Hi Bob !!

What a nice little surprise to see you back...major heart lift for me as I check in with EPO today...I took a little time off myself...not feeling so great lately and always weary of spreading my darkness...

Anyway...I popped in and saw your name...13 and others too...and was just so happy to see old friends re connect...so glad you're doing well...I've sure missed you.

Just wanted to chime in on the "non physical suicide" you and Jethro are talking about.  I call it "virtual suicide" in my book...when I talk about the countless times I've destroyed my life...or it's been destroyed for me.  I like the term "self abandonment" too...very fitting I think, rings just as sad...and probably more accurate in so many of my cases.  How great it is that we keep it the realm of surreal and are here to talk about it for real.  

I'm sure that's exactly what my Dad was after, total abandonment of the self he'd become and despised.  The guru's demands for total devotion and dismantling of the mind were just what he'd need to erase himself.  I've been thinking a lot lately about what it takes to be a soldier...what being a Marine in the Vietnam War did to him...and how he got so lost in trying to live the opposite way when he got home...

The more I think about it, the more I see that he was probably always looking for the feeling of total freedom...the abandonment of past pain...the kind that only comes from death...and going through his own cycles of virtual suicide.  He was trying to kill the soldier within and whatever that part of him had to do.  And being told to forsake an abusive father for a child god, was probably a gift to him, not a hardship.  I'm sure killing the son he was, felt like a huge burden lifted.  Oh so logical and making perfect sense...until it doesn't.  Until the suicide isn't virtual anymore.

The guru is just an enormous enabler of mental and soul unease.  My Dad needed to erase himself and the guru helped him do it...but not even The Lord of the universe can erase the pain of war.  I wish he would have had real help for the PTSD within the DLM instead of just painting it black...I coulda had a different story to tell.

There I go spilling out my sorrow...sorry...I really just wanted to let you know of my joy upon your return...great to see you back!

Love,

Genny

P.s.  All of you...on forgiveness...

If you are here and free of him and talking about it and helping people like me every day...than you should absolutely be forgiving yourself 100% for the very fact that you're here.  IMHO.  In the book, I talk a little about how forgiveness, for me, is fluid.  It gets lost sometimes, but feels so good when you accidentally stumble upon it in the middle of the night ...and put it back where it belongs.  I also really love the idea that some things are simply unforgivable.  It is of the divine after all and I like being human and low...don't know if I'll ever forgive the guru...don't plan on it...but I forgive my dad every day.