Three schools of Vedanta

Here is a useful quote about the different schools of Vedanta. Vedanta is the oldest religious tradition in India, and is in some form or forms a part of virtually every philosophy or school. Hindus call Hinduism the Sanatana Dharma (Eternal Way or Religion). Hinduism is a unique combination of philosophy and religion, and agreeing or disagreeing about anything doesn't mean we don't share Gods, scriptures, rituals, holidays, art and anything else that's important. Hinduism is a vast shining array of historical and living light, a light that also shines in and through Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Sufism, and more. 

Jyoti, or light. c 18th century tempura in gold

"According to the three schools of Vedanta there are three relationships between God and the individual. The dualistic school looks upon man as a soul, and God as the supreme Person, eternally different from man. According to the qualified monistic school, God is the supreme Person and the repository of all auspicious qualities. Individual souls are parts of God, even as sparks of fire are parts of fire. God is the Soul of souls. According to the non-dualistic school, the individual and God are identical in their divine essence; nothing exists other than Brahman. Everything else is illusory like a mirage on the desert, vanishing on the dawn of Knowledge." ~ from Vedanta.ru

The path within

I had a thought that each soul reaches the attainment they seek, that is their heart's desire. I have read that in (much or all of??) Buddhism, and for some seekers, release into the void is the ultimate choice of their heart. 

Shri Devi (Goddess) and the Trimurti

(Brahma left, Vishnu center, Shiva right)

For me, that sounds, well, awful. To seek that would be to extinguish my eternal Paramashiva in a poof! followed by nothing. Oh no!!!!! My heart is horrified.

Perhaps what I find liberating would be a part of the entanglements and snares others release to find and experience the true freedom of liberation. 

Perhaps an offering to the fire, and the liberation obtained by this offering, is the same process for everyone, and not dependent on the "details" in each heart. It's the process inside, and the path each of us find that calls uniquely to us.

I also believe there are mysteries behind mysteries. Shiva doesn't skimp on mystery! (Delicious fun!!)

What suits me, my heart, my soul is to find God as My Beloved everywhere and in everything. As a seeker, this is the path my feet have finally found. Through the grace of my guru, it is the path already inside of me, waiting in my heart.

Bliss.

Happens to me

LIFE HAPPENS
How often I think back on a moment with my friend from the ashram, a great devotee and yogini. 

One day as we were relaxing together outside of seva, she made this momentous (for me) observation:

"I am beginning to think that none of this ever happens to me..."

"There is always a princess..." Bram Stoker's Dracula

I was stunned. Where was she when life was "happening?"

I think of that now as I notice a change in how I experience fear. In practice, fear can be a helpful wake up call. But the fear that "I" can be damaged or killed is false. 

When fear begins, when it jumps up and starts to "flag" me down, I notice it, I look at it. I notice it trying to "crash" my state, to pull me down for a "roadside" conference regarding consequences I must control or avoid.

And I view and experience the fear as consciousness. My guru's grace allows me to do this. Fear is completely benign, divine... since it is made of the consciousness of My Beloved, who is Shiva. My fear has the power to cause suffering only when I worship it as God (truth). 

Of course, forgetting I am God was a part of the journey back to God, to Self. All is well.

And so, today when I think of my friend's simple observation, it occurs to me that I have broken through the magic of maya (illusion) just enough to recognize everything as consciousness, including fear. I have realized that none of this is "happening to me."

I believe that no amount of effort or merit on my part would have brought me to this level of "attainment" without the grace of my guru. Om guru om. 

Indian students in Calcutta covered in colored powder during
celebration of Holi, the Hindu festival of colours
Photo: Diby Angshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

THE BELIEF IN SUFFERING
Once, someone said these words: "...(when we) believe in suffering." Again, I was stunned. Suffering IS. Why would it make any difference if I stopped believing in suffering? This seemed, just, silly... Worse it seemed insensitive to the amount of suffering in the world. But I got just a little hint of the larger meaning, as applied on a personal level. If you didn't believe in suffering... did it really happen to you? Hmmmm.... That was as far as I got, at first.

For me, to not believe in suffering means I don't believe "I" suffer, to no longer think of myself as this body, and this mind. I identify with Shiva, who experiences but does not suffer. I view my "suffering" as consciousness, the dance of divine shakti, who is giving the experience of being "me" and subject to pleasure and suffering.

Similar to fear, I experience and see suffering as consciousness. I am more and more established in Shiva, who created the illusion of suffering through the magic of maya, and now is taking himself back through me. This makes the freedom of realization a delicious participation in the game of my Beloved. For me.

Krishna and Radha's love affair was very "outre." They met in the forest(!), at night(!), without a chaperone(!!) They had to overcome unique obstacles. Although they grew up together, He was a God, and she was a gopi (cow herd). Krishna was the favorite of all the gopis, and this sometimes led to painful jealousy on Radha's part. But, even if she felt hurt and wanted to withdraw, she always chose to go to her great love, Krishna.

THE POWER OF MAYA
I remember a story about an ancient sage or god who asked Shiva(?) to explain maya. Since he wasn't at the effect of it, he could not understand it. He was warned of the mighty power of maya, that even he would be subjugated by its magic. He decided to give it a try anyway.

Down the spout into the jivan house called a body he went. He forgot who he was. He thought he was this little being in this certain place. He married, had children. He was joyful. He suffered. Lives came and went. Finally he found his way back (attained beyond maya through remembering, a very Kashmir Shaivism story element). Wow. That maya is some powerful, well, you know...

This story taught me how powerful maya is. It takes a solid game plan to forget you're God. This isn't left at all to chance. And it takes a solid game plan to get back.

And so, I have come to a place where I can honestly say that, more and more, everyday, I no longer believe in suffering.

Darshan

When I look through the images on my blog, I have darshan, I am filled with bliss, with God's love.

When I read about Shiva, Shaivism, and the yearning for God I have darshan.

This is a way to support my state, my experience and attainment. It is, literally, to follow my bliss.

Lucky me, I am feeling like a complete beginner at intimacy with God. Besides the obvious challenges... I think I have worshiped and loved the idea of God.

Now, when I think of God, and feel His bliss and love enclose me, I am in direct relationship with Him. "Hello," I can say, for He lives in my being, and I live in His. It is a very different kind of intimacy.

It's like, I knocked at Heavenly Father's door as a child, and he received me immediately in his "parlor," a place he made to receive my yearning and prayer. A place about me, but not really about Him.*

But now, God is my place. I open to Him as reality, and know Him, in his "mind," where I am made and exist. No door to knock on, unless I put it there.**

God, I am learning how to speak to You with my heart. I wobble. If I am flippant, it feels disrespectful. I say thank you A LOT. Everytime the bliss bubbles back up when I seek you, I say thank you.

~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~

*An important aspect of Mormonism is the belief that God has a physical body. If he were here, he would either have to veil himself, or he would be visible. The spirit which touches inside to communicate God's message and convey his blessings is a spirit who does not have a body (as God and Jesus do). In Mormonism, all can become divine, and eventually become God, an advanced spiritual belief. But it is dualistic in that evil arose and has been championed by Lucifer, and all must choose. Evil that does not come from God, but rather from freedom of choice, another advanced spiritual belief. To choose against God and goodness is evil.

**In a previous post I noted that I didn't think of my soul as something that changes. Now I am in a Hindu context, where my soul-being is purified and merges with God. In Mormonism, the "changes" to be made are in the tally sheet (which exists somewhere outside of me) of whether I am worthy of heaven. In Mormonism, the content of my relationship with God changes, and the feeling of closeness which would be cultivated change, but these are qualities of the "now" which would come and go. In Hinduism, closeness is an aspect of my being which is both cultivated and given through grace. It changes when I change, and I change when it changes. Perhaps Mormonism is this way too, and I just didn't get it. I just know that, for me, feeling "closer" to Shiva is very different from the feeling of "closer" to Jesus and to Heavenly Father.

No fear

I don't want my fear to get in the way of my love affair with God.

God please remove my fear, please hold me close and let me relax into you, My Beloved.

(Ahhh... bliss.........)

Attainment is now

My mind still keeps trying to hold onto darshan, which is spinning me all around this way and that. If I reach, that isn't it. If I reject, that isn't it. If I hide, that isn't it. 

When I stop inside, and step back, just a tiny shift, into stillness, darkness, quiet, the knower, not the known, the seer, not the seen... I have darshan, I feel bliss.

Shiva dhyana bliss

All "around" me and "in" my head is consciousness as a play. But I don't quite play at that level, not in this lifetime. I am giving up all hope of ever having a "life" that overlaps with other people's "lives." Not happening. Quit trying. Give up.
I gave up the world, and turned to God. Oh, boundless grace (sadguru), God waits, then matches my seeking with that and so much more.

This is how it works, I think. The wild card is grace. But God calls, and when I answer, God answers with everything. Attainment is now.

God has made me, I am some of God's consciousness contracted into me. For me at least, each move I make towards God is answered by God so very many times over what I offer. God waits, then surges forward. The result is darshan and bliss, a beautiful expression and experience of truth.

Osho said that realization is like a tree. When the seed breaks open, realization is. But it also isn't, yet, as the tree isn't here yet, it hasn't grown and flowered, there is no perfume or shade. But the tree is real, it has begun. it cannot happen any other way.

The question is, how much do I accept from God now?

My path is not sangham. No group or organization to join. It is not sannyasi. There are no vows, or robes. My path is not vedantic re-identification, neti, neti... not that, not that. I don't require the swahyaya of long hours of meditation, japa yoga. 

The tiny step back into truth, into my Beloved, and our soaring bliss. Recognition (pratyabhijna) is now, direct knowledge (jnana) is now. 

Attainment is now. This is my path.

Vivekananda

That man has reached immortality 
who is disturbed by nothing material. 

~Swami Vivekananda

Lover's choice

Lord Shiva shares his tiger with me, Parvati

God is like a lover. 

God is my lover. Breathing softly into his bliss he has watched me, he has been me.

He softened, his lips changing to a softer smile. 

She is turning, he does not think, but knows. She is turning...

(He knows the dance of love, and follows, matches each desire).

As I turn to God at last he reaches softly, sure of my wants and needs, for He is my lover.

He has embraced me. "Don't let go," I prayed at first, our bliss flowing together as though never apart (true, that...). 

I am yours, make me yours. I curl against My Beloved as I look back, so sure at last that we are one, to watch as the cardboard world I shadow-boxed with slips into the background, a creation, an exquisite work of art, a set for the dance, costumes, moments, chapters... all so that I can meet and know my Self.

Because I have chosen God, God has chosen me. We are inseparable. 

Our love is our bliss.

Courtship

I'm being courted. Shiva is wooing me.

Everyone returns to God in the way that makes their heart and their soul melt and slip at last into their Beloved's.

Shiva Shakti

God is reaching out to me in the way that I find irresistible. Time winding through so many ages and lifetimes, to this place and time. This is the geography of love, to me.

A lifetime of swaying to the music that conveyed the secret whisper of God... "come to me, My Beloved. You are mine... come to me." 

Never alone. Someone always there when I stopped to search my heart.

Fragrance of the divine, sandalwood, gardenia, a moment to swoon, sure of loving arms to hold me up.

Darkness a velvety softness, digambara, clothed in space the raiment of My Beloved.

The sensual divine, pulls me closer, takes my breath, gives breath back, there is nothing closer.

When my emotions at last find answer, keeping pace with these sudden swirls of bliss, the dance is perfection at last.

My Lord. My Beloved. I answer: yes.

Clear

I am starting to feel really, really clear. Perhaps now that I have chosen God and only God, my burning and purification has hugely widened and deepened. Poof! Lots of the "ends" of stuff finally burnt away in a puff of sacred smoke.

I have very little fear, very little compulsion. Almost all of my delusion, my samskaras of fear and shame, have been burned away. This is all in the last few months!

For the last few nights, I have had a "new" experience, (I've had here and there in the past), of needing to "cocoon," which for me means curling up under the blankets in bed for a time. 

In the past, it was a sort of contraction, a way of shutting the world out for awhile until the pendulum swung towards outer life again. I would often spend most of the day in bed, and might have called in sick if I was supposed to be anywhere.

This is different. I feel really really sleepy, a kind of tired that isn't painful, more a call to sleep. Even though it happens around 9pm (what meridian is active then?), and I don't usually go to sleep until at least 4 or 5am, it has been such a strong urge that I have gone with it.

So, I choose to trust the impulse, and go with it. Normally I would never go to sleep then because my experience of waking up in the middle of the night after hours of sleep would be excruciatingly painful with cold fear so ascendant that I would curl up in a corner of my psyche for who knew how long.

And so I hurry through the apartment, taking meds and feeding the cat, turning out lights and such, all on a sudden bee-line for the bed. 

I feel some of the excitement I used to feel at the ashram when I would race down the stairs to the kriyaloka "noisy" meditation room (usually only one or two of us, me and the dedicated lion pranayama devotee, bless him wherever he is, love love).

I apply earplugs and sleep mask, and slip down into the bed, feeling my energy coming together in a unique way, every time. It's like a dhyana (deep meditation) feeling, physical, subtle body I guess. Turning within in a way that is intense, almost fierce.

My mind settles and I am meditating. But also falling asleep. I sleep for a few hours and get up.

Some serious purification going on here. And I am feeling so different. 

I can stop when using the computer. I can look up and I'm here. I don't have to limp back slowly from hiding-out land, having burned up all my shakti. My use of the computer is fun, and it's just what I do right now. It isn't addictive-compulsive. 

The obsession that is addiction is sliding out of my relationship with the computer... and for that matter, with cigarettes (only the vap now, missing cigarettes less and less). Coffee, food. Wow. Just today I feel this. Another amazing change.

Nada: My ship came in

My ship came in, but it was a plane. I heard it coming in, over and over and over. A divine nada as the sound of a small plane landing overhead.

Now the plane awaits. We are ready for departure. A divine nada as the sound of a small plane warming up on the tarmac. It's been warming up for days.

But it isn't time to go anywhere yet. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. My intense purification is compatible with remaining on "retreat." I do what I want without pressure from without or within. If I can put it off, I do. I'm on vacation.