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.
I let the eddying curl of a floating appetite slip out of my grasp, expanding as it is dissolving, becoming one with all that I am. Consciousness dissolving consciousness.
How do I avoid disappointment and regret?
I haven't even thought about it. No goals were set. No decisions were made. It just happens, again and again. Grace.
I notice the moment, so many each day. I slip out from the closing hook; lifetimes of grasping, lifetimes of pulling away.
The restless, endless searching stops for a moment.
There is a little prick of pain, the very slight jar of separation. Ouch.
Dissolving karmas, samskaras... what was that? I forget. I need not know. I am forgetting. It has become meaningless.
Then, grace. I am expanding so slightly with a gentle in-rushing of bliss, warmth, and freedom. My birthright.
I hold my mind when I am visited by shakti. Intelligence as warmth, as bliss.
I notice it. I feel a warmth emanating through me, head to toes.
Going against a lifetime of seeking, I stop my mind.
I hold my mind the very second I notice it stirring, surging. I stop my mind when the action of thinking begins; tasting, then starting to talk about a surge of bliss.
Stop. Hold.
I do not make up a story about my experience, or decide what it means.
Hardest of all, I do not to try to augment and shape the event through mental action.
All I know is that these actions have enchanted me, have enslaved me. And this moment of stopping, of self-control, becomes a sacrifice, an offering. The fire of tapasya burns without the outward appearance of sadhana.
My sadhana is the tapasya of the mind.
I am simply alive. I have no agenda. My spiritual apparatus has stopped, settled. It seeks nothing.
No process. No language. Only the immense freedom of holding my being, holding my mind.
My mind is mystified, concerned, skeptical.
My sadhana isn't about making me better at control, analysis, pushing ahead to the ultimate goal. I am over the spiritual tantrum I recently had about this. That is when all action stopped.
I no longer indulge in the sadhana of action. Now. One-pointedness. No wandering. I often forgo the mantra--silence is my mantra.
I challenge myself, and my fears. "This is a big risk," offers my mind, the expert I built up and leaned on all of my life. "Might we waste a human birth if we are passive about our sadhana?"
I don't have to let this upset me. I don't have to let it affect me.
I am the fullest feeling of my own true nature, this: a silent stillness that scintillates with bliss.
My mind is not involved, though it is always perched nearby, thinking it is everything.
I find it challenging to blog about my experience, for it is by default understood by most readers as a choice--things and my reaction to things that happens because I want them to. This is understood as reality, everything that becomes in each moment. But I am so much greater, infinitely greater.
What if it all comes, then floats by? If I do not fight or follow, it is no longer about me. I no longer store up debts of consequences.
For my limited mind is not involved with my true nature, though it is always nearby, perched within it... thinking it is everything.
INTRODUCTION: "This
is my new commentary on this Bhagavad
Gītā."
Swami Lakshmanjoo exclaims, as he tells us what we should do when
eating and while experiencing śabda
(sound),
sparśa (touch),
rupa
(form) . . . all of the sensual pleasures.
Although
this verse of the Bhagavad
Gītā
by Vyāsa is complete,186
but Abhinavagupta has not commentated upon it as I would commentate
upon this śloka.
I will tell you his commentary, his first commentary, [which he gave]
in his first life.
Āhāra means
āhriyamāṇeṣu viṣayeṣu [comm.],
when you will go here and there–this is āhāra.
Yuktāhāra
does not [only] mean eating. Yuktāhāra
means śabda
(sound),sparśa
(touch),
rupa
(form) . . . all of the sensual pleasures.
In
sensual pleasures, what should you do?
Keep
it on one side, vihāra.
Vihāra
means vihāraḥupa-bhogāya
pravṛttiḥ;
vihāra
means to enjoy sensual objects. This was Abhinavagupta’s first
commentary.
Tasyāśca
yuktatvaṁ.
Yukta
means,
na
ātyantā saktiḥ na ātyanta parivarjanam,
you should not be a slave to those enjoyments. Neither should you
become a slave nor should you renounce them. Renunciation is also not
good and to be a slave to those enjoyments, that is also not good.
That is yukta,
yuktatva.
Evaṁ
sarvatra,
in this way you should commentate upon these ślokas
of Vyāsa. This is Abhinavagupta’s first commentary. But I don't appreciate this kind of [explanation].
Yuktāhāra. Yuktāhāra means take food! Go on taking food, as much food as you can take, go on
taking it but keep awareness in it. While taking food, offer it to
your own God–that is yuktāhāra.
Yuktāhāra
means when you eat food, go on eating it with awareness, go on
focusing on its taste. Which taste? The taste of whatever you eat . .
. and there will be one-pointedness. Maintain one-pointedness while
eating. Maintain one-pointedness–it is my commentary, my
amendment–maintain one-pointedness in sleeping. You can sleep but
maintain one-pointedness in sleeping, be aware while sleeping. If you
sleep, be aware! Don’t be just like a sluggish bear sleeping. Put
the trick of yoga
into it.
This
is my new commentary on this Bhagavad
Gītā.
Yuktāhāra
vihārasya yuktaceṣṭasya karmasu.
When you have to do activities of the daily routine of your life, do
all of the daily routine of life, but don’t lose your internal
yoga.
At the same time, you [should] go on practicing inside.
DENISE:
You
mean watching your breath. SWAMIJI: Watching
your breath and don’t be taken by these activities of life, the
daily routine of life.
Yukta
svapnā,
and when you dream, go into dreams with awareness. When you dream,
you will enter into samādhi
at the time of dreaming state; you won’t go into the dreaming
state. At that time, you will go into samādhi
while dreaming.
Yukta
svapna āvabodhasya,
and when you are awake, be awake with yoga.
Yogo
bhavati duḥkha,
then yoga
is very easy; everywhere yoga
is available to you. This is my commentary, new commentary. And this
is Abhinavagupta’s new commentary. You should know that. So I had
to [make an] amendment on this commentary.
yogo’sti
naivātyaśato na caikāntamanaśnataḥ /
na
cātisvapnaśīlasya nātijāgarato’rjuna
//17//
[repeated]
Yukta means yujaryoge.
According to Pāṇini’s grammar, yukta
means “with yoga”.
Attach yoga
to all of your activities of the daily routine of life and yoga
will be very easily achieved. Yoga
cannot be achieved [by remaining] in one corner. If you lock your
door from the outside and sit, you will just be wasting your time
inside. You will be . . . “idles workshop is demons . . .” what?
DENISE: Idle
mind is devil’s workshop?
JONATHAN: Devil’s
playground. Idle workshop is devil’s playground.
SWAMIJI: Yes. Don't do like that. Come out in the field and see yoga!
____________
186
“Then who is the real yogī
then? Yuktāhāravihārasya,
you should take food in less quantity. You should do your worldly
activity, [but] very little activity. Don’t become victim of your
business. Yuktaceṣṭasya
karmasu,
don’t think too much. Think very little. Not thinking at all,
anything, that is not [advisable either]–yoga
won’t take place. Think a little. Think of something, but not too
much. Yuktasvapnāvabodhasya,
and go to dreaming state also, but not always. Yogo
bhavati duhkha,
for that person, yogabecomes
successful and very easy to be obtained. Those actions should be done
in moderate way. Don’t see pictures day and night, always. See
pictures after a fortnight. That is good, that will lead you to yoga.
But [if you are] not seeing pictures at all, [then] those pictures
will leak in your mind then, and you will be filled with pictures in
your mind. So do something, but very little, in moderation. Don’t
be too much attached to it [and] don’t be detached to it at the
same time. Detachment [and] attachment should be done moderately, in
a moderate way.” Ibid.
