God's Callgirl

by Carla Van Raay

  WHEN THE STUDENT is ready, the teacher will appear, so they say. In November of 1998 Isaac Shapiro came to town. Isaac—swarthy, sexy, hefty (he loved food!) and wonderfully simple—had woken up to who he was as a spiritual being. It was a pleasure to be in his company. He made himself available for questions and his patience was never-ending as he gently guided others to their true self.

  I sat in the audience of a hundred or so and felt a pull to go up and speak with Isaac. However, I grew so hot with fear of speaking up in public that for days I couldn’t find the courage. Then, finally, I found myself picking my way among the crowd to the front.

  I sat next to him, with a microphone in my hand. My heart was galloping at a hundred miles an hour and wouldn’t come to rest. Eyes riveted on Isaac, my vision blurred, I was about to speak when Isaac stopped me.

  ‘Tell me what you are feeling,’ he said.

  ‘Fear,’ I replied.

  ‘Well,’ said Isaac, ‘that’s an idea you have in your mind, a label for what you are feeling. Tell me what are the sensations in your body?’

  I checked, moving my focus from my mind. The adrenaline that had been pouring through my veins was finding a pleasant plateau all by itself. ‘I feel a warm sort of glow,’ I said, which produced some laughter in the audience.

  ‘So this is what you have been afraid of,’ Isaac said, ‘a warm sort of glow!’ He chuckled, and looked at me steadily.

  I nodded, not thinking all that clearly in that moment, feeling very warm indeed and probably sporting glowing cheeks. I prepared to go back to my seat again, but Isaac stopped me with a request. ‘Please would you sing a song?’ he asked, smiling mischievously but indicating that it was merely a request, not an expectation.

  Immediately, the song I had bellowed out in class as a six year old, mortally afraid that I’d be seen as a wicked child, came to mind. Still under the influence of raw adrenaline, I sang ‘Daar bij die molen’, not too melodiously but with a smile. At the end, I received a generous round of applause. ‘Stay with yourself,’ said Isaac, before I left his side. In the instant he said those words, I lost consciousness. I entered a space like deep sleep, where I had the experience of thinking nothing. Nothing at all—a peaceful and vast no-thingness. It seemed to last for only a fraction of a second as I met Isaac’s steady eyes and his words went deep inside, like a present on a silk cushion laid on my heart. Stay with yourself. I knew these words contained the secret of happiness. I thanked him haltingly, he nodded in recognition, and I returned to my seat in the audience.

  Apart from his words, Isaac had given me something else. In that moment of no-thingness, I had gone home to essential Self. For something so simple, this is hard to describe. From that place I retained a feeling, different from emotion, of myself as pure being. It was a deep understanding, or an understanding of the Deep in which we live. I felt myself, this Carla, grow up. I sat in quiet bliss, gratitude welling up in me for this tremendous gift.

  Back home, I remembered more of Isaac’s words, spoken to someone else. Feelings are impersonal. I realised with amazement that the feelings of shame, worthlessness and dread which I had owned as if they were exclusively mine, and lived by as the basic truth of me, were not even my own feelings! I had inherited them, most probably from my parents, who had learned them from their parents, from society, the church and so on. I had no control over these thoughts as a child, and still had no control over them as an adult.

  I stayed with these realisations for a while, going back into the past and experiencing the familiar painful feelings starting to shake loose, then snap back, clinging to my skull for dear life. I had given them fifty-four years of life and they were not ready to die just like that. But Isaac had taught me the ultimate reason for self-acceptance: staying with myself, my true self. Acceptance of even the most difficult feelings and thoughts was a way of being with myself.

  It was simple science. Self-rejection was a way of losing myself. Self-acceptance was a way of regaining myself.

  ON 23 DECEMBER 1998, barely a month after Isaac’s visit, I was knocked off my bicycle by a speeding truck on one of Denmark’s narrow roads. The driver didn’t stop.

  I was hospitalised with a compound fracture of my right arm. The duty surgeon did not seem at all pleased to be assigned this case, so close to Christmas. He had his head in his hands as he sat there, both of us waiting for the operation to begin. He looked up and came over to me, to whisper fiercely in my ear, ‘My job is to tidy you up and sew you up. It isn’t to make you look pretty. If you want to look pretty, get yourself a plastic surgeon!’

  The duty surgeon did a butcher’s job of patching up my broken arm. Contrary to what he told me before the operation, he did not insert a metal support for the splintered bones, and his cuts and stitching were very rough. Afterwards, acute bursitis in my elbow prevented me lying down, and I suffered from a severe negative reaction to morphine, not discovered for two whole days. I was going crazy with pain and constant retching. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the letter M dancing in front of them. There were myriads of them and they refused to go away. Finally I asked myself what these Ms meant. The answer came immediately: M was for madness. I was going mad with pain, the wrong medication, an inability to keep down food or drink, and lack of sleep.

  To my visitors who came on Christmas Day, I was a pitiful sight. Louis, my chiropractor, took one look at me and knew what I needed. The dear man, he reminded me of something I already knew but had forgotten in the midst of my distress: Accept what is happening without resistance. ‘Breathe, Carla,’ he said. ‘Conscious breathing takes you out of your head and into your heart.’

  And so, as I breathed in I accepted what was happening, and as I breathed out I continually surrendered to the mystery of why. I accepted whatever was ahead of me and I sank into peace. ‘What is surrender?’ I had asked Persephone and her friends. For years I had wondered what true surrender might be. Here was the opportunity of a lifetime to better understand! Once again, it was about self-acceptance, bringing me to new depths of myself. The letter M changed to M for meditation.

  Back in my own home, I learned to accept the incredible kindness of many friends who came with food and treats and offers of all kinds of help. I learned another meaning for M—the magic that happens when one surrenders.

  It was impossible to receive so much love and stay the same. I mellowed in many ways—another ‘M’.

  I SPENT LONG periods in utter solitude and silence as my arm mended. I couldn’t watch TV because it hurt my eyes; for the same reason, I couldn’t read for long. Nor could I write. The strange feeling came over me that I lived in a void, like a shadow. Did I live in this void all the time, utterly alone, with people only thinly present? And was my ordinary activity just to fill this silent void with lots of distractions? I was afraid this might be true.

  I played some light, sweet music, dreading the sudden snap back to empty silence at the end. I programmed the recorder to repeat the tape on a loop, thus stalling the end. Was I playing out the whole of my life this way? What was I trying to stall? The idea of annihilation, of disappearing as if I had never existed? I felt the inevitability of death all around me, as if I were existing in a world that had already died.

  I didn’t want this strange feeling, so I filled up the void with some rich chocolate cake someone had brought me from the coffee shop. I felt bad afterwards, yet also better somehow. I realised I had desensitised myself by over-eating. I no longer felt the inevitable death of my body so keenly. None of us is going anywhere and none of us will stay here—the voice from the void echoed through the silence. My neck, arm and hand hurt badly.

  If I couldn’t sink into the bliss of just being, maybe I should get laid, I thought. It had been years now! But there was no one to go to bed with, only memories surrounding me. I wanted a flesh-and-blood person who could see me, put real arms around me. Then I would have the illusion that I was not alone, after all. The arms would let go of you, the voice butted in.
He would go—to the bathroom, or to sleep. He would retreat into the nothingness at night, or into the mists of doingness by day.

  Weird thoughts. I was worried that ideas of suicide might come next. But by some grace, I realised that my musings weren’t all negative; they were an invitation to understand something deeper than ordinary life. I called on unseen friends to help me—angels, anyone out there. At an indefinable moment, my feelings changed. I became willing to face death, and in that moment of willingness I entered a new freedom.

  Life had brought me to an even deeper appreciation of the profound acceptance of ‘what is’. I saw that it was the same as self-acceptance, because there is really nothing else out there. What is apparently out there is always, only, my self. This is not something I can really explain. It will only make sense to those who already know it.

  There was now no suffering, just an incredible feeling of being able to enjoy whatever the moment brought, breath to breath, heartbeat to heartbeat, painful moment to painful moment. Success no longer had anything to do with having money, or a career, or being appreciated. Success was to live this moment in gratitude.

  TO SPEED UP the healing of my broken arm, my daughter Caroline wanted me to see a powerful South American healer who was visiting Perth. I resisted for a long time, mainly because he charged a phenomenal amount of money which I could hardly afford. Caroline offered to pay for me if I didn’t get my money’s worth and, in the end, I agreed to a session.

  I stood before Victor explaining the reason for my appointment. He ignored my arm and looked into my eyes. He was a stocky, dark man with unmistakable charisma and loads of optimism. Within a few seconds, he told me that for most of my life my spirit had been partly out of my body. He drew a picture, showing the outline of a spirit body hanging out to one side of my own body; it was in terrible fright and wanting to depart, attached only by the umbilical cord. I listened attentively—this made sense to me, in spite of my new-found peacefulness.

  I looked around me, noticing with disdain the large cross in the room with lights all over it, the picture of the Virgin Mary—all the trappings of religion, and the Catholic religion at that!

  Victor asked three women trainees to come and look at me. They described symptoms that confirmed his opinion, including having piercing eyes that made other people feel uncomfortable. This really made me sit up and listen. I had become aware that people sometimes tried to figure out what they saw in my eyes. They seemed to think I glared at them, and I found myself screwing up my eyes to make them appear softer. When I wanted to avoid other people’s gaze, I had developed the disconcerting habit of looking straight past them.

  I was asked to stand before the illuminated cross and ask for divine help. I closed my eyes and complied, ready for whatever was about to happen.

  Victor then asked me to lie down on a large bench, helped by the three women, and he began a ritual to bring my spirit back into my body. He called out loud to my spirit and asked me to shout, ‘I AM HERE!’ as he slapped the soles of my feet very hard. I whimpered at the pain in my feet, but shouted as he’d asked, while the women prayed. Suddenly, he called out, ‘In the name of God, I command you to go in!’ and slapped my feet one last time. A loud, involuntarily cry came out of my mouth—and I felt my spirit enter.

  I was helped off the bench and Victor watched me as I walked up and down. I felt renewed, simple, child-like. Not extraordinary, but completely ordinary. I understood, perhaps for the first time, what it was like just to be a human being, fully ‘here’. It was a soft and simple joy. I felt a gentle confidence and natural grace as I walked, and gratitude towards Victor, the man who had brought my spirit back into my body.

  He had succeeded in remedying something I’d had no idea of. I had been frightened out of my body at the age of six and had got used to it. It was remarkable to feel at peace with my whole self again. I breathed more easily and felt, at a profound level, that I had joined the human race. It was a special moment.

  No mention was ever made of my arm, but it healed remarkably well after a second operation from one of the best surgeons in town.

  RADICAL INNOCENCE

  IT WAS AUGUST 1999 and I sat in my Dutch friend’s backyard, having arrived at her house in Breda, Holland, via France, Belgium and London. I explained to her that I was broke, but had my return ticket.

  I had responded to a strong inspiration to do a certification training course in what is called The Work with a woman called Byron Katie, and had put down a deposit without having the means to pay the rest. I trusted that things would come together for me somehow. I had the prospect of a compensation pay-out coming to me as a result of my road accident, so wasn’t being entirely foolish. The trouble was that no bank or lending institution, nor one friend in Denmark, had been able to lend me a single cent against this pay-out which did not have a firm figure or date. Nevertheless, I organised as much as possible by using up all my available credit. At the very last minute, two dear friends in Perth lent me the airfare I needed.

  ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ I asked my friend. Julia, a feisty woman of eighty, burst into laughter. No, she didn’t think I was stupid; instead, she admired my intrepidness and offered on the spot to contribute two thousand guilders, enough to cover my fortnight’s accommodation at the course with a bit over. I was also extremely welcome to be her guest and she wanted to spoil me at her expense. What a relief! Julia was a wealthy woman with a big heart and we got on very well indeed, enjoying each other’s company.

  I breathed in the balmy summer air in her backyard, so refined compared to the roughly scented air of Australia. I was back in my own country again, for the first time in forty-nine years. Only twenty minutes away by train was the town of my birth, Tilburg. I felt as if I was in a story book, one with a lot of bright, friendly pictures.

  The course was due to start soon and so I made my way to Heeze, to Kappellerput, an old Jesuit monastery converted into a convention centre with room for about a hundred guests. When I originally booked, they emailed back that there was no room left in the course. I responded that I was coming anyway, and two days later heard that the course had proved so popular that Katie had decided to take on as many as the centre could accommodate.

  The Work of Byron Katie began a few years after Katie’s own awakening. Katie, a nicely rounded woman in her fifties, has known what it is to feel unloved and unworthy, what it is to hate and be filled with anger, grief, sadness and despair, how it feels to not function well enough to look after oneself. Simply by grace, she woke up one morning to realise it was stories that had held her bound. She has never believed a single story since.

  Jesus said, ‘Knowing the truth will set you free.’ How often have we heard this and equated truth with one belief or another? Real truth doesn’t have to be believed in because it sits deep in the heart.

  The first part of The Work involves writing. ‘My father ruined my life,’ I began. I loved my father, and had forgiven him, but it was true that he had ruined my life; this was a ‘fact’ I had come to terms with. In answer to the question from my facilitator, ‘Is it true that your father ruined your life?’, I maintained that it was obvious, an irreversible fact. Wasn’t my whole life since proof of the fact? ‘I can look at how I deal with this fact, but I can’t deny it,’ I maintained.

  ‘Who would you be without the thought that your father ruined your life?’

  The question stopped me in my tracks. My mind went blank and I suddenly felt very tired; I wanted to opt out, faint, do anything rather than face the thought that I could live without this idea. It was a big effort to focus my mind again, to investigate and answer the question.

  For four whole days I couldn’t see that this was my interpretation of what had happened to me and how my life had evolved. As a result of this story, I had become used to the belief that I was a victim of abuse. A recovered or recovering victim, thank you very much, but still a victim. Moreover, if I couldn’t blame my father, who was there to blame in
stead? I certainly wasn’t going to take the blame for ruining my life!

  On the fifth day, light dawned gently. It wasn’t a matter of apportioning blame. What if there was no one to blame? What if my father and I had just done the best we could in our lives, given the level of maturity we had? What was I gaining from insisting that my father had ruined my life? Finally I was ready to give up my status as victim, so prized by part of me. The desire to blame others and avoid responsibility must be a deep psychic undertow that pulls us away from a larger truth.

  I sought out the person who had started the process with me, four days ago. In answer to her question of who I would be without this thought, I finally replied, ‘I’d just feel plain happy. I’d feel normal, just me, with a whole life, just like everybody else.’

  My father instilled in me the belief that I was bad. The most profound thing about The Work is what is called the turn-around. When I turned this around, I found that I had called myself bad many more times than my father ever did. However innocently, I had been perpetuating a story. I turned everything around and then I had the truth that set me free. ‘My life was ruined’ became ‘My life has been blessed!’

  And that was a truth so deeply felt that I wept with joy.

  A YOUNG MAN called Brett went up to do a piece with Katie because he felt ashamed of his father’s profession: he ran a brothel. This stirred up similar feelings of shame in me.

  Katie had no problem with prostitutes and their work. She said that these women provided a much-needed service, and the prostitutes of Amsterdam did it with style. Their bedrooms, even the doorways where they displayed themselves, were every bit as sacred as churches. She challenged us to believe otherwise; if we did, we were to investigate our beliefs.