My name is Simona Rich, and I was born in Lithuania.
I grew up with my mother and brother. My father was mainly absent from my life from the age of sixteen, and that was a good thing.
He was an alcoholic. Because of his emotional terrorism, the entire family suffered. It sometimes truly felt like living in hell.
I, as a child, suffered the most because I was the most sensitive.
I suffered from extreme emotional ups and downs, and when in my teenage years , because of growing self-awareness, I understood the harm of such emotional imbalance, I started seeking a way out of this unhappy situation.
That’s how I found meditation. The first book that I read on this subject was Deep Meditation by Yogani and it was the only meditation book that I read for many years.
It totally transformed my emotional state, and from a girl who was totally controlled by emotions, I became calm and in control of myself.
That was the first big win over my lower nature.
At school, I was very average. At the age of sixteen I got my first job – at the department store where my mother was the director.
The job was torturous, and it made me realize that if I stayed average at school, I would probably have to slave in a similar job for the rest of my life.
This was an excellent motivation to start taking my studies seriously. So after a year of intense focus on my favorite subjects (mainly the English language and the arts), I passed several subjects with flying colors which got me a scholarship to study in the UK.
Life in the UK
I studied tourism in the UK. There I started a very “normal” life.
I was in a relationship, living with my partner in his apartment, watching TV and having an okay-paying job.
But although I was living the life that’s supposed to be normal by today’s standards, I always felt that there was something wrong with that kind of lifestyle.
I knew it always, that feeling was in the background whether I was watching TV, enjoying my favorite M&M’s, taking a stroll down the city streets, or spending time with my boyfriend.
I couldn’t really define that feeling. I just knew that I was searching for something, and I thought that I would never find it – I assumed that there was no answer to that unspoken question.
So I continued my average existence, though always aware of the fact that something was wrong with that kind of living; that some major part of my life was missing, or that something was hidden from me.
A turn for the better
What really triggered me to rethink my life were two things.
The death of an employee at the time of me working in a business call center, as well as the question that reached me out of nowhere.
One afternoon, I was walking to the bookshop after finishing my call-center shift.
The question that I heard in my head was this:
Is this all life can offer me?
I never thought of such things before, so it felt like the question didn’t come from me but from the outside. It took me off balance, and although I was pondering on it, I couldn’t answer it.
I entered the bookshop and started browsing. I would go to that bookshop often those days, but I would never buy anything – I just loved browsing through all sorts of books.
But that time a particular book caught my attention, and I knew I had to get it.
It was Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and it was the book that totally changed my understanding of how to handle finances, and it was the book that started my journey towards financial independence (and later – spirituality).
This book led me to many other wealth books, such as Think and Grow Rich and The 4-Hour Workweek, and the more of them I read and applied in my life, the more in control of my finances I got.
Reading such books eventually led me to a similar category of self-help books to do with personal development. I ended up reading hundreds of such books, and due to this I totally changed my life.
I became emotionally and financially independent, and started my own self-improvement blog.
When the blog generated enough income, I finally was able to decide where I really wanted to live.
Life in India
To decide where to live, I asked the Universe for the best suggestion.
All sorts of messages started reaching me about India.
So I took it as a sign that it was the place where I should go. And the day I landed there, it felt like home, which was the feeling I never experienced before, always having felt like a stranger in the world.
It was in India that I started to seriously practice meditation. There, I also discovered yoga, and all sorts of other eastern traditions got my attention, such as palmistry, ayurveda, and astrology.
Embracing Indian arts and spirituality
Following Indian spiritual doctrines, I was living for quite a while as a celibate. I rented a house in a semi-jungle place in South India – a perfect place for spiritual practices.
I slept on the ground (as there was almost no furniture!), and my days were filled with yoga, meditation and contemplation.
I would sometimes share my spiritual experiences with readers, but I would post only once or twice in a fortnight at that stage of deep spiritual work.
But my life was not all about solitude. Just before renting the new place, I lived in another location in South India, in a modest hut with a Bharatanatyam dance teacher and her little child.
It was a traditional Hindu arrangement – a student living with a teacher. That woman had taught me so much, and I still keep in touch with that special soul.
I also attended Carnatic music classes in a traditional school in the city of Trivandrum.
I believe that the reason I was so attracted to the old arts of India was because I might have had incarnations in that country.
My Life Story Continued…
My life is full of changes, twists and turns, so it’s very difficult to summarize it. But to put it short, I became a very successful personal development teacher, then ended up almost destroying my career because of my spiritual awakening. Some readers, however, continued following me.
I was led to study and practice astrology, which got incredibly successful. I bought small land in my country, then sold it, and together with my father’s inheritance money, was able to buy a beautiful farm in Lithuania. My life was then about sometimes staying on the farm, and sometimes – in India.
When Covid hit, I was in Nepal, with my boyfriend. This situation separated us for two years – I ended up going back to my country, and he stayed in India. When India reopened for tourism, I went back there, and we got married.
We thought that with our marriage, it will be easier for both of us. I would be able to stay in India as long as I want on a marriage visa, and he would be able to work in Lithuania.
None of this, however, materialized. I was denied my latest marriage visa, and my husband was kept being refused the issue of a Lithuanian visa, until he totally lost hope of ever coming to my country.
A Course in Miracles
At the beginning of March this year, A Course in Miracles entered my life the third time, and I knew this will change my life to a great extent. It was as though it was a destined event, and maybe in the future I’ll share exactly how this all happened.
The study of this path requires celibacy if you’re serious about it, and since having children is something I never wanted, and I was celibate before, I have made this commitment, after thinking about this for several weeks.
I talked to my husband about it, but since he’s not on a spiritual path, he refused to consider such a request. Our life as a couple of six years was coming to a standstill, as the mutual goals didn’t materialize, we would only infrequently see each other due to me now having a farm in Lithuania, and now a definite spiritual path has come into my life requiring a celibate existence.
So I gave my relationship for Christ to manage. (A Course in Miracles is told to be written by Jesus through Hellen Schucman, and in the book it’s recommended to give all your life aspects for Christ or your Holy Spirit to manage). I knew that Christ will do what’s best for both of us – be us stay together, or separate.
Several months after the handing over of my relationship to Jesus, one woman entered my husband’s life, and he was very honest with me that he was developing feelings for her, and decided to choose her.
At the time I was on my farm in Lithuania, and although it was very difficult to accept this, I knew this was for the best of both of us. He still has many worldly goals, and he has no interest in spirituality. I always knew that spirituality will become not only a part of my life, but my entire life. So this had to happen.
I documented the breakup on my new ACIM-decidated YouTube channel, in order to show that through prayer and applying ACIM principles, you can go through difficult periods of your life much, much easier.
My Life Now
Upon studying ACIM, I realized that one of my idols (which means the thing you value in the world which keeps you unable to detach from the illusion of this world) was traveling. So I gave travels for Christ to manage as well, and decided to stay on my farm, continue renovating it, and to study ACIM in peace and quiet there.
I’ve also forgot to mention that I no longer do astrology consultations but only spiritual coaching. So my days are about coaching clients via WhatsApp, reading ACIM and applying its lessons, contemplating different ideas of A Course in Miracles, meditating, renovating the house, and doing outdoor work, such as mowing the lawn, pruning trees, and collecting apples for jam-making.
It’s a time of building a strong spiritual foundation. There’s no turning back now. My mission is very clear now, that of a spiritual teacher, and this is a crucial time of ego undoing, in order to be of the greatest usefulness in the future.
Thank you for reading!
With love,
Simona Rich