Magic

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

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

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

Faith of the heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

Devotion

The poet saint Mirabai

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mirabai

My post on the SYP website:

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

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

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

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

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

Stava Cintamani

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

~Swami Lakshmanjoo

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

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

Rest

Photo from Jnaneshwar's Samadhi Mandir

In the guru, my life force finds rest.

~ Jnaneshwar Maharaj

Photo: Trip Advisor

Melt away

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

Photo: The Movement Center Swami Chetananda

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.

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.

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

Confidence is my constant

It's all love in motion.

Confidence replaces self-doubt and reprobation.

Confidence.... and I can open my eyes... and trust what I see.

And then I can feel.... the love.

LOVE comes in all the forms I love.

There is no division between myself and those forms.

I feel that ALL has the same heart. Everything is joined in the heart.

ALL reflects the golden sun rising from the horizon. My eyes are golden. My heart flies open.

Open.

I can only keep my heart open with CONFIDENCE.

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.

Become that

What about today? Now?

Yesterday I felt this immense experience and manifestation of grace. Yesterday.

How can I keep that going? How can I hold onto it, build on it, and not let it slip away? asks my mind. Am I losing what is precious, and missing a precious opportunity to have what I most want in this life? There will be devastating regret. So says my mind's mighty "fear of regret" samskara.

Thinking I have to build on grace is an attempt to add to what is divine and unlimited. No.

(Thinking of) yesterday happens only in my mind. Why hang out in my mind when all that I most want is already attained??

Lord Krishna looks on as Arjuna kneels to receive the
precious gift of bow and arrows from Lord Shiva

I help my mind. A dharana.

What about today? Now? What is the sadhana of my heart, where there is no "here" or "there," no limitations, outside of time?

Start here: Offering the fruits to Krishna is the beautiful pranam of my soul. He is always there with a playful, gentle surge of love. Play, he says. When Krishna shakes his curls, the play of the world surges with universal longing.

There is a most precious gift of grace in this moment. Become that.

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

Grace wakes me up

I am permeable. My habitual boundaries of self, the age old boundaries of my heart are softening. I can relax what I thought to be rigid in my nature. Consciousness, love and bliss flows into and through me like water.

Float on grace.

Grace keeps touching me, gently refocusing my attention, waking me up.

My dharana is larger than my mind. I am essential, with no qualities or dualities, seeing my limited consciousness from the outside, watching the play of seeing and moving without moving or being seen.

The bliss gushes up each time.

I want to live entirely in that higher consciousness.

Now I am melting

It took me so long... to stop my mind from charging about with the full moments.

Don't run with it. Just feel it, be it. Let it be me.

Now I am melting. This Kundalini bliss. There is no place but here.

I am already there.                                                                                        

Romeo y Julieta - Franck Dicksee

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.

In the beginning you run

Question: Guruji, whenever I see You, I start running after You. Is this devotion or lack of self respect?

Guruji: In the beginning you run, it is ok. But then you should learn to stop and look within. Dive deep within yourself. Then I will run after you and the whole world will run after you.

~ The Art of Living Blog: A teaching from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar



Portrait by Nitin Rai

Someday it will happen to me

When will I find my Beloved? When will my Beloved find me?

From War and Peace 1966