Olga Christine – Inner Space

It was not much more than 10 years ago, around 2000, that I believed spiritual pursuits to be largely a waste of time. Obviously something has changed dramatically. I think as it was once eloquently put by someone with vision, that I was extremely unhappy with my life before I started pursuing a spiritual path. However it was a comfortable life with all the usual material gains, professional status and excellent appreciation of the finer things. As such it was not easy to understand what was wrong but there were times when I was incredibly unhappy. I also became very sick, had cancer, surgery and radiotherapy and afterwards could not feel well again. Eventually I exhausted all the usual medical therapies and started exploring alternative therapies and very slowly and tentatively wondered what they were really about. But mostly, I believed that alternative or new age type people were just eccentric or were social misfits.

One morning I woke up with the very clear notion in my head to attend a Festival that I would normally avoid like the plague. I spent as little time there as possible and walked straight past the stand from the Clairvision School (www. clairvision.org). Someone there grabbed me. I reluctantly attended a weekend workshop and then simply because the idea would not go away I later attended a residential retreat and participated a little more, always keeping my options open, and decided to keep going until there was a reason to stop.

After about 4 years of attending classes and retreats with this school I took leave from management consulting activities in 2006 to take on full time meditation studies. I wanted to be different – whatever that might be. I spent 6 months a year at the Clairvision US retreat centre and the other 6 months at the Australian retreat centre.  I fell in love with solo meditation. Meditating in a hut completely alone in the Australian bush, far from everyone, for very long periods of time, up to 9 weeks for one sit. My food was dropped off weekly and I had to phone in once to a week to as a mental health check because long term meditation can be dangerous if the person is not well prepared and monitored. Meditation is for me among the most wondrous of all spiritual pursuits. When you are there flying high in the cosmic sense there is nothing else you want or need.

The following two years were somewhat transitional, travelling and exploring. I am now enrolled in the University of Philosophical Research as a student of Consciousness Studies. A great institute of wisdom where with every course and lecture there is potential for greater insight into ourselves and the world around us.

Professionally I will be be aiming to explore better models for capacity development methods for communities and organizations.

This blog is my regular exercise to write and share experiences in whatever different spiritual contexts I encounter: ancient places; land energies; traditional icons; the spirit and becoming, and expressing my devotion to the journey.