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.

Longing

My karma must be burned. I think that most of us must burn it. The grace of my guru fills my being with the constant heat required, and the impurities rise up on the flames and are burned.

My karmas and samskaras, my life of malas and of gunas, it all goes into this heat of grace and burns so high, higher because by their nature the karmas are made personal, I lived them as my truth, I became attached to them and then fought with them when I thought I had to become free of them.

The attachment is what is burned. The false belief any of that had anything to do with who I am, that it happened to me.

I did not see it coming... I have burned in so many different ways at different times, and I have become so much more free, and my mind so much more under my control.

I did not see it coming... my fire now isn't all about the past, burning the enslavement of limited understanding.

My fire has become about longing. All day, all night, my whole body aches for God. I see God physically manifest in the things that catch my eye and it rends me, I feel myself hit my knees inside again and again, over and over. I am crying, there is no relief.

I catch a glimpse of a photo of a man my age, someone from a TV series I watch, and in the photo he appears to be looking right at me. He is full of purpose, there is no hesitation. I am transfixed.

I am about to be possessed, my suffering's perfect answer, a match in this world at last. My fires answered, I will be sated.

Only in my mind. There is no relief. None.


I am burning, burning for you God. The belief in separation is a burden, a deep wound. It is unbearable; do not fault me for hiding from it when I can, however I can. Because to embody it is excruciating.

This is all about God, dear reader. Most of us end up this way. I hope this doesn't put your sadhana back by a lifetime or two. I can still laugh.

(You and I who are paramashiva, one without second... different mirrors of the same image).

Into ash

I’ve had enough of sleepless nights,
Of my unspoken grief, of my tired wisdom.
Come my treasure, my breath of life,
Come and dress my wounds and be my cure.

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, “I’ve Had Enough”

I have slipped over the controlled edge of my longing into a deep furnace of yearning that burns me. It is so insistent that I cannot step out of it.

I pray and pray and pray for my Beloved, who I love from afar, someone I will never know or meet. The more I pray for him, the hotter the fire.... and the more I pray. 

I offer the merits of my japa mantra for _______, his career, his cherished role as father. So much more japa mantra than I have ever offered on my own behalf...

I pray to my guru that she will bless him in these ways. I pray that I can offer her precious shakti to him, for we are one... 

I do this because I must somehow give to him, to someone I do not know. The feeling that I am giving to him takes the sting of separation away.

I am burning ego. Self-less love and devotion are outside of ego.

I am burning up separation, anava mala. The fire is SO HIGH, I am burning into ash.

There is only One.

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.

Walk away

Little visual and sense memories of moments from my life are coming to me throughout my day, day after day. The memories often have the suffocating, concentrated energy feeling that I have come to associate with life before shaktipat when I was fully invested in maya, in illusion.

I am burning little (large?) bits of karma, of memory, of life I "experienced" as happening to me, my story, my investment in it...

Then, after weeks of intense feelings about ______ (Paramashiva as _____), I had a brief moment where I realized I was thinking of him all the time, but he had a full life and most of the time wasn't thinking of me at all.

And I pushed my feelings away...! I pushed life away. I was disgusted, uh uh... not me. (The way I dealt with my father's rejection. Don't let him see the pain.. turn and walk away).

I have burnt away enough of my karmas and the illusions of maya, and of the malas that I can turn inside of a samskara (patterned illusion of thought made with pain), turn right in it and look through and past it, letting it slip from my grip, I breathe on it, breathe free of it, and choose to walk away.

This is freakin' huge. I am at a place where I can challenge the deepest, the worst, the most painful.

As for __________, I still love him. I just don't jump on the emotions, turning them into my favorite: an intense ride.

I love him. If I love him that is enough. There need be no story, no resolution of huge incompatibility. Nope. Not happening. That was an illusion.

I think?

Karma yoga

Saint Jnaneshwar

After my period of intense concentration and sweet, gentle purity of sattwa, I have looped back around to rajas, the quality of doing. To the extent that I seek and I am attached to the fun and pleasure of doing, (i.e. believe this and these feelings are happening to my "little" self), I will have to pay for as karma which must be burned, usually by the opposite feelings of emptiness and disillusionment with life.

Back and forth.

In the past, when I read Lord Krishna's compassionate teachings on karma yoga, I cringed at the part of not caring one way or another about where life went as it seemed to carry me along.

Now I see the pendulum clearly. I notice where I am and my attachment to this or revulsion of that. It is my nature to get very excited about things, and to love that level of feeling. This intense feeling is the opposite of flat and empty, which I hate.

It is the habit of many lifetimes to try to make permanent the tops of life's highs, and dispel the lows. This just makes my relationship to life all backwards. I am the tail that wags the dog. 

Wag the tail: watch the pendulum without pushing or grabbing.

Since I am not the root of action, I can choose to remain solidly centered inside as the pendulum swings back and forth. Life happens. It can carry me along into ecstatic and dramatic activities (such as my huge crush on _______), then back to the flat emptiness when those activities inevitably dwindle or lose their attraction.

Saint Jnaneshwar

If I can remain in equipoise, then any spot on the swing of my life's pendulum will be equal to me, absolutely still and observing of all of this around me.

Of course... my ego rebels! I sometimes decide that not chasing after feeling and intensity is unreasonable and severe. Why give up pursuing the joys of life? It seems, well, anti-life. It certainly isn't required. So, why?

Why would I? First I observe that my duty to myself is to enjoy what is pleasurable to me, within the ethics of that duty. So I'm not talking about rejecting pleasure, just not being attached to it, not believing I can control life to achieve pleasure.

THE TRUE GOAL: Compassionate Lord Krishna offers the highest goal, which is freedom and divine bliss. Freedom which leads to union with Him, with God.

It is fine to jump on the roller coaster of life. Almost everyone chooses this every day. But those of us who are coming back around in our long arc of incarnations and desire to return to God have a different perspective.

I want this freedom. I don't want to experience the suffering of paying my debts of karma any more.

Saint Jnaneshwar

There is the delicious, sensual delight of my beloved experience of life's intensity in remembering that I am not the doer, that life only seems to happen to me (when I believe it is so). The bliss of union with my true Self is the real pleasure and a past-time that incurs no debt of karma, no inevitable suffering as the pendulum swings back and forth.

How? I have cultivated an awareness and experience of the still center place inside, mostly through meditation (both sitting and during "activity" meditation), and with the essential divine grace of the guru. Through practice and grace, I can now by my will take one half of a step back into this very still place, where I am impassive about what happens around me, and delight in every moment as the highly creative and intelligent play of Paramashiva, my true Self.

As Lord Krishna has pointed the way, choosing to "do" will not incur karma if I choose to do my duty, to myself and others, and offer the fruits of my action to Him. This is called karma yoga and it is a mahayoga indeed, a great yoga. This yoga can by itself lead to realization.

Jnaneshwar's Gita

In my experience, the Siddha Yoga path teaches karma, jnana, bhakti and raja yoga, and I am naturally inclined to follow parts of all four. These are riches beyond compare. The first three margas are taught by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, (and raja yoga is taught by Patanjali). If you have not read the Gita, dear reader, and feel a draw in your heart to do so, I encourage you to at least read some of it.

Read the version with an English translation of the exquisite commentary written by the beloved saint Jnaneshwar, by Swami Kripananda.

Jnanadev will steal your heart. You will love him for it.

The root of action

The Devi is the water,
the water is the Devi,
Ganga Maa I worship You

I have blogged before about my realization that the wisdom expressed as "The guru is the root of all action" is about God, not the physical guru.

I have been contemplating Karma Yoga (one of the yogas described by Lord Krsna in the Bhagavad Gita), and the malas (impurities in understanding that cause maya, the enchanted belief that I am this, and all of this is happening to and because of me).

I burned up a tremendous amount of karma (a spiritual debt resulting from the ignorance caused by maya) recently in a HUGE physical karma regarding my teeth.

How do I know I was burning karma? The way I always know. Afterwards my perspective has been permanently shifted. It is higher, simpler, and evokes a new level of equipoise in my life and sadhana (spiritual work).

I was torn apart emotionally by what happened with my teeth. (As Loise L. Hay will tell you, teeth represent the ability to analyze and assimilate ideas and spiritual understanding). Until I accepted what had happened and my role in it, I was in extreme hell. I went to an emotional place I haven't experienced in many years.

After a couple of days of hell, I clawed my way out of this hell by ceasing to claw. By accepting, and asking what was (is) next. I grasped that acceptance with all I had, and immediately my situation changed.

Fully offering something that encircled my deepest entrails with the surest and oldest of knots has melted away lifetimes of suffering. I can do this at last because of the grace of my guru, and my commitment to my life as a devotee of God.

Guru's grace. 

It is impossible to be released from the enchantment of maya without the grace bestowing aspect of God.

What I stopped by my blog to express is the new found understanding I have after these events. First off, I had to accept that something really "wrong" or "bad" can still happen to me.

My way out of that was to also realize that whatever it takes to move on, if it takes twice as much money, whatever, I'll choose that, and God will determine what happens from there.

I spent some time contemplating the malas. None of this is happening to me I kept in my thoughts as I viewed the world around me as swirling consciousness, and held to the certainty that the root of all action in that consciousness IS NOT (LITTLE) ME. It is God.

God is the root of all action. The results of all action belong to God.

Aarti at the holy city of Haridwar

All of this karmic gymnastics has given me a tremendous amount of freedom.

Now when something happens, I offer it to God. "God wants to do this," I think. Wow, that is totally a new thought!

God wants to do this. God wants to experience this. It is the play. I experience the play. But I don't have to identify with it.

This sounds like a forced intellectualism. But it isn't.

When I sink back inside, I become still, silent, full of bliss. I look around as the eyes of Shiva. I have created this universe for my delight, and I love and cherish everything in it.

I am the knower, not the known. I am the watcher, not the watched.

I offer the fruits of action. "God wants to do this."

I love my highest Lord Paramashiva so very much, of course I want to offer everything to Him. My life of "doing," I offer to You, my Beloved. This is all yours, as I am yours.

All of this is You (me as You).

Whatever happens, I know that You want to do this... as me.

I love you Sri Krisna, and I humbly thank you for your
compassionate teachings about Sri Karma Yoga

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

Burning rajas and drivin' country

I have the most irritating, overall feeling of irritation! Not all the time, thank God, but a good amount of the time. 

For a couple of weeks I just thought it was my mouth pain.

Now I am realizing I am "burning" rajas.

Enlightenment exists beyond the three qualities of tamas (inertia), rajas (activity), and sattva (purity). Burning means to have something "on fire" within, an experience of whatever is being purified that is concentrated, amplified, and occurring at an extreme level of awareness. This is part of how the karmas are burned quick enough (through guru's grace) in order for a yogi to become free (realized) in one lifetime.

rajas [ruh-jus]: one of the three primal qualities (called gunas) — Described as the principle of activity; energy; passion; restlessness

So burning of the qualities is one type of spiritual purification on the way to complete freedom.

I feel all over like I do when I have way too much chocolate, caffeine, and sugar, and not enough sleep, times about ten or twenty. Ack! It is rough.

Sometimes I just wiggle and growl and shake, get it off me, get it out! I'm fairly used to constant purification, but this one is especially uncomfortable. I can't really remember ever purifying irritation and rajas.


In my experience, the shakti will make use of whatever is present in my consciousness for Her divine purification activities (which began with my shaktipat in 1999). So my current problems with insomnia and mouth pain become fuel for the fire of purification.


Sometimes, if the purification just gets to be too much, I will ask for a little break, which sometimes commences in that moment. I try to only do this if really necessary. I don't want to save up any purification. I am especially hopeful when it's hard to take, because I know the fire is hot and a lot is being burned away, leaving me free.

As in... I thought I was ________. Nope (...burning away...)

Om guru om.

Slow down... we're "drivin' country"

Dharana on the guru's mantra japa artwork

A single rudraksha seed on
Lord Shiva's brow

I studied the art work from the guru, and it took a couple of tries for me to realize the little round things are beads, rudraksha seeds (which are sacred to Lord Shiva). Then I realized that each bead represents a repetition of the mantra.

The japa mala of beads spirals inward and outward in a continuous stream, taking the shape of a great sahasrara (crown chakra) in the shape of a large lotus.

Inside the bead lotus is another much smaller spiral lotus in warm colors of cream and creamy white, with a large blue pearl in the center.

The outer edge of the art is flat on three sides, but on the bottom there is a slight "bowing" of the art and slight shadows near the sides that give the appearance of some space behind the art, with white light shining out from under the middle of the bottom edge.

Once I finally got "into" the art, as I really took it in, when I focused on the blue pearl and the yantra-like inner cream-colored mandala-lotus-sahasrara, I felt a sweet little kriya (inner shakti movement) tip my head forward slowly as my mind settled into very sweet, deep meditation.

I could feel a transmission of sweet grace.

Monism versus dualism

from Hindu Dharma Forums

My post re: Monism versus Dualism

Swami Lakshanjoo

For me, one of the essential concepts of Shaivism for helping me to understand the monistic, non-dualism of Kashmir Shaivism are the five functions of Shiva. His divine functions, in addition to the familiar creation, sustaining, and dissolving functions, are the two functions of concealing and revealing.

I experience these latter two functions all around me. The true nature of "reality" has been concealed. We seem to be separate from God (anava mala), the dualism of always liking or disliking this and that (mayiya mala), and thinking we are the root of action (karma mala). Without this, the "game" would be so very short. With it, the game is afoot.

The revealing aspect of Shiva is grace. This is why the guru is known as the grace bestowing aspect of God. To be a guru in a physical body, the master must hold sacred and be one with this power. This is part of why the supreme Sadguru Shiva is portrayed as one who performs austerities and lives the life of a sadhu.

The revealing aspect comes to people through events such as birth, child-rearing, the wisdom of age, and facing death. Also, that special wind in the treetops, the lilting song of the brook, the passing of the seasons. The heroic deeds of others, the spiritual sacrifices of the initiated. These are the sparkles reflecting through, calling to a life beyond this "concealed" life of duality.... when it is time to return home.

All of the sadhana and all of the bliss I experience are prasad from Shiva's experience of returning to himself. Ah, bliss. He has created a part of his consciousness that has forgotten who "I" am, and now can remember, a wonderful journey. 

Being dissolves into being. Consciousness dissolves into consciousness. Bliss into bliss.

Swami Lakshmanjoo photographed after he merged
into the supreme guru, who is Paramashiva. He was age 50.

The other essential concept of understanding non-dualistic monism in Kashmir Shaivism is that the Supreme Lord is unfettered by any limitation to Him or His divine will.

He is God, He is supreme. So if he decides to contract his consciousness step by step through the tattvas, he knows how and is free to do this in a way that does not affect his absolute being at all. 

He is Sat. He has being, which is immutable, unchanging.

He is Chit. Consciousness. He uses his power to create from his consciousness, deified as the Devi Kundalini. She moves as the active aspect of his dance of consciousness down through the tattvas into the form of the created universe.

In Shree Shankaracharya's Advaita Vedanta, the "spatio-temporal" world is an illusion. In paradvaita, the illusion is multiplicity itself. Again, Shree Maya has to hold our consciousness down to the level of this illusion of multiplicity to keep us from flying right back up and realizing there is only One, which of course would be a showstopper.

I have recently come to experience that the burning of the three malas through my sadhana and guru's grace is restoring and establishing the truth as the bliss and freedom which is never truly limited in my true Self, which is Shiva. 

He is ananda, which is bliss.

A blissful Lakshmanjoo

I have become fearless. The mantra is my protection. I eagerly accept every moment of my life, for this burns the malas and I become free, more free every day. It's like a runaway chemical reaction! It's a wild ride, the best.

I had a lifetime, and especially the past ten years of CONCENTRATED PURIFICATION, heavy "circumstances" (karmas) that provided the fuel for my guru's fire, the purification of burning before this stage. When I emerged, my perspective was so different. A large part of the impurities were gone.

Grace is astounding and defies all expectation. My attainment is ALL through my guru and Sadguru. (Thank you...)

Om Namah Shivaya,

jnana shiva

Let myself slip a little

There is no end to
guru's perfect grace

Wandered away a bit. Let myself slip a little, back into unchallenged "mini-me," unchallenged contraction as the malas.

Fear, ack. Situations I fear arise, and I'm consumed! I picture myself stepping into the fear as the fire of purification. It is so uncomfortable, but it is my way, now.

I am not going back. I focus my consciousness on the contraction, on the malas, which I can do only because of guru's grace. Which I can draw to the moment by this focus, and by my devotion to the practices and my life as a sadhini.

I can see without guru's grace none of this would be possible at all.

Thank you thank you thank you...

Mauled by the malas

I've emerged into a very quiet, still place. Very quiet. Very still.

I can see in particular how karma mala has been chasing me like a hounded beast.

I've decided I'm finished with it. No more getting mauled by the malas. This means giving up one of my favorite obsessions: that "wasting time" is fun. That avoiding responsibility is the definition of happiness.

This is illusion and obsession. Compulsive activities drain me. I have been staying with them to burn them, I think. But now things are changing. The opportunity...

I had to think very hard for a few moments. Do I really want to proceed? I'll never be the same again. My life will never be the same.

The point of no return?

I feel like I'm saying goodbye to "human," and hello to "divine." For now it's a sobering choice (there will be bliss...)

Yes, I say to the guru. Let's proceed. I'll sit back a bit, waiting for the cue of how to proceed.

FOCUS:
I realize that the life of a sadhini takes focus. I can't really take a break from my practices (austerities, tapas... mantra, meditation, etc.). The yogic fire must be stoked and maintained.

I have to be careful of distractions. This wasn't such an issue until this point in my sadhana.

I tried to watch "The Walking Dead." How different it is now! I'm too sensitive for this raw emotion and action. I've never been that way before (I'm a physical and an emotional tomboy). I have decided to cancel the satellite TV. I don't watch TV more than once per week (except for Craig Ferguson, the delightful Scottish perv). Almost $80 a month for once a week? That's $20 a shot.

It's like my diet. It has just happened, since I was sick. Mostly rice, plain white jasmine rice, cooked on the stove with extra water to make it soft. A few other things. The diet of a sadhini, sattvic, light, simple. Plus, I haven't smoked since the beginning of February. And I am trying out being a vegetarian. I just can't digest the meat properly. And it has "bad energy" in it.

The world by campfire
shrinks down to an
intimate size

I've decided it is best to be somewhat "messy" right now. I don't have the "lined up" energy to keep things very clean. I guess I'm still on vacation (laugh!) I'll just hold the line at frightening. No worries.

INTENTION:
My intention is to continue maintaining my yogic fire through regular practices of "viewing (it) as consciousness," japa mantra, meditation, study of Sanatana Dharma online and in my books and scriptures, brahmacharya (celibacy), poverty, and the solitary life of a blissful sadhini. Also, I play the mantra almost all the time both on my laptop and in the bedroom.

Maintain the yogic fire... pranam and praises to Shree Agni.

Follow the divine nada, the internal guide

I am learning so much right now.

I am so used to thinking that God is beyond all comprehension, that everything between us will always be bathed in mystery (while I'm alive).

Lord Shiva on the River Ganges at Rishikesh

And yet, when I worshiped God as Durga, She came to me as Durga.

A long time since I converted to Hinduism, "my" forms of God have finally become very real to me (Paramashiva... as... Shiva Shakti, Shiva Parvati, Krishna, Krishna Radha, and now Durga... and divine grace through my guru). I have grown to be very devoted, grateful, full of worship, glowing with divine love for Paramashiva, the Supreme Lord.

Now that I see how much this has helped me grow spiritually, I can truly see how hard it is for the mind to contemplate God without at least a lingam to represent the formless, or a beloved form to worship and love. 

And so it seems that God is very merciful, and comes to us in the right form(s) for us.

I am always very wary of anything that sounds like: "God is this, but not that." It's a fear of having a system of merit that distorts my life and freedom. 

Sounds like a reasonable fear for a person raised as a Mormon. 

I am not anti-Mormon. But I have never liked (even as a child) that the Mormon theology has almost everything figured out and explained. And yet... here I am all these years later, believing in another universal, all-inclusive system of explanation, part philosophical and part religious: Sanatana Dharma, The Eternal Way (Hinduism

Lord Shiva on the River Ganges at Rishikesh

It seems there is a system, of sorts, for how to understand and implement the process of realization. God gave me the most precious gift of a shaktipat guru. And now God is sending me a constant stream of at least three major kinds of nada (divine sounds), saying: "This way, My Beloved.... to me."

Oh... <swoon>

(Or maybe it's my guru. "This way, grasshopper...")

So then, when when I think to look, I immediately find several sources on the internet about the nada sound(s) and what it means, what to do if it's happening to you, or how to get it to happen to you if it's not (nada as an inner guide during meditation).

And the thing is... THEY DESCRIBED THE SOUND I WAS HEARING.

What are the chances of that? It wasn't so much, "oh, that's what this sound is...," as it was, "Yeah! That's it all right..."

It seems there are plenty of other people having similar experiences to my own. But for the process to be describe pretty much exactly, it's like there's a formula involved... It seems too limited to be REAL.

Lord Shiva on the River Ganges at Rishikesh

I have trained myself to doubt everything, and especially so if it has been laid out exactly, concretely, like Mormonism. I have developed a very strong ability to proceed on hypothesis without ever fully believing in anything. 

I went to college for six plus years, and was trained as a social scientist, which I loved.

I don't know, my mind just can't quite wrap around this yet. Close.

I think this is a mala burning. Really, everything is ONE being, who enjoys forgetting who He is and then revels in the bliss of remembering and returning to Himself. Of course some of that would be the same for "everyone."

Hmmmmmmm....

~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~

The Three Devis: Lakshmi, Durga and Saraswati 

My name is Jnana, which means "to know" in Sanskrit. I developed a "healthy" skepticism to extricate myself from the black and white "knowing" of Mormonism. By my teen years, I had cultivated this natural contempt for anyone who thought they have a handle on the truth, who thought they knew, better than me, about me... and what I should believe or do. 

But somehow ... I get to have a religion, I get to "know" again. It's exhilarating! 

I truly am Hindu (though I am also more, as I imagine many Hindus are...). And I have a full, robust relationship with God... full, robust belief... and a balanced skepticism.

The emanating consciousness of Shiva

"The healthy mind challenges its own assumptions." ~ The I Ching

"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite." ~ Bertrand Russell

"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for the truth; and truth rewarded me." ~ Simone de Beauvoir"