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.

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.

Together in joy

The bliss bubbles up from the springs of my being.

I was miserable when it stopped. I burned the sodden, the twisted, the torn and trampled. Days. Weeks. I lost all hope. Martin Luther. Mother Theresa. The crisis of faith, the days of spiritual dryness. I remembered them yesterday--sadhakas like myself--and today the hope has returned.

Now I know it when it comes, the bliss bubbling up, the fountain of eternal life, of God's love. A personal, inner grasping, liquid, we are falling together in joy. Eternally, like a fountain.

I finally understand, recognize. This spring is sacred and wild. It is the fundament of my being. I worship it as it frees me. I reach to it, and it is always there.

Lord Krishna peeks in and laughs. Ha ha, I was here all along, you silly goof!!

The path of bhakti is embodied by Mirabai
Painting by Raja Ravi Varma

The enveloping fire

Is it so, that I no longer burn karmas and samskaras? Am I no longer rising through the enveloping fire made from my Guru's grace?

I feel instead a succession of moments, the memories of moments when I was living and waiting with an ever stirred heart, waiting for the insistent longing in my heart to take form.

I accepted Her solemn promise, that no matter my circumstance or store of unmet delusions, I could no longer stay or go back. I belonged to Her then.

These rich memories, the moments I have loved and love, are by succession ferried from shore to shore in me–by Her grace–softening my consciousness, and my body, my soul.

This consciousness which came to be Her arms enclosing mine, dissolving me into Her.

I am returning at last.

I am saying goodbye.

Completely alone

There is no "do." Except to breathe.

When all is pulled away, everything, a previously unknown "place."

Just be, just feel. Don't push, or pull.

Don't reach out to others, that always throws me way off. Be smart about it. Don't throw myself onto that fire, the one that burns me without be burnt. Endless pain.

Why do I go there? Stop.

Being completely alone is better.

So profound

I did THAT.

I did THIS.

Back and forth. Struggle creates its own fire.

Now. Purified. I am in the center, no movement, just a slightly liquid motion in an ever refreshed current of bliss.

So profound. Your grace.

Who I am

Om Shree Kala Bhairavaya Namo

At last, I understand.

Om Shree Kala Bhairavaya Namo.

The reason I like the night, the dark, the quiet, the eerie, the wistful.

Om Namo Namo.

My sadhana is solitary. Who I am is solitary.

Om. 

My Lord is here, the One who is outside of the circle of life, fierce, dark, the Lord of outermost cold and the innermost flame.

Others run. I open my arms to You, elemental and inexorable, guardian of the temple of my heart—I know you at last. I recognize my Lord, my true Self, my Ishta Devata.

Om Shree Kala Bhairavaya.

Pranam. Namo.

You are the hidden places,
wild and unknown by any but your own

Om. Salutations to You, Kalabhairava, Shiva. I bow to You.

Om namo namo.

I bow again and again.

Om.

At your feet forever.

Om Shree Kala Bhairava Namo

Fear her when

she 
has 
been through 
hell. 
so believe me when 
I say, 
fear her when she looks 
into a fire and smiles.

e.corona

The huge fear

The huge fear, soul sucking fear kept chasing me around. Fear that seems to have existed before I began.

I felt it arise, and turned. I surrendered to it. All of me, every part, willingly consumed by the fear.

I saw beyond it the freedom from it that was to be mine.

More fear, please.

More fear.

I want to be free.

I'm all in

Lifelong obsessions are burning up.

Desperate hopes and cherished dreams are in the fire, rising as a multitude of sparks. There, the Lord of the Dance, my Beloved.

I'm all in. Svaha.

Diamonds are forever

Shiva Parvati
I think I see Kama's love arrows

I was humming a tune I don't remember ever paying much attention to. I laughed, as I realized I was singing about trading up from the disappointing charades of the world for that which is permanent, most precious, luminous, and which will linger forever.

My Beloved will never leave in the night. He will never desert me. Nothing will hide in His transparent heart to hurt me. He never lies. My lover lingers.

He is forever.

“As the earth dies your spirit will bloom; as the world fades your soul will rise and glisten. Amongst the dehydrated crevices of a desert earth you will stumble upon your diamonds; in between the dry skulls and cracked bones you will find your sapphires.” 

― C. JoyBell C.

Diamonds Are Forever by Shirley Bassey

Diamonds are forever, they are all I need to please me

They can stimulate and tease me

They won't leave in the night

I've no fear that they might desert me

Diamonds are forever, hold one up and then caress it
Touch it, stroke it and undress it
I can see ev'ry part, nothing hides in the heart to hurt me

I don't need love, for what good will love do me?

Diamonds never lie to me

For when love's gone, they'll lustre on

Diamonds are forever, sparkling round my little finger
Unlike men, the diamonds linger
Men are mere mortals who are not worth going to your grave for

I don't need love, for what good will love do me?
Diamonds never lie to me
For when love's gone, they'll lustre on

Diamonds are forever, forever, forever

Theme from the James Bond film 

"Diamonds are Forever"

Bliss and equipoise

Radha Krishna ~ a divine love

Every moment, I feel my mind, my ego shirk as a little more of me is pulled away. Another tiny rent in my attachment to the play becomes another little in-rush of freedom, spinning stars and stardust on timeless breath. 

Kriyas and spontaneous meditation. Head falling forward.

So often the shakti of "Chidvilasananda" visiting me as the ashram. I hear the silence there, see the golden gleam of low light on the spotless floors, feel the close mantle of love and protection about me. 

I belong "there." "There" belongs to me.

I play the mantra always, very quietly when I'm asleep. I repeat the mantra until I am floating on the bliss.

I am undone from within. I feel limp, very tired. I shuffle backwards when something grabs my attention. I do not surge forward. The anxiety I usually keep under control is flowing around freely. It hurts but I experience it as consciousness being released.

I control nothing. I experience it all as coming to a single-pointedness of bliss and equipoise.

Radha Krishna ~ a spiritual love

Things

A lot is going on.... and I don't know what is going on!

I used to be in my guru's orbit. Now I am welcoming her to my heart.

Things are happening.

I was flying high

Radha Krishna

Me: Beloved Guru. I was flying high on your shakti. I was sure that liberation comes in the moment - as I master my state and mind. Now I'm back in the soup. I want to give up.

Shree Guru: Dear one. Your experience of liberation is coming to you in a precious, magnificent manner. Your own concept of liberation is limited. You are still burning those parts of you.

You are still getting out of the way.

Your sadhana is beautiful

Even Lord Shiva spends his time doing austerities such as meditation and japa mala (beads)

Sādhana (Sanskrit: साधन), literally "a means of accomplishing something," is the regular adherence to purifying, ego-transcending spiritual practices known as tapas, or austerities. Sādhana includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Sufi traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives. ~ Adapted from Wikipedia

I saw in my mind just now a summer blouse flying gently on a clothesline, the fabric playing upon itself in the sun.

A significant image that gives me pause. A clothesline figured prominently in a symbolic dream I had at age six about losing myself because of abuse.

I have arrived at the beginning, the circle of this lifetime closes, then opens... to all possibility.

What I have craved. Is now.

I had a gentle little rebellion. I was disappointed, and sad. 

Before... I had felt so clear and steady in my state, ready to go with equipoise established, with steadiness in everything large and small. I danced with the ripples of bliss that came up from within, that opened every place I touch with a familiar bliss...

Before... I felt I finally understood what life was, what it was to be finally reaching my potential as a spiritual being.

Then I felt I was back in the soup.

I don't want this, I thought. It's not worth it. Who thought up such an existence? To suffer delusions it has taken most of my life to throw off, then continue to seek this freedom which comes and goes as mere minutes between hours?

This is like having a tantrum because my billion dollar jackpot was a day late.

Listen... I have learned to stay steady inside. I've learned not to push, not to try to control. I am out of the way, a huge feat! And one with so many rewards.

Now, a moment of insight, of her strong shakti touching me inside...

This is it... she says gently inside. What a beautiful story, like one of your (written) stories. Complex, light and dark, joy and freedom from suffering done and karmas laid aside, fuel for the fire of a life of purification. It is all beautiful, and it all has meaning, the meaning you give it.

Your sadhana is beautiful. Your sadhana has the meaning you give to it.

Darshan

There is something of my own consciousness which I see in sadhu's eyes. The stuffing of life burned away, a pure consciousness is left, a lightness, a soul, a smile. Darshan of my Lord.

It is a spiritual attainment I have received as a gift from my guru and my own sadhana, the constant burning of years of believing that this story is happening to me.

Similarly, my life has always been outside of other's lives. I was mostly alone as a child. I developed an obsession with being with others. It was a happy day of freedom when I finally gave that up. Now I am like the sadhu (sadhini) who wanders, who belongs and lives inside, the inner world. 

I do not work, I am not married, I have no children. I have very little contact with my family. I have one true friend, and that is enough. It is a lot. There is no sangham here in Las Vegas. But there is an online sangham that I visit every day, one that is very active and so nourishing.

A sadhu in Nepal

Pashupatinath Temple

Photo poraschaudhary.com

Photo Pacific Press

Grace. Ease. Comfort.

Shambhavi Lorain Chopra

I feel so quiet. So calm. A feeling of ease that melts away fear and obsession.

Has this feeling been here all along? All my life I have been struggling and pushing. Trying to accomplish something to make my life livable, worthwhile. Most of it feeling like a miserable failure. Waiting.

Then I became a sadhini. I tried to DO everything in my sadhana, more and better. The rajas that burns away rajas.

Photo by Lis Oslo Norway

Today the gift of grace fills me up. Stop that. Grace has it... always has it.

These last few days I am so relaxed. I'm not reaching and contorting, working myself over all the time. (Please let this last!)

Today the "do" is to open to grace, over and over, endlessly.

Grace. Ease. Comfort.

Every moment love. Every moment worthwhile.

I live an almost solitary life. But there is really only one.

Ani Rigsang of Pemoko

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.

I need you so badly

Just like a lover, I plead over and over... "Please don't leave me, I need you so badly."