The Universe Hears You

Over a decade ago, in my early thirties, I was going through a difficult period of change. I had just weaned off a lot of psychiatric medication, which I had been taking for twelve years, and my sensory input and nervous system was going haywire. I was experiencing more fear and anxiety than usual, and one night, I awoke from a nightmare in terror. It scared me so much that the following night, I took a moment before going to sleep to ask the Universe for protection. It was a simple statement, with hands in prayer formation: “Please protect me.” 

That night, while I was asleep, a man’s face came to me in my dream and stared into my eyes. He was Indian and had white frizzy hair down to his shoulders. There was nothing else in view except for his face, which was about a foot away from mine. His eyes met mine with so much intensity that it startled me awake. It was as if I didn't have the courage to keep staring into his eyes. I didn't know who he was, but the image of his face stayed fastened in my mind.

A few weeks later, I traveled from Brooklyn, New York to Los Angeles to visit my sister. She told me about a clairvoyant who she regularly sees and recommended her so highly that she offered to pay for me to have a session. I was opening in those days to a bigger trust in the unknown, and a reading from a clairvoyant sounded intriguing. Before my session the next day, my sister suggested that I look at the clairvoyant’s blog. She posted daily collections of images, poetry and music. I began perusing her blog, and as I clicked from one post to the post, I suddently came face to face with a photograph of the man from my dream. I gasped and nearly jumped out of my chair. His photograph was on the center of the page with a blue bird animation flying over his head, and the words “Worry pretends to be necessary” written as the title.

The man was dressed in a golden robe draped around his bare shoulders, and a white cloth wrapped around his waist. He had orange, red and white stripes of paint on his forehead. And most interestingly, he had long dreadlocks wrapped around the top of his head in an orange and golden scarf. His eyes, staring into the camera, had the same intensity from my dream.

I hurried to tell my sister what I had just seen. She sounded curious and we both agreed that I had to ask this clairvoyant where the photograph came from. 

The next day, the clairvoyant told me that the photograph had come from a Huffington Post article about the holy men, or sadhus, of Pushkar, the Indian pilgrimage town, where there is a fair every October. The article featured a series of portraits of sadhus, which were taken during the fair in 2007. That was seven years ago. But the second most electrifying discovery was not the sadhu, but who the author of the article was…my friend and roommate from college, Mallika Rao. I was stunned. 

It took me years to explain to myself how this sadhu came to me in my dream. I believe it’s a testament to the web of connections we make on this earth and the superconscious plane that connects those webs. Sadhus are ascetics who give up worldly life and devote themselves to attainting liberation through intense spiritual discipline. I believe that this sadhu, in his superconscious meditation, could perhaps access the web of people who had connected to him through this photograph. And I was somehow part of that web through my sister's connection to the clairvoyant and my friend from college's connection to the Huffington Post article.

In spiritual and esoteric traditions, there is an idea about an astral plane - a non-physical plane of existence - and of humans having an astral body, or subtle energy body. Buddhism teaches about various realms of consciousness, and hinduism teaches about our layers of subtle bodies called koshas, as well as different planes of existence called lokas. It is believed that the astral body can travel in the astral plane during dreams, meditation, or so-called “out-of-body experiences.”

While I do believe in premonitions, the fact that the sadhu’s hair in my dream was white and shoulder-length, and in the photograph was dreadlocked and wrapped around his head, suggests that he had aged and visited me in real-time on the night of my dream.

When I had asked the clairvoyant why she had placed a flying blue bird over his head, she smiled and said it represented the “macro” view, while the sadhu’s focus was so “micro.”

The second takeaway for me from this experience is to remember to see the big picture when worry pretends to be necessary.

The Author