Introduction to my upcoming book. EXCITED TO SHARE THIS!!
I am on the ground, being kicked and hit by several men. I feel life slipping out of me with every vicious punch. I am wearing no shirt. It was torn to pieces in an earlier fight that night, and I am using the last remaining pinch of strength to curl up as tight as I can, and cover my most vital organs and face. One of my tormentors is kneeling beside my head and punching me in the side of my head furiously. Others are kicking my back, belly and legs. There is a voice in my head, and its scream is loud like a thunder of the break on North Shore of Maui after a storm: “You will die here tonight!”
I have chosen to fight these men, despite the obvious mismatch in the number of opposing force. One of them punched me in the face without warning just because I talked to a girl on the bar that I didn’t even know had anything to do with him. I didn’t mind the punch, I was a seasoned fighter. I smiled at him and told him to get the fuck out in the street. I knew there were several, but not that many. Numbers didn’t matter when my teenage pride got such a blow anyways. I’ve been in fights against group of men many times before and my confidence was sky high. Because I won. I almost always won my fights. Even in this case I took 4 of them down before I went down. Which made them even more vicious and diligent with the beating afterwards.
August 1982. I am on the left with my older brother Karel. These were the times of my innocence.
I was on the smaller size of my school peers until I was 14. Agile skinny boy of average height. By age 16 I was a solid six feet & 180 pounds, training competitive boxing and lifting weights with my buddy, who was closer to me than my own three brothers. After all, he was the only one who didn’t run when knives came out and I got stabbed in my back the other night. The anger in me, which awoke like a roaring dragon after a long sleep with that unfortunate encounter couple years earlier and which killed my last remains of innocence with uncompromising precision, was making me fight and rebel against anything and anyone. In the streets, in the bars, in the clubs, anywhere where the opportunity presented itself, and opportunities came in spades. I went looking for snakes. And I always found them.
By age 18 I had zero experience with girls and I have been in hundreds of fights. I was beaten in many police stations and judged and convicted for violence once. I was an amazingly screwed up piece of work. Gone was the talented kid with straight As who won all the competitions at school, had amazing talent in arts and music, spent entire days out in nature climbing trees and talking to birds and who played violin like a little angel. I put that golden boy deep underground and ran a spike of rage through his heart. I felt righteous in my blindness, because I was hurt first before I started to hurt others. Badly hurt.
Back then, Czech Republic was so fresh it had dew on it. Russian army left only few years ago, rules were few and we broke them all. Just like we broke into their military bases to pick up whatever toys they left behind. We made our own rules and being tough was the only currency we possessed. The money we needed to drink, and we drank like our life depended on it, we earned it labouring on construction sites for minimum wage during the weekends. Often going straight from bar to work. Thanks God beer was so cheap and nobody asked IDs in post-communist Czechoslovakia. We looked older than our age and the world was still wild and free back then.
School, where I excelled once, became a fog for me. I struggled to stay awake, resting my sore knuckles on the desk trying to focus, in vain. Most had no idea I lived a double life. Going to the only elite English High School in the entire country during the day and going deep underground most nights. Those few who knew, considered me a legend. And I liked that. I liked when people talked about me. This was my town and my name meant something. I thought I was tough. In reality I was scared shitless. Of my own inner fears that took me two more decades of crusades in four corners of this world and a long strenuous journey into myself to see. And all the way to this very moment to face with clarity and compassion.
That day, when I was curled up on the ground and getting beaten to death, there was no peace, no surrender in what I thought was my last moment on Earth. Death was terrifying and dark and painful beyond words. I have seen it many times before, as a kid. While drowning in rivers and lakes, falling from top of the trees or suffocating in the hot cavern inside a massive pile of straw that I fell though on a hot day of late summer. It seemed gentle back then, welcoming me like an old friend in its warm embrace. Not this time. When they finally stopped beating the living hell out of me, and I draw in my first painful breath of relief, I was happy to see the face of Lady Death fade away.
I wish I could say this was the end of my bad ways. I wish I could say, that when my mother found me in bed the following day, with concussion and covered by cuts and bruises, coughing and pissing blood, that I uttered some words of promise to her. I did not. I just told her to go away, and after I lay in that bed for 3 days unable to move, I patched up my wounds the best way I could and I went back to my old ways. The dragon in me was stronger than the pain. And he wasn’t quite done yet.
It took me over a year from that day and a ticket to prison cell and a subsequent fugitive run abroad, to put an end to my self-directed sabotage and start a very slow upward spiral back to light. Light at the end of a tunnel that first seemed endless, as I was beaten down even more and learned the hard way that there is many more bottoms before you hit the rock bottom of body, mind and spirit. I learned it the merciless way while I was serving five long years in French Foreign Legion, far away from my home and my loved ones.
2003, my last year of Service in French Foreign Legion. Commando training badge on my uniform and way too much pride in my foolish head.
It took me another 10 years to finally sit in silence for 10 days in an Ashram in India and face my demons. At the end of this inner pilgrimage I touched the beauty underneath the layers of pain of my bleeding heart, first time since childhood. I cried the tears which I wish I cried when the train started to move from the platform on a hot day of June 1998, where my mother was standing, her waving figure growing smaller with each moment, as I swallowed my tears in my foolish teenage pride. I wish I could hold your face now mother, and kiss your tears away, and give you all that love I failed to give you when you were still alive. I wish I could beg your pardon for not going to your funeral, for killing your dreams of me, and to cradle your tired feet in gratitude for being the only human who never gave up on me. For being the one who planted a seed of faith that eventually grew into a man whose face I can see in the mirror now and not feel sick. Man who lives his life now to make you rejoice from seeing who I have become.
And so this book goes to my mother Kristyna. And to all mothers who had to see their beloved children fall. I know you’re reading it mother and I know that you have forgiven me. Now it’s time I finally forgive myself. Sometimes I see your smiling face in my meditations and I know that you’ve never left my side.
It also goes to that golden boy whose hair I cut short and whose resplendent heart I pierced with cold rage. This book is the hand of grace that heals the wounds of this boy, and makes it beat once again with passion, love and endless joy it once had.
It also goes to the people who hurt me in this and other lives, to my torturers, my demons, my fears, and my countless tribulations. I now understand that every diamond needs extreme pressure in order to be formed and bring forth the light it’s meant to shine for others. I also know now that God never gives us more challenges than what we can handle in the depth of our resilient divine heart.
It took me 40 years to reach the point of no return and realize that no amount of victories on external battlefields, no amount of sex, alcohol, conquests, success, fame and money will ever fill the aching hole in my heart. And to finally glimpse the immensity of God’s cosmic love that waits at the other side of the pain I was running from. To realize that I’m here to give, not to take. To gather the strength to give it all I have, and bet everything on one shot. One sole mission that truly matters. The quest of discovering my true self.
This book is my journey back home, to innocence. It is my final battle with my dragon. And this time, my sword is blazing with love, not hate. This book is the gentle brush that will heal what’s left to heal on the tumultuous canvas of my crazy life. More than anything else though, this book is my commitment to take back what was taken away from me in different dimensions and time realms, by my choice or not, and step fully back into my Divine Power and serve the forces of Light instead of feeding my desire nature in these crucial times on our beautiful planet, beloved Gaia.
It is Christmas Eve tomorrow, and I like to believe that this book is a gift. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to the world. I owe it to you fellow humans. May it serve you well.
