The Tower tarot card

I am so confused.

It's Makar Sankranti. The long arc of the sun is slowing to a stop and beginning its journey back again.

It's like a Maha-Tower tarot card: energy shaken up and not yet in flow.

Hold the mind

Don't think about it. Feel it.

Sometimes I think my sadhana is worthless, my Guru is contemptuous.

Sometimes a beautiful play of loving bliss is lifting through my being; there when I reach for it.

(Sometimes I feel my Guru right behind me, her hand on my shoulder. I have that prickly feeling you have when an unseen someone is in the room).

Hold the mind still. Who cares what this means to my mind. For God's sake, don't let the mind get its hands on it!

I have practiced for years. Hold the mind still when self-pity arises, negative thoughts, fear and making stories. Stop these thoughts on a dime. Holding my mind when good feelings arise is the new challenge.

Hold still. Hold, my mind. Still. Just feel it.

Life doesn't need any help.

Kala Bhairava ~ the fierce aspect of Shiva

Significance of Kala Bhairava Worship

Adapted from Sringeri.net

Kala Bhairava represents the march of time. As the fierce aspect of Lord Shiva, Kala Bhairava is the destroyer of all through destroying Time (Maha Kala). He oversees the march of the mysterious time itself, through which he not only controls human life, but also countries and planets as well, ensuring the evanescence (impermanence) of all phenomena.

Hymns on Kala Bhairava highlights a truth; “Time is the most precious. Time lost is lost for ever. Wise people should use every moment of time effectively. Lord Kala Bhairava helps everyone to make one’s time useful.”

He is not only the protector of the sacred place but also the deity of liberation.

The worship of Shiva in the aspect of Kala Bhairava helps one realize the transitory nature of worldly existence and make the most of the rare human birth to realize Brahman, the supreme reality.

 
Kala Bhairavashtakam has been composed by Adi Shankara, and Jagadguru  Sri Shivabhinava Narasimha Bharati Swamigal the 33rd Acharya of Sringeri Math.

Devotees offer vadesara, abhisheka and even silver anklets to Kala Bhairava on ashtami tithi.

Kala Bhairava teaches you the highest truth that your life is going to depend on how you relate to time. If you insult time by idling it away, you will be cursed by Kala Bhairava. On the other hand if you worship time, even a millisecond will matter and bring you prosperity, victory and peace. As a human being you think that nothing is going to happen in one millisecond, but then the divine knows methods to change your life in a millisecond.

If you are endlessly waiting for things to happen and it never happens, this means you have offended time either in this life or previous life All that you need is a worshipful attitude towards time.  You can fix the problem by worshiping Kala Bhairava.

Veil of ash

A Coign of Vantage by Alma-Tadema

I've been hiding from You. I hide from everyone.

I'm afraid of You. You can see right through to where I am hiding. Your gaze is stern, You are stern. You mirror my crisis of worth. My ego filled with full panic, with nowhere to hide.

You burned me for years. You were just about to look at me. Panic. Over and over, you turned your body to face mine, but never your head. Never your gaze. Each time, I was singed, a curl of smoke rising from my veil of ash.

Just enough fire to weaken my fortress. How shall I be released?

Every moment, a crisis of worth. I offer this crisis of worth.

I offer this, my weary ego, my tiny prison of historic battlements, a coign of vantage, my impassable moat disguised as a lazy pool of leisure. I stand at this muddy shore and breathe the wider world, imagine myself roaming there, and try... Again and again. No. No shakti there for me. I cannot. At last I am defeated.

You are my world.

Then, at age twelve, I was encapsulated in the moment when all was lost. The world. My parents. My worth. Only hope survived. I have tended to it all these years, my sanity.

Svaha. I offer the belief that any of this happened to me.

Svaha. I offer ego, I need it no longer. I am here, at your feet.

Svaha. I offer all that I am, to You.

I welcome your gaze, I pray for it. Please gaze into my eyes, into my soul.

Break open the prison.

Svaha.

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

A soul must find its home

Nothing will stop me. Ego, delusion, fear, long frozen feelings, judgement, haughtiness, once mighty decisions (with or without a solemn oath).

I can wait. All this comes and goes. It will subside.

I love this.... more than my entire life, more than endless moments of constant identification and attachment. More than hope and good faith. More than story. My story. Many stories. Many lifetimes.

I love only this: my return. All of this will finally slip away, and I will be what I love. I will know myself well.

A soul must find its home.

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.

Sally Kempton on political upheaval

Photo abhayayoga.gr/newsletters

"For me, this has been one of the most powerful experiences of the last few weeks: realizing that in the midst of the [political] upheaval, there is a current of Shakti that seems to be directing our attention into the heart."

~ Sally Kempton, Awakened Heart Newsletter 7 Dec 2016

Sign up for Sally's mailing list on her website: sallykempton.com

SALLY KEMPTON "Awakened Heart" Newsletter

Dec 7 2016 (excerpt)

"How do we hold onto our recognition of oneness, of interconnectivity, while acting skillfully on behalf of our values? How do we keep our hearts open and intact? 

There is extraordinary energy available now for spiritual practice and transformation.

For me, this has been one of the most powerful experiences of the last few weeks: realizing that in the midst of the [political] upheaval, there is a current of Shakti that seems to be directing our attention into the heart. 

When we follow the direction of that current, rather than letting ourselves be derailed by emotions, we recognize that we are being asked to get deeply centered. Then, any action we take comes from the very center of our own deep wisdom."

Sally Kempton's Amazon page

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My melting heart

My heart has been melting...

I thought of someone I had hurt badly when I was 19 years old. I had felt numb about it all these years, just not caring one way or another, although I knew intellectually I had done something so hurtful.

I tried to find him once in the past, but was unsuccessful.

And this time, when I thought of him, I felt my love for him. I still love him. This was a revelation.

I kept thinking of him. Thoughts of him would break through whatever had my attention, and I felt my caring for him.

Finally I tried again to find him. I found him in a few steps with an online search service. Wow.

Should I contact him? This will be worse than fruitless if I hurt him again. Contacting him is a big responsibility. Can we be friends, if he will talk to me? I will not hurt him again.

Karma. We still have karma.

I kept thinking of him, my feelings breaking through whatever I was focusing on. It felt urgent.

It started to be intense. Overwhelming feelings about him.

Then, I physically felt someone (my guru?) behind me in my desk chair, leaning over me, hugging me so that I felt their presence partly inside of me, a strong energy.

(The guru is outside. The guru in inside).

This is urgent. Don't wait.

Okay.

I sent him a letter. He called me. I called him back.

I think he is alone. He still has an alcohol problem, and I'm guessing also meth. He has cancer, and has been having chemo. They give him six months.

He has a son he recently reconciled with. He is living in his parent's home with his aging mother.

He talked my ear off at breakneck speed. Meth? Fear?

I'm committed. Whatever that means, for me. To be there for him. To be the contact for my Guru's shakti. A priceless gift.

Yes. I will not bear him, hold him up. My Guru's shakti will go from me into him. I am the conduit. What a delight.

UPDATE: I spoke with him again. He has a crushed hip from a bicycle accident, and must use crushes. We traded war stories, and discussed unfinished arguments. It feels we have taken up (with our karmas) right where we left off in 1978. 

UPDATE: Happy conversations. Karmas complete. So many *samskaras have melted away. As always, my Guru sets me free.

______

*Samskara (Hinduism, especially Karmic theory): the mental impression, recollection, and psychological imprint left by beliefs, intentions, and actions."

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

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

Only my Beloved can save me

Burning... burning.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Helpless, tossed about, waking once every few days and feeling myself and my shakti faded, asleep, covered with dust from miles of bad bad bad road.

I remember every time I yearned my whole life, the many faces and forms of The Beloved that I ached for, the memories coming up, pushing my thoughts aside.

Perhaps only my Beloved can save me.

My Beloved as Shree Guru.

How not to make story out of now

Everything stopped, it all went away. No more of my guru's shakti carrying me as I learn, helping me to hold my state.

I was overcome with old feelings I've learned to hold back with the practiced discipline of my mind. Anxiety. Fear.

I desperately wanted to figure out what went wrong, what I did wrong. I indulged in a certain amount of this, but then stopped because I could only make something up. I stopped each time before I started obsessing on it. Because that path always leads to my ego's indulgences: self-loathing and self-pity, which I do not do anymore.



Slowly it has all come back. The love, the bliss, my state. I am on a different footing with my sadhana. And I have learned something new: How to not make story out of now.

The habit of my mind is to figure out what is happening as part of a larger story, in relationship to what was and what might be.

Really. I mean really... I haven't a clue.

I wobble about in my mind, like riding a churning wave that is trying to slip me off my center, into the constant guesswork mistaken for reality, the fabrication that makes it all make sense.

I hold my mind still. I keep coming back to the place of stillness. My mind is unsettled, it keeps trying. This is not an intellectual exercise. It is equipoise.

I haven't a clue where it's all going. Ha!!

Sadgurunath

I'm burning such ick, existential pain and goo. I don't remember ever burning this layer before.

Just to breathe is painful, sound and light are jarring, everything would push me off my center if I was anywhere near it.

I'm defenseless. And the worst is coming at me. I open my arms, breathe. The purifying fire....

I remember feeling these feelings as a girl, and wondering why life was so horrible.

Mantra mantra mantra.......

I hear the divine little tinkly nada often throughout the day, and it helps me to relax and be comforted.

I know I am surrounded by, permeated by guru's grace.

Sadgurunath...

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.

As we soar

I experience the familiar kriya—a spontaneous movement directed by Shree Kundalini—several times a day or more.

I will pause in my typing, and a little silent glide... my head is gently bent forward to my chest, then stays there. Sometimes fast, most of the time slow; it is like gliding into place.

Instantly I am in meditation. I notice my detachment from the world, (hard won from years of sadhana, but mostly a gift of grace).

I ask myself, now, each time... and whenever I remember throughout the day: Which do I choose? Union with God, or all of this?

I choose God. It is real in the moment. I take the half-step back into the stillness and bliss of which I am made.

Could it be? This awareness of You is now more than half of me!

Shiva Shiva Shiva... to say your name is bliss and bliss and bliss. I say it over and over (and over). Your name fills me with love and love (and love!)

The world swirls around me now, and with each day I feel far less concerned with how it all takes form in each moment.

I am not the baby-sitter for my Lord's creation.

Shree Krishna... I do what seems right by myself and by You... and leave the results up to You.

If thoughts of suffering, controlling, or fear arise, I notice them right away, and gently stir them back into the consciousness from which they arose. I do not entertain these thoughts, do not invite them in. Once they're in they become my guests. I serve them, though they pretend to serve me.

My discipline about this has become a strong habit. Through grace...

Instead, I am still. I do not fight. These once looked to enemies cannot hook me, cannot start me on an inner junket or personal massacre once arising from a painful rumor about a substantial nothing.

I do not believe in suffering.

I have a funny little smile, hour after hour. The smile of one who knows my Beloved is always closer than close, never out of reach, never...

Every time I think of You I find myself curled around You, partaking of Your dream... my arms fast around You as we soar....

Photo Himalayan Academy

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.

Contracted

Lately I have been feeling so contracted. I was "in the soup." I would think about it in the usual way, with a lot of fear: I messed it all up. My constant spiritual ecstasy and attainment is over.

To go with this thinking is to believe in suffering (my personal "saying" about thinking life is happening to me... along with my other fav: "Gettin' mauled by the malas..." lol).

Then... I wasn't (getting mauled ~ hey I see a pattern here). I was back at being uplifted by my love for God, of wanting to do whatever I can to experience and to grow my love and worship of and belonging to God in this moment. O delight!

Letting go means not identifying with a turn in "the story," not trying to control... and sliding back and forth and around more fluidly. Less stuck in the groove of samskara, sooner back in the feeling of grace, nothing lost.

"You get there by realizing you have been there all along."  ~Eckhart Tolle

The happy ending hasn't left. It has been here all along.

Waikiki Hawaii

The Self watches, but is perfectly still. When I identify as the seer, rather than the seen, I partake of this perfect stillness. It is the place of being, of pure grace.

Only grace

Grace like a wave scoops me up
(I need only move towards
my destiny)

Wow. I can see more clearly the opportunity here: To stop pushing!

(Not just, well this is cool I'm learning about this...)

The wages of pushing (extreme rajas) are immobility (tamas, which is the other extreme). The wages of one extreme are the other extreme; an all or nothing life of extremes.

Not only that, but pushing, trying, going for it, doing my best for my own actions to create what I want... is based on thinking "what is" is wrong or not enough, and even worse, thinking that I can mess it all up by not doing "it" right.

("It" is realization, enlightenment, established in the Self).

This is one of the most amazing lessons I am learning in my whole life. Stop. Stop trying so hard. Just stop.

RIGHT NOW: I am teasing my INTENTION and determination apart from the rajasic pushing and pulling and reaching for the goal all the time. Sadhana (spiritual discipline) is offered, not actions driven or calculating. Certainly the guru knows what should happen in what order, for how long, etc. If I stop pushing, I can follow her lead in this way, and learn from it.

How? How to be dedicated without believing in the duality of rajas?

RIGHT NOW: I am learning that any and all progress is GRACE. It is always grace.

The world of God is beauty
The world of grace is
enchantment

When I used to wonder why "advanced" forms of attainment, (like recognizing the consciousness of the Self in the form of prakasha, or all this light around me, etc.), seemed to come immediately and so easily to me. My ego would grasp at this "attainment" every time and try to figure out what it meant about me (I'm gifted, I'm extra smart, etc. ..... ?

I often thought that perhaps I must be picking up from a level of attainment in a previous life.

Perhaps this is also true. But just in the last few days, I have become very clear... THE EXPLANATION IS THIS:

GRACE.

When I can, it's grace. When I see, it's grace. Understand? Kriyas and nadas and the blue pearl?? GRACE.

Attainment? GRACE. Always.

I cannot move up through Shree Maya's contraction, the concealing aspect of divine action, holding the world here at the culmination of the 32 tattvas (stages of contraction of God's consciousness into the manifest world). I must have grace, the revealing aspect of God, to expand even the slightest amount. Grace unfolds as expansion up through the tattvas, in my consciousness. When I can reach and maintain the the awareness of the Supreme Lord Paramashiva, I will have achieved liberation.

Because of grace.

Thank you, _______. Your grace is a priceless gift beyond any reckoning, comparison or measure.

All has changed! As someone who loves to achieve change, this is so exhilarating (ha ha!).

I am surrounded by a
world and an ocean of
perfect grace

Just last week, if I thought (in so many different ways), "Oh, don't slip.... push harder to stay on course... you'll "go back to sleep," you'll miss the opportunity of this moment if you don't keep trying, pushing, going for it. You will lose this gift, this opportunity..."

WRONG. Now, for the first time in my life, I am seeing that awareness is important, focusing my consciousness makes the difference, mindfulness of the moment is a high practice required to reach the goal....

.... BUT I stop right away now when my mind tells me I'm "messing things up," and I feel fear.

This is contraction. This is creating rajas and tamas and karma.

When I don't know what to do, I can choose the freedom of karma yoga. I can perform the actions without claiming the fruits of the action. Lord Krishna will be right there with me in choosing karma yoga as the way out of the pushing and grasping of my mind.

To listen to Lord Krishna's divine
flute is to be enchanted
and led by grace

Thank you, Beloved Krishna, my heart's delight!! You the Lord of true freedom, of maha (great) yoga, of cosmic playfulness and love. I rest my head in devotion on your lotus feet, and offer my worship of your divine love forever.

And so, for the first time in my life, I can choose to be truly free. Truly free! To enjoy where I am, and be amazed by grace and grace and grace in every moment. I do not have to do anything with the grace, apply it just right, contain it or direct it or stretch it out... to make up for my limited, flawed and unworthy nature.

Grace is perfect. Accept the gift, and listen...


To learn the yoga of grace I must GET OUT OF THE WAY.


My ego is severely alarmed by this, ha ha...

My true nature is already here, one hundred percent. Eternal, perfect, worthy in every way. And I get to experience the gift of grace, and the wonderful path of becoming established in this experience of God as my inner Self, just as it is unfolding, just as it is directed by my guru.

All is well. No worries. (Wow...)

Thank you God, who is Paramashiva. I see you all around me as living light. I hear you as divine sounds from the inner world of ALL. I feel you as bliss, the . Because of grace. Always grace. Only grace.

PRANAM.

O divine your lotus feet
the font of your unending grace

When I was a girl

St Theresa of Avila

"If you will try to live in the presence of GOD for one year, you will see yourself at the end of it at the height of perfection, without your even knowing it." ~ St. Theresa of Avila

I am being taught a lesson about grace. I am being taught by when it "leaves," and by when it "returns."

When grace is gone and I am floundering, I face again the obsessions and delusions of my unpurified mind, which is subject to the three malas and the contraction of Chit Shakti in her role as Shree Maya (the active form of the Lord, Paramashiva's consciousnesswho holds the consciousness of all in contraction, the entire universe, and the illusion of multiplicity).

When grace returns, I notice instantly, and I am reminded of the number one question that I have right now: How can I receive and be aligned with grace in every moment? What should I do when it is "gone," i.e. wait? Take action?

It is an illusion that the source of grace is separate from me. But if the illusion reigns, then I am held back from my life in God.

St Therese of Lisieux

"I can nourish myself on nothing but truth." ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

One way of describing my new life is that I have chosen to make focusing on God and receiving guru's grace the highest priority of my life and the most important activities of every day. The results were immediate and dramatic, but I am really a beginner at discipline.

I have renounced the things that are in the way of my new life of living fully for God. It is fairly easy to keep my day free of unnecessary social or career obligations and clutter. To live simply, dress simply. To shine the love light of my guru's shakti from my heart to others I meet during my day.

But discipline is something new. I have avoided discipline to "make up" for my soul being so lost out in the hot desert of delusion and malnourished by obsessions.

Her years as a Indian
"wandering" sadhvi are
measured by her jata
(long locks)

I am struggling. I get stuck in dualism. I believe my fear when it tells me I must struggle, struggle harder to make up for my own lack in a situation, or that I will fail, or lose my "foolish" bid to live fully for God.

This is all based on the illusion that I am separate from God, that my creator isn't inside of my being as me (I finally understand, Baba...).

The most important thing is that I don't give up. In the past the wheel of my life would turn on its way and I would get lost in other things down the road, then finally return to try again.

I have prayed fervently that this time, this attempt to find and get about "my Father's business," will not stop. I have promised myself I would not lose track and spin onward AGAIN.

Now now now... God is now.

Sadhvis
(most likely widows)

At first this was enough, choosing God now and not slipping back tomorrow or next week. I made progress, found myself freed from many past obsessions and illusions. I notice ego instantly and do not jump on board with it. I test contracted thinking and find it often disappears, POOF.

Then I found myself freed up from my decades long compulsion to keep my head in the computer. Wow, something really different! But, I didn't know what to do instead. I didn't have a structure or discipline. I foundered. It felt as though I had lost all the ground I gained.

I noticed a part of my mind that whispered: "It isn't such a big deal. You did a lot. Just relax now. It's okay to back off a bit on your goal. Living for God, isn't that a bit much? Well, okay, but you can still do that and relax too, can't you?"

I have heard this little internal voice before, I don't know why it is there. I want to WANT to live for God. This voice doesn't want to live for anything except the moment. It is the voice of addiction. Give up everything for the obsession of being made whole and happy by something "external." DELUSION.

A female renunciant, called a sadhini or sadhvi

Am I really in a battle with this old part of me? She's whipped my ass several times over. But I am determined, and am bringing everything to bear on this, because IT IS THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE.

When I was a girl, if someone asked (no one did) me what I wanted to be, I would have said, "a nun... or a playboy centerfold." Seriously. I remember thinking that. Because I remember thinking that God had given me a big scar on my stomach to keep me from going the way of sin.

Then I found out Mormons don't have nuns. I was crushed. I mean, really really disappointed.

Actress Deepti Navala plays a sadhvi
on a television soap opera

I have over the years, in my twenties, thirties, forties and now my fifties, asked myself over and over: "What is the purpose of my life?" I didn't have an answer. But I remember one time, (when I was relaxing in the bubble tub at my home away from home, Kiva Retreat in Santa Cruz, CA), I considered, maybe the purpose of my life is to seek God.

Sadhvi Abha Saraswati
is a sadhvi or nun in an
established order of monks

Immediately I was thrilled to the core. I pictured my entire life as a path from "now" to God. What could be better???

I never forgot this, but I couldn't picture how to accomplish it. Like when I was a teen, and wanted so badly to disappear into the Bible, or The Lord of the Rings. Someplace where the desires of the heart actually happened. Because I yearned so much for Jesus, but the yearning never translated into my life. Jesus was somewhere else, someplace I could not go.

That is the experience of a soul who wants to live their life in God, but has not had shaktipat.

Well, I've had shaktipat. And I have endured a great deal to get through all that was in the way of my current life and calling.

Guru my Guru.... Guru Paramashiva.... show me the way. I am alone, there is no ashram or sangham as my support environment. I am surrounded by the world, and my values are now completely different from those around me.

I find the guru in my heart.

But I also think... it is time to send a letter to the physical guru.

Jaya Mahadevis!
Durga center, Lakshmi left,
Saraswati right