Chapter 2 - Ask and It Shall Be Given

During the 2018 Parliament of World Religions, a group of my friends and I pooled funds to rent a two-bedroom AirBnb. For a full week, my second wife Sandra and I shared an apartment with Dina. Dina was in her early seventies and had been a student of spirit—a truth-seeker—for over forty years.

During our many conversations that week, I heard Dina speak about her many life experiences. I had the strong sensation that she saw the world with an inherent distrust. I did not feel comfortable enough to share this perception with Dina, but I reflected alone to gain clarity on this matter. The next morning, in meditation, an insight arrived. I realized that I had an inner basic belief about the nature of this world. My belief was that this world and everything in it had my best interest in mind.

I had a strong inner sense that whatever I encountered in life was for my best interest and that the reason I had an experience was because there was something to be learned from it. To me, life is a school. I am in school. And school is a good, beneficial place. It does not mean everything is easy or pleasant. Far from it.

It is important that we realize we all have a basic belief about the world. We should examine what that belief is.

I personally trust the world. I see the world through rose-colored glasses, so to speak.

But what about Dina? What color glasses was she wearing in her everyday life?

The insight I had at the time was that Dina may not be wearing rose-colored glasses or perhaps Dina saw the world quite differently. What if Dina felt that most of the time the world and everything in it was out to get her?

What if someone is wearing dark-colored glasses?

A person living like that is constantly in fear and finds it hard to trust anyone and anything. Their inner disposition is skeptical and distrusting.

These days I am wearing rose-colored glasses. However, I remember it was not always so. In the past, I was living my life with a feeling that the world was out to get me. Somehow, my belief about the world changed. How this change occurred and when, I cannot say but it is good to know that our basic beliefs about the world are mutable.

How about you? When you go around the world, are you wearing rose- or dark-colored glasses? Do you feel the world is a beneficial place? Do you feel you cannot trust the world?

How will your belief affect the reality you create? In the next chapter, we'll discuss our creative capacity. We create our own reality. This basic belief of ours about the world has a tremendous influence on our inner dialogues and therefore on our entire lives. In the context of the inward journey, this belief affects everything.

💡 Our internal beliefs about the world are important because they directly affect our likelihood to ask for help. They also affect our ability to trust help when it arrives.

Please stop reading and ask yourself whether you would be willing to ask for help and trust it. There is no right or wrong answer. It is simply important that you are aware of your own beliefs.

Are you wearing rose- or dark-colored glasses? Or perhaps something in between?

Ask yourself:

• Am I ready to ask for help?

• Am I ready to trust it?

• Am I ready to act on it?

Offering help to someone is a tricky matter. A person who did not ask for help may rapidly close themselves off, push back, or more generally raise their defenses. I learned to ask whether I could be of service and to wait until the other person said yes. Before offering help, I try to sense if the other is really ready to accept it. Are they really open to hearing and seeing things that may not be comfortable? If I sense a hesitant tone, I don't press the matter. I may assure the person that it is really up to them to decide if they want to hear it and that I will wait until the time is right for them. If that time never comes, that is OK too.

Ingredient number one: "We have to ask for help."

Another deep aspect of our trust in this world pertains to the following insight.

💡 Life is a school. We receive what we need and not necessarily what we want. We receive the lessons and the guidance we need when we need it.

Are you open to life's lessons? Are you open to accepting this basic premise about life?

This is a life-changing insight.

Any help I did not ask for will not serve me. Most likely, I will not be ready to accept the lesson I am offered. I will resist the lesson. It may be the wrong time. It may be that I am so overwhelmed that I do not have the ability to absorb a new lesson. A new lesson necessarily prompts me to change, and when I am not ready to change, the lesson is useless.

💡 It is best to ask a person if they want help before offering it.

Trust is a necessary ingredient whenever help is asked for and offered. When someone eventually asks for my help, a bond of trust is formed because I first ask them for permission to share what I see.

Trust is formed by demonstrating empathy and authority. I can put myself in another person's shoes and understand from within what they are going through because I was in that place or a similar place myself. When this is expressed and felt, the other person feels seen and understood. That builds trust.

If I can demonstrate that I was in their shoes and also managed to get out of that situation, that I learned that lesson and moved on, the other person will be more inclined to trust the experience and wisdom I share with them.

Ingredient number two: "We need to trust the help we get."

Sometimes we feel completely helpless and hopeless. The miracle of grace works when we take a leap of faith and ask for help. It can be as simple as saying "I need help."

This simple statement has in it the seeds of the future. When we say these words, we are in fact recognizing that we cannot solve the issue by ourselves. We are willing to admit our need for help to ourselves and to others. We are willing to be vulnerable and open, and we are willing to trust.

The last part in this three-part sequence is action. It is not enough to ask for help. Help manifests in so many ways, and we usually have no idea what form it will take. Regardless, we will have to act to make it work. We must be willing to take action, even the smallest of steps, in any direction that presents itself. Even if we are completely sure that a very small step will not solve the entire issue, there is tremendous value in taking it.

Ingredient number three: "We must act on the help."

I asked for help and received it in the form of Robin Sharma's book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. In the book, a monk is on the brink of death—literally on his deathbed. Then, he goes on an adventure and manages to turn it all around. He gives up everything he held dear in search of...what? Peace? Meaning? Understanding?

Inspired by this story and not knowing how to deal with my own anxiety, I started the simple practice suggested in the book. I got up early in the morning when the house was all quiet and spent many long minutes simply staring at an orange. I was intrigued and at the same time ashamed. I told no one I was doing this, especially not my wife.

This may sound like a silly and useless thing to do. How could staring at an orange fix my mess of a life? Well, it did not fix anything, but it prepared me for the next step. By virtue of deciding to do something, I was opening myself to more guidance, to taking additional steps in a beneficial direction, even if at the time I had no idea what that guidance or those steps might be.

You must develop your resolve, and taking many small steps is a great way to do it.

Right now, resolve to:

• Ask for help

• Trust you will receive exactly what you need

• Act

Asking for help is as simple as saying the words "I need help." Start by doing it silently, inwardly. Then, be willing to share this vulnerable place with someone else when the opportunity arises.

After the second Lebanon war of 2006 was over, things in Israel went back to normal, but I could not go back to normal. Something in me was stirring. My regular numbness was gone. I was tormented by incessant waves of thoughts and emotions. There was no more "peace." What I thought was peace was in fact a thick layer of numbness that was shielding me from the storms.

After the war, I was left bare to the elements, so to speak. After several weeks of this, I remembered that as a small child I used to kneel in front of my bed before going to sleep and ask God to keep my mummy, daddy and brother safe. A spontaneous cry for help came from the depth of my being, and I realized something I then said aloud: "I cannot do this alone. I need help."

Several days later, I had a conversation with a work colleague. She saw I was not doing well and asked me if I wanted to share. Her soft tone and caring words opened the gates, and a flood of emotions and anxiety came pouring out. I shared with her how sad, frustrated, and anxious I was. I told her of my challenges in work and the broken relationship I had had with my wife. I shared how helpless I felt and how every day was like hell on Earth.

She listened intently and quietly to everything I said. Then she asked what I had in mind to do about it. I said I had no idea what to do.

She simply said, "You have to talk to Esti."

I had no idea who Esti was or why I should talk to her. I simply said, "OK."

And I acted on it. I called Esti.

I was lying down in bed, alone. It was hard to breathe, like I had a hundred tons on my chest. With trepidation, I took a piece of paper from my wallet and dialed the number.

On the other side of the line was Esti. She asked who was calling. I told her my name. Then she asked why I was calling. I had the feeling she was expecting my call. I started to tell her that I got her number from a mutual acquaintance, a colleague from my work. She cut me short and asked again why I was calling.

I told her how I felt. The weight on my chest. The frustration, anger, and helplessness. My eyes filled with tears.

She listened silently. Then she told me about "the guides" that she worked with. I had no idea what she was talking about. "Guides?" What the hell are "guides?" My mind was racing, trying to follow her description.

She told me she was a regression therapist. She dealt with past lives.

"I had no idea I had past lives," I thought to myself.

She told me that when she channels with the "guides," they allowed her to see "beyond the hill," where human sight cannot reach. I had no idea what this woman was talking about, so I stayed silent. She was obviously waiting for me to say something because she stayed silent too.

Finally, I took a deep breath and said once more that I simply needed help and that someone had given me her phone number. I asked her again if she could help me.

She was curt, almost angry when she said, "Call me in two weeks, but only if it's a matter of life and death."

Then she hung up. Just like that.

I was stunned.

I wanted to call her back the next day, but I waited. I was obedient. For the next two weeks, I prayed and cried. Finally, I called her back. I told her I didn't know if it was a matter of life or death, but I needed help—and she was all I had.

She told me to come to her clinic. I made an appointment on the spot.

I had no clue what would come next. I had no idea this phone call was the first step of my journey inward.

I was so fed up with my life that I was willing to follow someone who sounded like a complete lunatic. There was nothing "normal" about asking for help from someone who channeled (what is that?) with "guides" (again, what is that?) and practiced regression therapy (once more, what is that?). But these were not normal times.

For the last several years, I'd been speeding fast toward what seemed to be a hard dead end. And now, facing this insurmountable wall with neon lights flashing "dead end," I had to turn back.

I was not thinking rationally about this. I was simply acting out of complete desperation. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I had no idea what to try next. I just knew I could not go forward on the same path that brought me to the dead end.

I felt so tired and helpless that I did not even think about finding the answers to the questions I had for Esti. What is channeling? What are "guides?" What is regression therapy?

Things got weird pretty quick once I started working with Esti. During our first few sessions, she taught me how to channel. She instructed me to ask my "guides" for guidance about anything and everything. She also told me that she and her husband were "energetic workers" and that they were currently working on the moon.

"What on Earth are they doing to the moon?" I thought to myself. "This lady is completely crazy."

Yet, out of desperation, I kept going back to her clinic and continued following all of her instructions. All I knew is that I could not stay where I was. I had no idea what the way forward looked like. Life brought me Esti, so Esti it was!

For the first time in years, I felt alive again. I felt a glimpse of hope. I only had to take one more step forward, and what Esti said was forward was forward for me. She would look at me with her smiling eyes and knowing gaze, and I felt safe. At least some of the time.

At that time, Esti was the only person I could share my frustrations with. At least I had hope she could understand me. I knew no one else I could trust with my burden. I was afraid my closest family members would think I was crazy (and for many years, they actually did). The feelings of shame, frustration, and helplessness were so heavy that sometimes I literally found it hard to breathe.

This very feeling of finding it hard to breathe was instrumental in various phases of my journey. It propelled me. I took many steps forward because of the feeling of being at a dead end. This feeling gave me the courage to try many weird things. For starters, I stared at an orange. Did staring at an orange help? Strangely, it did, and on many levels.

First and foremost, I developed will power. Waking up early in the morning and starting a new routine proved to be an important part of mustering the persistence I needed to break free from very old patterns.

Next, as simple as it sounds, it was not just about staring at the orange. The purpose of the exercise is to concentrate our awareness on all the features of an object. An orange is just one possible choice; there is nothing important about the orange itself. We concentrate until our awareness is completely one with this object (in the Yogic tradition, this is called samayama). Much later, I realized this concentration skill is useful in many spiritual practices.

Finally, the fact that I was doing something inexplicable and so out of the ordinary for me was preparing me for the next phases. I had no idea I was about to do much more inexplicable and extraordinary stuff. If I could stare for minutes at an orange, what else would I be willing to do?

After a few weeks, I realized that staring at an orange would not be enough. What's next? I had no idea.

There are books, retreats, spiritual paths, social media groups, and a wealth of information out there. How to choose what to try? What do I need at this particular moment? These are questions I had no answer to.

On my part, after the orange-staring episode, which did not produce a noticeable change in my condition, I basically fell back to my default mode of doing nothing. There were long stretches of my inward journey when I had no idea what to do next.

Two more years would have to pass, during which the pain continued to grow until I could no longer bear it. As it turns out, I needed much more suffering before I was pushed to act.

Time had to pass so I could be ready for the next step. I needed to muster the courage for it, apparently. I simply needed to sink lower into my misery until I could say "enough is enough!"

Like the monk who sold his Ferrari, and perhaps following his suggestion and inspiration, I too was about to leave much of my old self behind.

Help always comes.

You may be thinking "how does he know?" or "I don't have faith" or any other expression of doubt. Whatever you may be thinking is OK. The only thing that really matters now is what you decide to do.

If you are stuck and need help, you may decide to stay stuck and keep doing what you have been doing. Alternatively, you may decide you are not sure that help always comes but you can admit to yourself that it may be true.

Think about this logically. If what I said may be true, what do you have to lose?

I can say with certainty that help always comes because that is my experience. It happened to me so many times. I heard the precise idea I needed from the most unexpected source at the perfect time.

Take Google, for example. Google never ceases to amaze me. Many times, while I was searching for one thing, I scrolled down to the second, third, or fourth page until a particular link grabbed my attention and practically screamed at me to click it. When I did, I was transported to a page that had exactly what I needed at that moment. I was not looking for it because I had no idea what I really needed, but I found it just the same.

Was this a coincidence? It's happened so many times that I simply believe those are the rules of the game.

I needed help, but I did not necessarily know that I needed help from someone. I asked for help, and someone came to the rescue.

For me, Esti was the first in a long series of people. These guides could understand my life situation, empathize with it, and had enough personal experience to counsel me on how to move forward.

They knew what I needed to change my life situation. Perhaps my life experience, as described in this book, can serve you in your inward journey. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out.