The time I started crying in a temple in India when looking behind a pipe

Surprises can await us at any moment in life

I was very excited to travel to India the very first time in my life. Somehow, I always was drawn to this country, since I was little. I imagined it to be beautiful, colorful, full of nature and feeling very well there. With 36 years my first trip to India finally happened.

By then I have been doing Mantra Meditations for two years, in a class setting with my teacher Elisa and by myself as well. Through that setting I also got to know my other teacher and I started in his School of Natural and Spiritual sciences.

Therefore, my first trip to India was of spiritual nature, with some of my fellow students and Elisa as well. These ten days I spend in India for the first time were magnificent! I loved everything about it. It was beautiful, colorful and I enjoyed the nature, as well as the people, our hosts, the food, the animals, the clothes, even the heat and the noise did not bother me, and I am usually sensitive to these. I felt like I came home.

We visited many holy places and temples, went to the Himalayas, did prayers and experienced India and all the energies that were floating around in a very safe group of people.

I knew with the work that I have been doing on myself, my increased awareness and improved use of my intuition, that such a trip might lead to some breakdowns, or let’s rather call them breakthroughs. At the same time, I decided to not have expectations & just go with the flow.

Naturally, my first breakthrough happened out of nowhere…

We went to a temple in Delhi, walked around, sang mantras, spoke prayers, looked at the beautiful statues of gods and goddesses and enjoyed the feeling of being in this sacred space.

On our way out back to the bus, lizards running on the wall caught my attention. I immediately went there to be closer to them and observe them better, this made me drop at the end of our group and I got a bit sidetracked.

I love to look at animals and I always feel drawn to them. I followed the two lizards when they ran around the corner of the wall, behind a pipe. I walked there, looked behind the pipe to tried to see them better & I also wanted to touch them. I couldn’t see them properly, so I went back around the pipe and then it happened…

I suddenly looked at the most horrible scenario… all took just seconds: I felt like something was squeezing my heart, at the same time an intense shock was going through my whole body, tension appeared, tears wanted to flow, a complete overload of my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual body and system, all at the same time.

I looked at the lizards, both of them light, milky-yellow, with huge black eyes, no pupils, the contrast of the light body and the dark eyes was intense. It was a large lizard and a smaller one. The horror was, that the large lizard was holding the small one in his mouth, it was dead, hanging there with his huge black eyes, directed at me, while its predator stared at me as well. The big one killed the small one, from the same species… when they were chasing each other on the walls before, it was a life-or-death situation.

I felt terrified, horrible, hurt, full of pain, I wanted to cry, but then I tried to suppress my crying, trying to get myself together… by that time the others were already almost in the bus. I turned away from this horrible scenario, walked to my shoes, directed myself to the exit of the temple & towards the bus, all the time telling myself to control my feelings, to not burst out, not to cry, to just get my sh** together!

While walking towards the bus, I saw Elisa was waiting for me, looking into my direction, she immediately knew something was going on… I came, we entered the bus, sat next to each other… I don’t know anymore what exactly happened when, but I know she took my hand, held it & I just bursted out in tears. I think I cried and sobbed for 10 or 15 minutes, or at least it felt like that… all the feelings and emotions, the fear, the terror, the pain got released at once, while she was holding space for me, hugging me and just being there.

When I calmed down, I told her what happened, how terrible the scene was that I witnessed, what went through my mind & heart, it was nothing logical, just a huge pile of fear, pain, torture… the black eyes of the lizards represented all the deep darkness in the world, the darkness in those lizards, darkness in people, darkness in the whole universe. In contrast to their light skin and all the light in the world, the light of those lizards, the light in people, the light of nature, the light of the universe… the fact that those two always exist together, one can’t be without the other, they co-exist in the same species, in each creature, in each person, even in myself…

In that moment, I knew and felt that I can’t handle darkness very well. It was not such a surprising fact to realize, I don’t like to watch violent movies, psychological terror, physical pain inflicted upon others, I don’t like to see it or hear it, or knowing it happens to someone I know. While I also know about its existence at the same time… it’s a conundrum holding space for both together.

Seeing two creatures from the same species killing each other was an analogy for me for all kinds of things, mainly the cruelty that people have towards each other, towards other species, towards nature, the fact that killing and murdering is happening, while some of it is done under a “light” vail of justice and presumable necessity, even though these actions are deeply cruel and full off darkness.

Knowing all this, seeing this scenery & realizing all this at once in these two little lizards was just too much for me and the deep sadness and devastation needed a release. It also reminded me of another situation in my past:

I was invited to a crayfish party, a very typical tradition here in Sweden. The hosts caught the crayfish on that same day, they are brownish-grey and they are thrown in hot water to be consumed afterwards, together with other dishes. What happens in this process is that they become bright red-pink and shiny, making them not look very dead. They still keep their black eyes though.

We were sitting at the table and got some of them on our plate and what we were supposed to do was to rip out their legs, open them up, slurp and eat them…

I couldn’t do it. Their black eyes were looking at me and they looked so alive. It didn’t even help to turn their eyes away. I just couldn’t get over myself to rip out the limbs of this so alive-looking creature, while I felt that it was looking at me. Such a cruel action to do, I felt like I would hurt it, I would kill it, well knowing that it was dead already. I even felt like almost crying, but I swallowed that feeling as I didn’t want to make others feel uncomfortable. I just asked my friend to show it to me & help me with one, then I ate all the other side dishes the rest of the evening. And I wasn’t vegetarian or vegan at that time.

Black eyes of animals in combination with light and bright body colors seem to cause a certain strong reaction within me. The same moment the situation with the lizard happened, it also reminded me of this crayfish incident and just made it all a big, intense & explosive burst of suppressed emotions.

Now, what does all this mean? Why am I even telling you this? What’s the point?

I dont know what it means, I have this darkness-theory that I mentioned before & it makes sense to me. But it is more than analyzing it logically, with the mind. There seems to be something stored deep down in my body that makes me react like that, releases certain emotions that need to be freed, that maybe were kept hidden in the dark for too long. That’s all not logical, it just is.

It also means, that we most likely all have such information or emotions or “triggers” stored in our body & they can come up at any time and make us burst, explode and act a certain way. Logical? Nope? Human? Yes.

And that’s the reason why I am sharing this with you, cos I am a human, if you read this, you most likely are one too ;-) and sometimes we just have irrational, not-logical and explosive moments. Situations that come up, feelings that need to be released, shame to deal with and what not.

I also feel like I want to share it with you cos it helps me to process it and digest it properly. I also wish to make you see that its nothing bad with having those moments. That a Scientist, with her own company as a Scientific Illustrator, living life the way I do, experiencing it in all kinds of ways, can also have such intense, overwhelming and heavy moments in my life.

I truly believe that one of the most important things is, to share those tough moments in life with others. It’s not easy to do, not at all, so I am endlessly grateful that Elisa was there for me in this moment, just being present and holding space is all I needed. No explanations, no solutions, no analyzing, just feeling through it all.

I hope you have a person or two like that too, if not, feel free to reach out and we can see what I can do to help you with those tender moments of overwhelm in life.

Love,

Daria