The day I met my unexpected Spiritual Guide

January 25 2013. Imprinted into my cells, woven into the tapestry of my psyche, memorized into my body, crystallized into the portal of my heart. January 25. 

A day I will never forget.

It was the day I received my most profound spiritual teaching from a person I had least expected…my dad.

Who is now one of my greatest teachers - even 3 years after his death.

For as long as I can remember, I have craved spiritual wisdom above anything else. Growing up, I so deeply desired for family dinner conversations to move beyond the materially focused perspective. My family didn’t seem to be bothered by my disengagement in conversation and over time just expected it. Yet inside…I was starving to receive any guidance other than my finances, and how to take care of my car. So naturally, I went seeking everywhere and anywhere for answers to my most burning questions…’Who am I, and why am I here?.

I traveled all over the world, spending my days with master teachers, living in extreme environments, tracking crazy amount of time in no-time and in silence, receiving initiations, many lessons, and better understanding. 

But never did I expect that my dad would be one of my greatest spiritual teachers.

January 25th, 2013, was a weird day. I was on my way home from a playground with my son Ramone so he could take his afternoon nap. As we were pulling up to my house he started to hysterically freak out and say that he wanted to go see ‘zaida’ (grandfather in hebrew). I was planning to go visit him after Ramone’s nap, as we did everyday since my father received his final verdict on his health - that his time was coming to an end.

I had never seen Ramone freak out like that before so I decided to listen to him. When we arrived at my parents house, Ramone asked if he could skip his nap and watch tv next to his Zaida. I said yes. Typically, my siblings, mom and I, were constantly near my dad at all times; yet on this day -My brother and sister were out of the house, and my mom and I were upstairs, so it was just Ramone and my dad.

And thats when it happened. The day I met my unexpected spiritual guide.

At age 2.5 years old, my son received his biggest teaching in life and it came in a way I could have never planned, expected, nor understood the profundity of it all.

Still to this day I am so in awe. My dad gave my son the key to understanding ultimate freedom. What a mitzvah - what a blessing. Tears of gratitude mixed with extreme sadness streamed down my face that day, for his service and role in teaching my son a wisdom lesson that I had no idea how to teach. And as a result, my beloved dad gave my son a conscious chance to find freedom from humanities greatest fear based program about death. 

Since Ramone had no previous conditioning around death, when I explained to him what was happening and what just happened, he looked at me, so sincerely and said: “I get it mom - its all ok. The body is dead but not his energy”

So Ramone has seen death, and has an understanding of the natural cycle of life, all because of my dads example. Not only do I see this as one of the highest spiritual teachings my father could gift my son, I also knew in that moment of seeing his lifeless body - I had just met my teacher. 

Beyond all comprehension, without any skill set, I was thrown into the school of the life/death cycle

and this began my very first teaching with my dad (which was to later continue during my travels in Cyprus).

I understood this concept intellectually for many many years. For you can't study a spiritual teaching and bypass the concept of death - For it is so necessary to know life. This being the ultimate duality. Yet now I was in it, fully immerse in all layers of beingness, and continue to be in it every single second I think of him.

It is a living teaching. I am a lifetime student of impermanence now

I just need to wander out of presence, for a brief moment where I land on thoughts of my teacher - and I am in school once again.

Wow…what a teacher…what a rich teaching…

January 25th, 2013 - the day I met my guide.

With love, your disciple.

Tanis