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

Your sadhana is beautiful

Even Lord Shiva spends his time doing austerities such as meditation and japa mala (beads)

Sādhana (Sanskrit: साधन), literally "a means of accomplishing something," is the regular adherence to purifying, ego-transcending spiritual practices known as tapas, or austerities. Sādhana includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Sufi traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives. ~ Adapted from Wikipedia

I saw in my mind just now a summer blouse flying gently on a clothesline, the fabric playing upon itself in the sun.

A significant image that gives me pause. A clothesline figured prominently in a symbolic dream I had at age six about losing myself because of abuse.

I have arrived at the beginning, the circle of this lifetime closes, then opens... to all possibility.

What I have craved. Is now.

I had a gentle little rebellion. I was disappointed, and sad. 

Before... I had felt so clear and steady in my state, ready to go with equipoise established, with steadiness in everything large and small. I danced with the ripples of bliss that came up from within, that opened every place I touch with a familiar bliss...

Before... I felt I finally understood what life was, what it was to be finally reaching my potential as a spiritual being.

Then I felt I was back in the soup.

I don't want this, I thought. It's not worth it. Who thought up such an existence? To suffer delusions it has taken most of my life to throw off, then continue to seek this freedom which comes and goes as mere minutes between hours?

This is like having a tantrum because my billion dollar jackpot was a day late.

Listen... I have learned to stay steady inside. I've learned not to push, not to try to control. I am out of the way, a huge feat! And one with so many rewards.

Now, a moment of insight, of her strong shakti touching me inside...

This is it... she says gently inside. What a beautiful story, like one of your (written) stories. Complex, light and dark, joy and freedom from suffering done and karmas laid aside, fuel for the fire of a life of purification. It is all beautiful, and it all has meaning, the meaning you give it.

Your sadhana is beautiful. Your sadhana has the meaning you give to it.

Darshan

There is something of my own consciousness which I see in sadhu's eyes. The stuffing of life burned away, a pure consciousness is left, a lightness, a soul, a smile. Darshan of my Lord.

It is a spiritual attainment I have received as a gift from my guru and my own sadhana, the constant burning of years of believing that this story is happening to me.

Similarly, my life has always been outside of other's lives. I was mostly alone as a child. I developed an obsession with being with others. It was a happy day of freedom when I finally gave that up. Now I am like the sadhu (sadhini) who wanders, who belongs and lives inside, the inner world. 

I do not work, I am not married, I have no children. I have very little contact with my family. I have one true friend, and that is enough. It is a lot. There is no sangham here in Las Vegas. But there is an online sangham that I visit every day, one that is very active and so nourishing.

A sadhu in Nepal

Pashupatinath Temple

Photo poraschaudhary.com

Photo Pacific Press

Cave diving

"No matter what happens go on remembering God and he will carry you."

~ Swami Lakshmanjoo

I have an obsession with videos about cave diving. I found one that I really love in particular. I have watched it several times.

"Flash mob" refers to coordinating flashlights to illuminate a large cavern

I feel like I am floating, not rising or falling except by grace. I feel ever more still inside. I have left the places I thought were about one of many. I am moving with eyes closed in the total darkness. Grace is the way. I await only Grace. I control nothing. Grace.

I have rock solid equipoise in situations and interactions that used to set me off like a marionette.

I watch myself engage with my appetites, but I'm not invested anymore. It comes from habit, samskaras. 

I have conceived of freedom in so many ways. Now, I not only conceive of but can feel the beginnings of freedom that come from not being swayed one way or another by appetites. Instead of engaging, I watch them arise and dissolve.

The appetites in me cringe and complain as I let go, a tiny rift. I choose freedom. It is painful for a few moments. Something rips apart.

I go back to floating, free. Carried along on this current, free. Free.

"The greatness of Lord Shiva is that no matter what intensity of his 

grace is with you, it will carry you to his nature in the end."

~ Swami Lakshmanjoo

Jai Maa Durga Jai!

Oh BLISS! It is Navaratri time again. I love you Mother.

Vegetarian

I have never been a vegetarian. Even when I lived at the ashram for three years, my sadhini pal and I would drive several miles to the nearest diner, where we would have steak and eggs. LOL!

We were rebel types, but not because we were rebelling. Just because we weren't the "appear and act all spiritual" types. We both wore all black (I still do), slept through morning chant, watched TV and movies in our rooms, and performed walking, eyes open meditation throughout the day, as well as our sit in the dark meditation "cave" (which I LOVED).

We went everywhere together, and spread a sort of subversive, playful sadhana that no doubt helped some yogis and yoginis out with their purification (burning).

I was not worried. Though I had no physical relationship with my guru, except for the exquisite opportunity to live in the ashram made from her guru's shakti, she visited me from time to time to check on me and teach me. A tap on the shoulder at the right moment, the touch on my forehead in meditation, a blast of bliss after walking past her in front of Anugraha were a few examples that come to mind.

I never felt the need to become vegetarian, and did not experience this to be a detriment to my sadhana.

Recently, I asked my guru for something that would involve (now I see) purification of my body. I wasn't thinking of vegetarianism at all.

Soon after, I took a bite of one of my favorite foods which included meat. The taste sent a wave of repulsion through my entire body, a feeling of disgust that I experienced as eating something foul. Later, when I still felt the same way, I described it as a reaction to something decayed, decaying, basically dead. I was sure I did not want to eat cooked flesh. No.


This was not an intellectual experience at all.

I decided to go with it. What's the harm in trying? And so, I am a vegetarian, but not because of adherence to a certain reasoning.

I have the added benefit of doing my small part to help the millions of animals that live miserable lives in the US because of factory farming. When I was a truck driver, I experienced first hand the appalling dark and sickly feeling that hangs on these places like a thick shroud of horror, far worse than any scary movie I've ever seen. This is the energy of mechanized death.

I grew up without eating beef, as we lived on the deer meat my father provided by hunting. This type of meat is very different, though I still would not eat that now.

THE BEST PART is how I feel. I can feel the energy in my body changing. I am being transformed by my guru's grace, and this now plays a part in that. Somehow I can be more pure and alive in her grace now. Delusion slips away faster, with less pain. My body feels different. Lighter, more alive.

Love

I see it clearly now. 

My guru is going to love me to death.

My guru is everywhere I look.

It is grace

526 “And when you have diverted your mind towards Me always, in each and every action of the world, sarva durgāṇi matprasādā, all your difficulty will be vanished altogether by My grace, not by your action. By My grace, all your difficulties will be over, finished.” ~ Bhagavad Gita audio, Universal Shaiva Fellowship archive (emphasis mine)

"Hesiod and the Muse"
by Gustave Moreau

When I am having a spiritual experience, I have always tried to claim it as attainment.

Finally I understand. Whatever "success" I have in my sadhana is mine by grace only. I don't think, "oh, grace has helped me to attain this." I no longer believe my ego when I think, "oh, _________ happening at last means I am adept at such and such attainment, I am progressing, soon I will have everything."

How many times I have heard other yogis say, (and have said to myself), "you don't quite understand, I am really getting somewhere..."

That is the ego taking credit for attainment. "All my efforts as a sadhaka are paying off in such an amazing way!"

As usual, the excerpt in my inbox from The Universal Shaiva Fellowship has to do with this very thing.

Beloved Lord Krishna promises that focusing on him, and drawing his grace, will vanquish all difficulty by his grace, not by my action.

What does this mean? It means that when I am having the spontaneous "head falling forward" meditation several times a day, I am the recipient of this as grace. When my ego notices, and says, "my, we must be a really good yogi, one who will be realized soon!" I notice this and smile.

It is ALL grace. All of it, always. I love and worship the Lord. He loves me back, and I am the recipient of his boundless grace. Grace by its very nature is not earned or stored up. 

It is grace.

PS My helpful ego has decided that learning this very "high" lesson is a sign of my attainment. 

Naveen

Parvati performing
tapas to achieve
"reunion" with
Lord Shiva

I am aware that my blog has taken a new turn. To me, it is still a blog about myself as a Hindu (it is not about Hinduism per se). Now my sadhana (spiritual practice) has entered a different, deeply personal phase of tapas (purifying fire).

Anyone who knows about the tapas of sadhana knows that everything is burned, and some of the deepest, rawest emotions and karmas go right on the fire too, and provide a great deal of heat for the purification.

Even people who don't spend their life in spiritual practice experience going through a time in their life that is so intense, so complex, perhaps so painful that they emerge changed, the unessential slicked off. Sadhana is like that; to emerge from the intensity lighter and closer to truth is the sustenance that gets one through the next round of burning.

Realization is nothing more than living in the truth. The Self is already attained, here now. It is coming to know this in every moment that is freedom from delusion, delusion that has become habitual, automatic. Looking around and seeing "others" changes to looking around and seeing only God at play (I can do this, but not sustain it all the time).

To burn off delusion is necessary for most people to attain this state of being which is steady in their identification with the Supreme. The dualistic delusions of separateness from God take many forms. To burn it all in a lifetime and attain God requires the grace bestowing aspect of God, which is called the "guru."

The guru is mystical. My guru and I are closer than close, and yet, we are "thousands of miles apart." Her grace is my salvation. She gave me the supreme gift of shaktipat, and now she is burning all that is delusion in my life (because I want her to). Her grace lifts me up, up above Shree Maya and the delusion of multiplicity. Thank you...

So many parts of my life I see so much more clearly after all these years of sadhana. Trying to fit in. Fear of being alone. Pushing to attain, then pushing to reject as life strategies. These destructive patterns have ruled my life. No more.

Naveen Andrews

When I was an adolescent, like most girls I obsessed on my prince, my cowboy, my teen idols. I imagined myself with my beloved, riding the range on our horses, sleeping by the campfire. I spent hours listening to music and dreaming of him. Eventually I composed wistful and beautiful songs on the piano.

I waited with wonder for when we would finally meet. I just knew that life was all about the all-consuming relationship with him. My prince would fill me with love, and the aliveness that seemed missing in my dull life.

This "story of the Beloved" has always been there, throughout my life, all of my adulthood. This is part of my story as a "seeker".

And yet, after facing the fear of being alone, and the pattern of pushing and trading myself away all the time trying to bargain for a "real life," (which I was not meant to have, since I am dedicated to sadhana in this life), I was caught off guard by this onset of burning my need for an "other."

But should I write about it?

Naveen Andrews

My blog is about my sadhana, my love of God and my sacrifices and austerities by which I attain oneness with my Beloved.

Over the years, there were times when I YEARNED so much for God, so much for oneness with the guru, that I was drenched in the soul and fire of nothing but yearning, yearning...

So much so that sometimes my guru would come to me, once in meditation, unseen I felt her fingers giving me "the touch," firmly, between my eyes on my forhead. Once I was so full of yearning while doing computer work in the ashram bookstore at Anugraha, and yearned for her, wished so much that she would come be with me that she sent her faithful dog to me, and he came straight to me, which moved me greatly (she was doing seva no doubt, her life is one of service).

Yearning is divine. It is about union with God. It is essential to the life of a sadhini and devotee.

But... I had to consider. Would I write about burning and purifying the feelings and karmas of romantic desire on my Hindu blog? Basically, this is Shree Kundalini purifying my second chakra, which includes sexuality. I have been almost entirely celibate for over ten years, mostly because of a "failed" marriage. I am a Western Hindu, with many of the values of a college-educated secularism. As a writer and a blogger, I am feeling my way through how open I wish to be about myself and my emotions. I have chosen to be very open.

I believe that I have a unique talent for writing about things that are often left unsaid or misunderstood. I am a generalist, a person who is just good enough at a great many things, an armchair ________ [everything]. Having a talent that is deep enough to carry me forward as far as I wish to develop and express it is a precious thing to me. The fact I only have certain talents (computers, design, writing, music) tells me that these are what I am meant to develop and use in this lifetime.

Naveen Andrews

ROMANTIC LOVE

I dreamed of beautiful Naveen last night. I burn for him now, but I know that it is Paramashiva as Naveen that I long for so deeply, so deeply... And though I know intellectually that this "apartness" is an illusion... I still carry the YEARNING in my eyes, in my breath, in the tilt of my head, in the very feeling of being alive... and cannot help but crave over and over the feeling of touching his hair, his hands... even though to experience this would be so poignant as to be almost too much to bear.

Oh oh oh... this is so hard to burn... I have burned so many different things all these years. This is turning me inside out. The very air seems too heavy to breathe, it is as though I must bear it about, pushing on my chest, a "whu..." sound in my ears, making my body feel heavy and indescribably painful in a concentrated, gasping sort of way.

I believe the guru is burning this very very close to "unbearable" so I can get it burned and become free. The more of it I can bear to burn in each moment, the higher the flames for all my other karmas to be purified at the same time. This is what I mean when I say a karma or samskara becomes fuel for the fire.

I try to remember the mantra. Om namah shivaya.... Om namah shivaya... Om namah shivaya..... Why is it so hard to reach for the mantra when I need it most?

Naveen Andrews

THE DREAM

Finally... Such delight. I want to return to it... I'd have to think twice before saying 'no' to trading in my life as a sadhini for the "life" of my wonderful dream.

That would, of course, be silly. This time I'm looking for My Beloved as everyone and everything. No separation or lack (anava mala). No other. No thinking anything I want or love is not already inside of me as He. I love God, who has made me from Himself.

I've put in for the real deal. "It's the only way to be sure" (Ripley, Hicks ~ Aliens).

Finally... This is the burning, the fire...

In the dream, we had just met, we were immediately attracted and open about it, sharing a day together of spontaneous fun. We were so happy, that feeling of beginning and knowing it is going to be good. The feeling of meeting someone who makes you tingle, and it's that way for them too, and of being open about that.

That's it. That's enough to make me swoon all day and all night.

It was always like that. All I wanted was a touch. Kindness. Protection. To be cherished and loved.

Perhaps I am still meant to experience these things with "another" in this lifetime. If I am meant to love then it would be cruel and lonely for me to avoid it. Either way, my True Love lives in my heart, and sees through my eyes, feels through my touch. We are ONE in every moment.

There is only ONE.

In freezing mists of foreign lands 
I lost sight of my true love's hand
Into the arms of warmth I ran 
I knew my love would understand

She kept me warm my soul was fed 
I had a muse a fire a bed
I soon forgot the life I'd known 
This foreign land became my home

The waves rolled in across the sea 
They brought my true love's voice to me
I knew this girl would understand 
I had to find my true love's hand.

~ "The Minstrel's Tale" Carl Barat, Karsh Kale, Papon (The Dewarists)  

Now read this beautiful song with the understanding that your love, your true love is God....

This song rocks and is very beautiful at the same time