I first met Kira when I did a Psychic reading for her at Watkins. The first thing that struck me about her was her eyes. Her emerald eyes reminded me of the girl from Afghanistan in the famous National Geographic photograph. I always find green eyes on an Indian person mesmerising in any case, but Kira's seemed particularly beautiful since I work with my Chakras open, and in this heightened state I am more sensitive to many things including colour. Some people come for readings to hear a solution to a problem. I felt Kira had come just to hear what I had to say. Her reading was very much on deep spiritual matters. She didn't say a word, just smiled. At the end of the reading she invited me over to read in Pakistan.
When something feels right I believe in acting upon it, so even though it was a difficult time for me financially I bought a ticket on my credit card. In the weeks before my flight I did many readings for people from Pakistan; even the women who came to the house to do a survey turned out to be from Lahore the same city I would visit in Pakistan. When synchronicity worked like this, I knew I had made the right decision.
Kira said she would arrange readings for me to pay for the flight. At the time one of the major news stories was that British hostage Ken Bigley had just been killed in Iraq. I was being told that I was mad to go to a Muslim country at this time. Even the security guard at the airport said he wouldn't let his daughter go. I was turning up and staying with someone I had met once, that's a little strange in any ones religion.
Islam is arguably the most misunderstood religion in the world. Pakistan has had little to do with the 'War on Terror'. After all it is a war on terror, not on Muslims! It made me consider what I actually knew about Muslims. I realised I didn't know anything apart from what I had heard in the news. The words 'Muslim terrorist extremist'. During the war in what was Yugoslavia, news broadcasts named the two sides as Muslim Serbs and Croats. They didn't use the word Christian to describe the Croats. Both religions were named in the Ireland conflict. This made me think of growing up as a child with the fear that the 'communist' would blow up the world as they had the nuclear bomb. Just from what I picked up in the news about Russia. The same bomb fear being used again for the people to support the government. Most of my childhood was spent in Darlington. Where the word 'Paki' I thought meant 'sweet shop'. The 'Paki' shop had an unusual smell spice and sweets. I loved it. It was years before I discovered that 'Paki' derogatively referred to the origin of the people who owned the shop.
So when I got on a plane to Pakistan. I knew I was going for a reason. Not only for the readings, but also to learn something of the spirituality of the world and maybe myself.
I became fascinated by the differences in our cultures. I embrace such qualities and with all people struggle not to accept cultural stereotypes or pigeonhole people and ideas as 'good' or 'bad'. Every personality trait can be both. It's in what situation that trait is used, and how. Looking back on my own life, there are times I should have been pushy, a quality I don't choose to own. Yet I have it and at times should use it.
When I arrived at Pakistan airport I was surprised by a women only queue. It was interesting how women are allowed to go first, and given the kind of respect I would have expected from 1950's Britain. I was led to believe that the women in Islamic countries are repressed by men. It was my experience that if there was any repression it was by the women themselves. The Koran, tells women to cover themselves. Women in the west cover themselves. The Koran doesn't state how much to cover yourself. The women told me that you have to cover yourself to stop the men staring at you. They do stare anyway regardless. I think the society would do itself good to tell the men it's rude to stare and allow the women to dress in the respectful manor dictated by the Koran, i.e. not naked! But women are by far the worst critics of other women. If a woman is divorced, it is the other women who will go against a new match for her, not the men.
Kira picked me up at the airport. But I was to stay at her brother's house. When I arrived at the house I was tired and jet-lagged so went straight to bed without meeting the people I was staying with. So I had no idea what sort of people they were. When I awoke I met the lady of the house who couldn't speak any English. I started to wonder if I had done to right thing, only to find I was with one of the many servants. Having Servants was something I had never experienced and I found I felt really strange. When I finally met the real lady of the house Tia, we got on really well. Tia and her husband, Kira's brother, have two children. I started to see where having servants was a major plus, as Tia and her husband could leave the house at anytime without the children and therefore with out the need of a baby sitter! The family come from a political background. My readings, which started soon after arriving, were with politicians, celebrities and the well to do. I didn't realise this until about half way thought the second day of readings. The newspaper in Pakistan has a section very much like a UK 'Celebrity' style magazine, with photos of everyone who was anyone in Pakistani society attending parties; looking though the faces in the newspaper, I realised I had read for most of them.
The people seemed divided into the old way of thinking and the new more western way. There was also a cross section in the middle, which were very fair in that they would just criticise everyone else equally.
One thing I found interesting was how the gay men in Pakistan still believe they will meet a woman get married have children and be happy. One man who was camper than a row of tents, after we talked long and hard about his boyfriend informed me that despite his love for his boyfriend he wasn't gay. It's not my job to shatter illusions, but I work in truth. It's hard to tell how much of this opinion was his and how much is due to social conditioning. Many people marry their cousins to keep money in the family. I can also understand the materialism. It really is a knifes edge between the rich and the poor. Inheritance has to be shared out equally to all children left behind. In fact they describe a person as 'outside the family' if they came from another family as this is more abnormal than marrying your cousin.
What interested me most from learning about Islam was Sufism. I myself have been called a Sufi, and had no idea what the word meant. Sufism is the spiritual sidekick of Islam. Rumi the whirling dervish poet was a Sufi. Rumi would go into a trance state to deliver messages from the other side. I'm lucky I don't have to whirl. But his message seemed to be from highly evolved spirit. Lower density spirits are called 'Djinn'. I was asked many times by people if the 'Djinn' had been put on them. Which means a negative spirit out to do them harm, put on them by a curse. Sometimes the fear of this has the same results as the negative spirit would. Nothing that a good dose of love and white light won't cure.
At Kira's request, I spent some time channeling messages from a Sufi Guru. I was amazed by how many of the Sufi teaching correspond with my own thoughts.
The word Islam means 'peace and surrender'. We can understand peace, but one thing that I feel will always jar with a western mind is the idea of surrendering to a higher power. It jars with me as I believe everything is God. Therefore, if everyone is God, or a part of God, and God a part of everyone, I am also God. That way I can transcend the 'I'm only human' thought and reach to make the idea of heaven on earth. Because it already is. Every religion has had wars, and more wars have been fought over religion than any other reason.
There were many cultural differences. I found the people of Pakistan like no other I have met before. The divide between rich and poor is so strong. Yet Islamic law is such that you are obliged to be generous. I found that there was snobbery against people who worked for a living. Materialism was what interested the majority, but the ones, who were spiritual, took their spirituality to a level I have never come across in the West, such was their conviction. I did a reading for a lady who was from a family whose lineage could be traced back in a direct blood line to the Blessed Prophet Mohammed, (peace be upon him). The energy of this woman was amazing. It was 570AD when Mohammed was born. It's interesting how many similarities there are between the life of Jesus and the life of Mohammed.
I found many differences between my world living in London and that of the people of Lahore. That is after all to be expected. What wasn't expected was the amount of similarities in the differences. Like a golden cord of truth running right though the things that seem so alien. I never thought that my own thoughts on religion would ever be linked to something that doesn't come under the heading of 'new age'. Love is not new age. Love can be found in all religions. If we live in fear of each other and taking a step to experience something new, we might never find that what we fear has traits in it that is within ourselves. How can it not if we are all human? I know bravery and stupidity go hand in hand. This trip could easily have been seen as the latter, but not like the Heathrow security guard was warning me. There is more to the world than what we see on the news. Living in London you don't have to go out of your way to connect to it. Just open your heart and mind.
Copyright © 2004 Becky Walsh