The change

There came a moment, I think it was less than a week ago, where I said, "no more."

"I'm done."

I watched myself decide with complete certainty that expecting anything in return for participating with this play in my mind was a complete waste.

There was a shift. The "inside" world became more important to me than "the play," the play that has occupied me every moment of this lifetime, until now.

An invisible door closed. It has stayed closed.

It's still closed when I awake in the morning. It's still closed whenever I inspect it.

Yes. Still closed.

This may or may not last. 

That's not up to me.

How different my state is. I concentrate on whatever I am doing.

I am no longer making up a story about life as I go. 'Now' is all that is real. 

Not because I think it is so, (laugh)! It's just how I live, how I am alive, now, here.

There is a change in my subtle body, in my energy. Absolute steadiness. When I choose to consciously experience this feeling of steadiness, I can increase it at will.

(I remember when she visited me a few times recently, invisible, touching me so slightly. "Steady," her touch said, communicating the feeling of steadiness to me. Grace.)

I have finally got full control of my mind. Nothing knocks me off of my center place. Drama comes and goes around me. There is no question of participating. It is jarring, irritating to think otherwise.

I am finally, fully confident that the steady progress of discipline is NOT my path, and that I am not deluded in thinking so.

I remember recently the moment I found there was no difference between inside and outside. God has become so close I was supremely embarrassed for a few days.

Moments come during my day when God touches me, reminds me in my being, again and again, rising through me as a tickle of loving bliss. My every dream, my heart's desire, coming true as eternal union with my Beloved. 

My realization takes the form of a magical fairy tale, in my heart. I always tear up, cry a little when this touch of romantic bliss comes. 

A gift. From my Guru. From God. The perfect gift. Forever. It is all because of Grace.

My ego is not involved. This may or may not be happening to all of my guru's other devotees. I don't need to know either way. I feel no need to evaluate what is happening to me by this or any parameters.

For the first time in my life, I am not struggling to shape an intellectual response to what is happening. I am not trying to bring the previous moment into the current moment as part of a recipe for achieving progress and attainment.

I'm not thinking of attainment.

I'm only writing all this down so I can refer to it later. I'll want to remember how it happened. My guru advises doing this, journaling.

I was born within 100 miles of Zion's National Park. My roots from this incarnation sink deep into this soil.

Becoming

The more like me I become, the less important I become. A burden surrendered.

St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower

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.

Spiritual experiences

Nothing is ever new and permanent, and all the time. Except this: when I look within, there is no barrier or break between myself "inside" and "outside." It's a continuum.

The Flammerion Engraving (1888) 

So... What??

It seems like it's not much of a difference. But for me it is the difference between rattling around in my head, and feeling and dancing with the shakti: spiritual experiences, for me, are not about making progress towards having "them" in every moment as realization.

They are about now.

They don't mean anything, at least not to my mind, the mind that is always trying to figure everything out, including realization.

The swirl of love and light, mystery and passion, are now. They're just now. Experience them. Be changed by them. Be grateful and happy. Love the shakti, the guru. Everything is made of them. Because that is what happens when I tune into the shakti swirling in me, uplifting me. A divine purpose that is far, far beyond my mind.

Salt Lake City LDS Temple ~ I grew up in Salt Lake City Utah

I don't know what is happening(!) I don't do that. Look, I was raised a Mormon. Mormons are very thoughtful, and have a complete system of understanding and living in the world. Mormons continuously and somewhat suspiciously monitor their actions, thoughts and motivations. Mormons figure out everything. And everything is leading to something. God has big plans for my future. This is certain.

When I feel love and expansion fill me, I am hard put to keep my mind quiet, to stay with the feelings without thinking and drifting away. My busy mind!! I am lucky if I make it ten seconds! I don't want everyday feelings, I always thought. I want TRANSFORMATIONAL feelings that turn my life into something better. Always getting somewhere. Trying to hitch a ride to a new future on every spiritual experience.

No. Stop that. I am stopping. It has taken so many years of sadhana to see and challenge this thing. Why? Because it gets in the way.

The real deal is only now. It is so exquisite, playful, mysterious, delightful. This is what I have always wanted. This.

The Flammerion Engraving (1888) - color added

A vision

I had a dream, a vision.

It happened in a split second from fully asleep to a silent, kinetic image, followed by being fully awake, though I did not open eyes for several moments.

I saw before me a golden bird cage covered with a mottled, purple silk scarf which was in motion, being pulled off in an instant. I could not see what was pulling the scarf upward.

During the instant, I saw a small creature jump or fall from the bottom of the cage, disappearing down out of view. It was the size of a small monkey, and seemed to be sort of like a monkey, though it was symbolic.

I immediately felt great hope for my sadhana, which has been so discouraging. "Thank you," I said to my Guru, over and over. "I needed this so much."

SYMBOLISM

It happened in between sleep and awake, when the mind is not conscious.

It happened so fast, there is no story. It just was.

It was instantaneous. There was no sadhana. No recipe of action.

I viewed it from outside of the cage. It was a communication via symbolism, rather than an experience.

INTERPRETATION

Recently, the freedom of my enlightenment seemed just in reach, then crumbled with the cycles of my wandering mind.

I just didn't know. Finally. Not even if there was anything to know.

Illusion will be removed all at once. I will see out of the cage. The ego will fall out of the cage.

What is next was not in the dream.


MORE

A couple of days ago I was wondering if it was difficult for my fish if I turned their lights off (put them to sleep) at completely different times every day.

Then I thought of the neighbor I once had who had a bird, and how birds go to sleep (become silent) when their cage is covered.

If my cage is uncovered, I will be awake.


I am so grateful. My sadhana is real. My enlightenment is real.

Quieting and disciplining my mind is a part of becoming steady and undistracted. I can shape my mind, forming it to see what I believe is to be real, liberation. But the mind is cyclable by nature. Whatever is, will eventually not be. It's a cycle.

My Guru has it well in hand. She has a plan.

God loves my journey

I try so hard to reach perfection, and it crumbles as easily as it is formed. My life is a big cycle of change.

I thought I should 'go around' life's obstacles to achieve the ultimate union.

Now I am starting to think that God as me right now is His pleasure, to continue from where I am, in whatever way I do, on my journey to God.

God loves my journey.

The beautiful consciousness

Horse pucky! How to make progress, what to do to call grace.... what to do. NO.

I need to master doing like I need a hole in the head.

I am, the Self is my truth, which I can feel at any time, because of grace, exquisite grace.

Someday-at any moment-I may become "established" in the Self, able to experience the truth in every moment.

I am a traveler in the beautiful consciousness of God, as me and as everything. My dance of bliss and travail offered to Lord Krishna is my treasure. I knew it years ago when I looked at my past with new eyes and realized it was all a precious strand of pearls with everything I ever wanted in it.

Passion, strength, being devoured, becoming again, crying with my soul, yearning and yearning for magic, for an awakened life.

I wanted an awakened life, which I am living now, in this moment.

This is my truth. This is what is true, the dance. And it only exists in now.

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  

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.

It was always about this freedom

Once I realized that what is gained is freedom, nothing could hold me.

Zipruanna

Sri Zipruanna

One of the things Zipruanna is known for was that he sat on a pile of garbage.

Zipruanna sat on the garbage, the offal. It smelled awful. He was relaxed, steady. Unaffected.

I always thought he was showing his power. This is what you can have, I thought he was saying. You can be this accomplished. Aquire such strong siddhis.

Now I think differently.

I want to say that I now know what Zipruanna was saying, demonstrating.

Freedom, he was saying. I have become free. Nothing binds me or repels me.

You can have this freedom. You.

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.

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.

Stepping out of multiplicity

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

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

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

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

There is only my breathing. Only the bliss.

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

I remember who I am. I remember.

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





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

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A soul with great value

I am a soul, a soul with great value. My Guru teaches me this.

I am worthy of liberation.

We are all great. We can all be lifted up.

Abundantly evident

Utpaladeva says:

Nothing can shine that is separate 

from the light of your form, O Lord

Therefore, though disguised by nature, 

you remain accessible 

Just as it here is certain through great insight

That you are everything

That there is nothing else

Either existent or nonexistent

So, then, be abundantly evident to me 

The tri-form leaf of the Bilva tree is sacred to Lord Shiva

Yes, Utpala has an abundantly evident sense of humor.

The Shivastotravali and Jnaneshwar's Gita are my two favorite scriptures. They are both chanted every day by many multitudes of devotees.

_________________

Shiva and Nandi statuette from GoddessGift.net. 

NOTE: Shiva doesn't actually ride on the bull Nandi. His "vehicle" is also a god who brings his own symbolism to that of Shiva, embodying the serenity and unfailing repose of Shiva's constant meditation

This luminous translation of The Shivastotravali by Utpaladeva (10th century) is by Constantina Rhodes. I haven't read Swami Lakshmanjoo's commentary yet.

What will happen?

Devotee:  What is the highest purpose of this path?

Guruji: To know your own inner Self, to honor and worship your own divine essence.

Devotee: What will happen?

Guruji: You will know the nature of your divine essence, which is Supreme Joy.