Another dinner tonight with many friends. About twenty of us around a big table. Sharing and laughing, joking and playing. We started doing this ancient Russian tradition of Tamadah. Where each of us goes around the table and wishes a blessing on everyone else at the table for the year ahead. Very beautiful and heart warming.

An observation I noticed at all the dinners we had at various places around the city. There was a time many years ago when a big group of us would go out during a course like this one and the people would look at us very funny, hotel and restaurant staff etc. They didn't know what to think. Who are all these crazy people laughing and smiling all the time? they say they’re from some self evolvement course they're all taking. Probably a cult. they didn't know what to think. I think there was a lot of projection about that type of thing in days gone by. This year though I noticed how open and curious people were. The attitude was more like ‘hey what the hell are you guys on? And how can I get some of that?’ people have opened up now to expanding and improving themselves. I think maybe because of all the sorrow and confusion around the world, especially in the states, there has been a shift towards people searching for real enlightenment rather than mere dogma or rhetoric or status. In the roaring nineties, when Avatar started and developed, everyone was so focused on all the money being made all over America. There were more billionaires made in those ten years in America than anywhere else in the world at any other time in human history. So the question from people was always, ‘is it like a success course? Can it help me make more money?’ and now that has shifted to something more like, ‘self evolvement course? Can it help me be more happy?’ 

I feel like I have grown so much in the last two weeks. Like I am not even the same person as I was when I arrived here. I feel so clean and clear and happy and more confident to live the life I prefer. It doesn’t mean that life is suddenly free of it's problems and sorrows, but perhaps just that I am more prepared to deal with them; from a calmer more confident space. I am in awe of the peacefulness and happiness that I feel inside.