Guest post by Miri Sharon
In the year 2000, when I was 25, I left my home in Tel-Aviv and traveled to the Netherlands where I was going to spend a year doing a masters program in international law. I arrived in the apartment I was renting from a friend, who did the same program the year before, at 5:00 am in the morning. I felt terrified. I was thinking - what the hell have I done? I don't know anyone here, I have no friends, and I can't speak the language. I wanted to get on the train back to the airport and fly home.
Then I looked around and I noticed the apartment was really nice, and tastefully furnished, and decided to get some sleep and postpone any major decision for later. I ended up staying, and since I enjoyed the study program so much, I decided to try and make myself more comfortable there. One of the things that helped me do that was an old TV I found in the apartment, with one or two channels showing series I already knew and liked, such as "Friends" and "Seinfeld." It made it easier for me to feel as comfortable as if I was still in my room back home.
I was happy that I had the chance to express my gratitude.
But the coolest thing about watching those shows was that after a while I started to follow the Dutch subtitles while listening to the show in English, and recognized certain words that repeated. When I had a word I thought I knew its meaning, I would cheerfully climb up the stairs to see my neighbors and ask them how to pronounce it. Within a few months, I could conduct a basic conversation in Dutch, and was quite happy to be able to experience the people and the culture of the place I lived in through the language.
Several years later, after doing The Avatar Course and the Master Course, I was again in the Netherlands, this time in an international Avatar course. I was very excited to be there, and when I sat down to do an exercise with Henk, a nice Dutch master, I was eager to tell him about my previous visit. He told me he had spent some time in Israel and I told him I spent a year studying in the Leiden University, and lived in The Hague, in a friend's apartment. He had a curious expression, and he asked - why do so many Israelis go to study in Leiden? I said I only knew one, the guy I rented the apartment from. Once I said the guy's name, it turned out that Henk knew him as well. What a small world!
Henk said he also knew the apartment since he helped my friend move in, and actually, when he thought about it, he could remember he gave my friend an old TV he didn't need anymore. I told him what that TV meant for me and how much it helped me get over my fears of living alone. I said "Henk, thank you so much for being kind and giving your TV to my friend." We were both joyous in that moment - he was kind to another person, and then five years later, someone else shows up in an Avatar course to thank him! I was happy that I had the chance to express my gratitude. This is only one of the miracles that happened to me in an Avatar course. So when I hear Harry's talk about deliberately practicing kindness, I always think of Henk and his old TV and smile...
Miri Sharon is an Avatar Master from Israel. She can be reached at 972-52-4530562 or by e-mail at
The Avatar Journal would like to thank Miri for sharing her Avatar experience. Read more Avatar experiences at AvatarResults.com
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