About Paula
Ideally, I would prefer a world without passports and borders and yet with plenty of local participation by the local people of each area of our planet, to enable a true culture of love and caring for our dear endangered mother. American by birth, I grew up in Italy and Germany and later attended university in England. For the last thirty years, I have lived in South Asia splitting my time between India, and Nepal. And for the last ten years, I have also spent a lot of time travelling and teaching in China.
I have a great love for all beings on this planet as we all share a common potential for full enlightenment. My own guru H.W.L Poonjaji, who was a fully realised Buddha, once mentioned that he could remember all of his past lifetimes, both on this earth as well as on many other planets. What I found very poignant, was his statement that of all the different planets he remembered living on, none were as focused on Dharma as are the people of Earth. What has been exposed for the last few years on the alternative news, is the evidence that humans have been ruled for centuries and actually for thousands of years by beings who are very stuck, who are identified with their superior intellect. They are totally identified with their egos and thus cannot access their compassion.
(See my article, Humanity: Our Present Challenge below my latest message)
Background
As a child, I was a very shy and would often stay home and read books. My first spiritual crisis happened at age 13. I became depressed and lost interest in life… I hated school and I just couldn’t fit in. Fortunately my mother took me to a kind counselor who told me that my ruminations about the world were not crazy…that in actual fact, the world is indeed crazy. Just having this reality check saved me.
When I was about 20, I read the autobiographies of Mahatma Gandhi and Yogananda. Each of them had faced a similar spiritual crisis at the age of 13. Later I realized that we are all pushed to identify with ego at this point in development, because in normal society, there are no models of how to be real, to come from truth. Because ego is a made up identification created out of illusory thoughts, a young mind senses the lie behind it, and is often frustrated to find very few adults who have even an inkling of this. Later this insight gets clouded over after years of programming and conditioning.
Luckily, while growing up, my parents were very much into community theatre and coaxed me into it. This helped me with my angst. Playing different roles on stage eventually helped me overcome my shyness and soon I was totally wrapped up in acting, writing plays and even directing. The fascination I felt as I explored different human roles played out on stage, inspired me to study the human psyche in more depth. I soon became a psychology major at university in England.
This lead to my concern for healing the psyche. Later, as a part of my doctoral studies in psychology, I explored the ramifications of what occurs when thoughts and their resulting emotions become stored in the body. This helped me realize that we store our memories not only in our brain, but throughout the entire body. For example if someone has suffered sexual abuse, they will store a lot of charge in the pubic ramus and the area around the sexual organs. Heart centered emotions get stored around the heart, etc.
I learned to look at a person’s body and read it to see where the emotional blocks are stored and then apply pressure at key points or emotional “Gates” derived from acupuncture. With this method, I could help others integrate a number of stored emotions and free the energy charge of blocks which have sometimes been held for lifetimes. I later added the innovation of rebirthing breathing to this method which I later taught to my own students.
Moved by the profound healing effects of this type of bodywork, I was also drawn to study the basics in order to lay a very strong foundation and derive a better physiological grasp of the body through such vehicles as standard Western Circulatory Massage and Deep Tissue Muscle Sculpting. The profound results of point holding drew me further to Siddha Marma Massage which predates Ayurveda, and Chua Ka, a form of very deep point holding which Mongolian warriors once used to remove fear out of the body as they sat around fire right after battle. This is why they were the most fearless warriors on our planet; they were willing to feel through their fear each evening after battle. Through these methods, I learned how to go extremely slowly and deeply into the body, penetrating into the tied knots both on a physical as well as energetic level to bring greater awareness.
At this same time, I came across Reiki, a form of energy work, while in Graduate School working on my Ph.D. in psychology. One of my professor’s who had been a student of Ida Rolf, had created a school called the Institute of Psycho Structural Balancing. Intrigued, I took some of the courses on the side. One day a woman came to offer sample Reiki treatments at the Institute. I was skeptical about this simple laying on of hands technique, because at the time, my experience showed that a therapist needed to do very deep tissue work to create profound changes in the bodymind. After about ten minutes of feeling the Reiki energy moving in my meridians and the sense of peace it evoked, I decided that I must learn this very simple method and share it with my clients which I then did for a number of years.
I traveled to India in 1989 to give a Reiki class and a few years later met my spiritual master Shri H.W.L Poonjaji in 1992, who gave me the name Laxmi. Shri Poonjaji or ‘Papaji’, as he was affectionately called, was a Jnani or realized being who left his body in September 1997. Quickened by his presence, I shifted my focus from self-improvement to the self-inquiry or Vichar, that evokes the quiet stillness of awakened presence. This inspired me to elicit the same joy and freedom in others, through the vehicle of Core Empowerment, a five-day retreat that incorporates Jnana Yoga which is not Asanas, but is actually the science of cutting through the mind.
The purpose of Jnana Yoga, is to help people Realize The Freedom That They Are, by assisting them to experience their own true nature. This is accomplished by overcoming the illusion of ignorance (a mistaken belief in a separate self) by transcending the masks of ego that are sense-dependent and bound by karma.
During my time with Shri Poonjaji, I developed a great love for India and decided to stay after his transition. Seeing a need for skilled therapists with conscious presence, I created a modular training curriculum in both eastern and western forms of body/mind treatment in 2000. This lead to the founding of the Taosomatics Institute, a school for integrative awareness which attracted a core group of students, who are now highly skilled and accomplished body/mind therapy trainers in their own right. In 2008 I gave up the institute to simplify my life and now focus on sharing a few programs in two, three month periods twice a year.
Another factor in my life which should be mentioned as it could help others, that inspired me to become an avid researcher on detoxification and rejuvenation therapies, is my personal success in treating one uterine and two breast tumours with raw food diet and Reiki. Twenty-five years ago I also became acquainted with the therapeutic effects and astonishing benefits of oxygen and of its tri-atomic form, ozone, in regard to healing degenerative diseases such as cancer and also as a restorative rejuvenation therapy. My book Heal Yourself with Ozone was the result.
The Present
In 2010, a strong inner call motivated me to give up my home and head out on the road to share tools which help people deal with the strong vibratory shift the earth is currently experiencing. Meditative presence and a strong immune system are necessary today, in order to deal with the onslaught of physical, mental and emotional issues which are currently challenging people the world over. The degree of exploitation and the challenge to future life on the planet call for nothing less than a radical shift for all concerned. For this reason there is a deep inner call for change; a call to break through old conditioned patterns and explore in greater depth, the vastness and incredible potential of our real inheritance, the awesomeness of Wisdom Mind. Today more than ever, for survivals sake, we need to hone our skillful means and wisdom, and let go of contracted ways of being.
Change is now accelerating very quickly, which has impelled me to commit to contributing in a more active way for the benefit of all. After eight years of being constantly on the road, with three months each year for my own inner work, I felt called to use this precious time to focus inward, to accelerate my own process of letting go, to further enable myself to be better prepared to help people on a more profound level. I began to spend more time in the Himalayas and in 2017 with the encouragement of two of my teachers, one being my own beloved partner, I decided to take a break from teaching and have been on a "sabbatical" engaged in inner exploration and research until the spring of 2021. The bottom line is that we have come to a point, where we will all have to adapt quickly to monumental change.
What I Feel Is Important Now
Flexibility accompanied by a calm mind, as well as a high degree of life force energy, at this time, are important attributes to cultivate. Thus the sharing of Reiki is even more important than ever.
The acceleration in healing knowledge in the last few years is exponential. As a teacher, it is important to me to stay in tune with the latest developments and share them with others.. For example, Taoist Master, Mantak Chia, added EMDR to some of his ancient Taoist practices (see Fierce Innocence). Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka are enthused about EFT (see Emotional Freedom Techniques), and how it supports Dharma practice in clearing not only emotional and physical pain, but ego identification as well.
To help people learn E.F.T. and a few other practices which help clear hope, doubt and fear, (so that we can live in the present and not out of memory), and also relieve both emotional and physical pain and suffering, I developed a Heartbreath Program in 2010 which is derived from my most recent book Fierce Innocence. Heartbreath gives the participants the opportunity to transform unconscious patterns and become more present and aware.
In 2015, I developed a set of eight, three days program called Karma Completion which provide you with a simple and effective way to slowly but steadily gain a non-dual perception of reality. Of one thing I am certain: after more than thirty years of experience helping people process fear based emotions and doubt: negative emotions carry a very dense energy field which cause us to regress into a selfish ego identified state. Therefore I feel, the main thing each one of us can do in one cooperative effort for the planet, is to take responsibility for our individual quota of negative unconscious stored memory (Karma) and transform them.
It is also certain, that at no time on the earth, have we had such powerful tools available, to so quickly clear our delusory patterns and transform them into the frequency of love and acceptance of both ourselves and others. The purpose of this website is to inspire people to explore these tools. What is important is that we patiently continue to spread the word, until enough people find out that they exist and avail themselves of their benefits.
“Papaji modeled a fullness, with the presence of here and now, a presence of heartfelt devotion and love. Through this pure spaciousness, unadulterated by ego identification, I learned to listen to the song of silence.”“Papaji modeled a fullness, with the presence of here and now, a presence of heartfelt devotion and love. Through this pure spaciousness, unadulterated by ego identification, I learned to listen to the song of silence.”