The moment of freedom

Freedom is essential for a yogini. It is not an ideal to fight for, to defend. It is not a happy consequence of "living free" in one's life and choices.

Freedom for me means the last tug before the samskara is pulled off, the gasp as new energy pours in, healing and renewing my subtle body, freeing me, a release I can feel.

Once I endured it. Now I welcome it, open to it, flow with it. Freedom.

Established in the truth

Severus Snape sacrificed himself to all that unfolded around him, remaining a part of everything sacred and profane. His unique service was to remain present in the events he was born to inhabit with no promise of outcome or reward.

I can turn my senses completely inward almost entirely at will now (with the support of grace, always). And I can sit like this while consciousness as movement surrounds me. It isn't a struggle, I don't have to regain the same amount of ground to get there.

I think of this as one, I identify with the One, and I am completely in the present, an eternal moment of bliss.

Give me an ocean and I'll turn this ship around. I've come back to the halfway point in the grand circle. When I search for the story in what is here, I notice, and stop. This includes the story of how I will become realized. Yup.

This just is. I don't want any of these karmas. The price is too high. The price is now, and now is where all that is most precious lives. The magical things I've dreamed of since childhood.

It is my guru's intention that I become established in the moment as Supreme Joy. Her grace carries me and I am amazed, shocked really, at how much she is giving me now.

Many need sadhana for attainment. This is a sweet path. But my sadhana is to be in the moment. To accept, all of this. I don't have to overcome anything.

Equipoise is freedom. Once I tasted this freedom, it all began to unravel, all of what I once thought of as important.

This is my form of discipline. It means almost always moving my previous activities–sadhana in all of its forms–gently aside. Don't struggle. Don't reach. Allow. Be.

This is not a mental exercise. I did not think it up, either. It is happening to me. It is real.

I am becoming established in the truth.

Only Guru's grace

To me, bhumisparsha means touching, standing upon
the witness of the earth, the unchanging truth

There is only one being here. This is all One pretending to be many.

This is not a know. It is there when I get my mind (story) out of the way.

It is my experience. A now made of incredible bliss.

How? Guru's grace. Only guru's grace.

To me, Bhumisparsha means seeking only, and grounded only in truth

It is real

Happy, so happy, contentment that none can take away.

I know now it is the gift of my guru. There is nothing to do except love her and acknowledge her grace.

I can stop my mind analyzing. I can stop it slipping into the past or the future.

I finally realized the yantra I see when I close my eyes is something to take the help of when I open them. Sri Kundalini, the voice of my Lord, beckons to me. Be free... be free....

Sri Yantra

I have never gazed at a yantra before, but this one quiets my mind and centers me in the inner stillness, what is real. Then I look about and rejoin maya already in progress. I look at it at various times throughout the day, slipping back into meditation.

I want to be established in this, what is real.

Things that I have spent hours and years on, creating new karmas of concern, worry, perfectionism... I focus this clear consciousness on them and add the willingness to let them go, gently nudging them, slipping them off of me, off of my mind.

Nudge.... slip. I watch them dissolve. They seldom return. They slip away as I stay in the now.

If this takes more than a nudge, I stop. To push on it is a do, it creates story, my mind takes it up, and new karmas begin. No more.

Your words are pure nectar...

My guru's shakti. My guru's shakti. It permeates my subtle body as profound bliss and love. Sometimes I gasp when so much playful bliss pushes up through me... bliss, bliss, bliss.

My physical body sways slightly, completely relaxed. I breathe a little deeper. Every breath.

My guru's shakti. It is an infinite gift. She gives to me. She is giving me everything, all that there is to give. I don't know why.

I am giving her my everything. She is dissolving all that I no longer think of as me. I think enough has been dissolved that the bottom has dropped out. Lucky me!

It is the best experience, beyond any description or measure.

I no longer question, as I have obsessively questioned everything, all of my life.

I no longer question. It is real.

Brother Eknath, I touch your feet

Withdraw to become

There came that tiny moment... a few seconds... when I gave it up, the lifelong obsession.

I will not control this place. I cannot find my place in this world.

There is no place.

This obsession is useless, worse than useless. It is never going to work.

I let go. It was the first time in this lifetime. I chose to completely let go for a few seconds.

Maybe I can do this... maybe I can actually drop the "reins" that I thought would save me. And the illusion hit the dust with a tiny, subtle "puh" sound of release.

My being felt a shift, a sea change.

Only God? Yes. Let this go.

I choose without reaching, let go of the inner goal of control. Yes. Each time the inner transformation expands again, and is more profound.

Others may find their enlightenment in increased participation in the world, as seva, as love. I am (the) other. I withdraw to become. I am alone.

I see a shimmering, swimming ocean of golden shakti. I laugh a lot. I feel good, I feel bad. I try to control. I don't. On to the next moment.

I cannot be destroyed nor even delayed by circumstance. My whole life has been about fighting circumstance in order to make up for tragedy and loss. My life is still a mess in many ways. How thrilling it is to finally unshoulder the burden, this useless obsession!

Now, this is living. It is possible for me to not fight this anymore. Grace.

I want what is real. I always have. I have craved it all my life, which felt so empty, a whispy reflection of something undefinable, essential, missing.

It is right action to take care of myself, and to offer this action as sacrifice (to God).

I give up the obsession that I can finally decide what will happen.

Not an intellectual change. Not by thinking it. Not by obeying some rule. Simply by letting it be in me. It is. I have uncovered this reality on the clutter clearing path of sadhana.

What? My survival does not depend on fixing my world. Finally, this truth has taken hold in me. I can choose this, it is growing in my consciousness. I keep wanting it more than the obsession. Freedom. Reality. Truth.

This is where life is going on.

I have heard Lord Krishna's wisdom, and aspired to his powerful yogas. But it has taken so many years to finally have a moment where I say:

"I let go, I release my obsession, it feels terrifying, but I must take a stand. I will not fight what is, pursue what is not. I choose freedom. I renounce delusion. I will."

Lord Krishna as Narayana, one with the sacred waters of the ocean,
and of the sacred river, the place between worlds

BHAGAVAD GITA ~ Lord Krishna's teachings on Divine Yoga    

Chapter three: Karma Yoga (excerpt, emphasis mine)

A person does not escape karma by just not doing anything. It is not through mere renunciation that one achieves perfection. 

It is better to do one’s own duty imperfectly than to do the duty of another well. It is better even to die doing one’s own duty; the duty of another is perilous. 

Giving up attachment, perform actions as a practice of yoga, Arjuna. Be the same whether you are successful or unsuccessful; this equanimity is what is called yoga. 

Arjuna, action alone is much inferior to action done with the yoga of understanding. Take refuge in understanding; those driven by the pursuit of results are pathetic. 

With one’s mind disciplined in understanding, one transcends here both good and bad acts. So devote yourself to yoga. Yoga is skillfullness in actions. 

One who does what needs to be done while remaining unattached to the results of this action is a true renouncer and a yogi, not the one who has merely abandoned the sacrificial fire or eschews religious rites. 

Everyone in this world is bound by actions unless they are done as sacrifices. So perform action with that as the purpose, Arjuna, freed from attachment. 

I accept as an offering of devotion even just a leaf, a flower, a piece of fruit, or a water offering which has been presented to me with devotion by the devout. 

Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you sacrifice, whatever you give, whatever kind of austerities you perform, do that as an offering to me, Arjuna. 

All actions are done just by the qualities of nature, but one who is deluded by the ego thinks, “I am the doer.” 

But, Arjuna, one who knows the true nature of the distinctions between actions and qualities, and who thinks, ‘Qualities depend on other qualities,’ he is not attached. 

One who sees inaction in action and action in inaction has understanding among men, disciplined in all actions he performs.  

How I love you, sweet Krishna

I am returning

I feel as though I have a hidden cache of the solution to every problem, the solution to even having problems. That which my soul craves. All I have ever dreamed of, longed for, felt a soul-stinging lack of, lamented with no relief, none.

Oh yes, I whisper to myself every time I reach for all that I have ever desired, here in my soul.

I carry the living shakti of my Lord, paramashiva. He lives in my heart. He isn't in my mind, (except as mind), I don't perceive him with my senses, though I do feel the emanating bliss of the eternal flowing through me in waves.

This is real. Not because I decided it is.

I have chased so many things in this life. But I only found the idea of all of these things, including God. I loved God so much as a teen, but I felt separated from God, empty and profoundly unfulfilled. I tried everything, tried escape in fiction. Everything was bright, shining cardboard. I felt so empty.

Look, I say to myself. This treasure... This universe without end in my heart. The gift of shaktipat, of endless love and shakti. Thank you...

And I slip into it like dark, cloudy cotton, like fresh and fragrant sheets, so cool. I slip into the chosen place between two worlds, the place where I become.

My treasure. There... whenever I reach for it. It doesn't go away!

When I offer pillow mantra. When I mediate throughout the day, my eyes open meditation. Always there, whenever I reach out (in).

I am rich beyond every need or desire, so far beyond any, any.

God lives in me. God answers my touches with bliss and more bliss. The bliss is changing me, dissolving me.

I love this inner darkness measured by light years of travel, of flowing, of not moving as the universe dances around me. Not as thoughts. Not detected by the senses. A living reality, my source.

I am accepting the gift of freedom. I am becoming free. I am returning. I am home.

How not to make story out of now

Everything stopped, it all went away. No more of my guru's shakti carrying me as I learn, helping me to hold my state.

I was overcome with old feelings I've learned to hold back with the practiced discipline of my mind. Anxiety. Fear.

I desperately wanted to figure out what went wrong, what I did wrong. I indulged in a certain amount of this, but then stopped because I could only make something up. I stopped each time before I started obsessing on it. Because that path always leads to my ego's indulgences: self-loathing and self-pity, which I do not do anymore.



Slowly it has all come back. The love, the bliss, my state. I am on a different footing with my sadhana. And I have learned something new: How to not make story out of now.

The habit of my mind is to figure out what is happening as part of a larger story, in relationship to what was and what might be.

Really. I mean really... I haven't a clue.

I wobble about in my mind, like riding a churning wave that is trying to slip me off my center, into the constant guesswork mistaken for reality, the fabrication that makes it all make sense.

I hold my mind still. I keep coming back to the place of stillness. My mind is unsettled, it keeps trying. This is not an intellectual exercise. It is equipoise.

I haven't a clue where it's all going. Ha!!

Shubh Divali!

Diwali is such a special time of wonder and delight. I wish you the most magical and delightful Diwali!

Cancer sun, Cancer moon. Aquarius rising.

To me feelings are everything. They are truth. They are who I am. (I am a double Cancer, after all).

The feelings are so beautiful. The bliss.

Oh no, the feelings went away.

Oh! Totally new thought. Feelings come and go, they are not the purpose or measure of sadhana. Trying to control them, to get them to stay in the bliss, that is not sadhana.

What if I grow, become established in the Self no matter how I feel and how I am faring on the ocean of samsara? Hmmmmm.

Just stop. Stop trying to herd things around.

THIS IS HUGE.

Ha hahah ahaha. Where's the remote?

Rossy de Palma. Style.

Waris loves you. Style.

Life is like the landlady: kicks butt without EVER removing her cigarette

That's me whimpering in the corner LOL

Oh no, what have I done? No no no. Hahh  ahahaha a.

Oh well, darn. Time for more of this guy (where's the remote?)

A different day

The step is different, it starts a different moment, a different day.

A step outside of story, history or time.

Now. The little step that embraces freedom, free because I experience just this, the place that dreams of this, but I am more.

God can be anything, paramashiva is not fettered in any way. He/she takes Her pleasure by becoming everything. I am one version of so very many that can be.

My story includes shedding my story, at just the pace and delight of my Beloved, finding Him just so, in just this way. It is a beautiful, delicate dance that includes the liberating fire of karma to purify me, to render me as essence, intention and love.

I finally understand why the story doesn't end as soon as I know who I am. What happens after I know who I am is part of the story, the best part.

I honor my Beloved's delight in me, taking me back at last. I am finding my way back to Him. In this and every moment, we are already One.

Still point

“At the still point, there the dance is.”  —T. S. Eliot