...to examine the psychology of her past self. For what it's worth, I think that's probably not the way to go. One needs to go forwards from where one finds oneself *now*, regardless of how one got to the present point.

Surely they are both inextricably connected ? I don't think it is an either/or.

Clearly the important thing is to go forward from where you are now, yes. But for some people (and I am one of them) until and unless I deconstruct to some extent my past involvement, and why I fell for it, and work through any grief or anger I may feel, then any 'going forward' has a huge brake on it. Like a person trying to walk forward but dragging a large heavy anchor behind them.

The really important thing, I think, is to go forward freely, and for many people that does mean spending some time to disentangle that heavy weight that is tied around them. But to only dwell on the past, and never use what you learn from it to go forward, is as you say, 'not the way to go'.

We are all different of course. I read somewhere a statistic which said that after a deep personal tragedy (in which I would include giving your life to Maharaji for some years): 1 in 4 people shrug it off and move on immediately, 1 in 4 are so traumatised by it that they never move on, and the remaining 2 in 4 can get beyond it only after some effort at coming to terms with it first. This is probably just pop psychology, but I think the reality is something like that.