Avatar & Kenya

By Trudy Opitz, Ph.D.

One of the most memorable inquiries I have received in eleven years of teaching Avatar was a recent call from a woman from Kenya. Early this year I retrieved a phone message and detected a female voice with a a slight British accent mixed with a bit of something else. Africa perhaps? She was determined to find out about Avatar and said “If I don’t hear from you I’ll call you back.” This was my introduction to Warigia Mahinda, who is, as far as I know, the first Kenyan Avatar. Her partner, Kaigwa, noticing some striking differences in her after the course, also completed Avatar.

It was a delight to share the Avatar tools with this eager couple, and I decided to explore some of their viewpoints and visions after the course.

Trudy: Tell me a bit about your life before Avatar

Kaigwa: We see a lot in hindsight. Since childhood I was asking big questions and doing a great deal of reading. As I grew I sensed that there must be a better way to experience life. After I met Warigia we became fellow travelers, hanging out together in a space of spiritual exploration.

Warigia: For me, life never made any sense. It was a mistake. On the surface I was happy, but there was a constant, quiet desperation underneath. After my daughter Nyambura was born I said: “I have brought another being into the world, and I don’t know what is going on.” I really started reading spiritual books, doing seminars, and surrounding myself with people who were on a spiritual path.

Trudy: How did you hear about Avatar?

Kaigwa: We were collecting books to send to Kenya, because they are scarce and expensive there. One day a UPS truck rolled up with sixteen boxes of books sent by a friend. They filled our apartment and overflowed. I opened one of them and found a book called Living Deliberately by Harry Palmer. We read it and said, “This is it!” We wondered if the materials were available, called Star’s Edge, and then found you. The rest is history.

Trudy: What was your experience of Avatar, and how did it compare with other courses you have taken?

Warigia: I gained some insights from other courses, but Avatar has put us in a space that is endless—no fear of phantoms. With other courses you might enter a 30-story building and explore the first floor, and maybe the second. With Avatar you go all the way to the top and even explore the basement. You discreate, go deeper and deeper, then you go outward as far as you want. The tools become you. You stay in the space. You don’t go out into the world and leave them behind. It’s really fun!

I am just here. I am able to make life the way I want it. I know that I have the power to change anything that I don’t like. The idea that we experience what we believe makes so much sense. We can’t do anything else.

I have a new lease on life. It’s like being born into a space of magical exploration.

Kaigwa: For me, when I did other workshops there was always a feeling that there was something more that we weren’t getting. Afterward, as we reentered the “real world” we felt a disconnect. As we walked out the door we would say, “Wait a minute, I lost something.” Avatar is unique; you actually discreate instead of just pushing things away. You take the tools with you, and they really work in your life. We laugh so much now, and we look back before Avatar as if it were another lifetime.

Trudy: What are your plans for Avatar in Kenya?

Warigia: The vision of doing the first Avatar Course in Kenya blows my mind. It’s like we have been in a tight hole, and now we are out of the dark. Making that available—teaching others to live deliberately and no longer feel like victims—is so exciting.

I see how beliefs have caused the role of victim. Africa is wealthy, and all we see are people in poverty, begging from the West. I have a vision of people finally becoming independent. In fact we could redefine the word “independence” to mean:
People opening up to their potential and taking back their lives.

People becoming empowered and recognizing themselves as creators.

People becoming awake and present to their own greatness—a happier and healthier Kenya. Avatar can be a vehicle of profound change in our country.

Trudy Opitz, Ph.D., San Francisco, California

 

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