Great Compassion
The Opportunity To Exist, 5 Years Later
In 2008, I wrote my first essay which was published on This I Believe.org, an international organization engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing stories of the core values that guide our daily lives.
Now, with more than 100,000 collected essays from around the world, I would like to say that expressing our views in writing whether it is published or unpublished, it's a healthy exercise to uplift our consciousness to a higher level.
My spiritual path began on January 2003 when I met in Miami Lakes, Cuban-born author Lillian Monterrey at my restaurant, Sorrento's Pizza & Rest.
Her publishing company was located in the same neighborhood so I had asked her to come for lunch and to bring me 12 books, 6 in English and 6 in Spanish of her latest release entitled “Follow Your Instincts.”
I told her how inspiring was to read a book about things that I was eager to learn, things that your parents might have missed to teach you for whatever reason and I told her that I wanted to become a teacher or guide.
With a beautiful dedication Monterrey opened the doors in my own mind to the quest for knowledge and curiosity walking on the self-help path which I was interested to delve and to inquire into the most precious questions about life and existence.
The path was rough and difficult at first; I was disoriented with no clear focus.
I was already a young business owner who for the last 8 years had a lack of enthusiasm absorbed in the daily duties of running two restaurants and a catering business.
Within 3 months after I met her, I sold the businesses and invested some money in my post graduate studies.
A USGS scientist and FIU teacher and friend of mine named Michael Wacker suggested me to go for a bilingual journalism program, the only one in the nation at Florida International University.
In August 2003, I began my 2 year-study and in March 2005, I obtained my Master of Science in Mass Communication with an emphasis in Spanish Language Journalism.
I learned about NPR and I became a volunteer for over 9 years reading the news to the blind at WLRN 91.3 FM for the Radio Reading Service. I felt comfortable in front of a microphone communicating the printed news from the USAToday.
Years ahead were deeply troubling.
I had invested in Real Estate buying and renting 5 properties throughout Miami-Dade County including a town home in the City of Homestead.
It was the year 2006 and I had launched my first business adventure in the art world becoming an owner of a very small gallery space on Biscayne Boulevard along with partners Ben Abounassif and Sinuhe Vega Leiter.
We were throwing exhibition parties, selling artworks and life seemed bountiful and giving until the Real Estate bubble bursting with fraud and egotistic deceptions suddenly broke experiencing the biggest recession after the Great Depression of 1929.
Psychologically, depression ensued. I was devastated.
I became suicidal and I was attempting with all sorts of escapes that rendered me inept to think forward with a clear mind about what it meant to lose everything I had made in 15 years, throwing away all the hard-earned efforts of my father who has given me everything I had.
I wanted to leave this planet.
I became financially, physically and morally bankrupt. My Spirit was slowly dying and no one seemed to help out. I began praying to Baby Jesus, a cute little tender figure of Jesus of Nazareth when he was about 4, 5 years old, without knowing how to pray.
In all of those years, I did not go to church because I was totally disconnected; I did not believe in any temple of any block because I thought they were only making a living out the misery of people who were looking for God inside a building.
Unity on the Bay, opened the doors to me with their little cozy library showing me all sorts of self-help books from Osho, to Krishnamurti, to A Course in Miracles and Eric Butterworth. I bought many books and I thought that going regularly to services it would slowly help me to get out of my troubles.
And yes indeed, all of those books helped me to get out of my problems with thorough mental effort and faith.
While recovering from all sorts of addictions, I was working as a bilingual interviewer for FIU’s Institute for Public Opinion Research from 2008-2011.
One day, during our Sunday 30-min break, a co-worker named Amalia from Uruguay told me “Jesus, you always talk about spiritual teachers that are no longer here, you talk about Krishnamurti, Socrates, or Epictetus, and while its worthwhile information, these people are dead,” she said.
“You need a living spiritual teacher that will guide you and you can relate to,” she added.
I was perplexed to hear such a statement. I had been looking for a Master for the longest time, perhaps since the very day I was born.
Everything I have done in my life has been self-taught.
My vocation, my personal interests, all has been self-taught. I went to school but it was not the school I was supposed to go. Science was not my field of preference but humanities instead, I didn' know this.
The next day, my co-worker gave me a DVD about Prem Rawat, also known by his honorary title Maharaji. Thus, I became a student of his Words of Peace and became a volunteer for his organizations.
I cried of joy many times not knowing why.
I was lucky that I received his teachings for free during 8 months until I obtained the four techniques of meditation that he named Knowledge.
This was during the summer of 2009 and only a year before I had ventured into my first ever spiritual retreat with American guru Andrew Cohen in Lenox, Massachusetts.
With Andrew Cohen, it was a wonderful experience, however, I could not meditate.
I had headaches all the time making the hardest effort to concentrate but I understood everything he said about the Authentic Self and his vision and teachings of evolutionary enlightenment.
It was Maharaji though that ignited the spiritual spark within me, and in Miami Beach during one of his prestige events at The Fillmore in September 2009, I was awestruck by his charisma and profound wisdom.
While carefully listening to him, I was asking myself, how can I help him? I need to do something to tell my family and friends about this honorable man who has been for more than 4 decades teaching the world about the concept of peace!
And thus, La Columna de Jesus was born, my first ever website or blog.
Using my nickname, JESUSJAY I registered a .org domain thinking about the future when things would be financially better so that I could register a nonprofit organization for human consciousness education.
Within two months, another blog was launched which has helped me obtain a credibility as both a journalist and blogger: WHATS UP MIAMI, WUM, the second blog that would eventually help me earn money in the online publicity business.
Five years might not sound enough but I do consider those years very precious in my life because spirituality has become my way of living, my whole Being.
And accepting my reality with compassion and love has opened the door for all sorts of things, creativity, joy and unconditional love.
Today JESUSJAY, The Spiritual Journalist on OWNZEE -a website designed by NYC-based artists Kiki and Humby Valdes- I conclude posting quotes from other websites so that I can focus on two of my most recent creations that are becoming extremely popular, The Spiritual Journalist and El Periodista Espiritual on the BLOGGER platform.
My voice can be heard in Spanish language on JESUSJAY soundcloud.com channel.
The journey continues on a material plane but I already know that my opportunity to exist is beyond my imagination because when you become one with our Father we are One in existence and eternity forever and ever.
Jesus Manuel Rojas Torres, M.S., The Spiritual Journalist
Orlando, November 13th, 2013.
JesusJay 
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