X-Rayed by a Guru
Scanned deeper than an MRI and loved anyway
After a spiritual guru started showing up in my dreams, I felt compelled to return the visit. I went to India to confront him face to face.
Just outside Hyderabad, at a lush wedding-style resort draped in fairy lights and perfumed with frangipani, I find myself locked in an intense internal battle—with the buffet. The outdoor welcome to the retreat feast is absurdly good, and I’m doing everything I can not to go back for another round.
I’ve only just recovered from a brutal case of Delhi Belly at our last stop. I’m normally careful with food in India—but I forgot the golden rule for the Western traveller: don’t trust the ice cubes, even at a cocktail party.
A young woman sitting beside me on the steps asks what brought me to this event. I want to say, “Because this guy is invading my dreams.” Instead, I smile and offer,
"You could say I was... invited."
There are only five Westerners among a sea of Indian devotees. I hold out on the bare floor, trying to sit Indian-style without a cushion, until lunch. Eventually, pain and pride collide, and I shuffle to a chair in the back. The sign reads: Reserved for the elderly.
I swallow my pride I’m only 46.
After the a whole day talk, the guru rises. Instantly, the entire audience surges forward, crowding around him and forming a human corridor he must now pass through to leave. Books, hands, paper scraps all reach out for his blessing.
“Please sign my book!”
“Please bless me!”
It’s devotional chaos—a kind of spiritual Beatlemania. I do the introverted Australian thing: I stand well back and peer through a small gap in the melee.
And then—it happens.
The guru glances casually in my direction. Just as I think I’ve dodged the woo-woo spotlight, one of his eyes boomerangs back. It does a literal U-turn and locks onto mine. Just for a moment. Maybe only half a second.
He doesn’t pause, doesn’t flinch. He keeps walking, smiling, blessing, signing.
But something in me stops.
I don’t know what just happened. But I know something BIG did.
The Shock Sets In
Back in our marble-decked, reserved for Westerner’s suite, I collapse on the king-size bed, aching and bewildered.
And then it hits me.
I sit up, stunned.
He’d done it again.
This time, not in a dream.
This time, from across a crowded room.
Without warning or invitation, the guru had invaded me.
Not my sleep—but my entire insides.
He had scanned me. Energetically strip-searched me in a split-second glance.
It was forensic.
Every moment of my life.
Every memory, mistake, hesitation, and heartbreak.
Every cringe-worthy decision I thought I’d buried.
Seen.
I had been completely laid bare.
Defeated, I lie back down.
Something goes pop in my heart space. I can breathe again. The pressure lifts. My chest feels open, unburdened—like something old has been gently removed.
The Revelation Unfolds
Weeks later, back home, the deeper layers begin to unfurl.
They arrive quietly—like petals opening to morning light.
And then, all at once, it hits me like a freight train.
I’d been psychically X-rayed.
Not just seen—known.
Far deeper than any machine or MRI or deep-dive ever could.
That glance was a soul-scan from the inside out: this life, past lives, cellular memories, patterns embedded in my very DNA.
He had seen everything—the beauty and the shadows, the noble and the messy.
And yet...
The Gift
Despite the total exposure—or perhaps because of it—there was no judgment.
There was only acceptance.
Complete. Unwavering. Wordless.
For just being.
This was unconditional love—not the poetic kind, or the Hallmark kind, but the kind that strips your soul naked and says, “Yes. Even this.”
It was larger, deeper, and more immense than any 3D love I’ve ever known.
I’d only felt it once before—when I existed as pure transparent light in a realm beyond time.
And here it was again, handed back to me by a man in a glance.
A brilliant, exquisite blessing.
I went to meet a guru.
But he’d already moved in.