Happy Mahashivaratri

Equipoise

Tomboy skills... fishing with my brother

I have a skill!

I have renounced mastering worldly skills and knowledge. And I have renounced avoiding (fear of) being alone. Now that I'm not chasing accomplishments and society, I am (at last) profoundly free.

When I think of skills, I have noticed that in situations where others "lose it," I am the one who is immediately "on," as in my time to shine. Such as encountering a car wreck or some threat to safety. My focus is intense, my thought process clear and controlled (directed).*

I see how this skill of equipoise forms a maha skill that serves me as a yogini. Perhaps it is something from guru's grace that has been here all along. It seems, even more so lately, that I can talk about my "attainment" without necessarily bragging or feeding my ego, flaws which would take away from the usefulness of my shared experiences to others, and trade my attainment for the booby prize (a fool's cap).

Even better, I see the fine sliver of ego that creeps into all I do and say, and it is this I am learning to offer. Yesterday I had a very large view of the finer workings of my ego. I chose to offer it to the fire. I saw the fire in my mind, and my ego dissolved in it. Immediately I felt changed. When I emerged from dhyana, my eyes felt different, much more relaxed. They are still very relaxed, not irritated as they always were before. (Something to do with the ajna chakra?)

Here's an important skill
(only a tomboy would agree)

I'm aware that some traditions proscribe against talking about attainment at all. This is a fine discipline. I am learning not to trade the cream of an experience of attainment for ego satisfaction ("I did this"). But not mentioning at all doesn't seem right for me. Instead, I am learning how to honestly describe attainment as proceeding from my guru in a dualistic sense, and as being an aspect of my true nature as Paramashiva in the higher, non-dualistic sense.

I'm not sure. I have renounced skill (know-it-all) and fear of alone (look at me). Talking about attainment could easily devolve into another version of these two. If so, I will renounce it as well. I will continue to look at this.

For now it seems that equipoise about sharing attainment is something I can do well enough in a primitive sort of way that I can work on mastering it (with guru's grace). There just aren't a lot of other sorts of mastery that make any sense at all for me. That's why I have renounced this "obsession."

PS I giggled when I though about how funny it is for someone named "Jnana" (sanskrit: "knowledge") to be an obnoxious, compulsive "know-it-all," like me. Ha ha!! (In voice of Tom Hanks starting fire in Castaway): "Look at me, I am THE ONE WHO KNOWS." Oh my Beloved, I know you take great pleasure in strutting about for yourself. I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you).

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* (I have also noticed how grounded I am around people who are famous. I don't "lose it" like most people do around celebrity. Celebrity is another essay. Basically, I feel a deep kinship to those with celebrity because I know how difficult it can be for them to create a shared experience, to have a social overlap with others, which is very hard for me).

Also, I have a very strong streak of not hiding things that will cause me difficulty, or suggest even the slightest pretense or subterfuge. It is a determine "lack" of skill, in a way. It seems somehow related in terms of feeling tone. Anyway, not lying to my father saved me a beating (maybe). But I think this is something from a past life, as is the equipoise. I haven't finished my attainment. I'm picking up where I left off.

Anava mala

ānavamala ~ I am less than (the) whole. I am without some things. There is always something missing. I cannot be happy until ______________.


OBSESSIONS that ruled my life:

• I will achieve success being with people. I will be with other people; we will share the same world (starting with not being Dorothy, do not be alone, never give up). "I choose to wait until I learn how to be with others..."
• I will achieve success in the world, and be recognized as having special knowledge. I will master (many) arts and skills (skiing, counseling, network administration). "I choose to wait until I am educated to pursue a profession (adulthood)." "I will constantly (try to) create intimacy with others by educating them on what I have learned about __________."
• I will achieve beauty, grace and individuality physically. I will become thin again and express myself through clothes, hair, etc. (being fat precludes individuality). "I choose to wait until I am thin again..."

I recently addressed these obsessions all within a few weeks of each other. My life has been completely transformed. The shakti of my guru has pushed past these rejected limitations, and expanded my life with the knowledge and experience of God. Jaya sadguru.

NOW:

• I have given up on being with other people. I am alone. Period. I only visit others in their world, no one visits me in mine. My world is atma-guru-paramashiva as one. 
• I will never achieve success in the world. I have never mastered anything, except seeking and knowing God. This is now my entire focus.
• I am not waiting until this body is thin to live this life. If I become thin again, I'll know the comfort with my clothes, the flexibility and focus of yoga, and the delight of running will again be mine. Until then... 'I DON'T CARE." At least, most of the time (a huge improvement).

 I love being alone (...with God) 

Arati puja

In addition to the two constant nadas, I keep seeing little things out of the corner of my eye.

The nada helps my mind. It doesn't have to keep figuring out over and over if my whole life is on a new level (of "attainment"). The nada started when it all started a few months ago, and has been continuous since then. It isn't as loud now. It's barely there, then becomes a little louder when I focus on it. It still changes sometimes. For awhile it was a "ghetto bird," then a cicada (which is funny because I don't like the noise of cicadas, a very loud insect).

A few days again, during my new puja, (I started performing arati daily, a little over a week ago), when I performed arati, on the last circle of the flame I focused in on my subtle mind, and a very bright "flame" flew out and down into my body (visual only, no warmth or sensation).

I love the look of spiritual concentration, or dhyana, on the brahmins' faces in these photos of evening arati at one of the ghats (stairs down to the Ganges River) in Varanasi, India. (I remember this feeling of relaxed, super-focused, very clear buddhi (mind) when I "waved the lights").

Evening arati is given at three different ghats 

(stairs down to the water)

on the River Ganges at Varanasi, India

sat chit ananda

~Shiva Nataraja~
Lord Shiva
in the dance of ALL
is seen with His consciousness
emanating and taking form
through His aspect as the
Goddess Shakti (flames)

शिव 
Shiva

Shiva is one of God's given, "proper" names. It means "auspicious one." Auspicious means promising success, opportune, favorable; an auspicious occasion.

Paramashiva refers to Shiva as Universal Consciousness. "Parama" means supreme.

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सच्चिदानन्द
sat chit ananda
being consciousness bliss

These three words fill me with ecstatic delight! They describe my Beloved. There is no more basic description of God. He is being, consciousness and bliss.

Being

God is, has being. God exists, "sat." Sat is eternal; it never changes. Sat is real. Everything is real, and made out of...

Consciousness

Everything is made of God's consciousness (chit). Everything. There is nothing that is not God. The creative consciousness (power) of God is often worshiped as feminine, as the Devi (Goddess), who is chit shakti, literally "conscious (divine) energy." She moves, she does. She is what all this is made of. Jaya Shiva Devi.

If everything is real, then what is illusion? Illusion is seeing many where there is only One. This is a part of the play.

God is free in every way. He chooses to contract his consciousness into the many forms of the universe. Eventually he takes it all back, dissolving it back into himself. Eventually he begins again. Why? Because it pleases him. Everything I do pleases God, pleases my true Self. Then... offering what I do to him creates a shower of delicious bliss. Then this... finding him inside myself is the eternal fountain of supreme bliss.

Bliss

The nature of Paramashiva is bliss. Why does music bring about bliss? Dance? Art? Parenthood? Where does the bliss come from?

Bliss that is uncovered during situations in life can be claimed at the source, where it has no beginning and end. To identify with Shiva as my Beloved and my true Self is... bliss.

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"Shiva can be understood in a more personalised and abstract sense. Abstractly, it stands for Brahma, the 'Absolute,' and may, in this sense, be prefixed by Parama, meaning the 'highest' or 'supreme.' This is the transcendental aspect of Shiva.

Shiva Shakti

"The 'power' or 'energy' of Shiva [remember chit? consciousness??] is characterised as a feminine consort, Shakti. Although Shiva and Shakti are often represented as distinct deities, they may best be understood as the static and dynamic poles of the creative process. Shakti is not separate from Shiva. It is his consciousness, the intensity, power and purpose to create."

 ~ Shiva as the Central Theme of Hatha Yoga, (Indianetzone)

Burning tamas

Leisure air tasting

I was burning (mostly) rajas.

Now I am burning tamas.

I've never really liked sattva, but I suppose that's next(?)

I remember even as a girl, sattva felt oppressive and stagnant. Oh, how much fun to burn that?... ick. (Liking or not liking, both need to be burned).




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The three gunas are the three fundamental qualities, tendencies or stresses that underlie all manifestations. They are: rajas (action, restlessness, "efficient," "kicking butt"), tamas (darkness, inertia, "coasting," "hiding"), and sattva, (light, purity, "following the rules," attachment to earned merit).

Still on vacation

I cannot die, I do not fear destruction. Do I fear suffering? Physical suffering, yes, as long as I am bound to this body. But I am no longer plagued by fear, run or ruled by fear.

Before, everything was organized around fear, and avoiding fear. That was before the karmas got burnt up! In the center of the fire, my purification has been INTENSE.

Now. I am a self of cinders, soaked in fearlessness, a divine crème brûlée.

I am relaxed. I am at home wherever this body happens to be. There is nothing to do, find, get or return to. I watch as my day unfolds, as I perform my dharma.

Where am I supposed to be now? What am I supposed to do today? What exquisitely simple questions. Even a child knows the answer, or is learning the answer. I choose the answer. It happens. I am profoundly free.

On the other hand, I look around at my messy apartment. Woah, this is quite a mess! For a second I spin out. Surely a godly person cannot live with this mess(?)

And yet... Would it be better if it was cleaned up? Yes. Would it be easier to attain "godliness" if it were clean? Yes. Will it be cleaned up eventually? Yes. Then why not clean it, jump on it, wrestle it to the ground and pin it down now? Because inside I can feel, since all has changed, that it is not right to force myself to clean... (wait for it...)

Forcing myself to do things has been how this funny, sad, foolish little me has adapted to a life that gave little and demanded all. It was based on trading inner resources, including hope and happiness, and including pledging these as future resources, for the sorry-assed return of "avoiding disaster" in the now of my life. It kept me from going under, but it was an unsustainable strategy.

It has been a means of living that "believes in suffering," that accepts and chooses suffering as necessary.

I no longer believe in suffering. I see immediately that there is certainly no shakti in forcing myself to do anything. So I hang back. I am on vacation, I say (as the months go by). After being burnt by karma, slicked clean by circumstance for ten plus years (before, during and after living at the ashram), I am laying by the side of the road. The old me is dying, or dead. The almost fifty five year old little me, the one that believed in suffering.

The fact that I am the only one that knows this is a profound example of how alone I am in this life. (Alone with God, that is. What could be better? Nothing at all).

But wait... Meanwhile the new me is waiting, building up the new currency minted for a land without suffering, sweetly treasuring my coin cup, my beggar's bowl each day full of a little more consciousness, a little more light...... waiting for the right moment to stand up, take up my bed, and walk.

It isn't quite time. But I am getting much closer.

For now, I am enjoying my retreat. I feel myself healing. Ahh. I am saturated with the Love and Delight of My Beloved. Our feast of bliss is greater than all the known worlds.

For now... I am on vacation.

M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan is listed on IMDB as director for Wayward Pines,  "limited" (10-12 episode) television series on Fox FX Channel, currently in pre-production for premier in 2014.

M. Night Shyamalan

March 3, 2013
View from "the balcony" ~ 
final mix of After Earth

(current project in post-production)

Relaxed and confident

I did everything with my brother

How old was I when I broke my arm? Ten?? I think I was ten in this photo.

I have looked at this picture many times. This time I notice how relaxed and confident I seem, a girl who is coming into her own.

(It is also the confident smile of the one who always caught the biggest fish).

I remember how alive I felt when we were in Southern Utah.

We were Huck and Jim on a raft, Jason aboard the Argo, Nemo inside the Nautilus. Ours a wedding, a pageant, a safari, a fair. We strode everywhere a grand entrance in Shiva's grandest party... took over the dance floor.

Everything

Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.
~Oscar Wilde

Sometimes when my guru reaches out to me inside, she shares an experience she is having.

Recently at the (NY) ashram, on a beautiful sunny day, the crisp smell of melting snow... 

(I picture her also sharing her delightful moments with other devotees who are not "there" with her. A funny concept because I know that she is in more than one place at once).

Another time, a sweet and spicy experience of vintage bliss. "Come to the banquet...." 

She lays everything before me.

Mahashivaratri

Lord Krishna, Arjuna and Hanuman worship Lord Shiva as Shiva Lingam for Mahashivaratri 

MAHASHIVARATRI

SY Path celebrates Mahashivaratri on Saturday March 9th this year.

~ Om nama shivaya ~