Israel Revisited – from exile to exodus (part 1/2)

In Australia, they say you should either be earning or learning. I chose yearning.

(also see: 2005: Up Periscope! and part 2)

In January 2005, I went for a drive to South Australia. I don’t fully know why I went – I just did.

I was only gone for a few days as I had a terrible sleeping arrangement in the back of my vehicle – but I had the taste of freedom that I yearned for – both physical and mental.

A couple of months later, I started a Monash law degree (to be my second degree) but I soon dropped out. Law camp was fun, but when it was time to start studying, I couldn’t focus at all. Also, one of the heads of Mannix College bid me farewell after I worked for the college on their IT setup and as an IT tutor:

Interestingly, from 2000 through graduation in 2001 (with Information Systems,) and until that point, I had been researching and writing about spiritual, esoteric and religious concepts at home (including Kundalini) out of my own volition.

Choosing to study law as a second degree was my attempt at decompartmentalizing my mind: and it failed.

So a few weeks later in March, I headed north from Melbourne and made Port Macquarie by about 10pm. The following day I kept driving as planned, eventually through Burleigh Heads where Yumi Stynes from Channel V was walking around asking people about their experiences with G-spots. I declined to answer and the guys in front of me straight out ignored her.

I made Surfers Paradise in good time and in the back of my mind I was thinking “what am I doing?” and I realised I was on holiday – some type of working holiday quest – and it felt great. I would never go back to the old way of planning my life in a cold, deliberate fashion – and I don’t think I could if I tried. It’s about holydays, not holidays.

Moreover, there was an IT recession at the time and work and investors (for GrooveTip) were hard for me to find. I was actually planning to live in Surfers, but like with my trip to South Australia – I just couldn’t get comfortable so pretty soon I headed back to Melbourne through Newcastle and Canberra.

However, when I passed through Byron Bay, the most amazing thing happened as I was almost asleep – a voice from deep within me cut through my awareness and said “GO TO ISRAEL” !!!

People back in Melbourne were surprised to see me and it felt awkward, but at least I had a way forward: to keep decompartmentalizing my mind… in Israel!

And in a more academic sense if:

In the classical literature of Kashmir Shaivism kundalini is described in three different manifestations. The first of these is as the universal energy or para-kundalini. The second of these is as the energizing function of the body-mind complex or prana-kundalini. The third of these is as consciousness or shakti-kundalini which simultaneously subsumes and intermediates between these two. Ultimately these three forms are the same but understanding these three different forms will help to understand the different manifestations of kundalini. ~ Kurt Keutzer 2002

… then perhaps I am (and was) just seeking to maximize Shakti?

I recorded a monologue in Jerusalem in early 2007 at Yeshiva Ohr Somayach detailing my life leading up to my arrival in Israel, that is, this exact story.


✓ 3 years ago