Kiss the fear

I have turned inside to God. Somehow, when I seem to turn inside, You are always there. We are joining... because I am slipping the bonds of this place, this me, this ego. The truth: we are already one.

I do not push or pull as the wheel goes around. Ecstasy, fear, freedom, bondage, love, jealousy... fear and anxiety in an avalanche crashes in where a moment ago I could touch you, sink into you whenever I wanted.

Gone. The grace is gone. I am alone. Did I do something wrong, guruji?

No. It is the wheel. To be free, I must loose myself from these things.

Slipping past, I do not push or pull. I am not the root of action. I do not believe in suffering. Shakti, Shakti.... I am the sweet Shakti and we are pouring into my Beloved Shiva, the experience of my return, many lifetimes in the making.

It is the place of pure bliss.

I open again. I kiss the fear. Throw myself upon the so familiar anxiety... the fire, the sacred fire is burning me up. The more I feel, the more that swirls around me, the more pure I become. I see consciousness. My experience, my senses are consciousness.

So'ham, I am that. I am everything. I am You.

Follow the Shakti to Shiva

It is hard to explain in words where I am going, and how I await myself there.

Swami Lakshamjoo on the day of his
attainment of the Self, of Shiva

First off, I finally feel that realization is inevitable. I am spiraling into myself. I no longer hold on, invest in the play of maya. I smile, I am sad, it is all so beautiful, and it is passing away. Soon I will be with my Beloved. This is my last lifetime. It just is.

I know now why "moody" music has been my favorite all my life. It is the soundtrack of return to God, saying farewell, a poignant goodbye, a poignant hello.

Universal Shaiva Fellowship Bookstore

I realized today that kriyas aren't just purification, or even just communications from Shree Chiti Shakti. She is moving my body, and that is how everything is, really. Made from her, moving as her.

When I have a kriya, it is Shree Kundalini showing me, right now, that all of this is shakti, I am shakti, I am merging into Shiva. Where they are one, that is my true state.

A profound realization, experience. Follow the Shakti to Shiva.

Then I finally read my email from The Universal Shaiva Fellowship, with a commentary on verses from the Vijnana Bhairava. And there it was in the first stanza, where I'm at in my sadhana. (See next post, below, first paragraph).

"When you enter in the state of energy, and leave your individual state (you have not to enter in the state of energy for always), you have to throw off the individual state and enter in the energy to enter in the universal state in the end. Because unless you ignore, [throw] off, your individuality, universality will not rise, universality won’t take place." ~Swami Lakshmanjoo

This gave me chills. This is new, and it's real to me now. Every little realization, recognition, fills me with bliss. Sweet bliss.

Many times a day now, a little touch of grace reminds me, and I take a moment to concentrate, to follow my dharana into a new state, which lasts for up to a minute.

I slip back the half step into the me that is universal, blissful, and not identified with my ego or body, or place in time. All around me is supreme intelligence at play, a moving painting, painted with light, which is consciousness.

This is new, a new place I go... where the grace leads me. Guruji...

It is always grace, I know now. My ego tries to figure out how these "attainments" apply to me. No luck, not anymore. My mind starts to flutter, then I caress it back into place. Be still. Remain still.

How? It is always grace.

"No matter which intensity of Lord Shiva's grace is with you, it will carry you to His nature in the end." ~ Swami Lakshmanjoo

The path is Shakti, not Shiva

The path is Śakti (energy); the path is not Śiva. (Vijnana Bhairava verse 20-21)

This lecture is an excerpt from the Vijnana Bhairava: The Manual for Self Realization, verses 20-21, revealed by Swami Lakshmanjoo . . .

शक्त्यावस्थाप्रविष्टस्य
निर्विभागेन भावना ।
तदासौ शिवरूपी स्यात्
शैवी मुखमिहोच्यते ॥२०॥

śaktyāvasthāpraviṣṭasya
nirvibhāgena bhāvanā /
tadāsau śivarūpī syāt
śaivī mukhamihocyate // 20 //

When you enter in the state of energy, and leave your individual state (you have not to enter in the state of energy for always), you have to throw off the individual state and enter in the energy to enter in the universal state in the end. Because unless you ignore, [throw] off, your individuality, universality will not rise, universality won’t take place.

So you have to enter in the state of energy first, śakti avasthā praviṣṭasya; then afterwards yadā nirvibhāgena bhāvanā bhavet, when you feel that undifferentiatedness comes in your consciousness–undifferentiatedness between energy and the holder of energy–tadāsau śivarūpī syāt, at that very moment, this sādhaka, this bhāvanā [contemplation] becomes one with Lord Śiva.

So the path is Śakti; the path is not Śiva (śaivī means Śakti). Energy is mukham, the path is, iha, here,ucyate, explained. Energy is the real path you have to tread.

यथालोकेन दीपस्य
किरणैर्भास्करस्य च ।
ज्ञायते दिग्विभागादि
तद्वच्छक्त्या शिवः प्रिये ॥२१॥

yathālokena dīpasya
kiraṇairbhāskarasya ca /
jñāyate digvibhāgādi
tadvacchaktyā śivaḥ priye // 21 //

O dear Pārvatī, just like with the light of your candle or torch, dīspasya ālokena, by the light of your torch or candle, or by the rays of the sun, all the differentiated points of deśa, space, are known, are understood, in the same way Śiva is being understood by Śakti, by his energy. Energy is the means by which you can understand and enter in the state of Lord Śiva.

–––––––––––––

37. The sense here is that this sadhaka (the aspirant) through contemplation with one-pointed awareness (bhavana) becomes one with Lord Shiva (Bhairava). [Editor's note]

(source: Vijnana Bhairava, by Swami Lakshmanjoo)

All Content is subject to Copyright © Universal Shaiva Fellowship, John Hughes.

Pack your bags

When he steps off the balcony, when magic holds him up, that is You...

When he commands without touching, takes life without mercy, that is You...

The evil can only slip past me, your Many mightily arrayed as the One, the beggar, the king, the redemption of the evil One... it is all You.

I still hear always the bubbles rising, the prana rising through the akasha, sometimes a melodious tinkling... that is my nada.

I was almost asleep, and I realized for the first time in many months, the sound of the plane warming up on the tarmac was gone...(!) It was fading, but I never thought it would leave.

(Will you not take me, My Love? I am the place of your smile, the drift of your half-closed eyes... You flow to me as your embrace, the sacred Ganga Maa... dancing down through the Himalayas to the place of stillness, never forsaken, the beautiful one, Kashi... Veranasi... and Surya, the rising sun. Pranam...)

"With what?" I looked around, saw nothing I needed to carry, nothing that wasn't me.

I was almost awake, and then I heard in a woman's voice, clearly... (I thought someone was in my apartment).

She said: "Pack your bags."

Be

I don't want to wish... I want to have...

I don't want to have... I want to be.....

Come with me

From the outside (if there were such a thing), I would appear obsessive, obsessed... someone who is alone almost all of the time, who is on my computer almost all of the time. I serve _________, it is my service to keep such an active fansite for such a beautiful, soulful old-soul.

(He touches me inside. Shiva as _________).

Surely I should be seeking discipline, meditating for hours, doing yoga, eating only pure foods.

No, I sit at my computer until I am frozen in a "L" shape, my eyes burn, my mouse hand tingles.

Crazy, is what most would think, would say.

If there was an outside...

... then inside is where the action is. I am already God, and everything I think and do is His beautiful intelligence swirling and bubbling through this beautiful universe, its throb and its motion is His... Your breath...

Take me into You, I have longed for you for so long. I played side by side with You as a child, cried for You as an adolescent, grew a little, hallucinated at times, and drove drunk with a wild and wide space around me, the cloud of love where I felt you in waves, soaked in you... heavy and ecstatic, rising like a wave that only reaches, but never breaks.

I notice where I am. That is my now.

Equipoise

I have been growing inside, spiritually... not pushing or pulling, not trying to find the words.

Equipoise. What happens dissolves by the next moment, the next now. I feel the tug of the moment, and let it carry me.

Freedom.

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

Shiva as my main squeeze,
God and actor,
Mr. Naveen Andrews

My insight a few seconds ago. My longing for a relationship, for physical closeness, is not a symptom of remaining tied to the world, of not being ready to let go of distractions so I can focus on my sadhana and realization...

...it is my love of God, my longing. Of course. It has always been there, and now it is becoming about You, my true love.

Many times a day now, when I feel that need inside for something real and truly satisfying, (not just a shade of what I long for), for the first time, I always seek You, I reach out for You. You are always there.

Shiva shiva shiva... I love your name I LOVE YOUR NAME.

Om nama shivaya...

My longing is for You.

No explanation

My Lord's consciousness
and intelligence emanates
as endless universes

Only because I have this blog do I feel the need to explain.

Isn't it the pinnacle of self-indulgence to withdraw from the world, to live a solitary life INSIDE. And how can you say this is all God? If this is all God, doesn't that mean there is no evil?

Lord Krishna explains: Do your duty, your dharma. It's true that all of this is the great Lord, His play, the Lord at play. Take your hands off of His creation, trying to push and pull it, and simply follow your duty. This is the way to freedom. Profound, ultimate freedom.

This is all consciousness. And it is an intelligence so supreme it unfolds and emerges through everything around me... so that the earth knows how to fly and spin, the rain knows how and where to fall, the wind knows where to go... and every part of this great play is made by You, by your divine intelligence.

Only because I know that some of the people who read my blog are very active, good people, who dare to do good, to be something great... do I feel the need to explain.

I say to them: What a wonderful thing. Follow the bliss. Choose where you are, the only real choice. You get to merge back eventually. But the play would be over if everyone suddenly decided they were done and wanted out.

Sometimes a kriya gently, insistently bends my head forward and I have a minute of "head falling forward" meditation (the best). But my mediation now is eyes open, everywhere I go, everything I do. I want to feel bliss, so I turn my senses inward, watch as all of this... IS.

I know I am yours, that I am You when I am so still inside. My senses withdrawn, all is profoundly silent and still, even as the motion and noise of the play continues around me.

When I was new to sadhana, I didn't like the thought of merging with God. I thought it must be an Indian thing, one I would never really comprehend. Of course, my ego was very unhappy at the thought of dissolving into God.

Now merging with God is the very best, the sweetest, the most wonderful idea ever, and the deepest desire of my heart. I have become bigger and more than my ego, which thinks I am THIS.

I love Shiva, the auspicious one. What could be better than to merge back into Him, my Beloved? The wonder and delight of this ultimate journey is indescribable pleasure to my Lord and to me.

All because of grace. Guruji...

More to this

I have turned away from the world of the senses. It still swirls around me, as messy and perfectly cohesive as ever it was... It just doesn't mean near as much to me.

Some would say it is too self-centered, too self-indulgent to focus only on this immediate world of eloquent grace, nestled in and waking from naptime in the divine kindergarten of love.

This I will say, in the end the tale is a love story. That special place where lovers pool their sighs, gaze through abstract movement where the air is warm and close....

So, let me go away, go home at last. If you question, it means you have more to do. No worries.

"It only ends once, the rest is just progress." 

~Jacob on LOST

I will still write here; this is my seva (service). My posts are about my love for my Beloved, as my life is.

PS There is more to this than the world of the senses. If you long for a journey elsewhere, one way is to go down inside of yourself (meditation) and discover the world that is there.

Recognition

You were walking in the rain, just outside my open door, laughing.

I recognized Your voice.

You...

Home

Strange... My life is flashing before my eyes.

I am the river and I am the boat. I am the illusion of time (now, not now), and space (here, not here).

I keep floating past, floating through the many unrelated moments that arise from my memory, perfect yet impossibly small, made of shakti so still, almost stagnant, concentrated. I am suffocating in the feelings and thoughts that were "then."

The moments on the farm... the constant wind in the tall poplar trees, somehow a much larger dance, one that ever passes me as the songs of unseen birds and the lowing of distant cattle. The cut hay stubble of this fragrant field crunches with each step. Then the swirling flutter, the twinkle of light in the generous leaves of epic cottonwood trees. The sweet water falling as it swirls along the little creek. The "coo coo" of the morning doves float on the dense air, moist with twilight.

I float for a moment, the memory insistent fills me, and in that very distant, smallest spot of illusion, I remember the vision of solid land, and a moment that was. The pain is brief. My freedom is sweet. Each time I flow through, it is all swept away. I am released.

The memories are so far from truth that their perfect measure is the reach of karma. The karma is how far afield... how far to find my way back... I burn the karmas of these wagers, these investments in illusion, so small, (that I must emerge from them light and fresh), that the once is scraped off, leaving only NOW.

The final adventure... I keep my destination within sight. I do not control how or when I will arrive back where I started, only that it is certain.

There will be no side journeys. I am headed straight for home. I await myself there.