.

In the following meditative session, I was in a fancy dining room with endless rows of lit candles. My nephew and my favorite movie star were in the room. I just finished watching the trailer for his new movie. As soon as I walked into the room, the lit candles were extinguished one by one. My nephew along with the movie star helped blow out the candles that were left. However, there was one big candle in front of me burning intensely. I tried to blow it out, but it turned into a big bonfire instead. Oddly, after watching it, I went to sit in the middle of the burning fire reading a newspaper. Then, a girl with fresh skin stepped out of the fire. She was about twelve years old.

For a while, now, I wasn't been able to describe myself or say what was going on with me in words. Before this, I could put labels to describe how I was feeling or experiencing, but now there were none. It was as though I became beyond description. Sometimes I wanted to talk about this; however, I couldn't translate it into language. In addition, I didn't have the desire to - and if I did, the desire was gone as fast as it arrived. It was more like nothing could be said about who I was; nothing to describe. It seemed like there was no need except to listen to what was going on (if there was anything going on). The only thing I could do was share what was happening through meditation. Furthermore, I noticed that I completely, totally absorbed most of those experiences at once (if there were any), which left me with nothing, just now, without description or distinction.

For many years I identified myself with something that wasn't there. After I let go, I became beyond imagination. After a while I welcomed myself as description-less, fiction-less, and that which couldn't be described.

Perhaps I had fully become the unknown, unseen, invisible, and unheard of, and couldn't speak of it. At the same time, there wasn't any need or desire for me to be anyone or anything, any longer. Sometimes I wondered if I had completely left the physical existence; the known. Had I completely left it and truly became unseen?

It had been a week since I last meditated because I listened to what was going on within myself. After Santi was dropped off at school, I went home to meditate. I was above the clouds, surrounded by a few young elephants. They were pale gray, not quite white. One of them ran towards me, and I opened my arms to welcome it before all of them came. We played around, rolling just like children. Next, the stern, strong lions made their way to where I was, and I opened my arms welcoming these indescribable beasts.

Soon, I sat in a meditation pose in front of endless golden Buddha statues on both sides of me facing each other, with about three feet of distance between them. Every Buddha statue, held lit incense (or something similar to it). As I sat in meditation, I was very similar to Buddha himself who was sitting in meditation not far from me - we were almost identical. In short time, a lighted door appeared; I got up walking towards it. Inside the room was a ladder secured by a rope on both sides; I climbed up it and saw a Buddha statue. It wasn't golden although it was able to talk, moving around in a dim room which looked similar to a cave. It asked, "Do you still want another baby?"

"Yes, I want another one," I answered.

After I gave my answer, I was back where I had been before, sitting in meditation. Suddenly, the endless lit incenses were extinguished simultaneously except for a few. However, these were candles, not incense. I looked to see if there were more, but the rest were blown out completely. In no time, the gold Buddha statues turned to stone. As I silently sat wondering what was going on, an airplane landed in front of me. The plane door opened. I walked towards it and got in.

In no time, I was dropped off in front of a door. As soon as I opened the door, I recognized the same temple room I had been to many times before. Another door was in the back; I approached it. There was a ladder secured by ropes on each side once I opened the door. I climbed it. When I reached the top, another door appeared. I walked towards it. This time, I entered the room with people in it.

It wasn't crowded, though it was kind of noisy with dim lights and music playing. People were cheering, which reminded me of a nightclub scene. After observing my surroundings, I saw Jesus sat at the corner table by himself. He was wearing a long, soft, ivory and beige robe with red on one shoulder. Unlike before when the clothing was all white and not fancy - more like a work outfit. This time it was not for work, but for a special event.

"What's happening?" I asked after sitting down.

"There seems to be a fight in that ring, but no one is challenging the other guy," he answered. When I stood up to look across the room over the people who were standing and cheering; however, I didn't see anyone in the ring because I was somewhat far away.

"I will challenge," I said, heading to the ring. There he was: an incredible hulk. He wasn't as big as he had been before. As I stood there for a second, uncertain how to proceed, while the hulk stared at me, waiting to see what I was going to do. Then, I reached out my hand and said, "Calm, calm, calm, calm."

The green, mighty hulk shrank smaller and smaller to where I could grab him with my hand. People cheered. Afterward, when Jesus and I were about to walk out the door, he remarked: "You know how to calm yourself, now."

"Yes, I do," I replied. In the past, my anger could create deadly storms, destroying everything and anything in my way. Now the green creature was in my palm, with no ability to overtake me.

Next, we were on an airplane going somewhere. I was the pilot. Jesus sat on the other side of the aisle. I watched him with admiration, observing how calm and peaceful he was, as well as how nicely he dressed.

Then I looked at myself and saw I was very much like him, wearing the same clean, soft, ivory outfit. We were almost identical. Suddenly another airplane came by. Jesus transferred himself to it. I was the pilot for the other plane as well, although I wasn't sure why I didn't get on the same plane as Jesus. Immediately there were endless airplanes passing by, all heading in the same direction.

A ladder appeared. I jumped onto it and climbed. I climbed to where I saw innumerable airplanes above and below me, heading in the same direction. There was no end to them. I kept going. When a tube suddenly popped up, I slid through it. It shot me up high, farther than I could climb. Still - there were endless airplanes below and above me. I continued climbing.

Then I decided to rest in the middle of nowhere that was filled with energy without physical structure. Surprisingly, there was a train track. I went to stand by it. The train came fast, almost knocked me over, but fortunately Jesus came and held me steady. He asked, "Are you ready to go?"

"I'm ready," I responded.

We got onto another plane. I was also its pilot. She (myself) asked, "How high do you want to go?"

"As high as I can," I replied, then paused for a second before I answered again: "Limitless."

"There you go," Jesus added.

"What happens if I don't have the physical?" I asked Jesus.

"Get new one," he answered.

For a while, I hadn't been able to share what was going on with me because I couldn't label it. There was nothing to be labeled, so I continued to discuss my meditations to understand the changes inside me with Sean, but this was becoming very infrequent. I had to truly choose to make myself talk; otherwise, I was silent, empty - and it didn't matter. There was very little desire within me to do anything except for simple daily routines and caring for my son.

At the same time, though, I couldn't be translated into language or words. The only thing I could say was I couldn't be said or explained. It seemed I deeply, completely, and in totality absorbed most experiences at once (if there were any and there were hardly any) then I was the "now" and the "here", without description or story. When I finally choose to discuss this with Sean, he said I was moving too fast and needed to find the middle. Last month, I was totally empty, unmoving, no desire, and still: it didn't seem to make much difference whether I moved fast or slowly. Both facets put me in emptiness, stillness without much desire, with an intenseness that couldn't be put into words.

One Saturday morning, we decided to go to a library. I went to the information desk to ask for websites or books that contained addresses of regional and national radios and newspapers in order to send a media release letters for All and Nothing when I had the desire to do so. The librarian kept talking, not getting to the point. All she needed to do was give me a web address or the name of a book with the information that would help send media release letters. She kept talking in incomplete sentences with many, many pauses, but didn't give me any real answers. I felt like jumping off the building.

"You can just give me the web address and I will figure it out," I told her. She kept on going while many people waited in line behind me for her help.

After some time moving fast, things began to slow down. When I was with someone, I took joy in their presence. It didn't matter what the topic of conversation was, I enjoyed the moment. There was nothing else for me but what was right there. It appeared I took joy in the simplest things.

For instance, smashing acorns with a rock on our porch with Santi after we were done gathering them for squirrels in the backyard was deeply serene. Watching the leaves fall, walking on them seemed magnificent, joyful, and peaceful that words alone couldn't justify it. Major events appeared to be or had been important became nothing, just like the wind brushing my skin.

In meditation, I entered a room. Immediately the Chinese goddess of compassion and mercy handed me a small tray with a lit candle. Right away, it was extinguished. The goddess walked to another room, then waited. When making my way to her to find out what was going on, there was another lit candle next to the food plates. Unsure if there was actually food on those plates; however, I thought I was going to have dinner when I sat down. Then the candle was blown out instantly. Soon, I saw myself in a canoe heading toward a different shore while I sat in front of a goddess.

"What now?" I asked.

"Go to another shore," she replied.

When I walked out of the room, I got into the canoe and paddled through the river. There was a familiarity to the river. The right side of it had stones which helped me to recall I'd been there before when I first traveled to Buddha land.

When I arrived at my destination, I headed up to the temple. A Buddha statue standing on the stone stairway was smoking, which was unusual to see. It handed the cigarette to me, and I inhaled it a couple of times.

"You need to relax," said the statue. In front of us was a peaceful river with a golden reflection. While observing the river, I heard "God, God," whispered gently and softly.

As I was about to make my way to the back of the stone temple, the statue made another comment, "You need to stand tall. This is a big one." Within a few seconds, the Buddha statues in front of me stood tall and erect, which immediately helped me understand the message. Once I was at the back of the temple, I came to a bridge similar to the one I walked across before.

My grandfather, Krishna, Jesus, and a few others were watching, reminding, and encouraging me as I crossed the bridge. They stood on the balcony of a building, closely observing. One of them said, "It's a big one. You need to make it." My grandfather shouted to remind me that there was no bridge, no fear, and all was an illusion.

While crossing, someone handed me a soda with ice in a glass. I drank it. Since I knew this was going to be a long bridge to cross, I asked for ice cream as well. Then I requested for my cell phone so I could check notifications on social networking and return text messages.

Krishna said, "She needs to stay focused and not get distracted." Immediately after his comment, I cleared out distractions and started walking. Once I made it to the other side of the bridge, I climbed up the stairs over the clouds.

I went into a cave that had jade Buddha statue with a big jade lotus below Buddha's palms. One of my brothers was smoking while he waited. He greeted me when I arrived. He said, "You've made it."

"Thank you," I replied unsure what he meant by that. He reached out his hand before he asked me to follow him. Once we made it up the stairs, he told me to go through a tunnel. Without hesitation, I slid through. Soon, I was on a clear bridge seeing the universe as energy. Then, I formed this energy into a ball between my hands and smashed my palms together to watch it burst like nuclear energy and exploding like fireworks in the skies. Sometimes I formed the energy into big, medium, and then small balls, watching the energy combust as I smashed each energy ball with my hands.

In no time I was in front of Krishna, my grandfather, Jesus, and the others, who were watching while I was up in the sky turning energy into whatever I desired. Then, I transformed energy into stars and let them fall from the sky on everyone's faces as they looked up. One of them said, "She is showing off, now," unlike before when I went gone through a long tunnel and shot out into the sky with smoke everywhere. The guides had to wear masks to cover their faces to prevent them from having smoke smeared on their face. Those who didn't wear protection got covered with dusty smoke.

Afterward, I sat in front of Buddha statues again in a room. There weren't as many statues this time - only around a hundred were on both sides of the room. It was the same cabin room where I met the Chinese goddess. The cabin was in the forest near a calming river. It looked as though we were having dinner or lunch, since there were plates in front of us, but I didn't focus on them, so I wasn't sure if the plates contained food. Instead, I kept looking at the fireplace ahead of me. Unexpectedly, Shiva crawled out from it, which took me by surprise mainly because I was afraid of what he might do. What business did he have here?

Then he reached out his hand, grabbing me by my neck and strangled me with one arm. I struggled relentlessly. Suddenly, we were in the river where Buddha and I sat in the straw hut, deep in water as Shiva wouldn't let go. He squeezed my neck harder, pushing me down deeper into the river. I could feel my neck getting thinner as Shiva the Destroyer squeezed tighter. Shockingly, despite the fact my neck was getting incredibly thin, Shiva was going to squeeze the life out of me. I vehemently fought by grabbing onto his arm and kicking my feet. Immediately, I realized I needed to let go and surrender to the Lord of Destruction, although by then he had choked me to death.

Afterward, I came out from my dead corpse, formless, clear, and transparent, walking towards Lord Shiva to sit next to him in the straw hut. Quickly, we were back where we had been before, in the cabin room.

"What is this about?" I asked.

"You've made it. You can now do whatever you want," he answered.

Confused by his response since I thought I could always do whatever I wanted, whatever I chose. Why would he say this? He then put the last lit candle next to the fireplace before he turned into Lord Ganesh decorated with necklaces, then into Krishna.

Later on, I rode on a cow behind Krishna in the clouds. People cheered. They threw flowers as we rode. In front of us was a lake surrounded by green trees with soft, green grass. After I dismounted, I went to the lake where a teenage Krishna came out of the water. He sat down under a tree and played his flute. I kept staring at him, recognizing he was me, but it seemed I was still scared to accept this truth though I did accept it.

After reflecting on the meditation and not able to precisely decipher clearly on my own what Shiva did, I chose to talk to Sean. He said, "You just let go of another condition."

"I know, but which one?" I asked.

"Well, we just went to a visitation, so it must be sadness, since you've talked about it," he added.

"That's true. I haven't felt sadness for a while now. It's been very little, if I did. Thanks," I told him.

"Did you feel sad when you were there?"

"Yes, for the people, but I felt it there and left it there. Nothing follows after that," he responded.

Was I becoming that way as well? Was I going to be what was right then and there and nothing more? Then I asked, "Why did Shiva say I could do whatever I wanted, now? Wasn't I always? Did he mean I was free?"

"There is no such thing as "free" or "not free". It just meant you're not restrained. You'll have some conditions, but not many," he answered.

Two days later, following this meditation, I kept reading the meditation I wrote down where Krishna led me to face myself. As I reread the conversation over a few times where Krishna called me Krishna, then it suddenly hit me like ton of bricks. Krishna had called me "Krishna" because I was Krishna. It wasn't I was similar to him, connecting with him, or I could be like him, but I was he (Krishna). I was talking to myself. All this time, I led myself to this point of remembering myself as him. I took many forms, lived many lives, and had many names and faces, but I was always Krishna.

Oday Kingsavanh was the same as Krishna. It was another name for who I was. This truth scared me. It made me nervous. For the next couple of days, I ate a lot and had a short fuse with Sean and Santi - especially Santi, since he was with me most of the time. I'd yell and sometimes scream at him when he didn't listen. Afterward, I would apologize to him and he would, too. The changes were quick. I needed to listen to what was going on in order to understand myself clearly.

A week before I came to this, I wanted to buy Krishna's statue, since I never had one. I deeply wanted to have his statue or statues in my room: anything resembled Krishna. In fact, I wanted everything to be Krishna; blankets, pillows, wallpaper, and so on. When the stores didn't have a Krishna statue on sale while we traveled out of town, I urged Sean to buy one from the internet as a gift or an early Christmas present. When he did, I strongly suggested he should track the order number until it arrived safely. That whole week, I kept saying, "Krishna! Krishna!" Santi, of course, repeated this since he was learning how to talk. Sean probably knew I was coming to this about myself and I knew too, but I didn't know when or how.

Doing laundry, putting it away had been recurring themes in meditations. The location was at a white farmhouse. Most of the laundry was air dried in the back yard. This time, however, all I was doing was putting away clean laundry. Most of the clean white ones were on top of the drawer. It took many meditations to put them all away, before the following meditation.

I stood in the midst of small fires in a big, burned-down forest. It seemed the whole forest was almost in ashes as I observed my surroundings. In front of me was a gas container, but I wasn't sure what was happening until another version of myself appeared and commented, "Looks like the wildfire is dying down, huh?" Immediately, I understood.

"Yeah," I replied, then added fuel to the fire.

She quickly asked, "What are you doing? Why are you adding fuel?"

"The fuel is about done as well; there's not much left," I answered.

I continued pouring fuel on the fires and they lit up, but died down just as quickly. Next, I emptied out all the fuel from the red plastic gas container, dumping it into the fire. "Why did you do that?" she questioned.

"It's going to be gone soon anyway. So, I let it all go," I responded.

"What are you going to do now?" she questioned. As I stood quietly with no thoughts of who I was, nothing before or behind, without history or biography, no question or answer, and no description or distinction, it all came down to this: Now.

"I'm not sure. Whatever it is in the moment, then I'm that," I replied.

Suddenly, I was back in the room where Shiva placed the very last lit candle above the fireplace - but now it was extinguished. There was a cupboard above the fireplace that wasn't there before.

Curious, I opened it and saw the second book I was writing. "I wrote a book," I said, then paused while looking at it because I couldn't believe it was there.

"What is the book called?" she asked. As I glanced at the cover, I was astonished to see the title.

"It's called The Road to Nirvana!" I shouted.

"What are you going to do?" she proceeded to ask.

"I don't know," I told her.

"Share your writing, your story, and the whole transformation. Share it all," she encouraged me.

"I will," I replied, walking out of the cabin with a book bag over my shoulder.

Chapter 17:

### Nirvana

After I finished my daily jog, I went upstairs to take a shower. When my eyes shut as I was showering, I walked towards a throne and sat down above the clouds in front of an open temple, wearing a golden robe. Lao-Tzu, Krishna, Jesus, and others were in attendance. They all looked at me as I sat. Lao-Tzu immediately handed me a plate with pure, white sugar in a cube shape, bigger than a thumb. I took a taste before eating the whole thing. I tasted this before - pure, porcelain, white sweetness - and now I was eating it. He waited to see if I enjoyed it. I made the sound, "Mmmm."

"More!" he ordered. Suddenly endless desserts like different types of donuts in various colors, and other sweets appeared in front of me, but I didn't eat any of them. I'm unsure why I didn't. Maybe it didn't matter or perhaps I wasn't interested since I had them before.

"Thank you," I said.

A Chinese goddess appeared with a decorated gold crown and placed it on my head. "Congratulations, your highness," she gently remarked. Afterwards, everyone said, "Congratulations. You've made it." They clapped their hands. I got up from the seat, holding a long golden deity's mace in my hand walking among them. After everyone left, I sat alone on the throne. Strangely, my golden outfit turned half gold and half silver before it changed to full silver. I took off the crown, the clothes and came into the same bathroom where I was taking a shower. I opened my eyes.

Moments later, I closed them again. This time, I witnessed myself flying up at such a fast speed that the crown fell off of me. Once I landed, Krishna waited by the tunnel. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yes!" I replied.

The tunnel was different. It was smaller in size with a soft texture. I slid through it and landed on the other side. This landing, however, wasn't similar to any other. It was as though being in a different dimension that no words could precisely describe.

The sky was light blue with a light purple aurora everywhere. The beds were decorated with flowers in blue and purple floated in the air. The calming mountains, trees, moon, and stars floated as well. It was the valley I had been to a few times before, but now it wasn't the same. Everywhere was image of Krishna: playing the flute, as a baby, a teenager, and an adult. As we walked, I was in awe of the place - then I opened my eyes.

In the following meditative session, the atmosphere was also distinctive. Everything was white, similar to white smoke or milk, but it was an energy, not a physical form. It wasn't tangible. Everything was an image. I couldn't feel anything physically in my hand when I reached out to touch something. As Krishna paddled the canoe, I observed the quiet and calming scenery. Soon we were at a beach, which I had been to before.

This was the beach where I met my grandfather when I was new to meditation. The white moon was shining. As I lay on the sand, I reached out my hand to touch the beaming moon; it smiled as though it came to life and had a face. Everything was within reach. Nothing was far.

Krishna was now a full-grown teenager, relaxing, enjoying what was in front of him. I didn't see me as myself anymore, but I was Krishna - about nineteen or twenty years old, lying on the sand under a tree in the peaceful night with a friendly white moon that had a smiling face. The sounds of calming ocean were around me as I sat under glorious bright stars, in disbelief this was who I really was. I opened my eyes.

Later that night, after Santi went to bed, I closed my eyes for meditation. I was right back at the beach.

Strangely, though, there was someone else at the beach leaning against the tree, but I wasn't certain who it truly was. I continued to observe him. He looked like he was an adult Krishna; however, this deity wasn't exactly Krishna. Then I realized it was Shiva.

He wore a leopard skin cloth with three lines on his forehead and a moon in his matted hair, looking at the sea. The sun was setting. Soon he got up to walk along the beach.

Oddly, he was aging quickly as he continued strolling by the ocean. Then, he became an old man walking slowly with a cane. This made me realize something heartbreaking was going to happen and ran to him, but he collapsed and vanished. Only his sea shell was left on the sand.

"Shiva!" I screamed and wanted to cry, but I couldn't. It seemed like something inside me was gone, as well. "Shiva, Shiva!" I screamed again and fell down on my knees. After a while, his image appeared everywhere in the sand, sky, and water, although it didn't lift my spirit. When Shiva died, something inside me also left. I became unmoved and undisturbed inside.

His departure left another message for me to understand: I no longer needed him. Despite the fact I feared Shiva, I still wanted him around. Was there no ego left to destroy? As I walked on the beach, I heard a song arise all around me with some kind of tune "Hooray Krishna" or "Hare Krishna", but I couldn't be sure. I kept walking. Soon, images of myself appeared everywhere; in the sky, on the beach, in the ocean - and a voice from somewhere said, "You are all this. You are this."

As I continued strolling along the beach, in no time I was on land. The wind blew at strong speed. Soon there would also be fire and the extreme wind's force would turn into a deadly hurricane. However, this scene where wind and dirt blew everywhere making it impossible to see, reminded me of the outskirts of Hell.

In front of me was a building or a house with a white dome that looked like it was going to be quickly destroyed. The front of it had already begun to rip off piece by piece from the extreme wind. I stood looking at this, holding Shiva's trishul (trident)* in my right hand, but no wind was strong enough to even sway me. I stood tall and stern like it was nothing.

The wind became exceedingly forceful. I could see Shiva's trishul move in my hand. Immediately the Earth shook, the dome collapsed into pieces. The water started to rise; the golden Buddha statue fell underwater. When I made my way towards the statue to save it, I noticed the water looked golden.

*Shiva's trishul is the weapon used for the destruction of the three worlds: the physical world, the world of the ancestor, and the world of the mind. The destruction of the three worlds brings oneness, wholeness, balance, and bliss. The trishul destroys the world of sufferings: physical, spiritual, and ethereal. Its three spheres (the three prongs on the trident) represent Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; creation, maintenance, and destruction; waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Holding the trishul means Shiva is above all the three states, yet he is the upholder of all three, according to the internet.

The four elements - earth, wind, fire, and water - were used for the grand destruction: ending the world I had known.

When I walked out of the damaged place, the water was already up to the golden Buddha statue's chest, on the shelf. I continued walking and didn't turn back. In a short time the whole place would be flooded. The trees and everything around would crumble down into nothing.

Then I looked over my shoulder to see if the hurricane affected the beach as well. It had some, but not much. In a blink of an eye, when I turned around, everything was destroyed. I stood on a log. Everywhere there was water, debris, logs, and broken pieces of what the mighty storm had done.

There were two dogs sitting on a log far from me. As soon as I saw them, I wanted to rescue them, so I made my way to where they sat by stepping on logs on the water, wanting to keep the two dogs from harm. "Hi," I said when I came close them.

Oddly, however, they seemed to be untouched. One dog was smaller than the other, but the big dog wasn't much bigger. They were very clean, safe, and in perfect condition. The blue shirts they wore were untouched, as though they had lived in a palace and never stepped outside of it, watching the apocalyptic scene before them.

They greeted me, as well. It seemed as though I had friends as we continued sitting and watching the end. Abruptly fireballs began shooting out of nowhere, heading towards where we were. The dogs wanted to seek shelter as they feared for their safety. "We should seek refuge," they suggested.

When I heard their comment, I feigned a smile. The only person I could seek refuge from was myself.

When they were about to leave, one of them asked, "Aren't you coming?" I proceeded to sit quietly, unperturbed, and unfazed while the fireballs came closer.

"No, you guys go ahead," I responded.

"Why?" they asked.

I was silent for a little while before I said, "I'm unshaken."

"Unshaken?" they continued.

"Yes. Unshaken," I slowly repeated.

They soon left. Afterwards, I turned around and stood up. The sun came out immediately. "The storm is gone. Come on. You guys are safe," I yelled; there was no trace of them.

Suddenly everything quickly turned into land. The green grass grew again. The water disappeared. There was nothing left of the disaster. Everything rebuilt itself into something fresh and new. From destruction came renewal, re-creation. On my left, there was golden energy similar to a golden sun with a couple of different colors on its bottom. I walked towards it with a staff in my hand, this time.

It was also extraordinary to see my childhood place where I used to go with my mother to take care of our family's garden in the dense, wooded forest. While walking, I saw myself as my grandfather dressed in a monk's outfit, then turned back to my own form. I remember drinking spring water before heading home with the rest of the villagers after a long, hard day of work. When I glanced at my favorite flower trees, similar to the cherry blossoms in spring where I once sat waiting for my mother and the others to finish, I smiled. As I strolled along the side of the golden sun, I heard a sound coming from somewhere that echoed "holy" before I immersed myself into the golden energy. As I did so, my grandfather, Jesus, Krishna and the others stood in front of me. One of them said, "We have waited."

"I'm here now," I replied.

Following the meditation, Sean saw me in the kitchen pacing as I tried to make dinner. He asked, "What's wrong?" I stopped, looked at him with such an intenseness inside of me that couldn't be described or labeled. It was like one ball of energy swirling, turning, and churning inside of me, which I couldn't label as a feeling. Sometimes I'd walk around holding myself because of it. Somehow Shiva's death made things minuscule, small.

"Shiva is dead. Maybe I'm grieving his loss, but his death makes me unafraid of anything, like nothing can shake me. His death is big. I don't know," I responded.

"God cannot die. Shiva is you. He left because you no longer need him," he said.

"I know, but that doesn't mean I don't mourn him. Now it's all me. I'm it!" I replied, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall holding myself whispering, "I'm it, I'm it."

In other words, I was rising to who I was, Oday La Kingsavanh; Self. After a few days, the intensity slowly subsided, however, I did something that added to what was left.

A week later, after the meditation I just had, I decided to post one of the meditations, where I came to know myself as God to groups on a social networking site. Once I did, energy swirled and churned inside, which again wasn't translatable, so I chose to be with it for a few days.

Now I was telling myself this was who I was beyond conditions. The announcement made me nervous and scared of who I truly was, as well as grieving Shiva's death turned into one ball of energy swirling, turning and blending intensely inside me.

Despite this, I had a dream where my sister, my niece and nephews, and others I didn't know entered the house. They had forgotten to take off their shoes. In the dream, I reminded them to take off their shoes. They said they would, but they didn't; they chose to go on involving themselves with activities. There was little difference between how I was in the dream and outside it; there was no control. When I shared this with Sean, he laughed and told me to let go.

"This is big. I just announced to myself and everyone who I truly am. It's scary," I informed Sean.

"Well, at least you took the risk. I wouldn't know what that is like, to do that. It doesn't matter to me, though," he added. "Now you are who you are, and no one told you who you are. You came to it yourself. Do you have any friends left?"

"Just some," I replied. A couple of days later, I came to accept I couldn't control how others were going to respond, and whether or not people I knew would leave me. Although my fears of being rejected and not accepted for who I was were residual, they weren't going to stop me. I proceeded to share myself anyhow. The more scared I was, the more I faced my fear.

At times, I was all over the place. Somehow I knew it all would come together soon. What I needed to do was flow, allowing myself to unfold and come to union with myself. Sometimes the intensity was overwhelming, that I'd pace around the house or sit on my bed holding myself. The only thing I could do was be completely with what was going on within me.

In the following meditation, an airplane parked in an open field. Its door was open; I walked towards it. Once I got in and sat down, I realized it was similar to the one I had been in before, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to fly in it. Then a glider appeared, I decided to take it instead. After climbing into the glider, I saw myself as its pilot. Someone with white skin and white wings, all in white, just like an archangel, sat on the passenger's side. When I looked closer, I recognized my own face. Before we took off, the pilot asked, "So, you want to go higher?"

"Yes," I replied.

While we were up in the air, strangely, the angel flew out and soared alongside us. Not too much later, there was another angel with black skin and wings, who flew along on the left side. I flew in the middle of both.

We arrived at an open area which I had been to many times before in meditation. There were hot air balloons and many different aircrafts at the site. I climbed up the ladder to get into the hot air balloon parked mid-air; it wasn't moving and came back down. In no time, I realized the hot air balloons, aircrafts, and glider weren't going anywhere. No matter which one I chose, it won't move. Not sure what was going on, I paced back and forth looking up at them.

Suddenly a thought came to me. Maybe it was time to meet Brahma; the Hindu God, the Creator. As I paced, I yelled, "Brahma! Brahma! Show me what I have forgotten about myself. Show me! Remind me!"

Soon a silver metal blimp made its way to the ground. Once it landed, the door opened, and I walked to it. Before I stepped inside, Brahma asked, "Did you lose your mind?" I started laughing at His question.

"Yes, I completely left it. I totally have gone out of it."

"Good," he commented then asked: "Are you ready?" after I sat down.

Immediately I answered "Yes," then I became quiet because I was still afraid and the intensity hadn't fully diminished. "I'm ready enough," I responded.

"You will take yourself there," He told me.

"Okay," I said. It was strange to see the four heads on Him, which made me feel a bit awkward, but then I accepted this awkwardness. The space blimp ascended from the ground and hovered halfway because strings kept it from completely going up. Brahma commanded, "Cut all the strings!"

As each string was severed, I felt liberated; a release from letting go of the attachment, so I could be free. Once the strings were cut, the blimp headed toward the golden sun. I came out of meditation.

Following this meditation, anytime I closed my eyes to meditate, I witnessed myself taking orders from myself - saying, "I want to rewrite everything. I want everything new: new hearing, new vision, and new ideas; all new." Now it was me who was the creator and director of my own life, not what I had been taught, told, and learned, but from Self; the now, the fresh, and the new.

Some days the intensity was more overwhelming than other days. Images of me smoking a cigar appeared every time I closed my eyes. One time I smoked a cigar to its very end, and kept sucking on it before it was gone, to get a puff. When I opened my eyes, I held myself saying, "Relax, relax, relax." It seemed I couldn't describe what was happening. There was no language for it, and chose to be with what was going on by listening deeply. When I became more intense than usual, I'd distract myself by watching movies night after night, or go on social networking sites. I'd also take baths twice or more a day to calm myself. Eventually, I chose to stop to truly listen.

More and more, I noticed a deep peace within me, which wasn't easily moved by the many things that would normally be considered disheartening. Once the intensity waned, it was replaced by complete peace and silence that were here to stay. Most of the time I'd reply "Okay" toward life circumstances that were considered to be major: divorce, death, terminal illness, and other distresses happening around me and elsewhere.

Frankly, there were no labels or names for the changes transpiring within me. I was one with what was at the moment. "The moment" was who I was. The only thing that had significance was being with myself totally and completely in the here and the now. Nothing else appeared to be important except for this.

Then one day, while I took a second bath, I lay in the tub quietly, relaxing. Then, slowly, subtly, and calmly, an absolute peace, silence, unconditional love, and joy overcame me. I smiled with tears in my eyes. "I've made it," I told myself. I encountered this comfortableness, and ease before, but today it all came together so gently and quietly. Everything was okay and perfect just the way it was.

After finished taking a bath, I dried myself and sat on the bathroom floor, holding myself saying, "I've made it." When Sean came into the bathroom to get something, I got up to wash my face. "I've made it. Let's go celebrate. We could ask your parents to watch Santi," I told him.

"Isn't every day a celebration?" he asked.

"Yes, it is. But today I am Self, so I'd like to go celebrate. I'll just go by myself to eat pho, then." While sitting at the restaurant at ease with myself, I was also in disbelief everything had come together. It wasn't earthshaking, moving, or shattering like it was when I came to awaken: there was just ease and calmness of being Self; of being Oday La Kingsavanh. The doubts of who I was disappeared. I was Self. When I interacted with others, I was comfortable, relaxed, calm, and enjoyed the moment of oneness and freedom. There was no question or answer; all was just was.

Normally, when I had lunch with my sister, I'd feel uneasy, disagree with her views, and judge them. Now it was different. I just enjoyed her presence, her company, and the oneness of it all. All of it was calming, peaceful, and deeply accepted and welcomed. There were no judgments or thoughts for any of it: just now; Self.

In meditation, I found myself at a peaceful forest again, with yellow golden leaves falling from the birch trees covering the ground. As I examined the scenery, I became enchanted with such perfection. Everywhere, brilliant-yellow golden leaves sheltered the surroundings. Before, the leaves were still falling, but now it looked as though they were almost done. I decided to pick up one of the leaves and held it in my hand. While looking at it, it quickly turned brown, as did the others on the ground. In no time, they turned to ashes and dirt before all of them disappeared.

Another version of myself appeared as the clearest, formless, purest transparent energy, walking along the serene, tranquil, quiet creek watching the flawless, untouched water. She hadn't been there before. As I watched her, I commented, "You don't have a form."

"I thought I did," she responded as she continued walking and observing the crystal clear, immaculate water. While watching her with only the deepest, absolute love, I smiled.

"You have a name?" I asked.

"I'm unnamed," she replied. Again, I beamed with only absolute peace and purest love.

Soon, I witnessed a few white horses and unicorns heading my way. The magnificent creatures were pure, porcelain white like I had never seen before. I opened my arms wide welcoming them. This time, they had eyes unlike before when I first saw them, they didn't have eyes. Soon though, the glorious creatures were without eyes. I hopped on one of them, but before taking off I asked, "Why don't they have eyes?"

"They are not needed here," she answered. "They have a different kind of eye."

Once more I gently smiled. "I've got it. Thank you," I told her.

When the horses were about to fly up to the sky, there were trees in front of them, but they flew right through them as though there were no trees. I smiled. All that I was - was just thoughts of who I was. Beyond this - I was unimaginable and indescribable.

As I rode on the splendid, powerful creature, I welcomed the formless, nameless, soundless of who I was: the vibration of continuous movement, one-ness, unconditional love, and the absolute silence of undisturbed peace, joy, freedom, and bliss.

Approximately six months later, I was in great intensity again, of and on for over a month; however, similar to before, I couldn't describe this intensity in words because it wasn't a feeling or an emotion. When I read something, it was at an incredibly fast mode where my eyes scanned through words and sentences at a very quick pace. When I watched a show or commercial, they seemed to move very slowly, so I stopped watching.

In addition, when I made corrections on the manuscript that was edited, I would do them quickly. When I tried to slow down, I would be intense. For some reason, I wanted to finish the second memoir I'd been working on. I wanted to be done with editing it, and it seemed it was taking longer than I wanted. It may have been I reviewed the memoir quickly. When I shared this with Sean one night to gain insight, he said, "Are you running from something?"

"I don't know," I responded.

When I closed my eyes for meditation, I walked into a hall. When I was at the center of it, I noticed both sides of the hall had glossy wooden Buddha carvings. Suddenly I said, "This is a shift!" As I continued walking down Buddha Hall, a golden wormhole appeared in front of me. I flew right into it.

While traveling down the wormhole, I came across two wormholes that I wasn't sure which one I should take. I waited. Then, one of the wormholes had a shiny golden light; I took that route. Soon, I came to a big pillar. It seemed as though there was a wall behind it, and there wasn't a wormhole to continue. Then I saw the tail of a creature pass by. I wasn't certain what it was. It made its way around the pillar and other pillars next to the one directly across from me. It seemed this was a dungeon.

When the creature made its way back, I saw its face. A golden dragon?

It looked as though the dragon wanted to leave this place, so I led the magnificent creature back to the entrance. When we came close to the entranceway, I stood aside letting the dragon pass by. I shouted, "You are released!" The golden creature flew out of the wormhole. I was right behind it. Then it flew out of Buddha Hall. Instead of flying after it, I just stood there watching it flew away.

When I walked out of the hall, suddenly I was in chains tied to a pole. Below my feet was a fire growing into a bonfire that would burn me alive, however, I stood still without trying to move or get out. Then, the fire burned off the chains on my ankles and wrists. I was released and walked on. A famous actor appeared dressed in a Roman warrior outfit. He looked at the land and examined the soil beneath his feet. I noticed the red, gray, and dark clouds moving above him, on the ground as well as around him. It was though looking at a three-dimensional figure. He bent down to observe the dirt, touching it with his hand.

When I witnessed this, I knelt down to look at the dirt, myself. It made me realize he wanted to plant something as if he wanted to start something new, like a new life for himself. It seemed he left his old life behind. Then, he vanished. As I continued to look at the ground, a brown and white cow appeared in front of me. I touched the soil. It was ready to be used for farming or some sort of activity. I can plant something here. The cow disappeared.

I want to plant lettuce. Quickly, the lettuce grew in rows throughout the land, yet they were not fully developed. They were still covered with dirt. Curious, I knelt down to observe, and noticed the dirt was dry. It needed rain. I said, "Rain!" It rained, watering the lettuce. The lettuce grew beautifully.

Then a gold flute appeared in my hand. I didn't know how to handle the flute; I almost dropped it. Furthermore, I didn't know which way was heads or tails and didn't know how to play it. Then more musical instruments appeared, in gold. Unsure what was going on, I opened my eyes.

As I lay in bed processing what was occurring within me recently, I realized if I slowed down even more, I would be just inhaling and exhaling. The realization sort of scared me because at least before, I had something. Even if I was nobody, that was still something. Now, I'd be completely nothing; empty.

One evening Santi yelled, screaming at me while I gave him a bath. He didn't want to get wet so I yelled back, walked to my bedroom, and closed the door. It seemed at times anything could add to this intensity, and at other times nothing could deflect what I was going through. There was a big shift within me, which I couldn't fully comprehend what it really was. Sean came in later to ask if I wanted to talk. He walked downstairs. I followed him into the kitchen while Santi stayed in the bathtub, playing, and enjoying his bath with his bath toys.

Sean asked, "What's going on?"

"I don't know. I have been truly intense for over a month now and I can't figure out what's going on," I responded.

"Do you always need to know what's going on? Let go of your control!" he suggested.

"I just want to understand myself," I told him.

"Tell me what you are feeling," he said.

"I don't know. I cannot describe it. I just can't! It's not a feeling or an emotion. It's like one ball of energy rolling, swirling inside me. I can't tell what it really is. There's no distinction. I can't describe it," I reiterated.

"Then don't describe it," he shared.

While pausing for a little bit before I told him, "It's like I know nothing. I don't know anything at all. If I slow myself down even more, I'll just be inhaling and exhaling. That's what I came to understand when I listened to what was going on with me last week."

"You're a 'thought'!" he shouted.

As I reflected on what he said and listened to him, I also kept saying phrases like "I don't know" and "it doesn't matter." He then told me everything mattered to me since I created everything around me.

"I meant there's no matter inside me. I am air. I am nothing completely and totally, and I know nothing. I don't even know myself. I don't even know who I am. It's like I'm nonsense. I don't make sense," I explained. Sean looked at me as though he was waiting for me to finish what I meant by 'nonsense'. "I have no senses of right and wrong, left or right, or anything at all. I also don't know myself. It's like there's no me. I'm self-less." Then I paused.

"That's okay," Sean replied.

"I have nothing because I am nothing; empty. I know nothing because I'm nothing. I don't know myself because there is no me." Then I paused again, listened to what I just verbalized while watching Sean put away dishes. It was like liberation so moments later, I said, "This is the ultimate freedom."

Sean continued putting away plates and spoons. "Yep. It looks like you have emptied out your bucket; a bucket that was full of sand. You can now do anything.

You can fill up the bucket if you want to or not," he informed me.

"With what? Sand? After I just worked my ass off to put it away?" I asked.

"No. Anything you want. You now have a choice. You can put in corn. Isn't that what you planted in your meditation?"

"No. Lettuce. I walked out of Buddha Hall, and everything was completely empty except for dirt on the ground that appeared ready to be used to grow something. So I grew lettuce," I clarified. "Krishna's flute appeared in my hand in gold. I didn't even know how to play it. I didn't know where to start or which was heads or tails. Then other musical instruments appeared, also in gold."

"You can be inside the house and also be outside of the house, just by staying in one place," he explained. "Since you know nothing and there's nothing, which means there is no wall right here or no roof on the house."

This also meant I never was anyone or anything nor had I gone anywhere. I just thought I was someone and I had gone somewhere.

The intensity persisted although it wasn't continuous. There were little breaks in between. Increasing; however, I noticed I was more airy, still, empty, and desire-less inside. One morning, after I'd finished taking a shower, I bent down to get gel for my hair in the cabinet under the sink. Despite there was no desire for me to take care of my hair, since I was empty, airy, I decided to rub the hair product on it. As I touched my hair, I stopped. I have hair? In disbelief I wanted to cry tears of joy, but I couldn't. Then I looked at my hands and couldn't believe I had hands. Oh my gosh! I continued to observe my hands and fingers in disbelief. I made my hands appear with just a thought, instantly, right now. Oh my gosh! I sat on the floor in the bathroom for few more seconds. I'm responsible for everything. I make all this up. I make a tree appear when there's no tree. I am responsible for all of it. I put everything here.

The intensity continued, which was now becoming more consistent and worse than before. After Santi ate his breakfast, he was asked to watch his shows, whichever kid shows he wanted, so I could take a shower before dropping him off to school. I walked to the bathroom with much intensity and hopped into the shower. What the fuck is going on? What the fuck? Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!

While I took a very long shower to find relief by taking small breaths, I also tried to understand what was transpiring within me. Once the intensity slowed down for a split second, I listened and noticed I felt an emotion very briefly. Strange. I'm unsure of which emotion since it was quick, but it immediately rolled right into one. Then, there was no difference or distinction. I was what was right then and there and nothing more: the instant; the here and the now. Then I realized I hadn't been experiencing much, feeling much, doing much, or reacted to anything lately. It appeared as though I was neither this nor that, but neutral about everything - unbiased, unattached, and unemotional. I'm just Is: complete silence and bliss. This is what is called 'Nirvana'. I came to this six months ago and now I'm this - Is.

A few days later I noticed something else happening. Everything became an instant as though it had just arrived. This included commercials on TV, movies I'd watched, and the songs I heard on the radio on my way to drop off Santi at school and on my way back. The houses alongside the streets, buildings, trees, clouds, and so on appeared in this instant. It was as though being in a whole new world.

Increasingly, I also recognized I was a medium of everything, as if I was complete and incomplete, full and empty, everything and nothing, existence and non-existence all at once like I was the middle, the center of it all. It was as though I was whole. When I drove home one day after getting my coffee, I looked at everything around me and it was different, but I couldn't describe this. A while ago, I told Sean I missed myself. Now this was me, whole; the absolute of everything and nothing instantly, here, now. This made me want to cry, but I couldn't.

When I closed my eyes to relax, this time I found myself sitting in a straw hut on top of a big, lush tree, looking at other trees with soft leaves, white rabbits hopping on the ground, moving clouds in the sky, and a calming ocean behind the trees. Suddenly, a shiny and shimmering golden flute appeared in my hand. I looked at it before playing the instrument. First, I blew into a middle hole on the flute. It made sound. I continued playing. Then, I blew into one end of the flute before switching to the other end, making a melody. Once I was done, I twirled the flute in my hand. I could play the flute whichever way I chose.

I played again. This time the trees in front of me were swaying and flowing peacefully to the rhythm of the flute. I smiled inside. The white rabbits began moving to the tune, as well as everything around me; the clouds, the grass on the ground, the trees, and the ocean moved to the tune. When I was done, they clapped as though they had hands. I took a bow.

Afterwards, I stepped down from the hut to go lean against the tree. "Thank you for the calming and peaceful sound of your music," said the tree. Suddenly the tree grew arms wrapping them around me.

"You're welcome," I finally said and started to climb this tree. I climbed and climbed then noticed the tree stretched itself very far up, to help me reach the sky. Once it wasn't able to extend anymore, I told the tree, "There's no need to stretch yourself. I can take it from here. Thank you." When I was above the clouds, I walked on nothing.

As days passed, the intensity was to the extreme, at its highest peak that I couldn't do much except be by myself. There was no desire to do anything except for simple daily routines such as taking care of Santi, eating, sleeping and so on. I was empty, still, motionless, and desire-less. However, the intensity that wasn't recognized as a feeling or an emotion was continuous, to where it was non-stop. There was no break in between. It seemed impossible for me to do much, but to be with what was going on.

After I dropped Santi off at school, I came home to lie down in my bed, unmoving, still, empty, and without desire. At times I wasn't sure if I could bear what I was going through. It had been over months, and it was now to the point I didn't leave the house except picking up and dropping Santi off at school. Otherwise, I was home in my room empty, unmoving, still, and desire-less with great intensity that wouldn't fade.

Frequently, I'd take baths couple times a day or more to find relief, although it wasn't too much of a help. Most often I'd hold myself motionless in my room - blank and mindless. It was though I was non-mind, body or even soul; non-being, doing or moving. I was just there - empty, unmoving, still, unseen, without any desire. When the intensity got to be immense, I had to take small deep breaths to breathe.

After Santi was dropped off at school one afternoon, I came home and sat outside on the deck holding myself with such immense intenseness. Maybe I can lie on the floor and dissolve, die, disappear. Then I looked at the yard blankly, mindlessly, and unmoving as if I wasn't really looking or seeing anything at all. I can't even die. I'll be back again doing this. There's no escape.

Sean got off work early that day since he'd gone in a few hours before his schedule. He went inside the house to take a nap, but he decided to come back out later. He sat on the other side of the table. He said the weather was too nice to sleep in, and briefly talked about his day at work before I shared with him my frustration with Santi in the morning.

Santi didn't want to put on his clothes by himself after he was shown numerous times for over months. Despite the fact there was zero desire to do so, I made myself talk. The frustration with Santi wasn't even there since I had no emotion, but it seemed as though I put on this feeling briefly to get my point across. Then, it was gone almost instantly as if it wasn't even there. Sometimes taking care of Santi while going through this wasn't easy, since the intensity was non-stop and his tantrums could enhance the intenseness differently, which I couldn't fully describe, to where I had to go to a different room and hold myself.

Sean looked at me then I told him, "I have been completely empty, still, and I don't have much desire in me for a while now." I paused. Sean waited for me to continue. "Every day, I come home and lie down either in bed or on the floor, unmoving, completely still with such intensity until I have to pick up Santi. I wait for Santi to come home so I can feel something: complete love for him." Then, I closed my eyes wrapping my arms around my chest.

"What about love for yourself?" Sean asked.

"I don't have a self. There's no me. I don't even remember who I used to be. I get a very quick glimpse of it then it's gone, just like the wind; like it was never there in the first place," I slowly replied. It was a dream.

"There's Self," Sean replied.

Love for Self is immeasurable, indescribable.

"I meant self as..." Sean interrupted me, so I didn't finish what I was trying to convey about an individual or conditioned self I used to identify with now no longer existed.

"I know what you mean. Don't hold on to it," he told me.

We sat quietly. Sean was enjoying the nice climate while I endured the intenseness, as the energy that couldn't be distinguished or differentiated swirled, turned, and blended within me, making it truly excruciating to where I wasn't sure if I could go on at all. It seemed like death was far easier than what I was going through. Maybe I need a break. Maybe I should stop. But I'm the unknown now so I need to keep going. Maybe I can take a couple days or two weeks' break.

"You'd never know the house, the tree, and the clouds are here or exist, if you weren't taught that." Sean continued talking.

"All that I am is what Is," I said to Sean, then closed my eyes. It was to the point I couldn't withstand, but I couldn't even die.

"You're building strength," he commented as he was looking at me.

That's true. I'm stronger with pure strength.

While I proceeded to sit quietly with my eyes shut. Sean told me I was lost although I wasn't certain how our conversation led up to where he had to inform me of this. Even though there was neither lost nor found in me, I answered. "It's true. I have no self. I know nothing; I don't have senses of any kind. My world has been turned upside down, but I'm okay with it. I'm okay with everything." Then, I took small deep breaths.

"That will help you be more relaxed. Maybe it's time to put conditions on yourself," he continued.

There was a long pause before I began to talk again, slowly. Even talking could amplify the intensity in a different way. Since I hadn't talk much or interact much with anyone including Sean although we live in the same house, I made myself communicate with him. Many family events were cancelled or declined.

"I have conditions. I wake up, I eat, I drink, and I drop Santi off at school and then pick him up. I like to drink coffee and go eat pho at a restaurant. I smile at everyone I see."

He laughed before he said, "You need more than that to live."

"In two of my mediations, I saw myself extinguishing candles. When I climbed up the mountain on a rope ladder, a candle was blown out. This happened every time I climbed. Then, a couple of days ago, I was surrounded by Buddha's image. There were at least ten candles or more around me. I was able to blow out all of them except one. I couldn't. It turned into a fire, almost like a small torch. Then, the image of Buddha came to life and sucked the flame into his mouth then blew out smoke from the flame.

'It is now extinguished completely', he said before he vanished. "I'm not sure why I still blow out candles. I thought I did all of this five or six months ago."

"What does blowing out candles mean?" Sean asked.

"Letting go; extinguishing," I answered then closed my eyes as though I couldn't make myself talk anymore.

"You'll just be enjoying yourself, now," he told me.

Sean was working on the yard while I sat blankly, mindlessly with nothing except emptiness, stillness, desire-less, and unmoving. There was nothing in me - neither life nor death. I was what was right then and there; an instant now and nothing more. Although there wasn't any desire in me to help, but I chose to anyway just to move or maybe distract myself to find relief. Once we were done, I went upstairs and curled up in fetal position and be with the emptiness, stillness, unmoving, and no desire with great intensity that wouldn't diminish. Often while Sean and Santi were having dinner, I'd be upstairs holding myself or taking another bath or sit blankly, mindlessly enduring the intensity.

A few days later, when it gradually slowed down, the whole world in front of me changed as if it had been transcended, transformed. While our family was out buying plants to grow in the yard, I decided to wait in the car instead of going inside the store since I was still in intensity. Since I haven't been out for some time, I came along. While looking around, I noticed everything seemed to be transparent including the man mowing the lawn on the side of the road; the cars in car lot, people walking by, and cars passing. Then, while sitting in the car on our way home, I looked at everyone and everything, observing how they were all blissful, joyful, and peaceful instantly, here and now. There weren't worries or seriousness, but absolute love and silence. Everything was fresh and new as though I could see through the transparency.

This is God's world! Oh my gosh! This is Heaven - Nirvana. I can't believe it.

As we drove, I looked at the ground because there didn't seem to be a foundation underneath me. It seemed as though nothing was there, but at the same time it was there. I could see the clouds from above while Sean was driving home, as well as the road and everything around me, all at once. This whole existence was all brand new, like I was in another dimension.

Moreover, it appeared that my hearing and vision had also become limitless as I could hear and see through the infinite of all things. Everything I saw, heard and who I was turned into the language of the eternal beloved. After the intensity subsided, within me was replaced by deep peace, silence, bliss, and unconditional love. When the lawn mower cut through the grass in the neighbor's yard, I could hear the sound of the eternal truth seeping through my skin. My veins, vessels, and every part of me were in tune with the Source of who I truly was - the eternal now.

Everything and nothing happened simultaneously and instantly like I was in two worlds at once. Everything and nothing, being and non-being, existence and non-existence come together in union, and I was the middle, the center.

Everything was invisible and visible instantaneously, here, now - the eternal moment. I was the unseen and seen all at the same time, and never was separated. I smiled to everyone though there was no one else except Truth, Love; Self.

At times, I wanted to cry tears of joy in disbelief I was truly here, but I couldn't. No expression can justify describing this. There was nothing else here except absolute love.

As I continued strolling down the neighborhood streets one night, I understood love for Self was what had brought me here. While standing on the side of the road, I realized I had liberated myself from all the imaginings and dreams. Who I thought I was, was simply was just a thought.

When I closed my eyes before going to bed, I found myself walking on the road carried a black, plastic garbage bag with something in it (I'm unsure of what was inside the bag because I didn't look). Suddenly, statues of golden, shiny and shimmering Buddha appeared everywhere not too far ahead of me. They were lying around, standing, sitting, meditating, and more. In awe at the sight while looking at what was in front of me. Once I reached the golden Buddha Land, a couple of ladies stopped me by the gate. They said, "You can't bring that in here. It is not allowed." They referred to my garbage bag.

"Where is the garbage dump, so I can drop this off? It's my last load." Realizing they referred to my last condition and attachment that was left. Once I found the dump site, just outside the land, I tossed the garbage bag into the water. It floated away in streams surrounded by green, tall grass. It was dawn. The soft, beautiful sun was setting.

Afterwards, I walked inside golden Buddha Land, looking and observing its magnificence. Some of the golden Buddha statues were above the clouds. Then, I saw a canoe and got in, paddling alongside golden land on a peaceful river. As I kept paddling, observing this golden, luminous and shiny land, I whispered, "Nirvana" before I flew up so high above it, looking at the shimmering land from below me, as I walked on nothing. I opened my eyes.

Conclusion

When I was newly awakened, my grandfather kept encouraging me to walk toward the golden sun whenever I shut my eyes to meditate. He suggested I open my center as wide and as much as I could when I was ready. He also reminded me to burn down the old, so I could get the new.

Back then, I didn't understand deeply what my grandfather meant because I thought I had opened my center when I woke up. Enlightenment was not the end, but a beginning of my path leading me to who I truly was - One. It didn't enter my mind I had to continue facing myself until my thoughts, perceptions, desires, negative emotions blinded me - where I wasn't whole, one, and in deep and utterly peace and bliss as when I awakened. In order for me to attain true peace, liberation and salvation, bliss, and love that couldn't be disturbed or touched, I endlessly and ceaselessly confronted who I was until there was nothing left; to where I was empty, still, with no desire, and to where I knew nothing.

Numerous times, I wanted to give up when the transformation was immense, almost impossible to bear when the door became completely narrowed, but I continued since the desire to be who I truly was, was monumental that it could move any mountain in my way.

Now, here I am after peeling off the conditions and facing my attachments persistently. I come to the very core of Self; to where I am boundless, limitless, and without description or language to describe; to where I am without attachment. My thoughts and conditions have come down to the simplest, only for what I need to live and enjoy; ones I choose to keep.

I have nothing else except the here and the now. All I have is now and all that I am is now, the eternal moment; Is, One; Whole.

I am no different, without any distinction but same with all unconditionally. Everyone's cry is my cry, everyone's woe is also my woe, everyone's joy is my joy, and everyone's laughter is also my laughter.

This is who I am, and this is what I am writing now. "Oday La Kingsavanh" is yet another name for Eternal Beloved. I am Self - the absolute love, peace, joy, and silence - God; Nirvana.

"Every path leads you to yourself."

### Acknowledgements

I'd like to offer my gratitude to my late grandfather, who helped raise me in my younger years and guided me in meditation in my adult life, so I could come to realize myself beyond impermanence. I am deeply appreciative of your love and kindness.

I'd like to thank other worldly guides: Shiva, Krishna, Buddha, Hanuman, Ganesh, Osho, Quin Yin, and Jesus for leading me to the truth and to be who I really am: The Eternal Beloved.

I'd like to thank Sean and Santi for being with me as ones I truly love and adore. Santi, I can't thank you enough for giving me the deepest joy of being your mother - the experience that I always cherish and can never forget.

I'd like to thank my late father and late mother for giving me experiences to grow into myself. I'd like to thank my sister and brother-in-law for being my family. I'd also like to thank my beautiful niece, Ava and my nephews Ben, Saylom, and Logan, for being who they are: loving. You guys have helped me tremendously in this journey as well. I always look forward to spend time with you all.

I'd like to thank Bob, Margie, and Steve Weiler, for being part of my family. Thank you for your love and support. Thanks for always looking after Santi and loving him kindly.

I'd like to thank Diane Donavan and Kris Colvin for being truly kind, patient, hardworking, and a helpful editors. www.donavansliteraryservices.com

Finally, I'd like thank One, Self - the love of all love, the Eternal Beloved, the eternal now, silence and bliss - Nirvana.

### About the Author

Oday La Kingsavanh was born in Savannakhet, Laos in 1972 and immigrated with her family to the United States in 1983. She began school in sixth grade knowing hardly any English but, determined to succeed academically, obtained her BS in Psychology in 1996, her MA in Counseling Psychology in 2001, and her doctorate degree in Counselor Education and Supervision in 2009.

She began meditation to find focus and ways of releasing stress; but her immersion in meditation would lead her to understand herself more than she had hoped or expected.

She lives in Illinois and enjoys spending time with her family. Her deepest desire is to share her transformations, which move beyond right and wrong, good and bad, or left and right with everyone.

Website: http://www.odaykingsavanh.com

### Author's Other Book

### All and Nothing: A Memoir of Attaining Enlightenment, 2015

