All the difference

That moment this week. I was laying in bed, watching TV. So familiar the craving for _________, the intensity that comes up like clockwork, driving me, herding me with pain and anguish and wanting for whips. Appetites.

I thought. What if I could say no to this feeling? I'd never thought of that before.

I found the feeling in my stomach. It felt like a wall of need, of need streaming into my stomach from a wall in my upper stomach.

I pushed on that need in my subtle body. It responded to my pressure. I pushed it all the way back into the wall roughly analogous to my diaphram.

It went all the way in. There was a moment of relief.

I let go, and the distress began flowing again.

I saw that I accepted this need, this distress, because I used it to try to give myself pleasure, a sort of entertainment I require each day. Something to look forward to. The reason to endure everything else.

I saw that this was delusion. The satisfaction was never real.

I pushed on it again, all the way back. Gone, until I let go and it flowed again.

I made the decision. IT WAS REALLY REALLY HARD. I wrenched myself away from the feelings that I worshiped, that thrilled me with delusion.

I AM NOT GOING TO LIVE FOR THIS ANY MORE.

I renounced it, all of it.

I didn't realize it was going to make all the difference.

Keeping words meaningful

SOOKEE - Für immer / Forever

Dann kamen Ironie, Satire, Zynismus, Ästhetik 
Jetzt ist jetzt 
Was kommt als nächstes?
Wie lang kann was dir wichtig ist dich entertainen?

Then came irony, satire, cynicism, aesthetics 

Now is now 

What's next? 

How long can you care for what is important to you? 

Art Ensemble of Chicago, a live tour of life off the map.
I sat a spell under Lester Bowie's horn in San Francisco 1983

Ask any writer. It is a struggle in our age to try and keep trying to make and keep words meaningful. The role of art (including music, including jazz) has evolved to include staying one step ahead of being gobbled up by the post-modern "now" that cannot escape "what's next?"

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.

Promise of a new world.

The world of the senses has run me ragged. The weariness tore me away.

One day, not so long ago, the world and I began to move at a different speed. Still close, right here. But I'm not very interested.

I've slowed, floating on an inner current, flowing, going nowhere.

Sinking, the gurgling sounds just above me, the sunlight a vector, an unchanging stillness, a direction becomes dance, the promise of a new world.

The oldest, essential, purpose, preserved... in the deep, dark, depths of my heart.

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.

Hold

Steady.

This pulls me. That repels me.

Emotions and sensations happen.

I wobble. But I don't elope with them.

I want not to want.

I don't want to avoid.



No. Steady. I feel the pull.

Hold.

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.

Making things up

Whatever I notice. Whenever I am watching. My mind is deciding.

Whenever I am thinking, I am making things up.

Stop thinking.

As we dance

How strange it is that others seem to progress via sadhana from illusion to perfect form--the goal of sadhana--while I progress from form as illusion to the perfect chaos of all forms in One.

I feel, I dance. Only now.

I fall apart, fall to earth, lost again, conquered by what is most petty, ego's sure advance, retaking all ground.

Then it starts again, the perfect dance, with no form, spontaneous, coming up from within.

I don't need to know anything at all, except the bliss, the divine that transcends "in" and "out."

The continuum is not divided in any way.

God is so close, there is no gap between us. The energy of all holds my consciousness as we dance.

Trade everything

This is my story.

My mind is poised at all times to fixate on ways to be that are fulfilling and spiritual, or even just very alive. No more of the emptiness that has filled most of my life. This was my life's goal.

My mind is always searching, always ready. It is motivated beyond all things to try to shape all of my activities and thoughts into a new life, one that is consistent, that doesn't require struggle and effort to avoid collapsing back into the emptiness, the waiting.

I want to have, to be. Not feel lack and emptiness. I will trade everything else for this, my entire life. I bargain with life. "I will give up everything just to have this one thing."

This part of me is restless. If something good happens, my mind steps right in. "How can I do this all the time? How can I structure it into my life?" My mind is like a snapping turtle, ready to grab on and not let go for anything.

This is the opposite of freedom. It is illusion. It gets in the way, because I allow my mind to chase what I am absorbing in the moment, trying to make it permanent. Poof, the goodness detected disappears. I can be sitting listening to a profound talk about prana on YouTube, and I can't hear it anymore because my mind steps in. "I need to find a master like this, to sit at their feet, to learn, to ask and to learn. I could do that, I wonder if there are any in Las Vegas. I should start searching right now to find out..."

Meanwhile, I am not listening. I only made it about 2 and 1/2 minutes into a ten minute talk.

"The Relationship between Prana & Sound" - A Talk by Swami Satchidananda

Consciousness check

S H O R T

Guru, worship

I see the world from within myself, a transparent play

I see my attachments as illusion and futile, painful

I withdraw my senses, hold my shakti

I love my appetites, and slip off the hook

Shanti shanti shanti

Brahmacharini tapasya,
the unmarried version of Parvati

L O N G

Choose the world of the subtle body... inside... falling backward...

See the world from within...


Now, instead of concepts and story...

Breath, mantra... posture, subtle body...

Floating, meditation...

Love and worship and longing...


My Self, my Guru, Lord Krishna...

Mata Durga, Sree Parvati, Maa Brahmacharini

Paramashiva, who is Shree Kundalini at play...

Love and worship, longing and consciousness...

Now.

Brahmacharini tapasya to become one with Shiva

I was sleeping before

An excerpt from the Dakshinamurti Stotram, a hymn to Shiva composed by Adi Shankara (Vedanta), a concise rendering of the teachings of the Vedas and an expression of gratitude to He who makes one realize these truths.

Mrityunjaya Stotram shloka six

Rāhugrasta-divākarendu-sadṛsho māyāsamācchādanātSanmātraḥ karaṇopasaṁharaṇato yo'bhūtsuṣuptaḥ pumān .Prāgasvāpsamiti prabodhasamaye yaḥ pratyabhijñāyateTasmai śrīgurumūrtaye nama idaṁ śrīdakṣiṇāmūrtaye .. 6..

Like the eclipsed sun and the moon, covered by Maya, one sleeps after withdrawing his senses into that self. To him who on awakening makes one realize that "I was sleeping before", to that Dakshinamurti, the teacher, I offer my salutations.

Adapted from: vishnuvkblog.blogspot.in/2015/02/dakshinamurti-stotram

Adi Shankara was an early 8th century Indian philosopher and theologian who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta. He is credited with unifying and establishing the main currents of thought in Hinduism. 

Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara

My "go to" contemplation

My "go to" dharana/dhyana. My focus and practice. My contemplation. 

My "go to" dhyana is to nudge myself out of multiplicity. I experience myself as formless, unlimited consciousness, the knower, and everything else a play of consciousness on the screen of life, the known. The play normally seems three-dimensional because of the magic of maya.

Inherent in this contemplation is acknowledging that the projection of maya cannot satisfy/protect me, or cause lack/harm me. Thinking otherwise is bondage. 

I want freedom. I see myself "unlatching" from the screen of the world going by. I let the illusion of satisfaction and lack slip away. It becomes a dance of light. And I choose freedom, the source. The real prize.

I can only do this because of the grace of my guru, because I have received shaktipat.

Step well

I also use my mind to slip out from the experience of multiplicity. When I am in this state, I experience Oneness, One without second. A singularity. My awareness resides in the great consciousness, the only Self. Immediately I am filled with great bliss.

I can reshape my consciousness like this for several moments at a time. 

An interesting aside is that my ability to shape my own consciousness was greatly improved by my years in Wicca, where "spells" are created by this containing and shaping of awareness, a discipline and practice that grows in effectiveness over time.

I also use this skill as a writer of fiction.

Swami Lakshmanjoo:

The word dhyana means “contemplation.” It is another mode in anavopaya (a means of enlightenment). Dhyana is contemplation on some point.  

There are different forms of dhyana. For example, you are practicing dhyana when you contemplate on the lotus in your heart, or on the meaning of some mantra such as the mantra “so’ham” or the mantra “Shiva.”  

This is a higher form of anavopaya because it is contemplation without any shape, without any form. If you were to contemplate on Lord Shiva as having a particular form, a particular shape, that is a lower form of anavopaya. It is contemplation with form.

Source: Kashmir Shaivism, The Secret Supreme, by Swami Lakshmanjoo
All Content is subject to Copyright © Universal Shaiva Fellowship, John Hughes.

The One who slept

Look! Wow!!

(A gentle hand). Be still. Smile. Find wholeness within.

Oh! Oh no! 

(A reassuring touch). Be still. Smile. Find contentment within. 


God is at play here.

The entirety of God is here. I find it inside. Always here for me.

At last I can catch myself at the start of the surge toward or away from. Soon after an instant in which I have travelled so far, and not at all.

My dharana: I look around with a new awareness, strengthened each day with practice.

There is only One here. 

My dharana: All of this, including me, is One. How peaceful it is to have no other. Endless, perfect solitude. This unity consciousness surges through me as great bliss.

How my Lord loves to be found, observed and known with the awakening gaze of one who has slept.

I awaken in Your arms.

How my Lord loves to be found, observed and known with the awakening gaze of one who has slept  

Feeling lost

I feel lost now when I am lost.

My mind is set aside

I use my mind to describe, but I set my mind aside to experience.

No more

I'm in the wrong place.

No more.

Bhumisparsha mudra

It is my birthright, my nature, to feel this bliss in every moment.

I can shake off these mistaken beliefs. I will not claim them. 

Now. The truth is where I stand.

In Buddha statues with the Bhumisparsha mudra, the Buddha, more specifically, the historical Shakyamuni Buddha is seen seated with his right hand as a pendant over the right knee reaching toward the ground with the palm inward while touching the lotus throne. In the meantime, the left hand can be seen with the palm upright in his lap. 

This gesture represents the moment of the Buddha's awakening as he claims the earth as the witness of his enlightenment. 

Just before he realized enlightenment, it is believed that the demon Mara tried to frighten him with the armies of demons and monsters including his daughters who tried to tempt him to get out of meditation under the Bodhi tree. While the demon king Mara claimed the throne of enlightenment for himself, his demon army claimed to be the witness for Mara's enlightenment. Mara then challenged Siddhartha about the witness. 

Then the former prince reached out his right hand to touch the earth as it is believed that the earth itself roared "I bear you the witness!" Hearing the roar from the earth herself, the demon king disappeared. The following morning saw the first appearance of the one who is awakened, the Buddha. Hence, it is believed that the Bhumisparsha mudra, or "the earth witness" mudra commemorates the Buddha's victory over the temptation by the demon King Mara.

burmese-art.com/about-buddha-statues/hand-positions/bhumisparsha-mudra

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.

The restless, endless searching

What do I want next? 

I let the eddying curl of a floating appetite slip out of my grasp, expanding as it is dissolving, becoming one with all that I am. Consciousness dissolving consciousness.

How do I avoid disappointment and regret?

I haven't even thought about it. No goals were set. No decisions were made. It just happens, again and again. Grace.

I notice the moment, so many each day. I slip out from the closing hook; lifetimes of grasping, lifetimes of pulling away.

The restless, endless searching stops for a moment.

There is a little prick of pain, the very slight jar of separation. Ouch.

Dissolving karmas, samskaras... what was that? I forget. I need not know. I am forgetting. It has become meaningless.

Then, grace. I am expanding so slightly with a gentle in-rushing of bliss, warmth, and freedom. My birthright.

I don't chase. I don't run away.

I choose freedom.