Glass smooth

Memories that used to tear me apart are swirling glass smooth on the dark surface of my consciousness.

As we dance

How strange it is that others seem to progress via sadhana from illusion to perfect form--the goal of sadhana--while I progress from form as illusion to the perfect chaos of all forms in One.

I feel, I dance. Only now.

I fall apart, fall to earth, lost again, conquered by what is most petty, ego's sure advance, retaking all ground.

Then it starts again, the perfect dance, with no form, spontaneous, coming up from within.

I don't need to know anything at all, except the bliss, the divine that transcends "in" and "out."

The continuum is not divided in any way.

God is so close, there is no gap between us. The energy of all holds my consciousness as we dance.

Sacred wild

Something is happening to me and I don't know what it is.

I am upended. Becoming.

I am sad. My purpose includes losing my attachment to my purpose, to the way that it is fashioned in my mind.

Free to be wild. Sacred wild. Wild to be free. Lord Krishna is God as this principle to me. Subversive anarchy.

Trade everything

This is my story.

My mind is poised at all times to fixate on ways to be that are fulfilling and spiritual, or even just very alive. No more of the emptiness that has filled most of my life. This was my life's goal.

My mind is always searching, always ready. It is motivated beyond all things to try to shape all of my activities and thoughts into a new life, one that is consistent, that doesn't require struggle and effort to avoid collapsing back into the emptiness, the waiting.

I want to have, to be. Not feel lack and emptiness. I will trade everything else for this, my entire life. I bargain with life. "I will give up everything just to have this one thing."

This part of me is restless. If something good happens, my mind steps right in. "How can I do this all the time? How can I structure it into my life?" My mind is like a snapping turtle, ready to grab on and not let go for anything.

This is the opposite of freedom. It is illusion. It gets in the way, because I allow my mind to chase what I am absorbing in the moment, trying to make it permanent. Poof, the goodness detected disappears. I can be sitting listening to a profound talk about prana on YouTube, and I can't hear it anymore because my mind steps in. "I need to find a master like this, to sit at their feet, to learn, to ask and to learn. I could do that, I wonder if there are any in Las Vegas. I should start searching right now to find out..."

Meanwhile, I am not listening. I only made it about 2 and 1/2 minutes into a ten minute talk.

"The Relationship between Prana & Sound" - A Talk by Swami Satchidananda

Consciousness check

S H O R T

Guru, worship

I see the world from within myself, a transparent play

I see my attachments as illusion and futile, painful

I withdraw my senses, hold my shakti

I love my appetites, and slip off the hook

Shanti shanti shanti

Brahmacharini tapasya,
the unmarried version of Parvati

L O N G

Choose the world of the subtle body... inside... falling backward...

See the world from within...


Now, instead of concepts and story...

Breath, mantra... posture, subtle body...

Floating, meditation...

Love and worship and longing...


My Self, my Guru, Lord Krishna...

Mata Durga, Sree Parvati, Maa Brahmacharini

Paramashiva, who is Shree Kundalini at play...

Love and worship, longing and consciousness...

Now.

Brahmacharini tapasya to become one with Shiva

The beautiful consciousness

Horse pucky! How to make progress, what to do to call grace.... what to do. NO.

I need to master doing like I need a hole in the head.

I am, the Self is my truth, which I can feel at any time, because of grace, exquisite grace.

Someday-at any moment-I may become "established" in the Self, able to experience the truth in every moment.

I am a traveler in the beautiful consciousness of God, as me and as everything. My dance of bliss and travail offered to Lord Krishna is my treasure. I knew it years ago when I looked at my past with new eyes and realized it was all a precious strand of pearls with everything I ever wanted in it.

Passion, strength, being devoured, becoming again, crying with my soul, yearning and yearning for magic, for an awakened life.

I wanted an awakened life, which I am living now, in this moment.

This is my truth. This is what is true, the dance. And it only exists in now.

I was sleeping before

An excerpt from the Dakshinamurti Stotram, a hymn to Shiva composed by Adi Shankara (Vedanta), a concise rendering of the teachings of the Vedas and an expression of gratitude to He who makes one realize these truths.

Mrityunjaya Stotram shloka six

Rāhugrasta-divākarendu-sadṛsho māyāsamācchādanātSanmātraḥ karaṇopasaṁharaṇato yo'bhūtsuṣuptaḥ pumān .Prāgasvāpsamiti prabodhasamaye yaḥ pratyabhijñāyateTasmai śrīgurumūrtaye nama idaṁ śrīdakṣiṇāmūrtaye .. 6..

Like the eclipsed sun and the moon, covered by Maya, one sleeps after withdrawing his senses into that self. To him who on awakening makes one realize that "I was sleeping before", to that Dakshinamurti, the teacher, I offer my salutations.

Adapted from: vishnuvkblog.blogspot.in/2015/02/dakshinamurti-stotram

Adi Shankara was an early 8th century Indian philosopher and theologian who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta. He is credited with unifying and establishing the main currents of thought in Hinduism. 

Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara

Melt

The things that used to spin me around now melt beneath my languid gaze.




Photo of Lyda Borelli

My "go to" contemplation

My "go to" dharana/dhyana. My focus and practice. My contemplation. 

My "go to" dhyana is to nudge myself out of multiplicity. I experience myself as formless, unlimited consciousness, the knower, and everything else a play of consciousness on the screen of life, the known. The play normally seems three-dimensional because of the magic of maya.

Inherent in this contemplation is acknowledging that the projection of maya cannot satisfy/protect me, or cause lack/harm me. Thinking otherwise is bondage. 

I want freedom. I see myself "unlatching" from the screen of the world going by. I let the illusion of satisfaction and lack slip away. It becomes a dance of light. And I choose freedom, the source. The real prize.

I can only do this because of the grace of my guru, because I have received shaktipat.

Step well

I also use my mind to slip out from the experience of multiplicity. When I am in this state, I experience Oneness, One without second. A singularity. My awareness resides in the great consciousness, the only Self. Immediately I am filled with great bliss.

I can reshape my consciousness like this for several moments at a time. 

An interesting aside is that my ability to shape my own consciousness was greatly improved by my years in Wicca, where "spells" are created by this containing and shaping of awareness, a discipline and practice that grows in effectiveness over time.

I also use this skill as a writer of fiction.

Swami Lakshmanjoo:

The word dhyana means “contemplation.” It is another mode in anavopaya (a means of enlightenment). Dhyana is contemplation on some point.  

There are different forms of dhyana. For example, you are practicing dhyana when you contemplate on the lotus in your heart, or on the meaning of some mantra such as the mantra “so’ham” or the mantra “Shiva.”  

This is a higher form of anavopaya because it is contemplation without any shape, without any form. If you were to contemplate on Lord Shiva as having a particular form, a particular shape, that is a lower form of anavopaya. It is contemplation with form.

Source: Kashmir Shaivism, The Secret Supreme, by Swami Lakshmanjoo
All Content is subject to Copyright © Universal Shaiva Fellowship, John Hughes.

Be the awareness

Realization isn't about getting from point A to point B, from now to the goal. I am ever traversing everything in between, all in an endlessly varied order. God's will is unfettered. 

Maya plays. All of this doesn't look like God because of the magic of maya.

To continue to (pursue illusion and) swim with or against the current, to strive to control or change this in one way or another, causes karma and pain.

Accept grace. Look at the known (objects that make up the play) with the knower's eyes. Be the awareness.

Mantras for Diwali

Beautiful, contemplative mantras for the celebration of Diwali