A Karmic Lesson and the Dalai Lama

Lisa Tully leads spiritual tours to India. She says that when people travel to that sacred land, something karmically starts to happen the moment they arrive. Lisa describes the process as “an intense clearing out which results in all your stuff coming to the surface so it can be blissfully released.” In other words, she said, “it’s a bit like having your finger on the fast forward button of spiritual growth.”

As a tour group leader, Lisa says, she experiences super fast growth and clearing which can be quite intense as each moment carries with it yet another karmic lesson.

She recently reported that a magical thing happened on her last tour.

As she was experiencing this phenomenon in full force, she kept seeing banners everywhere with a poem written by the Dalai Lama. It was one she had never seen before, but she even found it written in pen on the wall of a restaurant where she happened to dine. This is the poem:

NEVER GIVE UP
No matter what is going on
Never give up
Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country
Is spent developing the mind
Instead of the heart
Be compassionate
Not just to your friends
But to everyone
Be compassionate
Work for peace
In your heart and in the world
Work for peace
And I say again
Never give up
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up 

~ Dalai Lama XIV

“I felt as though the Dalai Lama was urging me on with these words,” Lisa said. “I felt that very strongly indeed. Then after my group left I attended one of his public teachings with some of my monastic friends. As the Dalai Lama walked past us in the crowd he stopped in his tracks, turned around and looked straight at me holding my gaze for a few moments before he nodded and moved on. As the people around me gasped in surprise I knew in that instant he was now telling me in person to never-give-up.”

“So it is with this encouragement from the great man himself that I steam ahead with these tours. With the seal of his loving gaze I know ever more strongly that we can make a difference, we are making a difference to each and everyone who graces our tours with their sacred presence as well as the Tibetan community in exile.”

And for those of you currently facing challenging times and searching for strength I hope you too find comfort in the words of this powerful poem just as Lisa Tully did.

Her next tour, May 30 – June 17, 2013, includes attending teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as well as a 10-day Tibetan Buddhist meditation retreat.