~ About Sandhya

About Sandhya Rakefet

~ Among-Friends: A Network of Friends

Image: Sandhya

The spiritual journey, this time around, started for me in 1958 when I was born in Israel to a native Israeli mother and a Polish father who survived the holocaust. I grew up on a kibbutz where children over 1 week old lived in the children's house rather than with their parents. So practically from birth I took part in a radical socialist experiment, and for many years deeply believed in its values and political, anti-religious aspirations to create a better society, based on equality and justice.

At the age of 20 I went through two major personal calamities that altered the direction of my life: my dear father died from cancer, and I lost faith in the kibbutz way of life.

My father had been for me a rock of comfort, safety and love. When he died, everything I believed and trusted in seemed to die with him. My hitherto unshakable belief in the kibbutz way of life began to crack as the veil of uncompromised naïveté and idealism that had upheld me so far, collided with the much compromised reality of the dissonance between high and lofty ideals and actual daily life.

The world as I knew it ended. I had to find a new meaning to life.

I went to the United States to travel with a friend for a few months, and ended up living in New York City for a few years, enjoying everything the city had to offer: anonymity, freedom, fun, drugs, music, love.

The year 1986 marked a significant shift: I went on a spiritual quest to the Andes Mountains in Peru with the spiritual guide who had been Shirley MacLaine's mentor in her book Out on a Limb. Those months brought about many deep spiritual and mystical experiences, as well as transformation and insights. When I returned to New York I felt that my time there was over, and that I had to find myself a spiritual community and be surrounded by like-minded people.

I went to live in an ashram in Massachusetts that was based on the ideal of bhakti (devotion to the Divine), seva (service), and brahmacharya (celibacy). For seven years I lived there with my guru and his community of disciples, practicing yoga and meditation, and dedicating my life once again to high ideals and aspirations, this time spiritual: seeking to know and teach the Truth. Eventually there arose, once again, the inevitable dissonance between the high and lofty ideals being taught and the reality of what I saw around me. My hopes to gain realization and enlightenment by the grace of my guru turned into disappointment and pain.

Not wanting to have anything more to do with spirituality or "spiritual life”, I returned to Israel. I wanted instead to just lead an ordinary life – which I did – for seven years. Then I heard my soul's yearning again and returned to spiritual life, this time pursuing intensive practice in the Buddhist tradition. I traveled extensively in India, and practiced meditation in various Buddhist and Hindu traditions.

Today my life is dedicated to practicing and teaching the Dharma. I've been teaching vipassana (usually translated as ‘insight’) meditation and guiding retreats since 2005, and have been a Tovana (Israeli Insight Meditation Society) teacher since 2006. I've been a student of, and have taught with, Ajay Singh, Christopher Titmuss, Shaila Catherine, Jaya Ashmore, Stephen Fulder and other teachers.

I've also been involved in organizations and activities that work to bridge the passive and active forms of the meditative life. We seek to bring the fruit of our practice to the communities and societies in which we live; to share the wisdom, clarity and compassion born of our spiritual practice in order to facilitate transformation on the individual and collective levels. It is my firm conviction that the inner and outer are but reflections of the non-dual truth of oneness. I've been involved in the growing movement of dharmic activism that includes various peace projects, such as Middleway, Engaged Dharma, and others.

What's most meaningful to me in my own life, practice and teaching is to bring the dharma and the insights I’ve gained from spiritual practice into our daily lives – our relationships, work and family – and use these situations to deeply explore our authentic personal experience and the possibilities that lie in them in order to lead an awakened life. I believe in the Buddha's words that within this body and mind-experience lie everything we need in order to understand, realize and be liberated. No need to search anywhere else: the answers are right here within us if only we are willing to look.

Sandhya

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