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"He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground."

— Isaiah 53:2

PROLOGUE — A Seed Breaking Ground

There are moments in life that arrive uninvited- moments that strip us bare, forcing us to confront the question, "Who am I, truly?" This story is born from one such moment.

In a world built on hardened soil—where pain, strict discipline, and endless expectations threaten to stifle the tender spark of life—there lies a seed waiting to break through. This is my journey of spiritual awakening and inner transformation, a story where every wound opens a space for light and every challenge becomes a catalyst for growth.

I was born into a world that demanded conformity. As a child, I experienced the pure joy of uninhibited play—running barefoot in the rain, laughing without care, and marveling at every small wonder. Yet, as I grew, that natural reservoir of joy began to crack under the weight of rigid school rules, harsh discipline, and unyielding expectations at home. The more I tried to survive, the more I lost touch with the vibrant, authentic self within me.

Then came a night that changed everything. Restless and awake in a silence so deep it felt sacred, I suddenly felt a gentle, persistent fire ignite within my chest. It was as if the universe whispered directly to my soul, declaring:

“I am the light of the world. Let that light burn so brightly within you that it touches others.”

In that transformative moment, I understood that even amidst darkness and strict control, the call to awaken was real. My inner fire, kindled in that silent hour, became the spark for a deeper journey—a quest to discover my true purpose.

Driven by this newfound flame, I resolved to pause every external activity and turn inward, waiting for clarity. Weeks passed in quiet contemplation until, during a self-imposed retreat, the divine spoke to me through sacred scripture and mystical vision. I opened my Bible to Jeremiah 33:3, where I found the promise:

"Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

That verse became my anchor, a constant reminder that purpose lies not in the clamor of the world, but in the quiet call of the divine within.

In these pages you will find my joys and wounds—an honest record of my struggles, breakthroughs, and the tender revelations that have shaped my path. I write these words not as a teacher or a preacher, but as a fellow traveler—someone who has wrestled with darkness and discovered that every crack in our being is an invitation to grow.

This book is an invitation—a call to anyone who has felt crushed by rigid discipline, stifled by institutional expectations, or silenced by the world’s noise. It is the story of a young plant, fragile yet determined, pushing through cracked, dry ground toward the light. For anyone who has heard the faint whisper of life calling from within, "Awake, O Sleeper."

Awake, O you sleeper—rise from the silence, let your inner light shine, and embrace the divine spark within. May you find the courage to rise again and again until your light burns brightly and touches others. You are in the room to heal it.

Welcome to the journey.

— Stephen

Contents

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PROLOGUE — A Seed Breaking Ground

Chapter 1 — Early Joy and Growth of Plant out of Dry Ground

Chapter 2 — The Night of Visitation: A Fire Unseen

Reflection

Chapter 3 — The World: Where Genius Gets Crucified

Chapter 4 — The Body as Antenna: Mystical Sound and Senses

Chapter 6 — Letters to Self: Reckoning with Death and Rebirth

Chapter 7 — Broken Cisterns: What Parenting, School, and Religion Destroyed

Chapter 8 —Doorway to Forgiveness is a Power

Chapter 9 — Inner Engineering: Where Mystics Meets Christ

Chapter 10 — Awake, O Sleeper: A Call to Reclaim Joy and Life

Chapter 11 — Reflection on Life: Embracing the Mosaic of Healing

Closing Reflection — The Journey Home to Self

Chapter 1 — Early Joy and Growth of Plant out of Dry Ground

Out of the Mouth of Babes

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, You have ordained strength." — Psalm 8:2

I was born into a world I did not consciously choose, yet in the mystery of eternity, I had already chosen. Not on the day recorded in human time, but on a day known before days began. In the mind of my Creator, before the ancient of times, I was known.

“For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4)

Before anything that is came to be, I was already a thought, a whisper in the infinite mind of God. My birth, though marked by a particular day in this physical world, belongs to eternity. But the truth is, I do not know the precise day of my coming forth. I once curiously sought to know, but I never asked those who bore witness to my arrival.

When people inquire about my birthdate, they struggle to believe that I do not know. There is an expectation that such a detail should be fixed and certain, yet in my heart, I have always felt that my arrival into this world is not bound by a singular earthly date but by something far greater.

One day, as I prayed for revelation, seeking an answer to those who would ask, I attended a retreat at the Vincentian Prayer House in Lavington, Nairobi. In that sacred space, a priest full of the Holy Spirit opened his mouth and declared, “Here in this retreat hall is a person praying to know their birthday. The Lord says, ‘Your birthday is My birthday.’”

The words struck me like a bell ringing across eternity. Your birthday is My birthday. I pondered within myself: When is the birthday of the Lord? Then the thought came—The birthday of the Lord is every day, every moment.

For in Him, all things hold together. (Colossians 1:17)

I am not bound by a single moment of entry into time, for I belong to the One who is beyond time. Every breath I take is a renewal of that first breath when the Spirit of God hovered over the void and spoke life into being. My birth is a continuous unfolding of divine intention, a becoming in the vastness of His love.

I was the lastborn in a large family, where survival often meant being seen but never fully known. Like a tender shoot, I sprouted into the sunlight of life, wide-eyed with wonder, joy, and an insatiable curiosity. The world stretched vast before me, and my young heart opened to its embrace. A wonder about everything, a wonder of water, of insects, of the night sky, the rising and setting of the sun. In those early years, wild fruits were my preferred dishes.

Yet, even in my earthly obscurity, I was always fully known by Him.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

I have lived as one who arrived unnoticed yet was already awaited. I remember overhearing a conversation between my mother and another lady. She was asked what her thoughts and feelings were when she realized she would have another child. With certainty, she responded, “I asked him if he was ready for another burden,” to which he said, “Yes.”

Those words settled deep in me. A burden. That was what my coming into the world meant to them. Not a gift, not a blessing, but a weight to be borne. For a long time, I wrestled with this thought—was I truly wanted? Or was I simply endured? Yet, even in that moment of uncertainty, a quiet voice within me spoke: You were awaited—not by man, but by God.

Slowly, I came to see that my presence in this world was not defined by human hesitation but by divine intention. Even if I had been called a burden, I was not a mistake. My worth was not dependent on how I was received, but on the truth that I was formed in love and consecrated before I was ever seen. I was expected—not merely by those who bore me, but by the One who called me into being.

My experience is not unique. Over the years, working with youth as a counseling psychologist, I have encountered many who have carried the same weight—the silent ache of feeling unwanted, the longing to be truly seen and cherished by their parents. Some felt the sting of comparison to more favored siblings; others bore the burden of expectations too heavy for their young shoulders. Many rebelled, not out of defiance, but out of a desperate need to be acknowledged. And yet, as I have walked with them through their stories, I have witnessed a truth unfold—the same truth that set me free. They, too, were awaited by a love greater than human frailty, a love that has never ceased to call them by name.

Yet, even in the weight of these burdens, childhood held its own sacred joys. Those early days carried a sweetness I can still taste—the simple delight of playing barefoot, feeling the earth cool beneath my feet, the thrill of rainwater trickling down my face, the freedom of laughter unshackled by worry. To be a child was to exist in a state of unguarded expression, where every thought was spoken, every emotion worn without shame. Life then was play; learning, an adventure; existence itself, a form of art.

And then, years later, healing came to me through the words of the prophet Isaiah:

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” (Isaiah 46:4)

I was never merely a burden to be carried by human hands; I was always carried in the arms of the Almighty. He who formed me has sustained me, from the moment of my first breath and into eternity.

And so, I have walked through days measured by calendars, yet my true birth remains in the eternal now of God. And when I am asked my birthday, I no longer search for a date, for my answer is simple: My birthday is His birthday. And His birthday is every day.

"God is delighted with us. Why not delight in God?" — Meister Eckhart

But as it happens to many, the cistern of innocence within me began to crack. Not by the force of nature, but by the world of men—by school, by religion, by the rigid hands of authority.

I remember the first-time discipline robbed me of laughter. School, once a realm of wonder, transformed into a battleground. Mistakes were punished, not corrected. Teachers, once revered, became figures of fear. I feared the cane more than failure—not for the pain it inflicted, but for the way it stripped me of my voice, my identity.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear." — 1 John 4:18

It was in those childhood classrooms that I first tasted isolation—the slow suffocation of joy under the guise of discipline. Every harsh word, every lash of the cane deepened the fractures within me. The more I shrank to survive, the more distant I became from that free, joyful child. No wonder I had become a crybaby.

Home, too, was a place of mixed blessings. Love was present, but so were expectations, comparisons, and the silent rule that emotions were burdens best left unspoken. The role of the lastborn was clear—smile, obey, stay out of the way.

Yet even then, something within me resisted. Meister Eckhart once mused: "What is it that remains? That which is inborn in me—the divine spark." And I saw how that spark in children was dimmed.

I watched the world closely— Children, born to shine, flickering, fading, dimmed by the very hands meant to nurture them.

Parenting became control. Religion, guilt. School, silence. And slowly, we learned that our emotions, our natural expressions— our divine expressions—were dangerous.

I still remember the day I nearly left school for good. The fear of punishment loomed so great, I feigned sickness day after day, seeking refuge in the dispensary rather than the classroom.

There, beneath the quiet shade of the dispensary grounds, I wondered—was this life? A careful dance around punishment? A slow erosion of joy?

Our lives, once blossoming with love, became grave. Laughter was mocked, then muted. Play became crime. Love and freedom—seized. The world grew brittle, dry wood where once was green.

And now, I see it still— In the faces that sit across from me, in the broken voices that fill my office, in the desperate reaching for what was lost. Drugs, risky love, reckless abandon— all in pursuit of that forgotten birthright: free expression.

"The soul is made of love and must ever strive to return to love." — Mechthild of Magdeburg

I saw many children who never completed their schooling, not for lack of will, not for lack of brilliance, but because they had been broken. It still happens today— less by the cane, more by words, words that wound deeper than any lash, that strip away confidence, that unravel self-worth, that crush the courage to dream.

Even then, I sensed it. The world does not shatter us all at once—it fractures us, little by little. And the worst cracks are the ones unseen.

We mistake the feared for the strong. We revere the harsh and call them disciplined. But I saw then what I still know now—true strength is gentle. Real power does not need to raise its voice or its hand.

"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of God." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

By the time I was old enough to question these things, my inner cistern was leaking badly. Joy, once abundant, became scarce. The world felt dry. I felt dry. And yet, deep within, a seed remained—waiting, stubborn, aching to grow.

Reflection:

How often do we mistake discipline for destruction? How many of our childhood dreams died, not because they were impossible, but because someone convinced us they were unworthy?

Chapter 2 — The Night of Visitation: A Fire Unseen

“I am the light of the world. May that light shine so brightly within me that it touches the lives of others.”

For a long time, this had been my quiet prayer. I would sit in stillness, eyes fixed on the steady flame of a candle, whispering those words more out of habit than understanding. To me, it was almost like a child’s game—simple, innocent, and without much thought. I never imagined those words could carry weight or shape reality.

Yet, it lingered—a prayer repeated so often it became part of me. Until one Friday—clear in my mind as if it were unfolding this very moment—something changed.

It was then I realized: even the simplest of prayers, spoken without expectation, have a way of finding their way back to us—alive and burning.

I still remember the silence that blanketed that Friday night. I felt a flame ignite within my chest. It was not a destructive fire, but a gentle, persistent burn that defied explanation. In that moment, it was as if the universe itself whispered directly to me, birthing a prayer I had never rehearsed.

I liken this fire within me to the flames witnessed by Moses in the desert. He beheld a bush engulfed in flames, yet to his astonishment, the bush was not consumed. It remained whole—unscathed by the very fire that surrounded it.

The difference, however, is that the flame I carry burns from within—hidden from human eyes. It does not manifest outwardly, yet it consumes deeply, silently, relentlessly.

As I write, I am drawn to the words of the prophet Isaiah, who spoke of a reality beyond human comprehension: “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4).

This hidden flame is not meant to destroy, but to refine—to strip away the dross until only the purest essence remains. It is a sacred fire—a sign of something divine at work within the soul.

That night became eternal. A visitation I had neither expected nor prepared for caught me utterly by surprise.

Earlier in the evening, a Baptist friend had come to me, seeking prayer for some girls he claimed were possessed by evil spirits. He was a teacher at a nearby girls' secondary school, not far from my home. As he spoke, my Catholic mind recoiled—suspicion rising like a shield. Was he testing me? Was this a challenge to my faith, to my understanding of the spiritual realm?

Fear crept in, subtle yet persistent, whispering caution—urging me to turn him away, to retreat into the safety of my own theological certainty. Yet, beneath that resistance, something deeper stirred—a quiet but undeniable nudge toward surrender.

It was as if the moment itself was sacred, charged with a mystery I could neither explain nor deny. A door had opened, not by my will, but by divine design.

We spoke for hours, shared a meal, and when the night grew too late, I offered him a place to sleep. My 4-by-6 bed was large enough, I reasoned. Safety dictated it. He agreed.

I had no idea that night held a visitation from the divine.

Perhaps this is what Christ meant when He said, “Of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels, not even the Son, but only the Father. It will come like a thief.”

Indeed, it came like a thief. Quiet. Unexpected. Life-altering.

What unfolded next surpassed human understanding. Like Shakespeare wrote: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I was swept into an experience invisible to everyone else. My friend beside me saw nothing, heard nothing. I woke him—still, nothing. I called my father and siblings—they rushed in fear. Yet, they too found nothing.

On that Friday night, I lit a candle to read my Bible as my friend retired to rest. The flickering flame offered the only light in the small mabati cubicle that housed me. I had mounted the Bible on the wall, determined to seek God’s face in the quiet of the night.

But less than thirty minutes into my reading, I noticed the candle growing dim. I wondered why. I turned to look—and behold, something entirely unknown to me, something beyond anything I had ever encountered in my lifetime, happened.

A fire ignited within me. It was electrifying. It burned deeply, biting at my chest. There are experiences in life for which human language fails us—where words fall short, unable to capture the weight and mystery of what the soul endures.

Such is common among those who, in the course of history, have brushed against the threshold of the divine. I am reminded of the Apostle Paul, who once confessed to the Corinthians that whether in the body or out of it, he could not tell, but he was caught up to the third heaven. There he heard things inexpressible—truths no mortal is permitted to utter (2 Corinthians 12:4).

Saint Teresa of Ávila, too, spoke of an inner fire that overwhelmed her senses. In her writings, she described an angel who plunged a golden spear into her heart, filling her with divine ecstasy and pain, a love so consuming that it left her forever changed. Similarly, Rumi, the great Sufi poet, likened divine love to a fire that melts away the self, leaving only pure longing for the Beloved.

Meister Eckhart, the great Christian mystic, once wrote that the soul has a "divine spark," an uncreated light that is already one with God. He believed that the path to awakening was not about acquiring something new, but about stripping away illusions—letting go of self so completely that only the presence of the divine remains. Perhaps my awakening that night was not the beginning of something new but the revelation of something that had always been within me, waiting to be seen.

The fire I experienced that night was not meant for witnesses. Jesus once spoke of two people lying in the same bed—one taken, one left. Two may share space, but never truly the same experience. Divine moments are often solitary. Even when surrounded, we stand alone before the holy.

Consider Daniel, who wrote: "I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision; those with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they fled." (Daniel 10:7)

Or Paul, whose companions heard a sound but saw no one as Paul encountered Christ on the Damascus Road.

Our journeys are uniquely our own. No witness is needed to validate what burns inside. They barely capture the truth within us. This is because some things belong only to the soul that carries them.

Since that night, a fire burns within me—quiet, yet unquenchable. It dulled my worldly desires, illuminating instead a higher calling. The longing for companionship, once so heavy, now fades next to the need for divine nearness.

I finally understood Isaiah’s question: "Who can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isaiah 33:14)

This fire—like Moses’ bush—burns but does not consume. It refines. It reveals. It calls me home.

Reflection

There are moments in life when the divine makes itself known—not in grand displays, but in the quiet burning of the soul. The fire that touched me that night was not an accident, nor was it an isolated event. It was a reminder that the sacred is always near, waiting for us to notice, waiting for us to surrender.

Perhaps the true challenge of the spiritual life is not to seek out moments of awakening but to trust that they will come. And when they do, to embrace them without fear. To let them refine us. To let them call us home.

Chapter 3 — The World: Where Genius Gets Crucified

The beauty of life is open to all—but not all see it.

Wisdom, the Master once said, is not reserved for the learned or the mighty, but is given to the children. He prayed in His own words: “I thank You, Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned and revealed them to infants” (Matthew 11:25).

All through my journey, it was curiosity that guided me. A longing to understand—an ache to touch what lay beyond the veil. It became the very source of my being.

With childlike devotion, I sought God. And in that seeking, I learned that it is not enough to know about the truth. One must live it—experience it, become a witness to it. Truth must transform what is known into what is lived.

And so, I searched everywhere for this truth. For a long time, I thought it could only be found in sacred places—within the church walls, the religious houses, the traditions of men. It was this longing that led me to the seminary.

I sought a place where my quest would meet fewer limitations—a space where time and resources could be devoted wholly to the search. I resolved, deep within, that I was ready to lose everything for the sake of this cause.

And truly, I did lose much. I lost friends—those connections that once gave me a sense of belonging. I lost job opportunities. In many ways, I lost myself, shedding the skin of who I once was.

I even lost my family, or at least the sense of family I had known, for the sake of this new home I had found—the seminary.

I thought the seminary would be my family. I was ready to belong. But soon, I was reminded: “We are not a family, but a society.”

It hit hard.

And yet, such is the cost of seeking.

I once believed the seminary would be my home—a sacred space where my passion for God would be nurtured and refined. A place where my longing for truth would be met with understanding. But I was wrong. This is not necessarily true for everyone who joins. We are unique and our longing is different.

I gave eight years of my life to priestly formation. Eight years of discipline, routine, and silent battles. I arrived eager, full of dreams, convinced that my thirst for God would find a home there.

Instead, I became a stranger to myself.

Just like other systems, the deeper I sank into that system, the more I realized I was shrinking, not growing. My prayers—deep, heartfelt, and persistent—were soon labeled excessive. My hunger for knowledge—once admired—became dangerous. My drive—my desire to work hard and serve—was seen as threatening. And self-seeking, I was told.

And when the accusations came, they were final:

1. Incapable of obedience

2. Praying too much

3. Working excessively

4. That I would destroy the Catholic Church through my thinking

No trial. No hearing. No voice given to me.

My peers were ordered to distance themselves. The same people who once welcomed me now avoided me, as if my very presence endangered their salvation.

And I asked myself: What did I truly do wrong?

How could praying too much be a crime? How could passion be so terrifying? I was not disobedient. I was simply alive—with a fire too wild for their control.

The Death of Genius

It was in that sacred place that I learned the world’s cruelest lesson: Genius is often killed before it has a chance to bloom. Life is condemned to death. Curiosity is flogged that in order to preserve. It must be tamed before it spreads and corrupts the whole lot. It is the survival mode in play.

In their world, obedience was valued more than inspiration. Silence was safer than questioning. Conformity was celebrated; uniqueness was crucified.

I watched others survive by bowing their heads, blending in, becoming invisible. But I couldn’t shrink. I tried but I couldn’t catch it rightly like others did. My soul rebelled. My heart burned for more.

I now see how society picks its disciplinarians—the loudest, the toughest, the most violent. As if strength is measured by how well one can break another’s spirit.

Reflection — What Was My Crime?

I carried that question like a wound: What was my real crime?

The truth? I dared to be fully alive.

I prayed honestly.

I thought freely.

I loved deeply.

And in doing so, I became a threat—not to God, but to the fragile structures built around Him.

They claimed I changed. But I hadn’t. I had simply become more of myself. And that was the one thing they couldn’t accept.

Resurrection in Exile

Leaving the seminary felt like dying.

I remember that last night—how sleep never came. My heart was heavy, torn between grief and the unknown that awaited me beyond those walls.

Yet one thought kept me afloat. It was not merely a thought, but a gift—a dream that visited me three days before my departure.

In that dream, I saw someone being discontinued from the seminary. That someone was me. Grief gripped my heart even in sleep. But then, I heard a voice—clear and unmistakable—speaking in English:

"It is not what you will do by remaining here, but what you will not do by remaining here."

That voice became my consolation. It stayed with me through the grieving, through the loss, and slowly, painfully, it began to redirect my purpose.

I came to understand that death is not always the end. Sometimes, death is the beginning.

The Master once said: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain. But if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24).

I am living that truth now—dying, yes—but in the dying, multiplying.

Out in the world, carrying my scars, I found something they could not destroy—the seed they thought they buried.

What they called rebellion, I now call resurrection.

What they saw as failure, I now call the beginning of a revolution—within me.

I did not leave the seminary broken.

I left reborn.

I was once dead, but now, I live.

And I have learned this truth: sometimes, walking away—or being asked to walk away—is not defeat. It is not giving up.

It is the first step toward the path you were always meant to walk. A redirection—not a rejection. A silent whisper from the Divine: “This is the way—walk in it.”

Chapter 4 — The Body as Antenna: Mystical Sound and Senses

For most of my life, I thought of the body as something to overcome—a vessel, fragile and temporary.

We were taught early about the dangers of the body—its desires, its weaknesses. How it must be tamed, controlled, and subjected to yoke and discipline, lest it led us astray. The body, they said, is a stumbling block on the path to holiness.

And for a long time, I believed them.

But one experience shifted my entire perspective—so profoundly that it left me silent for days.

I once thought that to encounter God, I had to leave this world behind. That my body was a hindrance, my senses distractions. But in my deepest moments of awareness, I found God in the wind, the silence, the song of the earth.

Matthew Fox reminds us that creation is not fallen—it is sacred.

The rustling of leaves, the rhythm of a heartbeat, the resonance of a song—these are not mere accidents of nature, but echoes of the divine. Could it be that the Cosmic Christ is not only found in scripture, but in sound, in movement, in the very fabric of existence?

In that moment, I realized the body is not merely flesh or a hindrance to the spirit. The body is sacred—an antenna tuned to frequencies beyond human understanding.

It listens. It receives. It vibrates with echoes from realms unseen.

There are senses within us that religion rarely teaches—senses that do not merely feel but perceive. The skin can know the presence of the unseen. The chest can burn with a fire not lit by human hands. The ears can catch whispers carried by winds no eye can trace.

The body is not our prison. It is a portal.

A bridge where the finite meets the infinite.

In that moment of awakening, I no longer sought to escape the body. I sought instead to listen—to feel. For the first time, I understood the sacredness of being here, in this flesh, at this time.

And perhaps that is what incarnation truly means: to feel heaven vibrating through earth, Spirit clothed in flesh and skin, and God not above but within—alive, breathing, pulsing through every nerve.

The body, too, is a scripture—if only we learn to read it.

Since childhood, I loved music—especially the hymns of the Catholic Church. Their melodies stirred something in me I could not explain. These are the moment that even Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval mystic, saw music and nature as expressions of divine harmony. Her Scivias describes viriditas, the greening power of God’s presence in all things. The universe itself is alive with divine rhythm, and our senses are doorways into the eternal.

There were moments I longed so deeply to connect with that music that I bought two decoders at different times, desperate to tune in. Strangely, both malfunctioned.

One day, I borrowed my brother’s decoder. Within ten minutes of listening, something inexplicable happened. A powerful surge of energy radiated from the left side of my chest. I followed the sound, checked every connection—there was nothing unusual. As it went from me, the sound also went from the decoder. I was perplexed. Confused more by what had just happened, but more by what I will explain to my brother when he comes back home.

And yet, I knew something extraordinary had just happened.

The decoder died that afternoon. But something was awakened in me.

I sat in silence, wondering—why did the departure of sound from a mere machine register so powerfully in my body? What was this vessel of flesh capable of sensing, receiving, and even emitting?

The Body—A Sacred Receiver

That afternoon, I saw my body differently. No longer just a shell, it became a receiver, a transmitter—a living antenna capable of tuning into energies and frequencies beyond sight.

I experimented further. I observed how thoughts—mere thoughts—could influence sound systems. How my emotions, my inner state, disrupted or attracted certain experiences. It was as if my body was wired into the very fabric of reality.

I remembered biblical stories—especially the one where Jesus, amidst a crowd, paused and said: “Someone touched me.” Though dozens pressed against Him, He recognized a single, intentional touch—the touch of faith.

“Power has gone out from me,” He declared.

In that moment, I understood: We are not disconnected. Our bodies know more than our minds will ever admit.

The Voice Within

I began wondering—if my body is this sensitive, what about my voice? What power lies in the words I speak, the thoughts I form before they even leave my lips?

Could it be that thought itself shapes sound? That the voice is merely an instrument playing the music composed in the unseen?

I saw it clearly then. Our bodies—these fragile forms—are more than vessels. They are bridges between the visible and invisible.

We feel. We know. We resonate.

Sometimes, even before a phone rings, I could sense incoming before even before it registers in the mobile receiver. We think of someone, and suddenly they appear. The human body, when fully awake, is a miraculous network—tuned not just to the world but to the divine.

Rediscovering the Sacred Body

Many spiritual paths teach us to transcend the body. But that afternoon, I realized: The body is not the enemy. It is the first temple. The divine dwells within, without and all about.

It is through the body that we experience the sacred. Through the senses that we taste the divine. Through the touch, the sound, the breath, we encounter God.

We were not made to escape our bodies, but to fully inhabit them—to feel, to resonate, to connect.

And in that connection, to remember: We are already part of something much greater, something eternal.

Chapter 5

— Wrestling with the Divine: The Hip and the Embrace

Some moments split life in two—before and after. What happened during that Holy Week was one of those moments. An encounter so vivid, so personal, that only the soul remembers fully.

It was Holy Thursday, 2011. I arrived early for the evening Mass, sitting quietly at the aisle’s edge where the procession would pass. Nothing about that night appeared extraordinary. It was the usual celebration—rituals, hymns, sacred silence.

Yet, as the procession began, a strange fear crept over me. Unprovoked. Unexplainable. My body was still, but my mind trembled. Suddenly, a force hit me from the side—real, physical—nearly pushing me out of my seat. I turned quickly, expecting to see someone.

There was no one.

It happened again during the offertory. Another invisible shove. Another fruitless glance behind me.

Confusion grew into fear. After Mass, I couldn’t go home. I stayed in the adoration chapel until midnight, searching the silence for answers. None came.

Eventually, the security guard ushered us out. I returned home, restless, sleep impossible.

I sat on my bed, staring into the night. Resolved not to sleep until an answer is given.

Then it happened.

Two unseen hands gripped my right leg—one at the hip, the other above the knee. A violent twist followed. My joint cracked loudly. Pain surged through me.

At that moment, scripture I had never memorized filled my mind:

"When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man." — Genesis 32:25

The Struggle of Jacob, the Struggle of Us All

That night, I became Jacob.

Not the perfect saint, but the flawed man—the struggler, the deceiver, the one desperate for a blessing he did not fully understand. Wrestling, not with a man, but with something far beyond.

We are taught that divine encounters are reserved for the holy, the clean, the righteous. But Jacob’s story—and my experience—prove otherwise.

God meets us where we wrestle. He meets us in the night, in our fear, in our stubbornness. Not waiting for us to be ready, but coming precisely when we’re not.

My hip ached until Saturday, but unlike Jacob, I bore no lasting limp. Yet something unseen remained—a mark, not on the flesh, but on the soul.

The Embrace of the Unseen

A week later, something happened I can never forget.

It was Sunday, around 3 p.m., during Divine Mercy prayers. I sat quietly among a small group, gazing at the image of Christ.

The air shifted.

I felt it—an embrace.

A solid, warm chest, rough with hair, pressed against me. It was so tangible that the prickly sensation of hair stayed with me. A weight settled on my upper chest, as if something had been placed there. Heavy, yet not crushing.

I pulled off my shirt later on, searching for any mark and for a sign. There was nothing.

But the feeling did not leave.

I was being held. Not by anyone seen, but by something wholly other.

Beyond Proof, Beyond Words

How does one explain such a moment? There were no witnesses. No evidence. Only my body knew what had happened. Only my soul recorded it.

I remembered the words of Christ:

"Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is valid." (John 8:14)

The world cannot accept what it has not seen, nor grasp what it cannot measure. But the Spirit is not bound by the world’s senses.

“You know the Spirit, because it dwells within you.” (John 14:17)

And He did not stop there. He made a promise so intimate, so profound, it still stirs my soul:

"If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we shall come and dwell within him." (John 14:23)

We… the Father, the Son, the Spirit—choosing to make their home in us.

That is the secret hidden from the eyes of many—the Spirit is not a distant, untouchable force. It is as close as breath, as intimate as the pulse beneath our skin.

The body knows the Spirit because the Spirit chooses to dwell within it.

That day, I understood: the truest testimony is not always external. It is the witness of the Spirit within—the fire that burns unseen, the voice that whispers where no sound is heard, the knowing that needs no validation from the world.

The body becomes the temple not merely by design but by divine habitation. The sacred dwelling place where heaven meets earth, not in stone, but in flesh.

I thought of the mystics who wrote about divine embraces—love so consuming it could not be described, only endured.

I write not to convince anyone, but to bear witness.

Something sacred found me that day. Something real. Something eternal.

And it left me knowing—there is more to life than what the eyes can see.

Chapter 6 — Letters to Self: Reckoning with Death and Rebirth

Dear Self,

How many times have you stood at the edge, staring into the vastness of your own existence, wondering if any of it mattered? How many nights have you whispered into the dark, asking the universe to answer what no man dares to voice aloud?

You have lived through the breaking of cisterns—those sacred reservoirs meant to hold joy, hope, and innocence. Cracked by the hands of those who loved but did not understand. Damaged by teachers, parents, and systems that valued obedience over aliveness.

But hear this now: There was never anything wrong with you.

You were not too passionate.

You did not think too much.

You were not too intense.

You were simply alive—more alive than they could handle.

They feared your fire because it exposed their ashes.

Remember This, Dear Self

You almost left school not once, not twice, not even thrice—paralyzed by the fear of punishment.

Not because you were weak, but because the system taught you that love was conditional. That mistakes were unforgivable. That discipline meant cruelty. We were led to believe a lie; I mean illusions.

St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul captures this when he says that “To reach satisfaction in all, desire satisfaction in nothing.” Likewise, The Cloud of Unknowing teaches that “by love, He may be gotten and held, but by thought, never.” If we seek truth, we must be willing to let go of the illusions that hold us captive.

We were denied the opportunity to make mistakes. And in those denials, our primary caregivers unknowingly exposed us to countless dangers and traumas.

We grew up unable to accommodate our feelings and emotions. Our sexuality became a plague—a silent shame many of us carry. We spend years, sometimes lifetimes, battling the shame of our own bodies, our appearances, and the simple fact of being human.

Life itself was framed in such fearful ways. As psychologist Erich Fromm asked on his deathbed, “Why is it that the human race prefers necrophilia to biophilia?” His friend, Matthew Fox, later reflected that this question pointed to something deeply embedded in Western culture. Instead of cultivating a love of life, we have become fixated on control, suppression, and even self-destruction.

Fromm had long argued that necrophilia grows where biophilia is stunted—that when our natural inclination toward life and creativity is suppressed, a fascination with death, control, and destruction emerges. Fox took this further, linking it to the spiritual crisis of our time. He suggested that much of organized religion has turned away from celebrating creation and joy, instead focusing on sin, punishment, and redemption in a distant afterlife.

We were taught to reject the joys of the present, to see suffering as a virtue, and to fear our own aliveness. We were promised that if we successfully denied the pleasures and joys that accompany our existence, only then would we be rewarded—graciously, but only in heaven. Only in some distant paradise yet to be reached.

And so, you learned too soon that those we called disciplinarians were often the most broken among us—mistaking violence for strength, mistaking silence for wisdom.

You learned to survive. You faked sickness just to escape school. You silenced your questions. You made yourself smaller, quieter—hoping that safety could be found in invisibility.

But survival is not living.

To reclaim our spiritual power is to refuse the systems that tell us we are unworthy. As Fox teaches, spirituality is not just about prayer and meditation—it is about action. If we truly believe in love, then we must embody it, fight for it, and make it real in the world.

To seek truth is to move beyond boundaries. Jesus, the Buddha, the mystics of all traditions—they all spoke of the same awakening, the same transformation.

Perhaps salvation is not found in rejecting our humanity, but in fully embracing it. Perhaps the path to God was never about becoming smaller, but about expanding into the fullness of who we are meant to be.

Thomas Merton, a modern mystic, understood this deeply. He wrote, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.” Likewise, Hafiz playfully reminds us, “You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?” The call is not to mere survival, but to flight—to transformation, to justice, to an awakening that heals not just ourselves, but the world.

By weaving together the wisdom of Matthew Fox, these mystics, and my own journey, I find that spirituality is not about escaping the world, but embracing it fully—where the divine is waiting to be known in every moment.

Reflections on a Broken World

You grew up in a world where suspicion ruled.

Where generosity faded, replaced by guarded hearts.

Where people feared strangers.

Where every action was calculated, every word filtered, every intention doubted.

And yet… you remember.

There was a time—long before fear took root—when the human spirit was freer.

When a plate was set for any traveler.

When a bed was always ready for the weary.

When people believed in goodness, not just in fear.

Dear Self, inscribe this truth upon your heart:

There is no other. There is only you—reflected in another’s form.

Every time you withhold love,

Every time you stifle joy,

Every time you close your heart—

You do this to yourself.

There is no one else.

Awake, O Sleeper

Look around you now—

Do you not see how the world has become dry bones?

People walk, but they are dead inside.

Their words, bitter.

Their hearts, hardened.

Their eyes, empty.

Their ears, deaf—unable to hear the cry of souls trapped in burning buildings.

They have legs—not to run toward human misery and heal—

But to flee, abandoning the wounded along the way.

We are surrounded by the walking dead—

Bodies without spirit, lives without joy.

Femicide.

Genocide.

Abductions.

Evils once unthinkable—now, commonplace.

The land itself cries out—

Drenched in innocent blood.

The blood of the unborn.

The blood of the betrayed.

The blood of dreamers and visionaries—

Those who dared to hope for more.

Awake, O Sleeper. Rise from the dead. Let the light of Christ shine upon you.

The Epidemic of Disconnection

You see it now, don’t you?

People no longer connect—they only communicate.

Dogs, cats, and pets have become the closest companions.

Not because animals changed, but because humans became impossible to live with.

A spirit of “I don’t care” now lingers where once there was community—

A community of love, kindness, and care.

Smartphones replaced proximity,

Screens replaced presence,

And in chasing distant connections,

We abandoned the ones right next to us—family, friends, the sacred ordinary moments.

Working friendships are no longer a thing.

Colleagues remain strangers.

We talk at each other, not with each other.

No one truly listens. No one truly hears.

Loneliness is the new pandemic—killing more than disease.

Suicide stalks the young,

Claiming the brightest lights between seventeen and twenty-nine.

And what is the cause?

Not poverty.

Not ignorance.

But a simple, devastating truth:

We have lost connection—

With ourselves.

With each other.

With God.

With life itself.

The Power Within

You’ve glimpsed it, haven’t you? The power of your own thoughts. The way you spoke in your heart and the world responded.

You carry within you the divine name: "I AM."

And every time you declare it, you create.

"I am weak." You become weak.

"I am lost." You become lost.

"I am light." And light floods your being.

Dear Self, Choose Life

You ask how to fix this cloud of death and foolishness.

The answer is simple: Choose life. Always.

Celebrate every expression of it. Nurture every spark. Refuse to become another cracked cistern.

Remember what Christ taught: "I came that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Be a steward of abundance. Give life wherever you go—in your words, your touch, your silence, your laughter.

Let your life be a testament, not to survival, but to joy.

Live fully. Love freely. Die empty.

That is your mission.

Chapter 7 — Broken Cisterns: What Parenting, School, and Religion Destroyed

"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water." — Jeremiah 2:13

This verse is not just ancient prophecy. It is the story of my life. The story of many lives. We were born whole—cisterns ready to hold the waters of joy, innocence, and divine connection. But then came the cracks.

Our parents were the first to strike—though not from malice, but fear, survival, and their own brokenness. Discipline became a tool not of guidance, but of control. Correction came not as a gentle nudge, but as a harsh hand. We learned early that to be loved was to obey. To be valued was to conform.

Then came school.

A place that should have sparked our imaginations instead became a training ground for obedience. Teachers were no longer mentors but masters. Learning was replaced by fear. Every mistake was punished, every curiosity silenced.

I still remember the day I almost ran from it all—convinced that escaping school was the only way to survive. It wasn’t laziness; it was the sheer terror of punishment. I faked sickness. I prayed to be invisible. I sought refuge in hospital walls because the world outside had become unbearable.

And so, the cracks deepened.

The Lie of Discipline

We grew up believing that the hardest, coldest, and most violent were the true leaders—the ones worthy of respect. We called them shapers of the social order. We feared them. And we mistook that fear for honor.

But it was a lie.

True discipline does not crush. It guides. It preserves the soul while shaping the mind.

What we experienced was violence, masked as virtue. And we learned the wrong lessons:

- That to lead, you must first learn to break others.

- That to survive, you must first kill your joy.

The Death of Free Expression

In our childhood, though briefly, we were free.

We sang until our voices cracked.

We played until the sun set.

We laughed until tears came.

Joy was our natural state. Ecstasy was our birthright.

In our pursuit of joy and the ecstasy of life, we seem to have lost our way. We do not fully understand the rules of this game called life. Instead, we have blindly imitated our elders, repeating their ways and expecting different results—a pattern Albert Einstein once defined as insanity.

Is this not what fuels the struggles of Generation Z in Kenya? They act in the manner they believe is best, trying to secure a future their parents would approve of. Yet, the elders themselves were guided not by the fullness of life, but by mere survival tactics. They mistook true joy for an abundance of material wealth—money, vehicles, land, sex, and extravagant travel. How many people have all these accessories of life yet can’t afford the full access to life?

I have tasted these things, yet none compare to the pure joys I have known in life. Without health and the capacity to savor existence, all these possessions turn to dust and mud. I am not saying they are unimportant, but their misplacement has caused immeasurable human suffering. Because of this misplaced pursuit, children are robbed of their childhoods and even their very lives. People kill each other for these fleeting treasures.

Children are subjected to immense pressure to achieve educational excellence, often at the cost of their mental and emotional well-being. They fall into illness—physically, emotionally, and psychologically—trying to meet unrealistic expectations set by parents and caregivers. In their desperate attempts to satisfy an insatiable hunger for validation, many find themselves trapped in self-destruction.

Sadhguru speaks of how human beings have a set bottom line but no upper limit. There is a point beneath which no person can live—a threshold of suffering beyond which existence becomes unbearable. But when it comes to how much joy, love, or fulfillment a person can experience, there is no ceiling. Yet, instead of realizing this boundless potential, we continue to impose artificial limits on our joy, attaching it to material things that, in truth, can never satisfy us.

Worse still, parents and caregivers place children into rigid molds, shaping them into predefined forms without regard for their unique nature. Sadhguru warns of the dangers of such molds, saying that raising children like manufacturing products strips them of their individuality, forcing them into identities that do not belong to them. In doing so, we suffocate their growth, suppress their potential, and destroy the very essence of their being. Children are not clay to be molded into someone else’s design; they are seeds meant to sprout in their own way, nurtured, but not forced.

True joy is not found in possessions or achievements. It is found in the knowledge and realization of our true nature. The role of the elders was never to impose a rigid mold upon the young but to provide fertile ground for their growth—to nurture them so they may bear fruits that endure. The fruits of peace, joy, self-regulation, and inner fulfillment.

But one by one, the world stripped it away, the joy and ecstasy of life:

- Parents told us to grow up.

- Teachers told us to sit down.

- Religion told us we were sinners.

And so, we forgot how to be children. We forgot how to be human.

I saw it so clearly—how every institution conspired, knowingly or not, to turn living rivers into broken cisterns.

The Cost of Fear

I look back now and see how much was stolen by fear.

I see the moments I could have danced but didn’t.

The songs I could have sung but silenced.

The words I swallowed because I feared punishment more than I loved expression.

Our society measures discipline by the ability to control. It rewards those who master the art of violence—physical, emotional, spiritual.

And so, the joyous child became the silent adult. The river became a dry well.

Healing the Cisterns

But the cracks do not have the final word.

Beneath the broken walls, the spring still flows. Beneath the fear, the joy still pulses. Beneath the silence, the song still waits.

We can reclaim what was lost.

We can teach our children that joy is not rebellion, but sacred. That play is not weakness, but divine. That discipline is not cruelty, but care.

Let us stop choosing the violent as leaders. Let us stop mistaking cruelty for strength.

Let the children sing again. Let the young dance. Let the old remember.

Because this world does not need more broken cisterns.

It needs rivers—overflowing, wild, free.

And the healing begins with us.

Chapter 8 —Doorway to Forgiveness is a Power

Rumi exclaims, “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

We walk through life believing we are safe among our own—our dearest ones. We trust them with our vulnerabilities, only to find that betrayal often comes from those closest to us. The ones we love the most can wound us the deepest. A mother, a father, a sibling, a confidant, a spouse—the very people we once called our refuge can become the source of our greatest pain.

The psalmist cried out in anguish, not because an enemy had harmed him, but because betrayal came from a friend, a companion, someone with whom he had shared moments of worship and fellowship:

"If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers." (Psalm 55:12-14, NIV)

My own life has not been exempted from such wounds. I remember how, in the quiet sanctuary of the adoration chapel, I felt most connected with myself. It was my sacred retreat, my place of solace. I spent countless hours there, lost in prayer and contemplation. People noticed my presence, and for a while, I felt seen in the right way.

Then, whispers began. Accusations surfaced. Stories spread that items were disappearing from the chapel—Bibles, Christmas lights, even the key to the tabernacle.

One Christmas morning, I encountered my parish priest. We were both dressed in black. In my innocence, I greeted him warmly. But his response shattered me. He looked at me and said, “Go and bring my Bible.”

I was taken aback. “Which Bible?” I asked.

“The Catholic Answer Bible,” he said. “The one you took from the chapel.”

I was stunned. I told him I had taken nothing. But he was certain. He had heard it from a “credible source.” I felt the words pierce through me. I stood there, broken, unable to defend myself. I went home heavy with sorrow, unable to turn to anyone. If only I knew my accuser, I would have confronted them.

That night, sleep eluded me. I wrestled with my pain, but in the depth of my suffering, I chose not to succumb to bitterness. I prayed:

"Master, I do not know who has accused me, but be merciful to them. Keep them safe, and bring their life to fulfillment and mercy."

By morning, I resolved to carry my Bible with me and show it to the priest. After Mass, a religious sister approached me and confessed—it was she who had told the priest that I was the one with the lost Bible. I looked at her, and in that moment, I understood how easily the human heart can be swayed. If I had allowed anger to take hold of me, something irreversible might have happened.

But that was not the only wound. There was a woman I had met in the same chapel. She seemed deeply prayerful, and I believed that prayerful people were safe to be around. When she fell ill, I visited her as an act of kindness. She later told me that my presence comforted her, that whenever I visited, she felt better. So, without suspicion, I continued visiting, believing I was simply extending a hand of mercy.

Then, once again, betrayal. She told the parish priest that I visited her for gossip, that I was a burden to the church because I didn’t like to work. I was crushed. The place I had loved, the place where I sought refuge, had become the source of my deepest pain.

By then, I had made up my mind to leave that church. More accusations followed, more wounds I will not even speak of here. It became unbearable.

One evening, the weight of it all became too much. I resolved that I would no longer talk to anyone. I shut myself in my room, surrounded by darkness, wanting nothing but silence. It is a common tendency—when wounded, we retreat, we isolate ourselves, believing that in solitude, we might find relief.

But as I sat there, fear crept in. I began to recite a scripture:

"The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them." (Psalm 34:7, NIV)

As I repeated the verse, I felt a strange sensation—a feathery touch on the back of my neck. I brushed it off, telling myself, I won’t laugh. Stop disturbing me. But the more I resisted, the stronger the sensation grew. Until, at last, I burst into laughter.

And then, I saw.

A vision of an angel appeared before me, and in that moment, another scripture came to mind:

"And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him." (Luke 22:43, KJV)

Just as an angel had strengthened Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, so too did I feel a divine presence lifting my burdens. The pain melted away; the bitterness dissolved. I was made new.

That night, I learned something profound—when we are at our lowest, unseen hands still hold us. When the weight of betrayal threatens to crush us, there are ministering spirits watching over us, strengthening us, just as it is written:

"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" (Hebrews 1:14, KJV)

In that sacred moment, I understood: nothing is ever truly lost. Even in our suffering, grace is at work. And perhaps, as Rumi said, anything we lose comes round in another form.

Letting the Dead Leave: The Mystic Path of Forgiveness

To refuse forgiveness is to live among the dead. It is like breaking good cisterns, like closing yourself outside of yourself. It is drinking poison and expecting the snake to die.

I learned this truth early. I often found myself in deep conversations with those who had wronged me—not with them in person, but within me. Their presence lingered, occupying space in my mind and heart. Their words, their betrayals, their cold silences played on an endless loop, shaping my inner world. I could not escape them, for I had made them my companions.

When we hold on to grudges and rage, those we resent take up residence within us, displacing our own peace. We become fragmented, a host to shadows that do not belong. We become Legion.

This is not just my story; it is the experience of every soul that has ever sought God and found instead the bitterness of human frailty. The mystics, those who dared to venture into the depths of the divine, wrestled with this same struggle.

Take Abba Moses the Black, the desert monk whose past was steeped in violence and vengeance. Once a feared bandit, he carried within him a storm of old wounds and bloodstained memories. But the desert changed him. When a brother sinned and the elders called for judgment, Abba Moses took a leaking jug of water and carried it to the gathering. “My sins run out behind me, and yet I do not see them,” he said. “And today, I come to judge another?” The power of his words silenced the crowd. He had learned that to judge was to bind oneself to the past, to drink the poison of resentment and expect another to die.

Julian of Norwich, a woman who saw beyond the veils of suffering, spoke of the divine mystery of forgiveness. She witnessed Christ showing her a tiny thing, no bigger than a hazelnut, resting in the palm of His hand. “What is this, Lord?” she asked. “It is all that is made,” He answered. In that moment, she saw the fragility of existence, the tenderness of divine love, and the futility of clinging to pain. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well, she wrote—not because suffering did not exist, but because forgiveness unshackled the soul.

And then there was Rumi, the whirling poet of love. He, too, knew the burden of carrying the past. His teacher, Shams of Tabriz, was taken from him in an act of betrayal. Grief could have consumed him, but instead, he turned inward, spinning in the rhythm of divine love, dissolving into the great mystery. “Don’t grieve,” he wrote. “Anything you lose comes round in another form.” His forgiveness did not erase the pain, but it transformed it, reshaping his soul into something vaster, freer.

I, too, have carried my own betrayals. Accusations that cut to the bone, the sting of being misunderstood, the pain of being cast aside. At times, the weight of it all felt unbearable. I wanted to isolate myself, to let bitterness be my shield. But in the quiet of the night, a presence came to me—not in the form of human comfort, but as a whisper, as lightness, as laughter breaking through the walls I had built.

“The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.” (Psalm 34:7)

In that moment, I understood—bitterness was not my companion. Love was. Grace was. The unseen hands of mercy had been holding me all along.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is not excusing. It is opening the door and letting the dead leave. It is reclaiming the space of your own soul. It is allowing yourself to become whole again.

Chapter 9 — Inner Engineering: Where Mystics Meets Christ

There comes a point in every seeker’s journey where worlds that once felt separate begin to merge. I found unity of everything within. For me, it was the meeting place between the teachings of Christ and the reflections of Sadhguru—East and West speaking the same truth in different tongues.

I stumbled upon Sadhguru’s concept of “Inner Engineering” not as a follower, but as a curious soul desperate to understand why joy seemed so elusive. Why had life, once so full of wonder, become dry, bitter, and suffocating?

Sadhguru spoke of something simple, yet profound: "The source of joy is not out there. It is within. If you know how to engineer your interiority, joy becomes your natural state."

Those words felt familiar—echoes of what Christ had said centuries before: "The kingdom of God is within you."

And suddenly, I saw it.

The Meeting Point of Masters

What is Inner Engineering but the gospel stripped of dogma? What is Christ’s call to “die to self” but the same call to dismantle the false structures within us that keep us from joy? The structure that had robbed me of joy, in the promise of perfect joy in the world to come.

Both speak of one thing: awakening to the truth that everything we seek is already inside us.

I am living this truth. You may ask me, show us a sign that this is true. This is not a new phenomenon. Jesus said that no sign will be given apart from the sign of death. This is a sign of laying down your comforts, securities, traditions and everything that we’ve considered of value. For the celebration of joy, death to attachments is a prerequisite. Awareness is the doorway through which I entered. In this whole process I found that:

- Joy is not given. It is uncovered.

- Peace is not found. It is remembered.

- God is not above. He is within.

The Discipline of Joy

As I grew up, I often heard the doctrine of “Ours is the true way. We know best. I am better than you, because I was baptized by so and so. We have all the truth!”

Again and again, the same refrain:

“Ours is the better way. If you do not walk this path, you are lost—doomed for eternal hellfire.”

So sad, right?

The weight of certainty crushed curiosity.

Fear disguised itself as faith.

And the vast, boundless mystery of the Divine

was caged within the narrow walls of human arrogance.

Yet the mystics whispered something different.

Meister Eckhart, the great Christian mystic, spoke of God as a presence beyond dogma:

"The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."

Rumi, the poet of love, broke through the illusion of separation:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there."

And St. John of the Cross, in the dark silence of his prison cell, realized:

"To reach satisfaction in all, desire satisfaction in nothing. To come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing."

The true masters never bound themselves to walls of doctrine.

They did not trade in fear, nor wield truth as a weapon.

For them, discipline was never about punishment.

It was about alignment.

Theresa of Avila saw it not as rigid suffering but as an invitation to love:

"Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul."

The soul was never meant to be chained.

Not by men. Not by institutions. Not by fear.

God is too vast to be owned,

too infinite to be contained,

too intimate to be distant.

And so, the mystics tell us:

Break the walls.

Step beyond the gatekeepers.

Dive into the silence where God is waiting.

Christ did not come to create more broken cisterns.

He came to restore the original flow of life.

"I came that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10)

And yet, how swiftly the river was dammed. How quickly the living waters were turned into stagnant doctrines, the wellspring of joy into a burden of guilt.

It is so simplistic—so unsettlingly simple—that those around me could only assume I left the seminary because I was unfit for it.

But they did not know.

They did not know that I left because I was afraid—not of failure, not of doubt,

but of truth, what I knew to be true was a contradiction.

I feared that my words would become thorns in the flesh of the church,

that my questions would be called fire, that my longing for something real would be labeled rebellion.

For three years, I wrestled in silence, like Jacob with the angel,

grappling not for a blessing but for permission to leave.

I did not want to go on my own. I wanted to be sent.

I wanted them to look me in the eyes and say,

"Pray about your vocation, for we think you are not called here,"

though my soul already knew the answer.

By then, I had become explicit in what I believed— not by choice, but by necessity.

Truth, once seen, will not let itself be unseen. Love, once tasted, refuses to be diluted.

And so, I spoke.

I stood before a gathering of young seekers, poured my heart into their hands,

words flowing like rivers, truth unshackled, free.

But by morning, the verdict had been cast. Three times, for the sake of completeness:

"Heresy."

He stood before the faithful, a voice from the pulpit, trained in fear, forged in doctrine,

warning them:

"Do not believe whatever he said last night.

It was a confusion of philosophy."

A confusion of philosophy.

As if truth must be ordered, fitted into neat boxes, confined to creeds and councils.

But I was not confused.

I had only dared to drink from the wells that religion abandoned, to touch the fire that mystics had carried through centuries of persecution.

Had not St. John of the Cross whispered from his prison cell, "To come to the knowledge you have not, you must go by a way you know not."

Had not Julian of Norwich seen the entire cosmos held in God’s hand—a love so boundless that it threatened the walls of doctrine?

The one who condemned me sought me in secret.

Like Nicodemus in the night, he came when all had left, his voice not with accusation,

but with questions.

He, too, was lost in a crisis— tangled in the very teachings he had spent years defending.

And now he sought training from a heretic.

I was reluctant. Not from pride, but because I knew—some truths must be walked, not taught.

Could he bear the cost of unknowing? Could he withstand the undoing that comes when the walls collapse and only God remains.

I knew what I had said. I knew where it had come from.

Had not Christ Himself been called a blasphemer?

Had not Meister Eckhart been condemned for daring to say,

"The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me"? Had he not stood before the Inquisition, his words too bold, too free? And said, "The Word lies hidden in the soul," he had said, "and it must awaken there."

Had not St. John of the Cross, from his prison cell, written of the dark night that strips us of all but love? Had not St. Teresa of Ávila been warned for saying,

"The soul is in God and God is in the soul— how can there be separation?"

Had not Rumi danced in the streets,

singing of a Love so vast, so uncontainable, that the scholars called him mad?

Had he not, centuries before, been cast out of the circles of scholars for saying, “Lose yourself completely, return to the root of the root of your own soul."

I was pronounced a heretic.

Not by whispers in the shadows, not by the murmurs of those unsure—

but by the priest in charge of the retreat center, a man clothed in authority, a man who believed he was defending truth.

Before the gathered youth, before hearts open and eager, he sealed his verdict.

I stood there,

not as an accuser, not as a rebel, but as one who had merely spoken what burned within me.

Religion twisted His words I mean the words of masters and mystics —making discipline about denial, about carrying crosses that break rather than build.

Schools, churches, homes—all became places where discipline was synonymous with pain.

But Christ did not come to shackle us. He came to set captives free.

And freedom—true freedom— is always called heresy

by those who mistake chains for salvation.

What I had spoken was not heresy.

It was simply not caged.

I had seen too much. I had felt the river flow within me. And once you taste the living water, you cannot return to broken cisterns.

Religion twisted His words—making discipline about denial, about carrying crosses that break rather than build.

Schools, churches, homes—all became places where discipline

was synonymous with pain. But Christ did not come to shackle us. He came to set captives free.

And freedom—true freedom—

is always called heresy by those who mistake chains for salvation.

But the mystics knew better.

St. Francis of Assisi danced in the streets, barefoot and laughing,

singing praises to a God too vast for rigid rules.

Julian of Norwich, in her visions, saw no wrath in God, only love:

"God is nearer to us than our own soul."

And Rumi whispered across centuries:

"Be like a river in generosity and help. Be like the sun in compassion and grace."

True discipline is joyful. It is the art of alignment, not affliction—of attuning ourselves to the divine rhythm until we flow with the river rather than against it.

To become so still that we feel the breath of God within us.

To become so awake that we hear the music of creation in every heartbeat.

This is the discipline Christ spoke of. Not shackles, but wings.

Not suffering, but surrender. Not burden, but bliss.

Reclaiming the Inner Temple

Sadhguru says:

"If you become pleasant inside, pleasantness will flow outside. If you engineer yourself right, joy is inevitable."

Christ says:

"Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38)

Both speak of the same river—The divine flow buried beneath years of conditioning,

Fear, guilt, and shame.

The world taught us to build walls.

The masters taught us to break them.

The world taught us to fear our own hearts.

The masters taught us to listen to them.

The world taught us to survive.

The masters taught us to live.

The Call to Inner Awakening

The time has come to reclaim the lost art of inner engineering—Not as followers of Sadhguru or Christ, nor as disciples of any teacher who ever walked this planet, but as seekers of truth.

For we have but one Father, one true Teacher, one eternal Master.

"Do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and He is in heaven.

Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah." Matthew 23:9-10

And yet, the Teacher is not found in temples built by hands, nor in books bound by dogma, nor in voices that demand allegiance.

Sadhguru echoes this when he said, "The only way out is in. The only way forward is inward. If you seek truth outside, you will wander endlessly. If you turn inward, you will find everything." He added that "If you engineer yourself right, joy is inevitable. If you take charge of your inner world, the outer world will not disturb you."

What he said aligned with what Christ had said centuries ago through the mouth of Paul of Tarsus "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" 1 Corinthians 3:16

Both reveal the same truth: She speaks from within.

A whisper in the silence, a knowing deeper than thought, a fire that cannot be quenched. This the eternal teacher ready to remind us the path home.

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’" Isaiah 30:21

Teresa of Ávila called her the Interior Castle, a dwelling place where the Divine and the soul are one.

"Abide in me, and I in you." John 15:4

During my seeking, Sadhguru reminded me that, "The problem is not life. The problem is the mind’s resistance to life. The kingdom is not far—it is here, now, if only you allow yourself to experience it."

Christ Himself, when asked where the kingdom would come, declared:

"The kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:21

She is our authority— not imposed, but realized. Not given, but uncovered.

"But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth." 1 John 2:20. For Sadhguru affirms: “No external force is needed for transformation. If you become willing, it happens from within." This I found to be true. I was willing, and it happened without effort as put by Theresa of Avila in her analogy of water in her writing of the interior castle.

To hear her, we must unlearn the noise. To follow her, we must dare to be free.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

What we seek is not far from us. It is not what we get when we pray. We are already in amnesia. It is within your nature as put by sadhguru, "Freedom is not given. It is taken. And the first step is to know—joy is your original nature."

Use this therefore, To rebuild the cisterns.

To re-dig the wells.

To remove the debris that blocks the flow of joy.

Because the kingdom is not coming. It is already here.

"The kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)

The river is not waiting. It is already flowing.

And all we must do is awaken. For the weeds—doubt, hate, violence, and other vices—are sown and grow while we are asleep.

"But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away." (Matthew 13:25)

And when we wake, we wonder where it all came from.

But the truth is—what we fail to guard in wakefulness, the enemy claims in darkness.

Chapter 10 — Awake, O Sleeper: A Call to Reclaim Joy and Life

"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." — Ephesians 5:14

What does it mean to be truly alive? Not simply to exist, but to live with awareness, to move beyond mere survival and into being. Everywhere I look, I see people who are awake in body but asleep in spirit—walking, breathing, speaking, yet disconnected from life itself. Their eyes are open, but they do not see; their ears listen, but they do not hear. They are burdened by the weight of routine, trapped in the cycles of the past, or paralyzed by the fears of the future.

Christ warned of this sleep—the dulling of the soul, the slow descent into spiritual numbness:

"For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed." (Matthew 13:15)

Sadhguru speaks of the same truth in different words:

"Most people do not need a wake-up call. They need to be shaken awake from the coma of unconscious living."

And this is exactly what one priest did to me—his very presence shook me from my slumber. I still remember the first time I bought a rosary and took it to a priest for a blessing. The moment he laid a finger on it, something surged through me. My body trembled as if struck by an electric current. It wasn’t fear, nor was it pain—just an overwhelming energy that left me stunned.

I turned to my friend who had accompanied me, desperate to share what had just happened. But he looked at me blankly, as if I had spoken in a language he could not understand. At the time, I had no words for what I had experienced. It was only later that I came to recognize it for what it was—the sheer intensity of that priest’s life energies. His presence alone had the power to shake something loose within me.

This was the beginning of my awakening—the first crack in the shell of unconscious living that Sadhguru speaks of. It was not a lesson taught in words, but a transmission of something far deeper. A reminder that true wakefulness is not about acquiring more knowledge, but about shedding the dullness that keeps us from feeling the pulse of life itself

To be alive is not simply to draw breath but to burn with awareness—to see life as it truly is, unclouded by conditioning, fear, or distraction. Meister Eckhart once said, "God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction." In other words, we do not need more to awaken—we need less. Less distraction, less illusion, less identification with the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we have been told. For this I was isolated from people. The people I had previously considered friend they all left me. I was stripped of food, money and health too. I only got what I needed. There was luxury of surplus nevertheless in moments of necessity.

Christ's call was clear: "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:60) The dead are not only those who have passed away but also those who have abandoned life while still living—those who have lost their wonder, their presence, their capacity to see the divine in the ordinary. The capacity too to connect with life within them. I had lived among the dead for long. I was dead too, before I was raised from the deep slumber of unconsciousness.

It is in the awaking I realized that true life is not found in the past we mourn, nor in the future we fear. It is in the present moment. This is where the kingdom of God is—within us, around us, waiting to be realized. Christ declared, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10).

We are here to live life and to be an explosion of life. Iam not here to be the version of my parents, teachers, and the people around me. I am here to be full-fledged life as put by Sadhguru. He adds that "If you are aware, every moment is an explosion of life. If you are unconscious, life passes you by like a dream."

The greatest tragedy is not death itself, but living without truly knowing life. It is not the ceasing of breath that we should fear, but the ceasing of wonder, of presence, of connection to the divine. The call is not simply to exist, but to awaken.

"Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:14)

The Dry Bones of Our Age

In my experience, there was a time when humanity reflected the divine. A time when strangers were welcomed, food was shared without counting, and beds prepared for the weary traveler.

But that world is fading.

Now, fear rules. Suspicion dominates. Generosity is rare. Compassion rarer still.

People live guarded, constantly wary of betrayal, failure, disappointment. We’ve built walls so high we can no longer see each other. Our homes, our churches, our schools—they became fortresses instead of fountains of life.

Like the prophet Ezekiel’s vision, we have become a valley of dry bones—functioning, moving, but spiritually dead.

The Greatest Hunger — Emotional Starvation

What is killing us is not just disease or poverty, but a hunger far deeper—emotional starvation.

People die inside every day because no one truly sees them. No one listens. No one touches the soul behind the face.

We communicate endlessly but connect rarely.

We scroll through thousands of lives online but never truly meet another soul. Marriages turn cold, families grow distant, communities crumble—all while we tell ourselves we are "fine."

The result? A generation more anxious, more depressed, more suicidal than any before.

The young die in droves, not from bullets, but from hopelessness. Because somewhere along the way, we forgot how to live.

The Power of “I AM” — Reclaiming Creation

And yet, even now, I remember—there is still power.

The greatest lie we were ever told is that we are powerless. But the truth is this: we carry the very name of God within us.

"I AM" — the words God spoke to Moses from the burning bush.

"I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14) — the name beyond names, the sacred utterance that creates worlds.

By this name, creation happened. In this name, we are baptized. In this name, we are initiated into the membership of the Divine.

Knowing this truth is salvation. It is eternal life. For in this name, everything is—and without it, nothing can be.

The mystics of the East knew it too. They called it Shi-va—"That which is not," the pure potential from which everything arises and returns.

Use this name always—but use it consciously. Speak "I AM" with the reverence it deserves, for it is the very breath of creation.

You shape your world by every utterance that follows it.

"I AM weak"—and so you become.

"I AM lost"—and so you wander.

"I AM loved"—and so you are.

"I AM divine"—and so you rise.

It cannot be used in vain—not because it is forbidden, but because it is impossible. Every time you speak it, it creates.

Every time you declare "I AM", the universe listens.

The results are inevitable.

This is where your magic works. This is the name that casts every spell—whether blessing or curse.

Be mindful, for you are always bewitching yourself by the unconscious use of "I AM".

Choose your words. Choose your world.

And every time we say, "I am broken," "I am weak," "I am lost,"—we fulfill it.

But what if we spoke differently?

"I am light."

"I am joy."

"I am alive."

What if we remembered that with every word, we create our world?

Awake, O Sleeper — The Time is Now

So, I write this, not just to the world, but to my own soul: Awake, O Sleeper.

Rise from the dust. Shake off the heaviness of shame, regret, and fear.

Reclaim the truth: You are not dust. You are divine. You’re that which uses dust that you may know you in your own experience.

The world needs your light. Not your survival. Your life.

Let your laughter ring out. Let your love overflow. Let your presence remind others what it means to truly be alive.

Because the world does not need more broken people barely surviving.

It needs awakened souls—burning, joyful, free.

And it begins with you. It begins now.

Chapter 11 — Reflection on Life: Embracing the Mosaic of Healing

Life is strange—a mosaic of beauty and brokenness, joy and sorrow, love and loss. For so long, I believed my story was one of abandonment, of being misunderstood, of falling short. But now, I see it differently.

Every wound shaped me. Every crack became a passage for the light to enter. Every time I felt lost, I was being rerouted—prepared for a deeper understanding of what it means to be human and to be alive.

I have carried the weight of many things—rejection, fear, shame—but in carrying them, I recovered my own strength.

Sometimes, we pray desperately—"Deliver us from the evil one."

But what if, over the years, we’ve misunderstood?

What if, in the mind of the Lord—and in the mind of Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles—the “evil one” is not always sent to destroy, but to serve a higher purpose?

What if the thorn in the flesh is not a punishment, but a gift? A companion on this sojourn of life, meant to expand our experience and deepen our knowing?

Paul, a man of great revelations, knew this struggle.

He was burdened by a thorn—what he called “a messenger of Satan sent to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.” (2 Corinthians 12:7)

For Paul, elation itself became a source of distress. The weight of his visions threatened to lift him too high, to disconnect him from the earth, from his purpose, from humility.

And so, the thorn remained.

Three times, Paul pleaded with the Lord to take it away.

Three times, he asked for deliverance.

And the response he received was not what he expected—nor what many of us expect when we pray for rescue:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

This is the mystery:

In the absence of contrast, there is no knowing.

Without what we are not, we cannot truly know what we are.

Without the devil, the divine cannot fully be.

Our weakness, our suffering, our thorns—they do not disqualify us.

They refine us. They reveal the grace that carries us.

They awaken the power that is perfected, not in strength, but in surrender.

Perhaps, then, we have been asking the wrong question.

It is not “Remove the thorn.”

It is “Teach me to see the grace in it.”

For the thorn is not your enemy.

It is your reminder—that grace is enough. Always enough.

Life Is Not Linear

We are taught to expect life to move forward—

One step at a time,

One success after another.

But life doesn’t work that way.

It spirals. It doubles back.

It pauses. It breaks.

There are seasons when we are sifted—like wheat.

Tossed and shaken by the challenges of this life.

And though it feels like loss, it is for the good of our journey as expressions of the Divine.

Jesus told Peter:

"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." (Luke 22:31-32)

So, it is with us.

Our sifting is not our end—it is our becoming.

It breaks us only to awaken us.

There were days I felt like a failure.

Days I believed I had missed my purpose.

Nights I longed for death—

Convinced my absence would make no difference.

But now, I see…

Even those moments were sacred.

Sacred because they stripped me bare—

Left me facing the question no one dares to ask:

Who am I when everything else falls away?

And the answer rose from within, simple and clear:

I am life itself.

Not the titles, not the victories, not the failures. Life—ever-present, ever-unfolding.

Held by grace. Sifted, yes.

But never lost.

No single grain in me is lost.

The Fire Within

I remember the night the fire burned in my chest—the night I whispered, “I am the light of the world. Let that light burn so brightly within me that it touches others.”

That flame has never truly left me. It dims sometimes, hidden under the weight of living, but it is there—constant, eternal.

It is the fire of every human heart. The divine spark. The proof that we were never meant to live small, silent, or afraid.

We are here to burn brightly. To illuminate the darkness—not just for ourselves, but for those who have forgotten the way.

On Love and Loss

I have loved deeply. And I have lost.

Friends who could not understand the path I chose. Family who struggled to see me for who I truly am. Institutions that cast me out because I dared to question.

Each loss carved something out of me. But in those empty spaces, I found something greater—compassion. Empathy. Experience. Me. The Divine. The All in All.

And so, I forgive. Them. Myself. The world.

Because healing is not about forgetting the pain. It is about honoring it and still choosing to live.

The Gift of Death and Rebirth

There is wisdom in dying—not the physical kind, but the spiritual death of who we thought we were. Of the labels we wore. The masks we hid behind.

I have died a thousand small deaths. And in each one, I was reborn.

Not better. Not perfect. But more real.

Life is not about avoiding death. It is about learning to die well—so that every death gives birth to something more beautiful.

Choosing Life, Every Day

And now, I choose life.

Not because it is easy. Not because I have figured it all out. But because I have seen what happens when we stop choosing.

We become dust. Empty shells. The walking dead.

But when we choose life—truly choose it—we become rivers. We flow. We nourish. We awaken everything around us.

And that is why I write this. Not to tell you my story, but to remind you of your own.

You are life. You are light. You are the breath of the divine.

Never forget that.

Closing Reflection — The Journey Home to Self

If life has taught me anything, it is this:

We are all on a journey back home.

Not to a distant land or a faraway heaven, but home to ourselves—to the sacred center where our true essence lives.

Along this journey, we gather experiences—joy, sorrow, betrayal, triumph. We collect wounds and wisdom alike. Every moment, even the ones that broke us, was leading us here.

For the longest time, I thought my story was one of rejection, loss, and being misunderstood. But now, I see it differently. Every crack became an opening. Every loss became a doorway. Every fall was a reminder that something deeper was calling me back home.

And here I am, finally understanding: I am not broken. I am becoming.

We Were Never Meant to Be Broken Cisterns

How much of our suffering came from trying to hold on—building cisterns to store love, happiness, safety—only to watch them crack and leak?

The truth is, we were never meant to be cisterns.

We were meant to be rivers—flowing, wild, unstoppable.

Not containers of life, but vessels through which life flows freely.

Christ did not come to make us survivors. He came to make us alive.

To awaken the rivers within.

To remind us that joy is not something we chase; it is something that flows from within us once the debris is cleared.

There Is No Other — Only Reflections of You

If you remember nothing else, remember this:

There is no “other.” There is only you, reflected back through a thousand faces.

The English language whispers this truth: "you" is both singular and plural. In every room, in every encounter, it is only you meeting yourself.

Every time you give love, you water your own soul.

Every time you withhold kindness, you wound yourself.

Every time you honor another’s humanity, you awaken your own.

Christ said it plainly:

"Whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me." (Matthew 25:40)

There is no separation. There never was.

The lines we draw between self and other, between sacred and profane—

They are illusions.

Every act of kindness, every cruelty, every indifference—

It is always unto Him.

Unto ourselves.

Unto the Divine dwelling in every living soul.

There is no other.

Live Fully. Die Empty.

And so, dear self—dear reader—choose life.

Choose it when it is beautiful.

Choose it when it is unbearable.

Choose it when you are lost.

Choose it until choosing life becomes your very nature.

Laugh loudly.

Love recklessly.

Cry without shame.

Dance without apology.

Forgive without keeping score.

And when the end comes—and it will—may you die empty.

Having poured out every gift.

Having spoken every truth.

Having loved until there was nothing left to give.

Because that is why you came.

Not to survive. Not to be small.

But to live—fully, fiercely, beautifully.

And when you finally return home, may you be ablaze with the glory of having truly lived.

Table of Contents

📜 EPIGRAPH

PROLOGUE — A Seed Breaking Ground

Chapter 1 — Early Joy and Growth of Plant out of Dry Ground

Chapter 2 — The Night of Visitation: A Fire Unseen

Reflection

Chapter 3 — The World: Where Genius Gets Crucified

Chapter 4 — The Body as Antenna: Mystical Sound and Senses

Chapter 6 — Letters to Self: Reckoning with Death and Rebirth

Chapter 7 — Broken Cisterns: What Parenting, School, and Religion Destroyed

Chapter 8 —Doorway to Forgiveness is a Power

Chapter 9 — Inner Engineering: Where Mystics Meets Christ

Chapter 10 — Awake, O Sleeper: A Call to Reclaim Joy and Life

Chapter 11 — Reflection on Life: Embracing the Mosaic of Healing

Closing Reflection — The Journey Home to Self