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

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.

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.

Rest

Photo from Jnaneshwar's Samadhi Mandir

In the guru, my life force finds rest.

~ Jnaneshwar Maharaj

Photo: Trip Advisor

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.

Promise of a new world.

The world of the senses has run me ragged. The weariness tore me away.

One day, not so long ago, the world and I began to move at a different speed. Still close, right here. But I'm not very interested.

I've slowed, floating on an inner current, flowing, going nowhere.

Sinking, the gurgling sounds just above me, the sunlight a vector, an unchanging stillness, a direction becomes dance, the promise of a new world.

The oldest, essential, purpose, preserved... in the deep, dark, depths of my heart.

Bhagavad Gita: The Four Yogas

My sadhana has been juggled around, and is moving in a new direction. I believe my Guru has been leading all of us up to and through this change.

I have to realize that actions that attempt to use discipline to overcome my limitations and delusions currently never work for me. I have spent my whole life disciplining myself and wildly grasping with super-human effort to try to get the grand experience I have been seeking, and to address what has been missing, and my misery about this.

For me, the "dos" like disciplining my activities with specific goals about meditation and other practices, as well as trying to keep spiritual experiences permanent, are not the opposite of sadhana. ALWAYS using my life and moments to try to create a new and permanent state is based on a delusion that I am lost, unfulfilled, away from God. Grasping and doing for my own limited results has created huge karmas and samskaras for me.

I found myself writing about how Karma and Bhakti Yoga--and much of Jnana Yoga--have come to the fore in my sadhana. The fourth Yoga, Raja Yoga, is a synthesis, with elements that form a system based on discipline, which is not helpful for me.

Krishna talks about how an individual will find that some yogas will work for them better than others.


1) KARMA YOGA~THE YOGA OF ACTION: Any time I am grasping or pushing, trying or making myself do anything, I am jumping on the great wheel. The harder I push and hang on, the harder I'm going to fall when the wheel goes around the other way. Rajas creates karma. I've got way too much longing made into rajas in every moment!

My path is not doing, and it is not not-doing. HOW? Through dharma/duty. Lord Krishna has taught me about Karma Yoga, and this knowledge and yoga is very important to my sadhana.


2) BHAKTI YOGA: Bhakti Yoga is a new emphasis for me. It is divine love, longing, and worship in a personal relationship with a chosen form of the divine. This is the "doing" that I offer, avoiding karmas (Karma Yoga). Commitment to experiencing love and worship for the Divine fills me with an intensity of shakti that is burning my impurities away.

A short description of a very powerful yoga.


3) JNANA YOGA: The focus of my sadhana for the last few years has been to notice and name the elements of my mind in action. I challenge delusion by noticing what arises and holding what will bring delusion. When I hold a train of thought or etc., it naturally dissolves. Consciousness dissolves into consciousness.

I have for the most part eliminated self-pity, collapsing (giving up), and self-hatred, and I at least notice many things such as jealousy, anger, and competitiveness. I especially have benefited from noticing when I begin to make a story about what is happening in the moment, with the assumption that it is happening to me.

My mind has become much more still and centered.

Other parts of Jnana Yoga which have been important are recognizing what is transitive in my reality and letting go my attachments to these things. "That's not real," and "that isn't permanent" are my mantras in using my mind in this way. I also practice "seeing" the world of the senses as consciousness, and remembering it may promise many things, but none of it will be truly satisfying or permanent.


4) RAJA YOGA: Royal Raja Yoga is a higher yoga that incorporates elements of the other yogas in a powerful synthesis. It is based on meditation and other tools to work with the mind.

Systematic and disciplined is not helpful or useful to me at this point in my sadhana. When I meditated, I went after dinner. I wanted to meditate. I ran down the steps to the kriyaloka meditation room at the ashram, sinking into my spot, my consciousness dropping into the depths of me as I settled in.

"It's almost 7:00, time to meditate doesn't work for me, at least not now. I have to wrestle with myself about it, my intention, and my fear. It is very unpleasant. It runs me, and I am stuck with it.

I need to go around this stuff. I realize almost all(?) yogis do this. I think I did so much of this in a past life that this time I am doing something else.

Guru dream

I had a long dream of my guru last night.

I don't remember what we might have talked about. She basically invited me to go with her for part of her day. We went to different rooms as she talked with different people. Nice rooms with soft and comfy furnishings. She was so nice and encouraging, without necessarily talking with me (I can't remember). She was sweet, yet on point with the people she interacted with.

Then it was time to go. Again she was very nice. I was so happy for all the time I had spent with her. As she was walking towards the next room, she turned to say goodbye. My goodbye was effusive and adoring. She did not like that. She made a face.

I've never spent time with her. I've had her darshan several times, usually for a few moments.


In thinking about the dream, I think she was encouraging me, reassuring me, and caring for me, without words. She was showing her love, and her commitment to me by inviting me to spend a long time with her, hours of time.

She challenged my feelings of little self-worth. She recharged my hopes for my sadhana, which have been waning for the last few months.

She filled me with her shakti in a subtle way. No drama, no fireworks.


Except for some specific occasions of longing, I have always felt ambivalent towards my guru. I have issues about women, and much prefer the company of men.

Now at last, all of these years of sadhana, I have burned up my desire, my control, my intensity in searching for and trying to hold together my experience of a real and unchanging wholeness, feeling truly alive. Many people feel this. We are seekers.

Now spiritual experiences can happen without me doing a bunch of things with them. I don't think I have to hold onto them and make them stay. I have spent my every breath with doing that. Finally I have let this go. A few echoes here and there.

There is nothing to do in the moment except experience the gift that is given, the lesson which is given. Get out of the way. Let it be. Let it end or keep happening. Most of all do not think that it will be permanent, the holy grail of the seeker's desires.

Finally I understand. If something goes this way, it MUST eventually go that way. Whatever is happening is not permanent unless it "just is," and even then....


I love you (my Guru).

NOTES:  I think my assumption of affected emotions and worship get in the way of what is real, and my Guru doesn't like it, so it's not very useful in the world of the divine, LOL.

Dramatic, emotional, flowery. Not her thing. I think she's more down to earth. Over-wrought doesn't make her happy. She cringed. Making a face was a playful way of communicating her experience of my prayers.

And also, she is instructing me to experience worship and longing in a more straightforward way. This is an important direction from her.

I am keeping my recent, very important insight that worship and longing create a fire in me that is burning away the impurities. It goes with my realization that my path is to "go around", rather than interacting with my limitations and delusions through discipline and purposeful action.

I will not pray unless I want to

“God does not require that we be successful 

only that we be faithful.” 

― Mother Teresa

I am not Catholic, but I have been praying the rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours for a few days now. I feel the need to pray.

Prayer for me is made of worship, and of self-sacrifice. I offer up my body and soul in prayer. I offer my time and my focus. I am focused on God; my love and longing for God, which has been so great all my life.

I remember when I was a girl, and standing in the street near my house, and asking myself: what do I want to be when I grow up? My answer was either a nun or a Playboy centerfold! I do not see these as being all that far apart. They both celebrate life and the source of that life.

Still, I thought. That must be why I have a huge scar on my stomach, God wants me to be a nun instead.

Later, when I found out Mormons do not have nuns, I was not devastated--but it was close.


As an adult, I have found Catholics to be pretty weird. But I am coming to understand them better by borrowing their prayers. They feel an unbroken line from, and are the keepers of the people and events of the Lord's time on earth. They think about these constantly, in rosary prayers to Mary and others, in the Stations of the Cross, in their Mass, and in their religious peoples' lives, their activities, the symbolism of their habits and the structure of their days.

I am trying prayer in a specific way. I do not pray unless I want to. A feeling of wanting to pray comes up naturally. No desire--no pray. Also, if I lose interest in the middle of praying, (which does happen occasionally), I choose to stop praying.

Today, I felt strongly that I didn't want to pray. I thought everything to do with praying was more than painful, a sort of jerking around in my collapsed, depressed state.

"I will not pray unless I want to. Even if I don't pray ever again."

The thought I might stop made me sad. I found myself clicking on "nun links" that now come up on my YouTube side bar. I began to feel the desire again, to pray.

Praying is a way to get around the part of me that wants to use control of my mind and feelings to "get somewhere," spiritually or otherwise. 

I have been seriously and continuously contemplating how to move forward in my sadhana--and to what end--for months now. I tried a lot of things, and mostly accomplished a bunch of trying. My life goes in a big circle. Everything I'm doing now will become the opposite eventually. When I try to do it, I get in the way of grace. I have to step back. 

Wrestling myself to the floor at 5am is not me, never will be. The life of a nun is not for me. Which is hard because I long so much for a completely spiritual life. I don't feel that my current life fulfils that purpose in me. I am still learning.

After I pray The Office and The Hours, and the Crown Rosary or daily rosary, my body has a serene feeling of energy all in-line and in a gentle, persistent flow. I feel lighter, my mind and ego at rest. 

"I feel that my karmas, my pain, my despair, all of it is dissolving in the sweet attitude and daily results of prayer."

In the question I have been asking over and over, should I go through or around my obstacles, I have always returned to this answer: go around. I'll never wrestle that mess to the ground. Or if I do, I'll only keep it down for two seconds. It's all an illusion. Why sacrifice everything to fighting an illusion?

I think I have found the answer. I offer my prayer, including the results. If I can desire to pray, and then pray, I create the shakti in my being that dissolves all that has burdened me, and chained me to the vagaries of the world around me.

And so, I desire very much to be freed, and also to be continuously apart from the world. God is what matters to me.

After I pray, I'm at a loss of what to do. Everything else seems course, and destined to pull my lovely state back into illusion and pain. I don't think I can pray all the time. Just as sure as the desire to pray will come along, the desire to stop praying will come as well. I'm not going to fight it out with this part of me. Making myself do something is sure to eradicate any possibility of doing it at all. I'm just that way.

Meanwhile, I do continue to repeat the mantra silently, and I am trying out experiencing this as worship, in addition to my main experience as identification and purification. It's interesting to me that this feels too intimate! When I think of God, I no longer think of God as "inside" or "outside" of me. I guess there's no way to worship God without worshiping myself. Which is the point of the mantra in any case.

"My discipline is to only do it when I want to!"

As Mother Teresa said, "God does not require that we be successful, only that we be faithful." The idea of being faithful thrills me. It frees me from the content. If I prayed, or not, if I felt like praying or not. These dark waters would suck me down right away. I go around them! If only I can be faithful, and pray when I desire to pray, today. Who knows about tomorrow.


So, today I did not feel like praying. I was sad. "It's all over," I thought. "Like it always is." I have been wrestling with this off and on my whole life.

As I say, I started clicking on "nun links" that were coming up in my YouTube sidebar, since I've been surfing around looking for prayers. And I found that watching just one of these videos brought up all of my desire to pray, and to live a life that is based upon what matters, which is God.

It's part and parcel of the thoughts of a young girl who found that the things that mattered to me were not reflected in the world around me.

Finding my place in the world has been the real struggle of my entire life. I wish that I could be a nun. Maybe I can be, after all. A convent of one.

At least for today.

Spiritual experiences

Nothing is ever new and permanent, and all the time. Except this: when I look within, there is no barrier or break between myself "inside" and "outside." It's a continuum.

The Flammerion Engraving (1888) 

So... What??

It seems like it's not much of a difference. But for me it is the difference between rattling around in my head, and feeling and dancing with the shakti: spiritual experiences, for me, are not about making progress towards having "them" in every moment as realization.

They are about now.

They don't mean anything, at least not to my mind, the mind that is always trying to figure everything out, including realization.

The swirl of love and light, mystery and passion, are now. They're just now. Experience them. Be changed by them. Be grateful and happy. Love the shakti, the guru. Everything is made of them. Because that is what happens when I tune into the shakti swirling in me, uplifting me. A divine purpose that is far, far beyond my mind.

Salt Lake City LDS Temple ~ I grew up in Salt Lake City Utah

I don't know what is happening(!) I don't do that. Look, I was raised a Mormon. Mormons are very thoughtful, and have a complete system of understanding and living in the world. Mormons continuously and somewhat suspiciously monitor their actions, thoughts and motivations. Mormons figure out everything. And everything is leading to something. God has big plans for my future. This is certain.

When I feel love and expansion fill me, I am hard put to keep my mind quiet, to stay with the feelings without thinking and drifting away. My busy mind!! I am lucky if I make it ten seconds! I don't want everyday feelings, I always thought. I want TRANSFORMATIONAL feelings that turn my life into something better. Always getting somewhere. Trying to hitch a ride to a new future on every spiritual experience.

No. Stop that. I am stopping. It has taken so many years of sadhana to see and challenge this thing. Why? Because it gets in the way.

The real deal is only now. It is so exquisite, playful, mysterious, delightful. This is what I have always wanted. This.

The Flammerion Engraving (1888) - color added

Hold

Steady.

This pulls me. That repels me.

Emotions and sensations happen.

I wobble. But I don't elope with them.

I want not to want.

I don't want to avoid.



No. Steady. I feel the pull.

Hold.

A vision

I had a dream, a vision.

It happened in a split second from fully asleep to a silent, kinetic image, followed by being fully awake, though I did not open eyes for several moments.

I saw before me a golden bird cage covered with a mottled, purple silk scarf which was in motion, being pulled off in an instant. I could not see what was pulling the scarf upward.

During the instant, I saw a small creature jump or fall from the bottom of the cage, disappearing down out of view. It was the size of a small monkey, and seemed to be sort of like a monkey, though it was symbolic.

I immediately felt great hope for my sadhana, which has been so discouraging. "Thank you," I said to my Guru, over and over. "I needed this so much."

SYMBOLISM

It happened in between sleep and awake, when the mind is not conscious.

It happened so fast, there is no story. It just was.

It was instantaneous. There was no sadhana. No recipe of action.

I viewed it from outside of the cage. It was a communication via symbolism, rather than an experience.

INTERPRETATION

Recently, the freedom of my enlightenment seemed just in reach, then crumbled with the cycles of my wandering mind.

I just didn't know. Finally. Not even if there was anything to know.

Illusion will be removed all at once. I will see out of the cage. The ego will fall out of the cage.

What is next was not in the dream.


MORE

A couple of days ago I was wondering if it was difficult for my fish if I turned their lights off (put them to sleep) at completely different times every day.

Then I thought of the neighbor I once had who had a bird, and how birds go to sleep (become silent) when their cage is covered.

If my cage is uncovered, I will be awake.


I am so grateful. My sadhana is real. My enlightenment is real.

Quieting and disciplining my mind is a part of becoming steady and undistracted. I can shape my mind, forming it to see what I believe is to be real, liberation. But the mind is cyclable by nature. Whatever is, will eventually not be. It's a cycle.

My Guru has it well in hand. She has a plan.

Pure gold

In this moment, the shakti wells up as bliss... and I remember the stories with sadhakas who sat and swayed in a state of bliss. I thought I was so far away from this state.

In this moment, this is my sadhana.

I have had a crisis for a few weeks. What is my sadhana? I thought it was to shape my consciousness with my will, to see and experience what is truth, and real.

But then I found that my mind crumbles and rebuilds itself. There will be no permanence there, no matter how strong my will.

Without the discipline, I have been thrashed around, undercut by fear, falling into whole caverns of dark confusion.

I threw out my goals. Becoming perfected in this moment doesn't work without a way to STAY perfected. And I am changing every moment. So confusing.

I need my guru's phone number!! No, she teaches me inside.

Well. What, what then? What is my path??


Today, I am swaying with the bliss that is bubbling up again.

In this moment, my path is bhakti. Bliss. I am being purified and transformed by bliss. It dissolves my mind. It dissolves my ego, the ever changing field of my being.

Slipping away...

This bliss, Mata Kundalini, is made of pure gold.

Stars wheeled

It doesn't matter what I do.

What a radical. What a subversive.

Lord Krishna is the OG anarchist.

Follow your dharma. It's something to do. So the karmas stop.

He whispered this in my ear once. No words..... just His breath. His state.

Stars wheeled.

Without a ripple

Screen cap from Natural Phenomenon Ambient Mix by Fluidified ~ permission pending

Obviously the truth is what's so. 

Not so obviously, it is also so what. 

~ Werner Erhard

I once thought that everything meant something.

The most essential belief, the most essential reason for all of my being and doing.

Now. Things just are. I let them be. I am still, with soft eyes. I have become a place, a moment... at my Guru's feet.

I let it all be.

I once strode forth each day to dance with all this, trying to use it to get somewhere. A formula. A trade off. Trade this for that and get ahead. Augment any feelings of meaning and spiritual progress. Try to hold on.

Disappointment when it all dissolves again. 

Collect the karmas. Start again at the first part of the cycle, where hope springs eternal.

I watch myself. I see my body now. It is temporary. Body and mind I flow as shakti formed. I am part of the play unfolding. I once thought that I was doing it, that all this was happening to me. 

Now. I am perfectly still, with eyes that expand with the rushing heavens, falling into Her without a ripple.

Things just are. I let them be.

Photo: public domain

As we dance

How strange it is that others seem to progress via sadhana from illusion to perfect form--the goal of sadhana--while I progress from form as illusion to the perfect chaos of all forms in One.

I feel, I dance. Only now.

I fall apart, fall to earth, lost again, conquered by what is most petty, ego's sure advance, retaking all ground.

Then it starts again, the perfect dance, with no form, spontaneous, coming up from within.

I don't need to know anything at all, except the bliss, the divine that transcends "in" and "out."

The continuum is not divided in any way.

God is so close, there is no gap between us. The energy of all holds my consciousness as we dance.

Sacred wild

Something is happening to me and I don't know what it is.

I am upended. Becoming.

I am sad. My purpose includes losing my attachment to my purpose, to the way that it is fashioned in my mind.

Free to be wild. Sacred wild. Wild to be free. Lord Krishna is God as this principle to me. Subversive anarchy.