My place in your heart

I'm still wandering out here, God.

You were these walls, the bed that held me. Now I am empty, I hold nothing.

Peaceful I moved then, as if your hand had made me. Now I'm old and crunchy; there is no relief for my condition. There is no relief.

God, I cannot even pray. I can finally speak on a page, and think I must send it somewhere for you to receive my words.

This is life. I accept this place of contraction. It is part of what happens here. Until it doesn't.

Acceptance is what I can do. Acceptance brings me back to your heart, my place in your heart.

My Beloved.

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. 

Only One

Someone stole $100 dollars from me. I watched it unfold, and by the time I realized it, my money was theirs.

Mentally I was calm. I made a note how to avoid this in the future. It's over with and I've moved on.

Physically and emotionally, I rode a HUGE pile of karma that burned up in me in less than a day, pure feeling. What a ride.

Slicked off that karma in one grand motion.

There is only One.

Grace... remember

For the first time, I have gone for weeks without posting. I do have other online projects that I have been taking a little vacation from as well.

My guru has been supporting an ecstatic chanting tour in Australia with her intention and shakti, and of course, all of her devotees have been receiving an amazing outpouring of her grace and bliss.

A part of these times of plenty is to learn how to hold the shakti, to be steady in mind, to practice discrimination, and to remain in the now, where I can experience my guru and her shakti as one with me and paramashiva.

Predictably, I thought I had reached a new level of attainment. I'm still learning this lesson!!

Next time this happens, I have to remember: It is all guru's grace. She is teaching me with her grace. Follow her grace to the guru and the source. 

Claiming grace as attainment is not the way to be with my Beloved.

The source

I am reaching for something, something juicy.... and then I realize that I need not reach at all, that the source is right here inside of me. 

I choose the source, and I am never again without.

This is not an exercise or technique. It happens within me, every day I am a little more about the source, and less about the shiny reflections.

The real beloved is your beginning and your end.

When you find that one,

you will no longer expect anything else.

~ Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

(1207-1273)

Grace is here

Everything is here in this moment. There is nothing I need to stop, nothing to hold onto, do better or more of.

Grace is here.

This is the opposite of technique or practice.

My consciousness in this moment is the place of opening to God.

Sudden gush

Love is my teacher; I am mystified.

Love is never feigned, did Shakespeare say that? Now I know what it means.

Love comes to me, and I am tilting, reaching as I fall... I am useless; so little of what I am knows how to respond. Love comes to me. My mechanisms grind, I am dashed like defeat onto these aimless, time-worn steps... and I cannot try, trying is not love.

Love has been many things, many people to me. They are all here, stirring, unfolding, swimming in my heart. The knots that bind my heart stretch and ache, the sudden gush a rumor, a fantasy.

All that I know, all that I can do, is whisper your name.

"Ash...?" Paramashiva...

Gold

I am not a limited being trying to use my mind to merge into God

I am an unlimited being slipping out of my mind

Ha!

Sail on

I feel like I've been squeegeed off, a big life-sized wad of karmas slicked off by tapasya and guru's grace.

How do I know? I feel terror, and notice it. I feel confusion, and I am... confused.

I let go of objects, and gravity reaches out, a sudden, eloquent mess... great fun! I am laughing. I am cursing. I am not slipping on it.

My entire orientation has shifted.

I was oriented to winning, succeeding, feeling better, avoiding, controlling, finding out, living better, getting, having, holding on to.

Now I see those currents flowing by, but I am not letting them pull me along, pull me into them, lulled into mental "action" by the magic of maya, the delusion that I am acting, and being acted on.

I am a maze of shifting patterns, some smooth, some bumpy, shakti in flow, bouncing over all that old stuff like a waverider on a choppy sea.

Guru's grace in my sail.... I just keep saying yes to her grace.

When everything changes, again, and all the good happy sadhini yogini feelings go right in the drink...

I smile, and my freedom is far more important.

A minute, a second ago will yank me if I don't let go. It's better to let go, to sail on.

Only love

There is no other. There is only One... One without second.

My Beloved is that One. Everything in my life has been only thinking, only sensing.

When I find my Beloved inside, the moment becomes real. I have been passing the time in my head. Not with the Beloved.

I don't know what to do, how to not do. I waver over and over between the place where I have always been, and this new place that has opened in me, where my right and purpose awaits.

I am learning, the teacher is divine love.

To love and worship the Beloved requires passion and soul. It requires one hundred percent of whatever I am. More.

Anything less and I slip back into my head, having a conversation with myself about things that no longer exist, that have slipped away.

When I feel the touch of my Beloved, I must.... MUST immediately offer the equivalent of a full pranam at my guru's feet. There can be no shyness or prevarication.

Divine love demands everything, no holding back, no forgetting for awhile, no becoming haphazard or casual.

Love has become my purpose. I offer everything to my Beloved. I burn with this love, and with the pain of separation. It has become my everything.

Every feeling of fulfillment and joy I have ever missed or craved is mine when I have surrendered everything to my Beloved. Anything less is waiting for what is most desired and is a waste of time.

This is my path. Everyone's path is different. I have found my way to God at last.

A jnani turned by divine magic into a bhakti. A living change, not a philosophy or technique. A complete change in the field of my life, where I am, what is possible.

Only love.

This is my path.

"The real beloved is your beginning and your end.

When you find that one,

you will no longer expect anything else."

~ Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

(1207-1273)

Yes I am

Who knew? That I could step back from all of this. Could return every time I reach for maya, tiring illusion, nothing back, negotiating with fate.

It seems obvious, but I have been going about life all wrong. I mean all wrong.

I remember... deciding to change myself when I was very young.

I am burning these moments, a lifetime of moments now, when I was wrapped in maya, so close and so concentrated that it is painful to feel it again, the belief that I was wanting and needing, acting and seeking. Ohh I complain as each memory slips through me like smoke through a fan. I am burning that.

I am burning the belief that all of this is happening to me.

I turn away, I have been wasting my energy, my moments, trying to get somewhere, be something I am not.

Step away.

Step away.

I turn inward, where a place of no place awaits me. A personal, tender universe with no beginning or end... I settle into this never... an inky black hush that has always been.

This is what is real. That is not, is never. That happened, that will happen. No substance, a construct of my mind, contracted consciousness.

I do not regret, I do not hope.

I don't hold on or seek.

I am still. This is where I feel the touch of God, my source, my already here, my now.

Be mine.

I will.

You are good.

Yes I am.