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.

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.

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.

The end of delusion

My mind keeps running around! Around!! GET BACK HERE.

My mind might run, but I'm the one who likes and believes in the feelings of gratification it seeks. I choose to pursue them.

Tiny little lights that sparkle and charm, that make me shimmy a little with excitement and release. In this way I miss out on the true treasure.

The Guru's feet symbolize a divine mystery, the place where Guru
and disciple meet as One in the ocean of divine consciousness

The place of action is to look at it, to put consciousness on it. What is this? Why do I pursue soimething that is not really there?? I believe over and over in gratification, and think I am achieving it, even if only for a moment. More pursuit. Repeat.

It's a sparkle!. A shimmer! A happy shimmy! No more. NO SUBSTANCE.

I want what is real.

I have disciplined my mind in key ways. This is next. I no longer believe in gratification.

"I don't believe in ________" is my playful way of saying _________ is an illusion."*

I don't believe in suffering. Suffering comes from wrong thinking. It is only consciousness. Nothing happens to me.

Now, I do not believe in gratification. Believing in it is followed closely by thinking I am experiencing lack, or frustration. None of these things are actually happening to me.

I don't want to fly on this mental swing, mistaken storymaking anymore.

Consciousness dissolves consciousness. 

The place at the Guru's feet is a place of surrender which transcends the physical.
The physical Guru offers service to Her disciples by accepting this worship of
Paramashiva, the Guru that is all. Worship at this place is beyond profound.

*In Kashmir Shaivism, everything is made of divine consciousness, which is real. This includes consciousness as delusion. Everything. It isn't things or consciousness that are not real. 

The beginning of delusion is to believe in something that is false. The experience of delusion is persisting in being mistaken.

The restless, endless searching

What do I want next? 

I let the eddying curl of a floating appetite slip out of my grasp, expanding as it is dissolving, becoming one with all that I am. Consciousness dissolving consciousness.

How do I avoid disappointment and regret?

I haven't even thought about it. No goals were set. No decisions were made. It just happens, again and again. Grace.

I notice the moment, so many each day. I slip out from the closing hook; lifetimes of grasping, lifetimes of pulling away.

The restless, endless searching stops for a moment.

There is a little prick of pain, the very slight jar of separation. Ouch.

Dissolving karmas, samskaras... what was that? I forget. I need not know. I am forgetting. It has become meaningless.

Then, grace. I am expanding so slightly with a gentle in-rushing of bliss, warmth, and freedom. My birthright.

I don't chase. I don't run away.

I choose freedom.

My lifelong obsession

Photo: Raymond Eldstad 

I have discarded the lifelong obsession that I will somehow fix my broken life. 

I finally reached a moment where I stepped back and looked at myself. I noticed that I was in a great deal of pain. Familiar pain. Constantly unresolved pain. I was contorted by it, the last to know.

I freed myself. I whispered to myself, "I don't care." I no longer care about my life's work, a lifelong obsession to fix a ruined life. I don't care about the many past moments of failure and pain that flood into the my consciousness at the cost of now.

"I don't care" is the mantra to loosen caring too much.

My dance with this obsession is bondage, and letting go of an epic grip on my life is freedom. The details do not matter.

"I don't care." 

I visualize each painful memory when they arise—a slip of consciousness that I mistakenly thought was happening to me, the truth traded in for a kind of karmic coat check. As I focus my consciousness on the memory, I see it slipping away from me, burning in a sudden whoosh, or turning to dust, the pain rejected and spun off like dross. Consciousness disolves into consciousness. Immediately I feel lighter, slipping into the center place of bliss.

I am not the story, the places or the people. I am this inner place of bliss.

Needful fire

Have you ever stepped back, feeling a boundless dance of pain slip off, and asked yourself in that moment, "Why am I committed to this pain?"

In that moment you have seen your karmas burning, your investment in the currency of ignorance becoming the fuel for a needful fire. The karmas feed the fire. The fire leaps higher, burning more karmas. Sacred. Needful. Fire.

Consciousness.

How to live without creating more karmas?

YOU have stepped out of the dance, your duty and dharma keeping your place in it.

You have become still, watching.

Freedom.

Cave diving

"No matter what happens go on remembering God and he will carry you."

~ Swami Lakshmanjoo

I have an obsession with videos about cave diving. I found one that I really love in particular. I have watched it several times.

"Flash mob" refers to coordinating flashlights to illuminate a large cavern

I feel like I am floating, not rising or falling except by grace. I feel ever more still inside. I have left the places I thought were about one of many. I am moving with eyes closed in the total darkness. Grace is the way. I await only Grace. I control nothing. Grace.

I have rock solid equipoise in situations and interactions that used to set me off like a marionette.

I watch myself engage with my appetites, but I'm not invested anymore. It comes from habit, samskaras. 

I have conceived of freedom in so many ways. Now, I not only conceive of but can feel the beginnings of freedom that come from not being swayed one way or another by appetites. Instead of engaging, I watch them arise and dissolve.

The appetites in me cringe and complain as I let go, a tiny rift. I choose freedom. It is painful for a few moments. Something rips apart.

I go back to floating, free. Carried along on this current, free. Free.

"The greatness of Lord Shiva is that no matter what intensity of his 

grace is with you, it will carry you to his nature in the end."

~ Swami Lakshmanjoo

I am free

Because I have worked every day for years to control my mind, I am steady in the midst of a coordinated attack.

I am so grateful. I was given an extreme circumstance to step back from all of my social media projects. The further I stepped back, the better I felt, the lighter an underestimated burden that began falling away.

I burned so much karma yesterday. I burned those things we all think happened to us (but did they? no). I am grateful.

I felt the decision to step away was right, (even with 8,000 likes and followers!), and then the very next tweet I received was so horrible and mean, it made it all so very clear.

Protecting the fruits of my love from those who do not love it is futile.

I will not play at this game anymore. Why would I play a game where I can be brutalized? This is not the part I want in the play in this world.

Playing is my job, and freedom my mentor. I send love to all on this new day. Love, and the shakti of my guru. Love and blessings. Sweetest nectar. Sparkling freshness and delight.

I am free.

I love you. Every one.
I will always love you.

A joke I sent to the person I sent my highly misunderstood tweet to:

"I'm on the phone with Damon [Lindelof], Shatner is on his way over for some coaching "keep your hands low," and Horowitz sent flowers *sobs*"

"Keep your hands low"

Unbound

Fall feels like waking up for me. The long, languid dream of Summer gives way to a nostalgic return to a time of change, of turning inward.

I am burning "good" stuff now, which is a nice break. Times I enjoyed, but still feel too "small," now, if I ever fit in them at all.

Even the expanse into Fall feels too small to me, too concentrated, the way burning feels. Like a pressure from within is pushing outward, pushing on the boundaries I accepted as real, dissolving them in myself. Only, burning limitations I once accepted as "good" aren't usually as painful as burning limiting experiences that were "bad."

Be light, my guru says. Be buoyant, unbound. I will hold you. You can expand into me.

Over and over, the old feeling that arises, "now I can _______," play computer games, eat donuts, sleep, ad infinitum.... these are the lifelong obsessions with finding fulfillment in the world of maya, the illusion of separateness.

Now, because of my guru's grace, I just as often notice this impulse to find fulfillment in some-thing, and immediately turn inside to take God's darshan, to slip into Shiva, dear to him, sure in the knowledge that there is but one answer to a heart that feels empty, and this source is always closer than close.

My Lord Shiva... is what I am made of.

Come with me

From the outside (if there were such a thing), I would appear obsessive, obsessed... someone who is alone almost all of the time, who is on my computer almost all of the time. I serve _________, it is my service to keep such an active fansite for such a beautiful, soulful old-soul.

(He touches me inside. Shiva as _________).

Surely I should be seeking discipline, meditating for hours, doing yoga, eating only pure foods.

No, I sit at my computer until I am frozen in a "L" shape, my eyes burn, my mouse hand tingles.

Crazy, is what most would think, would say.

If there was an outside...

... then inside is where the action is. I am already God, and everything I think and do is His beautiful intelligence swirling and bubbling through this beautiful universe, its throb and its motion is His... Your breath...

Take me into You, I have longed for you for so long. I played side by side with You as a child, cried for You as an adolescent, grew a little, hallucinated at times, and drove drunk with a wild and wide space around me, the cloud of love where I felt you in waves, soaked in you... heavy and ecstatic, rising like a wave that only reaches, but never breaks.

I notice where I am. That is my now.

Equipoise

I have been growing inside, spiritually... not pushing or pulling, not trying to find the words.

Equipoise. What happens dissolves by the next moment, the next now. I feel the tug of the moment, and let it carry me.

Freedom.

~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~

Shiva as my main squeeze,
God and actor,
Mr. Naveen Andrews

My insight a few seconds ago. My longing for a relationship, for physical closeness, is not a symptom of remaining tied to the world, of not being ready to let go of distractions so I can focus on my sadhana and realization...

...it is my love of God, my longing. Of course. It has always been there, and now it is becoming about You, my true love.

Many times a day now, when I feel that need inside for something real and truly satisfying, (not just a shade of what I long for), for the first time, I always seek You, I reach out for You. You are always there.

Shiva shiva shiva... I love your name I LOVE YOUR NAME.

Om nama shivaya...

My longing is for You.

Attainment requires a strong mind

The pendulum swings.

When grace is overflowing... I can merge with You at will for several moments, seeking You many times a day with the delightful knowledge that only You are worth seeking, only your love is worth finding. I am not missing anything, not liking or disliking anything, because all of this is You.

The pendulum swings.

I dislike everything. I am full of self-hatred, I take hold every hour on the slippery edge of deep despair. Because of committed practice I notice the minute my spirit slumps over, desiring destruction and oblivion. The deepest darkness swims just below the cliff at my feet.

These are feelings I have not felt so deeply in years. I have kept a steady practice of noticing them, and not going with them.

But here they are and they are fierce in their attempts to conquer me, lay me out, lay me down with the small inner movement required to let go, to be consumed.

This is the easy way, a voice whispers. My ego will sacrifice everything to escape the fire of sacrifice, to emerge victorious.

I fight, I hold the line. I accept all of this, but I will not be pulled into self-hatred and fear.

I do not believe in suffering.

It's the pendulum. I am burning these feelings. But mostly, I am burning my attachment to the golden time of grace, when this was better than that. 

Karma..

Each time the pendulum swings, it is getting closer to stopping at the center. A place of sublime equipoise, where mayiya mala will not push and pull, towards and away.

This is as good as that. I know because that is how God's play is unfolding as my life. I understand at last. I am not steering this. If I am, why does it never go the way I choose?

To go with feelings of suffering, I must believe that these feelings are reality, that they are me. This creates karma. I invest in delusion, a debt which must be burned to return to freedom, the truth.

No one has ever expressed this understanding of karma to me. Nowhere have I ever heard the saying "I do not believe in suffering." It is my yoga, and my discipline, I grasp it to me as the waves of suffering rise... then flow out again on the gentle tide. The crisp air of morning breaks with sudden gold upon the sweet back and forth of elemental, formless water. Freedom.

My guru has said this, I remember her words. Attainment requires a strong mind. Every day that I have chosen to notice but not follow old feelings of fear and self-hatred my mind has become stronger. I have come to notice immediately any thought or feelings that begin to drag me down. I do not follow. I am not driven. I pray.

I take refuge in prayer. I choose steadiness instead.

I am not conquered, I am only troubled by this light-footed shadow of the dance of suffering, the movements of habit and the memories of choosing pain out of ignorance.

I turn and slip into the light. The feelings are... The suffering is but a hapless rumor. It is all perfect.

The true success

Kashi the city of light, never forsaken

All of my life I have wanted what is missing, wanted to find and hold onto an experience that was real, that didn't dissolve away..

Now... When I am weary... of chasing the sparkles, of serving my obsessions, of leaning into this human torment... (even tingling all over when I visit _________, bearing alone this unrequited love)...

I am so happy, so lucky. At last I crave what is real, seek nothing more than this: to turn inside and be with God. This is the real sustenance, the real intimacy.

Torment is another word for purification. The fire takes only this, when I am that... So'ham.

Kashi the city of light, never forsaken

God You are real, you are here for me every time I reach for You inside... every time without fail. Over and over through the day I take a moment to love and worship you inside.

Om namah shivaya. Shiva Shiva Shiva. I love your name...

My heart at last knows where to rest: God is the true success. There is no other God but You.

Kashi the city of light, never forsaken

This

When the whip, the goad arises in me, when fear and anxiety prick at the soft places, every hour, every day.

When this is not enough, when now is only this or that, when a quality is missing or gone astray. (Compulsion...)

I am not moved. My heart is mine.

No, you cannot have me. But I don't say it... I alter my response without moving at all.

I am so relaxed inside. The contortions of my ego, perfect, touch me as God. I am surrounded by God. 

There is nothing else here. I need nothing, desire nothing. I am kissed with bliss, the inner touches and telling caresses of what and whom I am made.

visualparadox.com

I need not stretch or pry or dig. For weeks now I have been shedding this riot of will.

This.

This barely lit room, this feeling of night and a soft bed waiting... this intimate world of light is You, Your consciousness.

What if I saw You everywhere I looked?

This.

I feel whole again, just this, perfection and wholeness. I begin to cry. I have found You in what I knew but could not yet become.

This is all You.

Center’, digital art, (C)2012 H Kopp-Delaney

I know You as light, as this inseparable world of light and sound. The silent divine rises upward through my spine to divine union... and I am subtle, my state is subtle soft and tastes of salt and blood, the fragrance of your breath, the warmth of your whispered kisses, framing my body as a living portrait of love.

Visit my poetry blog here


~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~

Brother Utpaladeva, (I touch your feet...), my prayers echo yours in this one mighty phrase: "You hide in plain sight as everything." (Utpaladeva: Shivastotravali)

It all becomes One

This is very fine wisdom, a wish-fulfilling gem I keep re-discovering in my once star-crossed hand: ...oh!! Then "lost" again when I grasp myself in fear.

So. I am human. I have cycles. Sometimes contracted, compulsive, fearful.

My fear speaks. It tells me that feeling contracted means I have lost my way, that my ego and sleepy habit are robbing me of my commitment to return to God.

Bull crap.

Swamiji likened it to the teeter totter. Children at play love to go UP! And yet, they also love to come down. Coming down always happens before going up.

Swamiji said that the difference wasn't that an enlightened person didn't have ups and downs. It was that they didn't last anywhere near as long because they were not resisting or grasping at the hills and valleys of their experience.

This is the highest truth I know: it is all consciousness. The thought that I am separate from God is consciousness. The thought that I am ruining anything ever, or forever, is consciousness.

When I remember this, it all becomes One.

Amma means mother

Okay, I am having a rough day. I am contracted, and only feel grace in little glimmers here and there.

I felt a subtle darshan when I came across this photo on "Amma" Sri Karunamayi's website.
  

"Amma" Sri Karunamayi

I still hear the effervescent "prana through akasha" nada sound continuously in both ears.

Thinking about it... for the last couple of days I no longer have the intense compulsion for my blog that I had before (continuously for months).

I can actually sit and look at my computer, and not reach out and grab it (laptop) and dive back in. I can just sit.

I think I almost burned up my ability to focus during months of intense burning of the rajasic compulsions through focusing on my blog.

And now that the compulsion finally seems to have stopped, I am feeling lost.

I was terrified that my ______ benefits had been discontinued. And like the old terror I faced as an adolescent, I wanted to hide. It was too terrifying, fear like molten lead. (I had to make myself go down there, of course not near as bad as I thought).

 "Amma" Mata Amritanandamayi, 
the "hugging saint"
(Wikimedia Commons)

This is all related. 

I finally created adulthood out of forcing myself to do things. Right now I am not doing that, or only when necessary, and it is very different from anything in my adulthood to live this way.

"This way" is waiting, ready to find and learn the new way, one that is integrated, not one of rough pushing of myself, not sacrificing of any tenderness, not pushing out of consciousness the costs of pushing down and out of consciousness. 

(Meanwhile, I'm on vacation).

My Guru, help me to sit with this place, to not be worried if I feel contracted. 

If I am burning this contracted place, help me to offer all of it to the sacred fire, and to seek the center of Shree Agni where my ego and karmas will be burned up. 

I focus with my consciousness, on the contractions as consciousness, as fuel for the fire, which is consciousness. (I love this dharana).

Aum namah shivaya.

PS I have finally accepted my body EXACTLY the way it is. This is HUGE, I tell you <laugh!>. I quit wearing that torture instrument called a bra, which never fits me right anyway. I was given a gift (guru's grace) in finding the most amazingly perfect spaghetti strap top, which I've decided to wear without a bra. I bought several. All of this is a metaphor for my overall spiritual growth right now, which is what this blog has been and is all about. Accept what is. Jettison delusion and whatever else is in the way. I'm alone. Etc.

Durga Maa

Maa Brahmacharini

PLEASE CLICK to visit my post today for Navaratri 2015 ~ Jana 10/13/15

My heart melted; my guru loves me. I had that experience, the darshan of her love for me.

I was having the darshan of Durga while looking for images of the Devi. I never related to Durga (or the Goddess) before... but my heart melted again... I had Durga's darshan, and I cannot get enough of it, sweet... Durga Maa(!) So sweet.

I was inspired to pray to the Goddess for help. I prayed to Durga as Maa Brahmacharini avatara, (or is she Parvati doing austerities to become wed to Lord Shiva?) I prayed for the grace to create and maintain a purifying yogic fire through my tapas (austerities). 

All at once I noticed that the divine nada that sounds like effervescence with tinkling in the high register got louder. There was a new nada as well, closely resembling the tamboura (which emulates the primary bija (seed) mantra sound "OM." My ears got the "full" feeling I often get when it feels like the sounds are purifying me even more than usual (I don't remember having continuous nada before my "latest" spiritual awakening before the first of this year).

All at once I noticed all that, and in the same moment the mp3 of the mantra that was playing in Windows Media Player skipped, not once, but twice in a row. As in it played the same tiny segment three times in a row before going on as normal. My hair almost rose up, it was uncanny. Unmistakable.

I also noticed (and this is still happening) that the Siddha Yoga recordings of the mantra that I have playing continuously have added instruments or sounds, like, focus on this sound in the mantra.

I really feel that all my nadas are very intimate messages from the divine to me. The scintillate and dance, changing in pitch and tone and many ways "on a dime." A very expressive link.

Today, things are different. I am not as enslaved by the computer. I meditated for an hour (with ten minutes off to feed the cat). I can sit and think about what I want to do next.

Once again I am amazed by the "power of prayer," as Christians call it. Hindus would call it the power of puja (worship), I think, meaning yearning and love manifest as careful and ecstatic ritual and offerings.

I worshipped Durga as Maa Brahmacharini, placing her at the top of my blog. She responded with so much love. Now I know that the Goddess is just as real as God (I know ultimately we are all one).

I did some research on nada on the web, and posted some excerpts (next post). The most exciting thing is the understanding that the nada is something to focus on, a sort of divine guide, so I can be guided within during meditation and my journey to the divine.

A solid intention, a clear goal

Maa Brahmacharini
An avatar of Durga, she is a yogini
wearing white, who performs austerities,
(holding her japa mala) and carries the
water container of a wandering sadhu

Just now I was watching my thoughts, the concern (the fear), the questioning (the doubt).

I do not have a clear idea of how to proceed. My intention is not solid or clear.

My control over my mind and habits is very shaky. What is next?

A few months ago, when my spiritual awakening was most vibrant, I would notice right away when my mind was rating my attainment as "decreasing," and would focus on, then watch this thought dissolve as consciousness (arise... dissolve...)

Now I am confused about how to proceed.

I have a question: how should I alter my behavior, my practices? And the mind has an answer which is shaped by the three malas: you are flawed, separate from and far from God, missing what you need, living in a world of many, creating likes and dislikes about this (and everything).

What is true? I am one with God. Everything is here (there is no there to get to). 

Yesterday I was studying the three malas online (see below). There is a power of God that descends (maya shakti) and ascends (svantaantrya). But for me, my shakti is maya shakti, and is limited, so it only descends (becomes limited and perceives duality). 

Swami Laksmanjoo said that if a spiritual understanding slips away, especially if it slips away quickly, that is because of this limiting (descending) maya shakti. This helps me to understand what my challenge is as a sadhini. But how to address it?

I want to make a basic change in my life, so that I am reaching my spiritual potential, and not getting lost in compulsion.

Even Lord Shiva lives the life of a yogi
and performs spiritual practices

Hmmmm an answer to try on. Whatever aligns me with the shakti of my guru. Her shakti burns the limiting malas away, releasing my own shakti from the bondage of the malas, becoming the free and ascendant shakti of God once again. Her shakti, my shakti.... hmmmmmmmm.

This is all based on dualism. I want to go for the "home run," as in, attainment is here.

What matters is not what I do or do not do. It's whether I am finding the supreme truth in this moment. The practices support getting to this. But even Lord Shiva does the practices. 

The number one practice for me, my favorite and the one with my guru's intention for this year, is japa mantra.

So, how do I know when to do japa mantra and for how long? How do I know when not to do it?? Should I try to do it all the time???

Whatever I try or do, I need to line everything up behind my intention, a clear sankalpa, and then focus entirely on that.

I don't have a clear intention. I remember when I really really wanted to quit smoking. I didn't want to waste that desire. But when I tried to quit this way it didn't last. I finally realized it is (most definitely) NOT enough to WANT TO QUIT. There has to be a clear intention, and full alignment with the goal. Otherwise I would cave in at the least temptation.

(I had help quiting smoking and changing my diet because I had the flu so bad).

I do not have a personal relationship with my guru. This doesn't really concern me. I know I can write to her, and that she will respond one way or another (though I can't think of what to say). I experience her shakti supporting me in every way and that is a gift beyond compare.

What I do know is to pursue japa mantra, as she has made that the theme this year (and her grace and intention fully aligns with this practice). She also touches on many different practices and aspects of the spiritual path, so that all of her devotees will find the practices and path that supports them.

I have asked God to help me achieve the ability to do hatha yoga in this body. It is so good for me energetically, and for cleansing and focusing the mind.

I think this: as long as I am not meditating daily I will have this question.

Meditate daily. Build up a reasonable and fruitful practice. Then if the question comes up again, look at it again.

In our Shaiva system, there are three malas or impurities. These malas reside in maya. They do not reside in svaatantrya shakti. Even though svatantrya shakti and maya are one, yet they are different in the sense that svatantrya shakti is that state of energy which can produce the power of going down and coming up again, both at will, whereas maya will only give you the strength of going down and not the ability of rising up again. Once you have come down, you cannot move up again. This is the reality of the state of maya. It binds you.
Maya shakti is that universal energy which is owned by the individual being, the individual soul. And when that same universal energy is owned by the universal being, it is called svatantrya shakti.

Svatantrya shakti is pure universal energy. Impure universal energy is maya. It is only the formation that changes through a difference of vision. When you experience svatantrya shakti in a crooked way, it becomes maya shakti for you. And when you realize that same maya shakti in Reality, then that maya shakti becomes svatantrya shakti for you. Therefore, svatantrya shakti and maya shakti are actually only one and the three impurities (malas)... reside in maya shakti, not in svatantrya shakti. 

From Kashmir Shaivism: The Secret Supreme by Swami Lakshmanjoo (1907-1991)

Swami Lakshmanjoo 1947

The mantra grants me fearlessness

Sri Ganesh, remover of obstacles

I am willing to clean house, willing to say yes to some of "life's demands." I am still learning how to choose to do things, rather than forcing myself.

Dharana: I focus the power of (my) consciousness on the fear. My focus is consciousness. The fear is consciousness. The sacred fire is consciousness.

With the cloak of fearlessness imparted by the mala, I offer the fear to the fire of consciousness.

The dualism of separateness from God is consciousness (anava mala). The dualism of me versus not me/others is consciousness (mayiya mala). The dualism of liking/seeking versus not liking/avoiding is consciousness (karma mala). The three malas are all consciousness.

I am so grateful for grace. I pray for grace.

Om namah shivaya.

Lord Ganesh, remover of obstacles