Healer

The Stars - Lucy Lescot Tarot

I have achieved a constant level of inner focus, and the emotional stability and ballast I need to focus on my new path as a spiritual healer.

I am thinking of ways to reach out, to teach and to heal.

A new direction, an upward surge of energy and intention.

A new way to play!

READING: The Star

• The Star is a card of hope, peace and renewal.
• You are on a healing path. After the destruction of The Tower, The Star brings optimism for a fresh start.
• Have trust in the constantly changing nature of the universe. After the darkest hour comes the dawn of a new day.
• Be sure to nurture both the physical and spiritual aspects of your life. Do what is practically required, while at the same time visualizing an ideal future. Calmness and stillness may be required to heal completely.
• If someone in your life needs healing, The Star is telling you that optimism and gentle nurturing are required. In a creative venture, The Star can be a sign of success.
• This card can also indicate astrology and other divine arts.

God's anarchy

I had an agenda all my life. It informed everything I did.

Only I knew of it, so it made me unknowable.

The lifelong purpose of my life.... is going. I'm letting it go.

God's anarchy is my newness. I will know purpose again when I choose it.

I lowered my potential to make it more reachable. The economy of this, that... a cosmic tradeoff. I will give up this, to get more of that. This all-encompassing plan was my constant.

I'm floating. You are my constant. God touches me as you.

I am becoming free.

Pranam.

When I first went to live at the ashram, I took a two week course of full-time immersion in the practices. At the back of the Mandap, we would pranam to a beautiful and lovingly decorated puja to Lord Krishna with many offerings.

When the course was finished, each of us received flowers and offerings from the puja as prasad, which I took back to my room at the ashram. I placed the long, lacy spray of white flowers in a little vase on my puja, smiling each time I passed it, feeling the Lord's special presence and love.

Soon the oldest flower wilted and dropped off, as did each flower in the spray, wilting and dropping off one by one. Eventually one flower at the tip remained.

This flower did not wilt. It did not drop off. Weeks went by and this flower remained, as young and perfect as it was when it was on Lord Krishna's puja.

Every day I was amazed by this miracle, accepting the Lord's communication of magic and love to me in this beautiful and playful way.

Weeks later the flower did finally wilt and drop off. The memory of this miracle remains.

I was new to Hinduism then, and to Lord Krishna. It was a wonderful way of getting to know him. Over the years I have experienced Lord Krishna's love in many very beautiful and very playful ways. To me, Lord Krishna's shakti is always quiet, pregnant with all possibility, delightfully subversive, fully flowing and (of course) spectacularly alive!

I do love you, Lord. Always. Pranam.

Magic

My sadhana has become very subtle, outside of my mind, beyond words. I live for my Beloved, who is all the forms of God and the Guru, all that is.

My Beloved, you hide in plain sight as everything, you love me as whomever you find in my heart. You draw me away from attachment to the world of the senses, to the place beyond, the place of magic I have longed for all my life.

Come, I will bring you across...
to me, to my world of magic,
for I created all of this,
I am all of this,
I am all that is inside
I am love
I am love
I am you

Faith of the heart

When the little tears start, and the stone at the center of my heart is softened, just a little, it is the moment when my lost faith is being rekindled.

Dearest Saint Therese of Lisieux, you said that you would spend your time in heaven doing good on earth.

Your trust in God was complete. Pray that He may increase my trust in His goodness and mercy as I ask for the following petitions…

That my faith in the deepest longings of my heart will be rekindled.

Pray for me that I, like you, may have great and innocent confidence in the loving promises of our God. Pray that I may live my life in union with God’s plan for me, and one day see the Face of God whom you loved so deeply.

Saint Therese, you were faithful to God even unto the moment of your death. Pray for me that I may be faithful to our loving God. May my life bring peace and love to the world through faithful endurance in love for God our savior.

Confidence

Confidence is my favorite word. It is the foundation of my state.

Confidence is the talisman I grasp with my mind, the energy to push out all thoughts of weakness and doubt. 

The still point. The constant. 

I need not defend. There is no question.


CONFIDENCE defeats the primary weakness in the spiritual culture of Mormonism: a constant indulgence in moral assessment and questioning which easily leads to a life of self-doubt.

---

An excerpt from St. Therese of the Child Jesus: Master of Her Temperament, by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D

Confidence, the weapon to fight discouragement 

“It is confidence, and confidence alone, that must lead us to love." -St. Therese

Someone might wonder: Didn’t St. Therese ever become discouraged over her small failings and inability to do the great things she desired for the love of God? 

In fact, Therese had by her temperament a natural tendency toward discouragement. That she recognized this disposition is evident from the first of the three resolutions she made on her First Communion day: “I shall not be discouraged.”

In Carmel, she wrote a beautiful prayer for a novice about humility. In it she said that she would wake in the morning with a strong resolve to conquer her pride; in the evening she would be discouraged knowing she had failed. Then she realized that this discouragement itself was but itself a form of pride, and this would make her more discouraged. It is the vicious circle many of us have experienced. St. Therese explains how the dilemma was resolved:

“Since it has been given to me to understand the love of the Heart of Jesus, I own that it has chased all discouragement from mine. The remembrance of my faults humiliates me, and urges me never to depend on my own strength, which is nothing but weakness. Still more does this remembrance speak to me of mercy and of love. When, with all filial confidence we cast our faults into the devouring furnace of love, how should they not be totally consumed?”

It was only confidence that could conquer discouragement and melancholy. 

“What offends Jesus, what wounds Him to the Heart,” she insisted to her novices, “is lack of confidence.” 

An excerpt from St. Therese of the Child Jesus: Master of Her Temperament, by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D

All the difference

That moment this week. I was laying in bed, watching TV. So familiar the craving for _________, the intensity that comes up like clockwork, driving me, herding me with pain and anguish and wanting for whips. Appetites.

I thought. What if I could say no to this feeling? I'd never thought of that before.

I found the feeling in my stomach. It felt like a wall of need, of need streaming into my stomach from a wall in my upper stomach.

I pushed on that need in my subtle body. It responded to my pressure. I pushed it all the way back into the wall roughly analogous to my diaphram.

It went all the way in. There was a moment of relief.

I let go, and the distress began flowing again.

I saw that I accepted this need, this distress, because I used it to try to give myself pleasure, a sort of entertainment I require each day. Something to look forward to. The reason to endure everything else.

I saw that this was delusion. The satisfaction was never real.

I pushed on it again, all the way back. Gone, until I let go and it flowed again.

I made the decision. IT WAS REALLY REALLY HARD. I wrenched myself away from the feelings that I worshiped, that thrilled me with delusion.

I AM NOT GOING TO LIVE FOR THIS ANY MORE.

I renounced it, all of it.

I didn't realize it was going to make all the difference.

The change

There came a moment, I think it was less than a week ago, where I said, "no more."

"I'm done."

I watched myself decide with complete certainty that expecting anything in return for participating with this play in my mind was a complete waste.

There was a shift. The "inside" world became more important to me than "the play," the play that has occupied me every moment of this lifetime, until now.

An invisible door closed. It has stayed closed.

It's still closed when I awake in the morning. It's still closed whenever I inspect it.

Yes. Still closed.

This may or may not last. 

That's not up to me.

How different my state is. I concentrate on whatever I am doing.

I am no longer making up a story about life as I go. 'Now' is all that is real. 

Not because I think it is so, (laugh)! It's just how I live, how I am alive, now, here.

There is a change in my subtle body, in my energy. Absolute steadiness. When I choose to consciously experience this feeling of steadiness, I can increase it at will.

(I remember when she visited me a few times recently, invisible, touching me so slightly. "Steady," her touch said, communicating the feeling of steadiness to me. Grace.)

I have finally got full control of my mind. Nothing knocks me off of my center place. Drama comes and goes around me. There is no question of participating. It is jarring, irritating to think otherwise.

I am finally, fully confident that the steady progress of discipline is NOT my path, and that I am not deluded in thinking so.

I remember recently the moment I found there was no difference between inside and outside. God has become so close I was supremely embarrassed for a few days.

Moments come during my day when God touches me, reminds me in my being, again and again, rising through me as a tickle of loving bliss. My every dream, my heart's desire, coming true as eternal union with my Beloved. 

My realization takes the form of a magical fairy tale, in my heart. I always tear up, cry a little when this touch of romantic bliss comes. 

A gift. From my Guru. From God. The perfect gift. Forever. It is all because of Grace.

My ego is not involved. This may or may not be happening to all of my guru's other devotees. I don't need to know either way. I feel no need to evaluate what is happening to me by this or any parameters.

For the first time in my life, I am not struggling to shape an intellectual response to what is happening. I am not trying to bring the previous moment into the current moment as part of a recipe for achieving progress and attainment.

I'm not thinking of attainment.

I'm only writing all this down so I can refer to it later. I'll want to remember how it happened. My guru advises doing this, journaling.

I was born within 100 miles of Zion's National Park. My roots from this incarnation sink deep into this soil.

Becoming

The more like me I become, the less important I become. A burden surrendered.

St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower

Become that place

When others talk to me, I remain steady inside. No more leaping and dancing with them. I look and sound like I am participating, and I am. But I am only participating by listening and talking. I do not squander my shakti. My state stays steady.

The motion and sound is often shocking, jarring and disturbing, I think particularly from people who are trying to subtly manipulate my state, i.e. codependents.

There is a stillness. I experience it at the center place, inside. l have become that place.

Photo: unknown (indecipherable)

Arches

I quit blogging for awhile. 

What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of living?

Not for getting by. Not instead of what is real and essential.

I want everything. It is what my guru offers.

I finally let go of all I thought I needed and wanted, and a space opened up.

Now... I ask over and over: what is the purpose of my life? Of this lifetime? If I don't settle? If I don't bargain? What should I be doing if I'm not wasting my time, wasting the opportunity of this lifetime?

How can I have everything?

Photo: Quaken Aspen by Karen McQuilken

Today, I thought this. This is my attainment: I can have everything, and keep everything... when I can hold it all, when I can become all, without hiding from it, without feeding my ego with it, without careening about as though that is real freedom.

But now, every time I think of something I need to do that I'm not already doing or won't be doing in any case... I don't believe it.

Messy is what I am. Discipline is my delusion. Trying to change is not my path. I love God, and that is my "do." That is my attainment.

Is it said that Bhakti is the most difficult way to become realized... is it because it is not based on discipline, is it because it is an easy path, which means that the results are slow in coming?

But discipline, doing, is not for me. God's lives in my heart, and embraces me with bliss, my true love. I am melting into love. God's bliss is a mighty universe of shakti power, living inside of me, as me. Doing is mostly irrelevant.

My breath and being are your love. The doing is being a part of your living beauty. The doing is accepting your caresses, breathing into the bliss, knowing you as my lover, knowing you. 

The rest is messiness.

If my subtle body arches with ecstasy, of what purpose is discipline?

Devotion

The poet saint Mirabai

I felt the pull of the magical love, the supernatural love from outside of life, forbidden, beyond what is known.

And I thought for a moment of the other things I "must" attend to first.

Immediately my entire being was filled with love, with a warmth and pressure that I chose to open to, again and again, praying it would stay.

I thought, "this is the love that I dissolve into."

My heart's desire. My heroine's quest. My story of stories.

Bhakti and devotion are the words I notice in the words of today.

Mirabai

My post on the SYP website:

Yesterday, as I sat contemplating the day's tasks, I felt myself filled to overflowing with a surge of love that was subtly permeating me, expanding my being and consciousness from within.

As I chose over and over to open to this love, I observed that this gentle force of constant expansion from within was the energy which will burn away my karmas and mental impurities, freeing my luminous being as I merge into this wider energy made of love.

I thought, "This is the love that I dissolve into." I felt that some gentle tears had begun.

I have reached for this feeling so many times since girlhood. My heart's desire. My heroine's quest. My story of stories. I have tried so many different ways to express a certain posture of worship and devotion within. It is becoming real at last!

Bhakti and devotion are the words I am finding in the words of my Guru and her teachers and devotees. Words from the very source of my joy.

Stava Cintamani

“Even if you are already drowned in the cycle of the ocean of repeated births and deaths, when you once find attachment (love) and devotion for Lord Śiva, then you have found that Cintāmaṇi jewel.”

~Swami Lakshmanjoo

Lakshmanjoo Academy News! We are happy to announce the soon to be published newest addition to the Lakshmanjoo Academy book series:

The Magical Jewel of Devotion in Kashmir Shaivism Stava Cintamani The 200 pages plus study set (free audio downloads included) will be released just in time for the annual Birthday Celebrations for Swami Lakshmanjoo on Tuesday the 9th of May. ORDER NOW!! - PRE-SALE - Available for delivery at the end of May. You can pre-order your copy now by clicking on the image below…  We will be studying this and other texts of Kashmir Shaivism at the upcoming Study Retreat, from 10th to 13th May following the Birthday celebrations. Read more here… “Even if you are already drowned in the cycle of the ocean of repeated births and deaths, when you once find attachment (love) and devotion for Lord Śiva, then you have found that Cintāmaṇi jewel.” ~Swami Lakshmanjoo Devotional hymns have always held an important place in the history of the “Monistic teachings of Kashmir Shaivism.” The recitation of such hymns is a common part of daily spiritual practice for many Shaiva aspirants. Stava Cintāmaṇi – The Magical Jewel of Devotion in Kashmir Shaivism – is a sublime and unique hymn addressed to ‘Lord Shiva’, whom the author, Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa  clearly holds as the Supreme Reality. Though highly devotional, these hymns are at the same time practical and deeply philosophical. Swami Lakshmanjoo’s love for devotional hymns is evidenced by the fact that he translated and commented on the Stava Cintāmaṇi on three occasions. The first, in 1978, was recorded by John Hughes and forms the basis of this present publication. Then, in 1990, he gave an “impromptu translation” during which time Denise Hughes compiled extensive hand written notes. Lastly, in 1991, Swamiji recorded his recitation of the verses, giving brief translations to selected verses only. Swamiji tells us that Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa was one of the most important Kashmir Shaivite masters, and that he lived approximately one century before the illustrious Abhinavagupta (924-1020CE). This places Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa somewhere between Vasugupta and Somānanda. Together these highly revered masters disseminated the foundational texts of a system of philosophy that would later become known exclusively as ‘Kashmir Shaivism’. It was in the wake of this new revival that Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa composed his Stavacintāmaṇ̣i. Little is known about his life, as he hardly mentions himself in his writings, but taking into account the spiritual climate of his generation, with the majority of the population being entrenched in dualistic and mono-dualistic practices, one could easily assume that he had composed his devotional hymn with the underlying intention of introducing and educating sincere spiritual aspirants in the ‘non-dual-monistic’ way of thought and practice. Since later commentators indicate that the Stava Cintāmaṇi was well received and highly influential, it is more than likely that Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa achieved that goal. That the author was endeavouring to enlighten his audience in the direction of non-dual Shaivism is clearly visible in the inclusion of his interpretation of the ancient and highly revered Gāyatri mantra, where he says: “I don’t care to possess that effulgent light (tat savitur varenyam) of the three worlds (bhuḥ, bhuvaḥ and svaḥ), and I don’t need my intellect elevated to the state of universal understanding (dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt); I want only for that effulgent light to direct me on the path of Shaivism – that is all I long for – and that is the only favor I ask of Gāyatrī.” Longing for this experience the author sings: “O Lord Shiva, let me merge in Your nature of God consciousness everywhere, so whatever I do in the dreaming state, whatever I say in this daily routine of life, good or bad, let that become divine, and let that be reflected in the mirror of God consciousness always. Let me merge in God consciousness in each and every respect of the daily routine of life, not only at the time of meditation.” In his hymn, Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa not only addresses this flow of consciousness into the world, but also its flowing back, from the world to its origin – the state of God consciousness. This he perceives in the simple act of bowing, which to him is the ultimate expression of love and devotion towards God. The constant theme that runs like a thread through the one hundred and twenty verses (ślokas) of the Stava Cintāmaṇi is that love and devotion (bhakti towards Lord Shiva) is everything. Swami Lakshmanjoo was so excited to share this particular hymn with the world that when leaving his Ashram en-route to America in February of 1991, he carried a copy of Stava Cintāmaṇi safely tucked under his arm. A few days after his arrival in Los Angeles he sat in the early hours of the morning and recited all the verses of this treasured hymn. This was Swamiji’s last translation of this Magical Jewel of Devotion in Kashmir Shaivism – Stava Cintāmaṇi.

Why?

Why am I apart from God? And if I am not, then why do I think that I am?

Some things torment me, some every day. Why? If the torment isn't real, then what is?

Keeping words meaningful

SOOKEE - Für immer / Forever

Dann kamen Ironie, Satire, Zynismus, Ästhetik 
Jetzt ist jetzt 
Was kommt als nächstes?
Wie lang kann was dir wichtig ist dich entertainen?

Then came irony, satire, cynicism, aesthetics 

Now is now 

What's next? 

How long can you care for what is important to you? 

Art Ensemble of Chicago, a live tour of life off the map.
I sat a spell under Lester Bowie's horn in San Francisco 1983

Ask any writer. It is a struggle in our age to try and keep trying to make and keep words meaningful. The role of art (including music, including jazz) has evolved to include staying one step ahead of being gobbled up by the post-modern "now" that cannot escape "what's next?"

Thy feet

I touch with the edge of the far-spreading wing of my song 

thy feet which I could never aspire to reach.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Rest

Photo from Jnaneshwar's Samadhi Mandir

In the guru, my life force finds rest.

~ Jnaneshwar Maharaj

Photo: Trip Advisor

Melt away

"The most loving thing you will ever do for yourself in your entire life is to saturate your own heart. Bathe your heart in your own attention until all of the walls in your heart melt away, and the brilliance and the beauty and the joy that is your own essence rises up and expresses itself in the form of your life."--Swami Chetanananda

Photo: The Movement Center Swami Chetananda

Steady

She came again... I felt her touch while I was reaching into my (tall) aquarium. I could not see her, but I felt her near, and the place where she touched me felt warm.

Again the message: "Steady."

Photo Randy Parkhurst

She has removed it

This is one of the biggest things that has ever happened to me. Being born. Shaktipat. This.

I finally saw it clearly, the pattern of self-terrorization... that drives my every moment. Fear of it, of making such a huge and costly mistake, the horrible pain of it.

I saw the concept of myself that I thought was me, that I wanted so much to believe was me, starting as a girl.. when I decided to behave in every moment as though someone was watching me, so I could learn to act right and not be alone.

I saw how I am never even quite like my obsession, what I think of as me, for more than a few seconds.

And I chase that few seconds over and over, thinking it is going to be in every moment.

And the few seconds are over and I am not that perfect person, I am the messy me... and it tears me up inside, literally. My insides are opened by a piercing terror and pain so destructive I am gasping and writhing inside.

Over and over.

I chase and I chase. I grab for a moment, then I fall and I fail, and I am in so much pain I am blown apart once again.

Over and over.

All my life! An obsession that has defined me. I haven't seen it, only the object of my obsession, which is not real. It is delusion. It is lock step with maya, where there is "no there, there."

Destined to fail every time.

For the first time, recently, I watched as the delusion unfolded, as I sought to engage with maya, the little thrill of mania that made contact with the Executive Producer magical, the purpose of my life unfolding at last, mine at last.

Obsession.

And this time I watched the pain that pierced me, that tore me up, that tears me apart every time, greater than me, always greater than me.

Because, for the first time I saw it, simply saw it, just seeing it was the same as challenging it. I saw it was delusion. And just like that, it no longer ruled me. It took that one second.

The basic pattern is still there a little. But now when it happens, there's just a little pain, and sometimes none.

And I realize. This is my guru. She has removed it, as I was unable. It was so much bigger than me. All I need do was to see it, for her to make me free.

I asked her so long ago to remove my horrible delusion, although I could only see small glimpses of it. I knew something so painful about my life lived in me, and kept happening, but I didn't know what it was.

She sent me a shawl, a guru colored shawl. Take the protection of the guru.

Later I thought, I asked my guru to remove delusion. What was I thinking?? (As in, HOLD ON...).

Every day, every year I have burned and burned. It has all led to this moment, when the delusion is removed. She removed it.

I am free. I am free to become, to live a life of sadhana, as her devotee.

I am free.