The Quest
A family seeking the meaning of life through religion and spirituality.
Wisdom of Trauma organisers are hosting a series of talks (moderated by Dr Gabor Mate) which I have been following along with another round of screening of the film. It is free for all but any donation is welcome. As I sit through the discussions especially those revolving around trauma and spirituality, I think back of how every single family member of mine had tried to find their peace of mind through religion or spirituality. Between all 5 of us; parents included we have experienced Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and spirituality.
In the beginning my family was not religious. My father was a free-thinker and even his family was not steeped in Hindu rites. Soon enough my mother sent brother and me to Sunday Dhamma School at the Maha Vihara in Brickfields. Here we were raised in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. I enjoyed it there despite a very spotty attendance, even getting a prize for Dhamma studies, leading a guided meditation, and participating in Wesak day volunteer work.
When the family institution broke down as I turned 13, I was flooded with new found freedom. Here I started to follow my classmate to a Pentecostal church. We even stayed back for Youth fellowship. One afternoon, we broke out in groups and one by one they started to speak in tongues after inviting the Holy Spirit into them. I was not touched by it and really wondered how many of them really were that afternoon. I would stop going after a year or so. I did not find my connection to God here. Also, my friend was tasked a conversion challenge. It was her mission to go out and bring new faces into the congregation. I went along for my own reasons of pure curiosity and seeking new friendships.
By this time, my father had made himself a Christian friend too. He was quite persuasive and dad decided to give church a go. After all he (my father) was in his 50s and had nothing to lose. He would continue to fall in and out of Christianity. I feel that he could never find the answers he was looking for and his dabbling was just a way of seeking community as he was alone. He would hope and expect and when disappointed, just turn away angrily. When desperate again, he would come running back. After all, isn’t God an all forgiving God? Full of compassion and ready to absolve you for all of your shortcomings? I always felt that his connection to God was selfish and insincere. There was an egoic block therefore yielding no true surrender. It was a one way communion, with him on the receiving end but never giving. He felt entitled to receive and it was God’s responsibility to provide.
Meanwhile, few years after we moved out my mother in her obfuscated state had decided to become a Buddhist nun. She shaved her head, donned vermillion robes, left the flat under my charge, seeked a patron, and rented a double storey house 30km up north and called it a temple. Nary a year later this all fell apart. Religion is not an escape plan. It cannot be a ruse or a gimmick to convince yourself that this is what you want. It is not a band-aid for once ripped off, you will realise that a nasty fistula has developed. The pus has festered deep and draining it now requires so much more work.
Twenty years of more undue suffering, she ended up hastily marrying a Muslim gentleman few years her senior. Here in this country, to marry a Muslim would require a conversion into Islam. No two ways about it. Barely two years later, she was divorced by him. Today, she still wears a headscarf, prays 5 times a day and gets aid from the local mosque. The person underneath that garb is still the same as before. It really does not matter how many religious hats you don if the root of the issue is not dealt with. This simply means yourself and your wounds.
If I was the Golden Child, my little brother was the Troublemaker in the chaotic family dynamics. He was only ten when he just followed along with me when I chose to live with my father. He had no idea what was going on and only understood that he now too had massive amount of freedom to do as he pleases. Passive prior to the divorce, I could not comprehend in my young mind why my brother had started acting up the way he did. Teachers were calling the home, and having no mother presence I automatically assumed the role. I bore the shame and overwhelming frustration over his acts of rebellion. My father was at best an absent parent. He had no idea how to raise us kids and truth be told, he wasn’t really interested. My father had his own survival issues to manage; kids aside.
My brother is now better acquainted with Hindu temples. Befriending a medium also deepened his curiosity about the religion. His quest is still evergreen and is undoubtedly incensed from a lot of childhood trauma. This wounding stems from the betrayal and abandonment of mother and then father later on. My brother’s seeking is still from a disempowered stance. All he wants are answers and solutions without having to deep dig into the how and why. Religion is still a crutch for him. Therefore it will always be about asking and choosing only to believe what is convenient and fits the narrative. His life is reduced to waiting for a better future opportunity while refusing to live in the present. An inability to ‘function’ in the real world could also point to birth trauma and possible repeated past life trauma. The soul pieces are trapped in many other dimensions of time. There is a longing and never a belonging in this corporeal form and time.
My sister’s journey is the most remarkable in my opinion. She would have been aborted if not for my father’s wistful thinking that it could be another boy. My mother vehemently detested her, my father couldn’t be arsed since it turned out to be a girl. Separated from birth and raised by my paternal grandparents and aunt, she was a stranger to us. We could never bring her back into our family as my parents had no means of raising another mouth. My brother and her never got along and there was me, trying valiantly to be a responsible caring big sister whenever I could. We kept in touch as much as possible but there were years of silence in between. Her trauma was of a little girl lost, never belonging. She only longed for a mother and a father, none of which were capable of showing up for her in any way.
One fine day, around eight years ago she left her job as a professional nurse and embarked on her spiritual quest. She went on a solo soul searching journey to Bali and was back for more. By this time she was learning tarot, had connected to an American holistic wellness teacher and was already familiar with the moon cycles. It is through her I learnt about the moon and its womb connection. With her enthusiastic support, I re-aligned myself back to spirituality. I was on the periphery for years, never really fully immersing. We took a trip to Adelaide where she encouraged me to get healing from a gifted physic and to attend a women’s colouring circle; the first women’s circle I had ever attended in my life. My second calling was precipitated by her, and for that I will always be grateful.
Alas, we were both spinning in our own vortex of transmutation & things got extremely intense. Without proper support and mentorship this journey can send you into the deep end very quickly. Without enough guidance or spiritual maturity, it will be very hard to stand in the flames of purification. Both of us were conflict averse and never knew how to sort out our domestic (she was living with me) discord. We parted ways and she proceeded to cut off contact with every single person she met while with me on her spiritual journey, including me as well.
She was looking for something that no guru, priestess could ever give her. Her parents. The imprinting was a recipe for failure and this lost duckling could not see it. It is not her mandala art teacher that failed her, not the holistic mama, not the spiritual sage. She just had a damaged inner child and non-existent inner parent. The Dark Night of the Soul journeys are incredibly tough. We can only be patient to see ourselves through it. Her journey continues as mine does today.
I relate this story because of the amount of fragmentation that can occur in a single nuclear family unit. How lives are affected from feelings of being unsafe, unheard, and unwanted. How we each eventually turned to some form of higher force to seek meaning and solace for everything we had endured unsupported. Feelings were never addressed, abuse was normalised, and boundaries repeatedly violated. As a result we all grew up with our own brand of trauma. My father disowned by his father. Trauma. My mother disowned by her father and brothers. Trauma. My parents divorcing. Trauma for all three children (even for my sister who was never part of the nuclear family as the effect ripples out).
This penning is not to glorify and seek validation for what that has happened. The karmic contract is as such. Without these lessons we will not be on the path we each are now on, for better or for worse.
Trauma is not a badge of honour. It is not to be invalidated or scoffed at either. Instead, it is for each of us to truly look back and start by healing the wounds within us. Working on our issues help us first cultivate compassion with the self. It gets our head out of our own suffering. It makes us better listeners and space holders. It add value to every role that you play in life be it a friend, parent, sibling, child, spouse, colleague. This is the key that liberates us in this lifetime.
I might add that in this quest, it is important that we look back and laugh. A lightness of being helps. After all that shit, we still live to tell the tale. Understand that we can disinherit all the burdens and programmings but not before we face the demon itself and name it. By naming it, we can cast it out. Any other way and it would be deemed denial, suppression, repression, and most disenchanting of all, a betrayal of our soul’s truth.
