Rita Hraiz

I was born in Perivale in 1963 as the eldest daughter to young Sindhi Caste Hindu Immigrant, coming from India to England in 1960 called Shivaram Punjabi, who eloped with my mother Joyce Agnes Hraiz, a Lebanese, aristocratic, Catholic woman. They both broke the rules and dared to marry for love (married for 50 years when my father passed) and not be limited to society's confinements of marrying within your class or race. Their precious gift to me was enormous generosity - outstanding international cuisine of many flavours colours and textures (just like my art) and the absolute freedom to BE me … I was blessed to not have to be forced to believe either end of a religious doctrine. “I knew then and still know, I have had many lives in Tibet..” Although I fully understood how to draw the nectar from both ways of seeing Vedic and Christian, somehow through my bloodlines, by the age of 4, I had discovered my etheric sensitivity to the vortexes of the Earth and the Shakti transmissions. By 7 years old I asked myself - is THIS the dream or is the DREAM the dream? My body tingled with electric fire from a young age. Somehow in the Catholic girl's school I went to, I discovered a book about the Third Eye, all about Tibetan Buddhism and when I was 11 years old, I knew then and still know I have had many lives in Tibet. “The most highly realised teacher I have met to date.” However it was not easy to stay conscious or awake in the 70’s and 80’s. I certainly slipped and fell a few times - in fact to cut a rich and interesting story very short, by the time I was in my 20’s I had fallen into a dense and painful hell realm. Now with a “fashion" business being a designer, material, empty, a hungry ghost realm and having truly fallen in what I thought was love but was co-dependency firstly with a heroin addict seeing some major shit, the father of my first son and then a crack addict and the story goes on. I have four children from three fathers, I have seen a lot of addiction and was floored by the agony of seeing and feeling this suffering. Thankfully in 1992 I met the living Buddha - the most highly realised teacher I have met to date and to whom I attribute my awakening to.