December 26, 2024
~ A text by Irma ten Brink inspired by the work of Yoginâm ~
Living as a modern nun
Little did I know when I said ‘yes I want to live a nuns life in a monastery’ sixteen years ago.
Many associate a monastery and being a nun with religion but for me this was not the case, at least not the Christian religion. Images pop up in my head rather of Buddhist nuns. Although I said yes to it, it was not really a decision, it was more another happening in my life just as so often I experienced not having to make decisions just say yes to what life brings you. And so it was with me becoming a nun, it was just the most natural next step to take in life.
To be a woman in her womenhood
A woman who is in her healthy womanhood often wants to be with a man, this is a natural inclination. She feels save and, with a supporting respectful man equally healthy in his manhood, she can live her full potential as a woman and they complement eachother.
She will love her husband (I think above all a woman needs to love), follow him and be his best partner. The man with such a woman healthy in her womanhood will feel supported and fully himself, being able to also live his full potential.
As such I have been role modeled beautifully by my parents, who still are very much in love with each other and are the best of partners one can wish for.
For me however, this natural inclination appeared to be a bit different
Where I saw friends following this course I could not. Life just didn’t give me this option. Sure I tried it and had some nice experiences but it didn’t really work out for me and I noticed I felt different then my friends, I just didn’t feel such a need to find a man and there was no desire for children either. And indeed life was having a completely different agenda for me, I found out later.
Ones I had an unanswered and impossible love which caused the love to grow so profound that I started knowing very new feelings like ‘willing to die for’. It was both a very beautiful ánd very painful experience. However I have always been grateful for this experience because it prepared me greatly to what was to come. Never again I came across such a deep human love.
Later on I thought perhaps I am not capable of having a relationship, perhaps something is wrong with me. But for a couple of years a beautiful relationship with a men followed and changed that idea. I was blessed to discover how beautiful and enlightening such a relationship can be.
But again I knew this was not my purpose, I needed the experience for that moment but it held no future and it felt ‘ready’, so I stopped, very natural and without drama and heartbreak because it was true, it was ready, the purpose was reached. I had to dive in this deep at first in order to let it go completely later.
Somewhere along this road I felt great support in a vision showing me a future with a relationship beyond my imagination. This vision gave me confidence and took away feelings of failure. I could trust it would come naturally and it would be intensely beautiful.
A beautiful metaphor; ‘the bride of God’.
All this had prepared me for a next level and my true life purpose.
The metaohor ‘the bride of God’ resonates strongly with how I feel. Not the religious God of Christianity but the more middle-east ‘Unknowable, the most infinitely wide and the most intimately close’.
I never dared and still am quit shy about expressing these feelings and this choice of words to others because they are so intimate. Of course ‘the bride of God’ are borrowed words since this relationship is written about by many in different traditions throughout the ages. I use it as a beautiful expression for something you can otherwise not explain in words.
My deep spiritual relationship with my spiritual guide, whose single purpose it is to show me the way to this ‘Unknowable’, allows me to explore this relationship with the Unknown which, without such a guide, is impossible to do, simply because the Unknowable is unknowable. It is not ‘a something’, meaning there is nothing you can relate to, so how to do this, how to start such a relationship. You need tools and you need a spiritual guide.
A devoted way of living
Today I try to live my life devoted and in service to this ‘Ultimate Unknowable’ which I found is everywhere and in all of us. I learned to express this with the sound Abbah or simply ‘the Beloved’. The face of the Beloved is what we can experience as Asha. This is Nâm language because you need language, it is not expressing a truth but rather it is a tool to start relating to something as abstract as ‘the Unknowable’.
Ever deepening this relation, becoming one with the One is my purpose.
Ibn Arabi beautifully expresses the search for Abbah as ‘Whoso knows himself knows his lord’.
This is my story and I am writing this from a woman perspective.
Man naturally experience spirituality in a different way.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Everybody has its own life story and each story is unique and not one story is ‘better’ then another. My life purpose is not everyones purpose, it is unique.
However on my way discovering things I did come to see that there is something in which we equally share and everyone can re-connect to this. This re-connecting brings meaning, gratefulness and everlasting joy. It helps with dealing with everyday life situations, it infuses life with meaning and it helps to better deal with problems.
LivingNâm provides powerful tools like silence retreats, the Breath, courses and community activities which are all aiming at re-connecting to this what we also call our Authentic or Natural State.
Over the last twenty years I have watched so many people benefiting from these tools. Just being present for a few days in our retreat centers already does that, everyone leaves the house a different person, we see that almost every day!!
I never cared about commercials, earning a lot of money, becoming rich. Money needs to flow in and out naturally so that everyone can benefit. I just want to share with everyone how beautiful life can be when you know how to re-connect!
Start your own search, re-connect and become the master of your authentic life!
Re-Connect 