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My name in Linda, I am of Italian descent born & raised in the USA in the state of NJ – I attended Catholic schools, was looked after by the nuns in the convent after school (until my mom picked me up after work at about 5-6 PM). I loved going to the chapel with the nuns to pray after school every day, I think at about 4 PM after my afterschool snack. I even wanted to join the convent and become a nun as a young girl, there was something about the monastic life and being “married to Jesus” that very much appealed to that little girl in me, I really wanted to become a nun…..now we are talking about primary school years here, that is, I attended a Catholic nursery school, kindergarten, and then grades 1 through 6……where I was very much into my Religion as it was being taught in those days in Catholic schools. After I reached a certain age, I guess about the time I was in middle-school grades, 7 or 8 that desire to join the convent faded…..I guess it was about the same time I reached my pre-teens and discovered boys…..and my attraction to them…..but the old thoughts never left me and I continued to always ponder the meaning of life, the meaning of my life, mankind’s greater purpose, life after death, the existence of heaven and hell, the existence of angels, etc. Now you must know, I pondered these thoughts seriously since I was of the age of about middle school and well into high school. I used the HS library often to get my hands on any, and all books I could find related to these topics. I read about different world religions, philosophy, astrology, cosmology, psychology, and even the occult.
I eventually was led to a local “born-again” Christian church through a friend of mine and I attended the church for a while and became a “born-again” Christian and got baptized in a beautiful lake in the early morning hours, now this was in the years shortly after graduating from high school but before I had started college. I had several “gap” years where I was just “lost” and floundering in my own misery.
I eventually lost interest in the born-again Christian thing too, again, because it wasn’t giving me the answers I needed. I desired answers to life’s most profound questions deep within my soul and nothing I tired had provided the answers. At the request of another friend I studied Buddhist philosophy for a while and even attended a Buddhist temple in NYC for a while. The Buddhist philosophy actually quenched my spiritual desires for quite a while and I read all the Dali Llama’s books and teachings, but after some time, that didn’t stick either….the quest continued……I became interested in the “Wiccan” path and began studying “Wiccan” on my own, reading books, although I didn’t actually know anyone who practiced it seriously, if I had I may have stuck with that because the path of the “Wiccans” really appealed to me……but I was still searching, so I eventually got interested in practicing YOGA, first as a stress reliever, but this eventually led me to become interested in Hinduism and Hindu beliefs. So, I started studying Hiduism and I loved it…….I felt like I was getting closer to getting all the answers with Hinduism, but I was still not quite there yet……….I still didn’t find that one “thing” which answered all of my questions AND fused with the Science. I was keenly aware of all the parallels which existed from studying all these different religions and spiritual philosophies, to me, they all seemed to be different paths to the same end. Each one had teachings I could take and use in my daily life, but ultimately spiritual enlightenment seemed out of my reach and I was still questioning EVERYTHING.
I considered myself very well read by this point, as I had in fact, studied all of the great ancient Greek philosophers and some modern philosophers and psychologists by the time I graduated high school, thanks to the HS Library, this was all pre-internet age….When I eventually entered college, and this was some years after graduating High School, I was a Science major, I majored in Biology with a minor in Chemistry, so, of course, studying Darwin’s laws of natural selection and survival of the fittest and the theory of evolution and the Big Bang Theory, etc., created more questions for my troubled soul, the science just didn’t align with my religious beliefs, especially the Bible teachings, and so I struggled for some answers that would reconcile this for me.
While in college, still undergraduate at this point, and, also, pre-internet age, I took a course titled, “Religion and Mythology” to satisfy one of the college’s required distribution requirements, it was a great course and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One day, my professor for my “Religion and Mythology” course mentioned Kabbalah….it was a new and strange word to me, I had never heard it before, and I believe he mentioned it in the context of the Judaism segment of the syllabus….now he didn’t go into too much detail and didn’t go too deep into it, he didn’t spend much time on it at all, but I had heard enough in that classroom that one day, to know that I wanted to know more, I needed, to learn more, about this “Kabbalah”, I was immediately intrigued and captivated by what I had heard in that classroom that day (and sadly I cannot now recall what I had heard that intrigued me so much, obviously, it was something).
So, as I typically did when wanting to learn more about a subject, I bought books and I studied them, I took notes, (again, this was the pre-internet age) and I tried to understand “Kabbalah” through my own reading and self-study, but unfortunately, none of the books I read were understandable to me and I wasn’t getting much out of reading them, so I went out and bought some more books, different books, different authors, unfortunately again, all with the same result, so I again I bought some more books, and sadly, I had the same result over and over and again and again……I just didn’t understand what I was reading, none of it made any sense to me, I was confused, I had so many questions about what I was reading, but the books on “Kabbalah” …..just were not feeding me, I was not getting the answers I desired, and I grew more frustrated, disappointed, and once again, empty inside.
After college, I married my soul-mate (that is another story), and started my life….I started a career, attended more school, changed jobs, had a baby, then attended more school, changed jobs multiple times, more career, more living, relocated to south jersey, built a home, traveled the world, oh, and in the meantime, I had been married in, and returned to, the Catholic church and the faith of my youth, the faith that I was born into….I was a Catholic once again, but I was still seeking answers, that quest for answers never left me, ever.
So, fast forward through the years, to the last few years of my life, my parents and grandparents are all gone now, passed on, my son is now 22 years old, and I have recently been widowed, so my dear husband and the only love of my life has also passed on now, he was too young though, only 58 years old, and I miss him……..as a result, I have more time on my hands now than I ever had in my entire life it seems that without having a home and husband and child to tend to, or classes to attend, or a paper to write or an exam to study for, the days are very long and I find myself with a lot of free time….although I am still immersed in my career, so I’m still working full time but I still love it…….and I don’t know why but one day recently I decided to google “Kabbalah” on the internet, and I discovered Toni Kosinec’s course…Kabbalah Revealed, the full course, and I took the full course online, I studied it, took notes, and I learned more from that 1 course online, then I had in all the books I had read on Kabbalah combined. Then I discovered other Rabbi’s on U-tube and more lectures on Kabbalah and I eventually landed here at KabU.
So, here I am, and I am hoping that I finally found a permanent home here. I have been on this quest for my entire life ever since I was a young girl, always a deep thinker by nature, always curious, always asking questions, always learning, and always asking the existential questions about life, the afterlife, etc. (and my son is the very same way too, it is scary). I am hoping that I can find the answers to all my life’s questions here in Kabbalah. I am also hoping to reconcile the Science with my Spirituality because I am a trained Scientist and I do subscribe to the science, I believe in the Big Bang Theory, etc….but I would also like to find the path that reconciles the Science and the Spiritual in such a way that doesn’t contradict the Science or the Holy Bible, but rather supplements the Science, perhaps, something that adds another layer or dimension to it which allows both the Spiritual world and the Scientific world to coexist in perfect unity, harmony, and beauty…..I am very eager to get started and I am looking forward to learning as much as possible with my remaining time in this life, on this planet, my only regret is that it took me so long to find a way to learn Kabbalah, I wish I had the internet years ago, but I am here now, I found KabU and a Kabbalah family of like-minded students and here I go at Godspeed……………
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