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the same path  QUOTES

8 " When I was 15 years old, I came in contact with my first ashram, my first spiritual commune, in the form of Ljusbacken (" The Hill of Light" ) in Delsbo in beautiful Halsingland in the north of Sweden. Ljusbacken consisted of an international gathering of yogis, meditators, therapists, healers and seekers of truth. It was on Ljusbacken that I for the first time came in contact with my path in life: meditation.It was also on Ljusbacken that I meet people for the first time in my 15 year old life, where I on a deep wordless level felt that I meet people, who were on the same path as me. It was the first time that I meet people, who could put words on and confirm my own inner thirst after something that I could only occasionally sense vaguely, like some sort of inner guiding presence, or like a beacon in the distant far out on the open and misty ocean. For the first time in my life, I meet brothers, sisters and friends on the inner path. It was also on Ljusbacken that I meet the mystery called love for the first time in my 15 year old life. With my 15 year old eyes, I watched with wide eyed fascination and fear filled excitement the incomprehensible mystery, which is called woman.My own thirst after truth, together with my inner guiding light, resulted in an early spiritual awakening when I was 15 years old. It led me back to the inner path, which I have already followed for many lives. It led me back to a life lived with vision, with dedication and meaning, and not only a life governed by the endless desires of the ego, a mere vegetating without substance between life and death. It led me to explore the inner journey again, to discover the inner being, the meditative quality within, and to come in intimate contact with the endless and boundless ocean of consciousness, like the drop surrenders to the sea. At the source, the drop and ocean are one. "

15 " Did you know one in three woman wind up in a mentally or physically abusive relationship?But the funny part is, it doesn't start off that way. It starts of wonderful, as close to everything you imagined something solid should be. Then little by little, the relationship changes, and you wonder if you're going crazy. You literally start to question your own sanity. One minute, the person you're in love with is kind and caring, and the next they're flipping out. The first few times you write it off, assuming they're having a bad day, but then it becomes a regular pattern of behavior. The person on the receiving end isn't oblivious to it but starts blaming themselves.Did you know mental abuse can make a victim feel depression, anxiety, helplessness, nonexistent self-worth, and despair? But that doesn't matter because your feelings don't count, and you don't realize they never will. Sometimes the abuser makes you think they count. Then you're back to thinking that you're the one who belongs in an institution, not them. But on the norm, your needs or feelings, if you actually have the fucking courage to express them-and most women don't-are ignored, ridiculed, minimized, and dismissed. You're told you're too demanding, or there's something wrong with you. Basically, you're denied the right to feel... anything.Sometimes you distance yourself from friends or loved ones. Sometimes you're not even allowed to have friends. Thought you've given this person your heart and soul, their behavior becomes so erratic, it's as if you feel like you're walking on landmines. But you continue to love them because they weren't like this when you're met, so it only seems obvious it's your fault. Then-there's the hysterical part and just how twisted this whole thing becomes-you start making excuses for their inexcusable behaviors in an effort to convince yourself it's normal. In an actual, damn convince yourself you're the one who;s made them become the monster they've turned into. A couple of ladies from an organization fighting against domestic abuse told me I allowed this to happen because 'I'm a product of my environment'. I mean really, how cliched is that? Did I ever tell you about my parents? Did I ever tell you how after my father left us, my mother continued pursuing assholes?Well, she did. She went through them like the world was going to end the next day. I get that being a single parent was hard for her. I do. But she definitely had a thing for picking up the local drunk at the nearest bar in order to help pay the next month's rent. They'd help for a while before they bounced out like my father did, but that never came without a price. She let them smack her around a bit if dinner wasn't cooked by the time they walked in the door, or if the house wasn't cleaned by the time they kicked off their filthy boots. They all looked different, but they came from a mold. Each and every single one of them was cut from the same piece of abusive wax,So, those women told me witnessing my mother's weakness drove my own, and her watching my grandfather beat my grandmother was what drove hers. They told me I was raised thinking it was okay for a man to do that to a woman. I was raised thinking self-worth was gained by catering to a man's needs at whatever cost. Ever if it meant degrading myself time and time again. But the apple can fall far from the tree. Fifty percent of children who grow up seeing that will never walk in their parents' footsteps, whether it's a boy watching his father beat his mother a young girl watching her mother get hit. But this apple landed on the tree's stump. This apple took the same path as her mother. "