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

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.

Touch it

A river of grace flows to me. Touch it. It is real, it is all around me, through me.

She is the where, here. The moment, now.

Touch it. All around.

A river of grace flows to me.

Touch it.

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 nectar of that nearness

When that time will come? I want to ask You, when that day will come for me, when that day will appear, when I will leave all other things, all of the other activities of the world, and be focused only to that point, i.e., just to embrace You and taste the nectar of that nearness of that devotion, love? When that day will come for me? Tell me.

~Swami Lakshamanjoo commentary, Utpaladeva's Shivastotravali, Chapter Nine

Eyes that see in

You are behind the eyes of all of the teachers. An immense power. Drawing me. Dissolving me. 

A penetrating prick to my ego. Once broken, freedom is inevitable.
I've escaped, because of GRACE.
All that is left is karmas and samskaras--debts from action,
distortions and deluded habits,
burning up in the sacred fire.

Swami Lakshmanjoo

Look at their eyes. They all see "in," as well as "out."

You can tell he is inside ~ a beloved Brahmin priest in Varanasi

Shree Shree Ravi Shankar

Smiling or not. Open or closed. Eyes that see in. An ego pierced. The outer world does not touch them.

There is no "external" world to touch them.

H.H. 17th Gyalwang  Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje

H.H. 17th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje

HH 16th Gyalwang Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje

The shakti of the senses has been withdrawn from the sense objects.

Rabindranath Tagore

Swami Chetananda

Shambhavi Chopra

Swami Vivekananda

Shree Ramana Maharshi

Om shanti shanti shanti

Om Guru Om

Everything I touch and see

I no longer feel torn between the world and my true destination.

I have said my goodbyes.

To myself, to everything I say hello.

Everything I touch and see is You. All of this is Your body. Sacred.

Expansion

My guru keeps trying to give me moments.

I keep turning them into story.

Expansion is delicious, subversive, playful bliss. It's why Krishna shakes his curls.

The language of my lover is bliss

The language of my lover is bliss.

Your gaze

I see You. I see You behind everything.

Only those who seek the dark and crave all that is wild can see You. Only the chaste bride of all that is without and beyond can feel Your gaze.

I see You. I know You.

Your hair a plasma of dark flames, your garland of ashy skulls, Your only attire a living kindred of deadly snakes.

Your eyes were hidden. But now they are wild upon me.

My Lord. My Lord. Kala Bhairava. Namo namo.

Om Kala Bhairavaya Namo

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

Awakening me

So recent, I remember.

Shakti and bliss would start in me. And I sprang into action!

What does it mean? How can I keep it? How can I increase it?

How should I think about it to control it, make it larger, keep it from going away?

What should I be doing? What if I don't do it right and I lose it??

Recently.

Now the shakti and bliss comes, and I breathe deeply. I open myself to whatever will happen.

Thank you for this shakti and bliss. 

Perhaps it is my Guru sending me shakti, awakening me.

Be awake. Be alive. Be now. Become more transparent with every breath. Feel your heart open.

And I breathe deeply.

Your eyes

Your eyes...

I want to jump into your eyes.

Journey with the light to where it lives in you.

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Stepping out of multiplicity

When I step out of multiplicity, I see only one all around me, including "me," little me.

I am. There are no outer senses. I feel that I am. I feel bliss, and a great peace. Wonder, playfulness, joy. The burning desire to love and worship God, my source.

I do not see or hear. No taste, no touch or feeling sensation.

I am not heavy or light. Not cold or hot.

There is only my breathing. Only the bliss.

Then when I can, I step back again. I identify with the One, with Shiva. I have become Him; He looks out through my eyes.

I remember who I am. I remember.

I have no form, there is no space or time. I made all... to play.





Lord you are sweet bliss. The sighs of many contentments. I am on a journey to experiencing this truth: that we are One. You have called me home.

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Maa Katyayani puja

Salutations and pranam Maa Katyayani

Shubh Navratri

Humble salutations again and again

Shubh Navratri dear friends!

Navratri is a nine day festival for worship of the feminine divine in India

Navratri is often celebrated with elaborate decorations and costumes

All this bliss

Bliss... bliss... Who is giving me all this bliss on my dear Lord Krishna's birthday?