God is my Psychotherapist, by Mary Lynn Adzema

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God Is My Psychotherapist

Mary Lynn Adzema*

In this article, Mary Lynn shares her personal experiences of the Avatar’s role in her life.

Sai Baba had given my friend and me some telling lessons in divine unity, or

oneness, on our first visit to his Brindavan ashram near Bangalore, India.

These lessons would carry over into our lives, alleviating some of our fears

and anxieties – feelings that appear to be endemic in our human condition and

actually originate in our illusion of separateness – according to Buddha’s

diagnosis some 2400 years ago. For most of us in Sathya Sai Baba’s orbit,

synchronistic happenings, "chance" meetings, and the like gradually reinforce

our experience of unity. I like to call these events "cosmic coincidence"; and

repeatedly in the charmed life of the devotee, Sai Baba uses them to remind us

that we are, in fact, one with our fellow beings and one with him. These

"little miracles" often occur in moments of crisis, times when, as Wordsworth

said, "the world is too much with us," and then Baba lifts the veil of maya,

allowing us to see our pressing problems in the light of a larger reality. I

had a powerful experience of this kind some years ago when my older son, David,

was going through an emotional breakdown. He had moved to a neighboring county,

and since I was not acquainted with any psychologists or support services there,

I was at a loss, floundering in fear and anxiety for my son. I asked Baba for

guidance; the very first thought that occurred was to call a devotee who lived

in this nearby community and whose son had experienced similar difficulties,

and so I did. She could not recommend a specific psychiatrist but suggested

that I contact a psychologist who had worked with her son in the past. As

matters developed, this therapist responded to my plea for help in such a way

that I realized Baba was indeed guiding me. The psychologist explained that he

was planning to have lunch that day with his best friend who just happened to be

in charge of the county’s Continuing Care services. This man, he assured me,

was a highly spiritual person and a psychiatrist he could strongly recommend

for my son. We made an appointment, and a week later as we walked into his

office for David’s initial visit, the first things I noticed, which practically

leaped out at me from the psychiatrist’s bookcase, were the familiar,

dark-blue-embossed-with-gold volumes of the Course in Miracles. I found myself

thinking, "Thank you, Baba; obviously this man is a seeker." But the crowning

touch was yet to come. As the psychiatrist began talking with my son, I

noticed four copies of a book right on his desk in front of him. I took a

closer look. They were none other than The Supremacy of God by Ilon, a series

of vedantic essays which constitute a hymn of praise to Sathya Sai Baba as the

avatar of our age. This particular book, as it happened, was the very one my

younger son had given to his bal vikas (Sunday school) teacher as a Christmas

gift! As our conversation with the doctor continued, he told us about his own

interest in spiritual matters including his meditation practice and his

vegetarianism; and he explained that he had just finished reading Spirit and

the Mind, a book written by a distinguished devotee of Sai Baba, Dr. Samuel

Sandweiss, a well-known San Diego psychiatrist. By now it was becoming

abundantly clear that Baba had guided us to a doctor who could not only

understand but also fully identify with my son’s spirituality; and this was a

rare, if not unlikely, happening since many psychiatrists would have seen

David’s spiritual life through Freudian lenses, labeling it "regressive"

behavior, and just one more symptom of his psychosis. Needless to say, this

event was a healing one for my troubled heart. I could almost hear Baba’s

sweet voice as he lifted the veil of illusion one more time, saying to me

softly, reassuringly, "Why fear when I am here?" This sharing of Sai Baba’s

loving intervention in David’s life prompts me to reveal his part in the lives

of the rest of my family; how, as "Shiva" (the destructive facet of God in

Hinduism), he would shatter life structures and behavior patterns that had

outlived their usefulness, setting us on a new course of growth, healing, and

expansion. In 1988 on my third visit to India, our group was fortunate enough

to have an interview with Baba on Halloween day, and and I was blessed to have

some personal attention from him. As he looked at the photo of my younger son

which I was holding out to him, Baba took it in his hand and remarked, "I know

him." Then he asked, "How is he?" Visions of my son, 19 at the time,

struggling with his addiction to pot and drifting through college without

purpose, swam through my mind. But I realized Baba knew all this; I had to cut

to the chase, and so I responded, "He is fine, Baba, but he needs direction.

Will you please help?" I can still hear his soothing, sweet voice as he

reassured me, "Yes, yes, I will bless . . . " and then he placed his hand on my

head and admonished me, "Be happy!" As I look back now, some seven years later,

I realize this interview was not only a peak experience in my life, but also a

watershed moment, a turning point. Within months of my return from that trip,

my husband would suggest, and I would agree, that we sell our Santa Barbara

home of twenty-one years and move to Ojai where I was teaching at the time at

World University. Within a year of our move I would get a divorce; and now,

five years later as I look back on this dizzying turn of events, it is clear

that Baba simply closed the book on a portion of my karmic debt. In effect he

had told me, "Time for chapter two – time to move on." And so I did. I gave up

my pretense-of-a-marriage and all the trappings that went with it – my beautiful

middle-class home with all the amenities, and my comfortable "tea party"

spirituality. I now live in a thirty-seven-foot trailer with my new partner

(as of last August, my husband), Mickel, a dynamic, younger man who happens to

be a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, too. Not only is he very much involved in

changing the world from the perspective of primal therapy and pre- and

perinatal psychology, but also I know that he is Baba’s gift to me, a catalyst

for my own inner growth. From the very early days of our relationship I began

undergoing spontaneous "primals" (catharses), tapping into my unfinished trauma

issues from childhood and birth. Another whole article could be devoted to this

dramatic process which has now been unfolding in me for the past four years.

Suffice it to say that in the course of this roller-coaster ride of

transformation I have left the uptight, lady-like "do-gooder" far behind. In a

word, I have reincarnated as a revolutionary! In the life Mickel and I share, we

write together, we give Primal Breathwork workshops together, we publish a

journal for the International Primal Association. Together we play an active

role in the vast underground movement now under way to midwife the new

paradigm. Indeed, our connection with the Rose Garden is just one in a series

of synchronistic events which have brought us in touch with an ever growing

network of souls -- each of us a unique voice, and yet, together, one

harmonious chorus – involved in awakening our society for the millennium and

beyond. And what of my younger son for whom I had asked "direction?" More

magic. After graduating from U.C. Santa Cruz with his B.S. in biology, he is

now enrolled at Sonoma State University in one of the most prestigious teaching

credential programs in California – if not the U.S. He was one of only fifty

(out of two-hundred-fifty applicants) to be accepted and is now looking forward

to a teaching career on the high school level. But what is most magical of all

is that he just "happens" to be attending the same school where my husband

received his M.A. a year ago, and is, in fact, living in the same student

trailer park, just across the way. This has permitted him to be with us and to

participate in our monthly Primal Breathwork workshops. Not only has Peter been

able to seize these precious opportunities for self-healing by re-experiencing

and releasing the pain around his life traumas, including birth – but also, to

do so in a uniquely loving way,

when you consider that his own mother happens to be one of the facilitators. And

what of my ex-husband? The magic continues. I can truthfully report that the

divorce served as a wake-up call for this good man. He was forced to confront

his neurotic patterns, and he did so in therapy. He now has a new partner, a

wonderful woman who shares many of his interests, and they are creating a new

life together. The cosmic frosting on the cake in all this for me is that the

four of us are good friends; in fact, we spent Thanksgiving together! Such is

the ineffable mercy, love, and power of this avatar, Sathya Sai Baba. But this

is not a call to "guru" worship; nor is it an attempt to proselytize any one.

I have simply shared my truth. As Sai Baba has said, there are as many paths

to God as there are individuals in this world, for He/She approaches us in

whatever form, and on whatever path, we may choose. I do sincerely believe

that each one of us, whatever our religious persuasion, is capable of taking

that "one step" toward God that Baba speaks of; and that with the inevitable

force of cosmic law, He/She will then take "ten steps" towards us. As Jesus

Christ assured us 2000 years ago, we are all children of God; and in this age,

as Sai Baba has said, each one of us is a divine being – we have simply

"forgotten" our true nature, having chosen to play the cosmic game of

hide-and-seek in a human form. And once we do take that step, once we surrender

to the Divine, our "schooling" accelerates in earnest. We find that we have

been looking at life through the wrong end of the telescope, that the usual

rules no longer apply. To explain this in my own terms: as I review my life,

it becomes increasingly clear to me that only those experiences which inspired

love and awareness of divine unity have had any meaning and value. The

downers, difficulties, trials and losses that I suffered are now perceived as

unique opportunities which the universe, God, or in my case, Sai Baba, seized

upon to awaken me. So, indeed, what is good? What is bad? Most often what the

world considers "good" has the effect of prolonging the delusion; while the

"bad" removes it. As seekers on whatever the path, we are blessed to know that

by surrendering to our higher self we can live with this cosmic paradox, and

thus be empowered to weave whole cloth out of the warp and the woof, the

seeming ups and downs of our lives. More and more, life in this world appears

to be a gigantic "koan," unsolvable by the mind; solvable, in fact, only by

love. As Sai Baba has reassured us, "It is the heart that reaches the goal.

Follow the heart! A pure heart seeks beyond the intellect. It gets inspired."

This is the transformation that God, as our divine psychotherapist, is bringing

about in each of us, slowly, gently, and surely removing the blocks to love’s

awareness.

MARY LYNN ADZEMA is a long-time devotee of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. She has an M.A.

in Consciousness Psychology, an A.B.D. in Philosophy, and over thirty-years

involvement in yogic and Eastern spiritual practices. She wrote a chapter for

and co-edited a book about the experiences of Sai Baba devotees titled

Transformation of the Heart. She has taught psychology at the university

level and has published on the topics of psychology and spirituality. Mary

Lynn has received training with Stanislav Grof in holotropic breathwork and

with various people in primal therapy. Having served with the International

Primal Association on it Board of Directors and as Assistant Editor of the

publications, Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology, a

professional journal of psychology, and Primal Spirit: The Deeper Wave of the

New Age, a magazine; she now serves as Assistant Editor of those some

publications in their reincarnation on this website, and as consulting editor

for Primal Spirit website in its umbrella-role for those publications plus all

its other facets. Most importantly, she serves as Assistant Director of the

newly opened Primal Spirit Center for Human Evolution, offering primal

breathwork, primal therapy, a community of healing -- to name its major

intentions. Mary Lynn's extended bio can be found at Mary Lynn Adzema's

Writings. She can be contacted at P.O. Box 1348, Guerneville, CA 95446-1348;

phone: (707) 869-9008; e-mail: marylynn (AT) primalspirit (DOT) com.

COLLECTION: PREETHAM SAI P.V.

MANGALORE,INDIA.

 

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