Day after Thanksgiving Musings

Weather patterns have changed around the globe and India is not immune. As I sit here by the window, sipping my chai and looking out at a shrouded Mt. Arunachala, I cannot tell if this is monsoon rain or not. It has been raining relentlessly since early yesterday evening. My braided rug just inside my front door is soaking wet. The thick wooden door was no match for the driving wind and rain.

I planned on going to the Internet café at 9am when they opened and sending off some email and uploading some musings I wrote last night. It is now 2:12pm and there is no sign of the rain stopping, so I content myself to stay in and peer out of my window through the bars. I contemplate what prison might feel like, looking through bars all the time. In the rain, my temple is indeed a cell, albeit a nice one.

So far today, I’ve practiced the 32 Names of Durgaa, listened to the story of the Gayathri Mantra and chanted it, and transcribed the Shanti Mantras. I have also sailed the maiden voyage with my pressure cooker. Wow, that pot is a bizarre contraption. Steam explodes from the valve when it gets to max pressure. The manual calls it a whistle. That’s no freakin’ whistle, that’s a wet belch! The top gets all icky with the contents of the pot mixed with the steam. Not sure if it’s defective or it’s just messy. The rice turned out edible, if not quite delicious. I misread the instructions about the quantity of water and I got scared and turned it off after the first belch. I re-read the instructions a few times, figured it was safe, and fired it back up for about four more belches, all the while fearing for my head. I must remember to get salt and milk to make butter.

I’m about to load the 32 Names of Durgaa into Audacity and slow it down to facilitate memorization. I understand the benefits of learning at full speed, and I also need to hear the syllables clearly. Once I get the syllables and meter down, I’ll practice it at full speed.

I find it amusing that I have a table and chairs for eating here and I have not had that luxury in my last six years in Seattle. I like eating at a table! I hereby resolve to resolve that issue in my next US abode.

My ashram is on the outskirts of civilization here, as it were. I suppose you could say I’m in the suburbs, but I prefer to think I’m on the fringe. There are large houses going up on two sides, but mostly there are fields and I love hearing the voices of the children echoing as they call to each other in the rain. I can hear the traffic from the main road, but it’s much quieter when it rains. Most people just stay in. I can see from my window perch that my path is underwater and the grass looks like a rice paddy. There are actual rice paddies on the back way between Sara’s flat and mine. They are a beautiful shade of green.

One of my new friends, Mark, just took Sara’s flat for the rest of the season. As soon as he described the lovely energy of the place, I knew it was hers. He’s one of the blokes keen on developing the farm and community and I’m glad he’s in there.

I’m feeling called both to Mysore and to Varanasi to study. One of the things I was going to do today was to investigate transport to both locations and weather in Varanasi. I think it gets to the 90’s in December in Varanasi, so it should be warm enough. I suspect, like usual, where I go next will depend on whether or not I can obtain transport. The rain is Arunachala’s way of telling me to sit tight for a while. It’s not time for me to venture out yet.

~ Break for Audacity ~

Now the 32 Names of Durgaa have been sliced out of the broader talk, then diced into files of their own, two for each of the three separate meters. There is a full speed version and a slowed down version of each. The rain seems to have stopped for the moment, but the mountain is still shrouded in mist. It’s almost 4pm, time for the afternoon two hour power cut. The 10am two hour power cut didn’t materialize today, but we had a short, 20 minute one at noon. Never can tell around here. Yes, there goes the power. I think the rain is coming again...

Hello Again From India!

Wow, it's been almost 17 months since I last posted. Life in Seattle was very full on and fast and much has happened in those 17 months. I may fill in some back story here on this blog, or I may not. I'm back in Thiruvannamalai, India, quite suddenly. At the beginning of September, I did not know I was coming. I thought I would be coming next in Nov 2012, but the Universe had other plans, as She often does, so here I am.

Here is a random list of observations and musings over my first week back in India, in no particular order:

There are more pigs in the streets than before, and they startle easily; same goes for turkeys.

There are more domesticated dogs than I remember and the wild dogs are quite cheeky!

Not nearly as many men walk around holding hands. That is disappointing.

There is much more traffic of all types, but especially big, earth moving machines, which I find quite unsettling.

The roads are in much worse disrepair (and I didn’t think that was possible).

There’s way more wind than I remember; the nightly windstorms are quite fierce.

It’s cooler at night than I remember.

The sadhus are quite aggressive in their begging.

The local population seems much more willing to engage with Westerners, or at least with me.

I’m less enamoured with India than I usually am. Perhaps being in school and not being allowed to let go of the West has something to do with that. 3 more days…

I’m reminded of part of James’ teaching from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras over the summer about not trying to recreate something from the past; instead to surrender and open to what’s here now. That’s when samadhi can happen, in true surrender. I am resisting the temptation to try to force Tiru to feel like it felt to me the other three times I was here. It simply doesn’t feel that way to me this time. Much of the time I’m successful at that, other times I’m not.

Power cuts 3 times a day seems excessive.

My body is much stronger physically than the other times I was here.

I got sick much sooner this time. Oh India, land of paradox.

The networks and associations of people operate like gangs sometimes.

Love knows no boundaries of time or distance.

My friends feel like jewels that I wear in open backed Vedic style rings on my fingers. Their uniqueness is priceless and quite elegant. One in particular feels like a deep green emerald. What a treasure!

Bhaktananda Ashram is now a networked with a sustainable cooperative community which is engaged in organic biodynamic farming and building ecofriendly structures with solar power. It’s loosely based on Sadhana Forest near Auroville. I’m going to tour Sadhana Forest with other community members soon.

Some things have radically changed and some things have stayed the same and sometimes I can’t tell which is which.

I left here a seeker and came back a leader and that’s the biggest mindfuck so far.

My hair absolutely loves it here and is a flowing mane of lusciousness. Now that’s something I’ve never said in all my 50 years.

I discovered I was afraid of Saraaswati. That news came during my second kirtan here. I know so little about music that I feel ashamed with my crude offerings. Suddenly, I realized I was the one judging, not Her, and relaxed into Her embrace. It was sweet.

Power cuts in the evening are my favourite time of day. People gather outside and talk about life and the Universe and plans and dreams, or stargaze in the dark. It’s quite lovely. I get a little sad when the lights come back on and people disperse back into their lives.

Cooking for myself in India is the bee’s knees!

I don’t know why I’m here in India. Sometimes I don’t care and just let it be. Other times I’m like a dog with a bone, gnawing on it. Letting it be is much nicer.

I feel like there are two Indias: North and South. They are very different. I miss North India a lot. By the time I get there, I will be done with the South. Wonder if I’ll miss South India when I’m in the North? I really think it would have been good to get my fix of the North first, like I had planned, but the Universe didn’t agree. Don’t want to waste my time in the South pining for the North and missing what is beautiful here. That’s just silly and wasteful. Be here now, Devi Dear.

Vera is coming!!!

Jordi is coming!!!

Sanjay is coming!!!

I’m not putting any expectations on reunions with friends, I’m letting them be what they will. We’ve all changed since we’ve seen each other last.

I may be a renunciant after all, considering that I’ve given up just about everything in my life to be here. Is it possible to be a hedonist renunciant? It must be, as that would be me. Are there more of us on the planet? I’d love to find others.

I know life is good when I get a popup reminder to explore the features of my laptop that I put off when I first got it, and I click YES because I am happy, comfortable, and I have all the time in the world.

The ants here are carnivorous and quite impressive with the teamwork. They started out by carrying out spiders, but a few days ago the carted a praying mantis out of here that was about 50 times their size like it was nothing. I felt bad for the praying mantis. I liked that it came and prayed on my wall hanging of Laxmi. I have a wary respect for the ants. I sometimes wonder if I’ll awaken in the night being carried out on my back, like the praying mantis, by the wee beasties. We have a tentative agreement: they stay out of my stuff and I allow them to carry out their sacred duties. When they violate their part of the agreement, I get to kill them. They pretty much stick to it with a few violations.

Jet Airways is a great international airline. It’s not quite as spotless and bright as Asiana, but the seat bottoms moved forward when the seats reclined, there was individual entertainment on the seat backs, real silverware came with a very tasty dinner, breakfast came with a hot wet face cloth, and after breakfast there was ice cream! Hard frozen solid ice cream bars! It was my second flight and a code share with American Airlines and put the comfort of that American Airlines flight to shame. That said, it was a 10 hour flight and my legs and ankles still haven’t recovered fully. I have a 15 hour leg on the way home and will definitely need to get out of my seat and walk more.

More soon.

Namasté
Devi

Time Portals

I was on my way to my New Thought Roots class one Monday night just before I moved a few weeks ago. I was picking up boxes off of Freecycle in the U District and looked at my watch as I was stuffing them in my back seat at 6:13. I started to drive to class and realized I was very hungry. I thought, "Oh well, I'll just be hungry, I need to be at class by 6:30 and I'm already going to be late". Something inside me went "NO". So, I decided I had all the time I needed and was not going to rush and I would get something to eat. I drove over to Wallingford, got two Dick's Deluxe burgers and a milkshake, ate them while driving and was parallel parking in Madison Valley at 6:28. I told the class during my check-in that opening portals was my new super power. They were amazed and asked me how I did all that in that time frame. I just said, "I knew I could, so I did."

More recently, I was sitting in a White Tantric meditation at Summer Solstice and had to hold postures and mudras and chant for 62 minutes. When I treated each iteration of the chant as the only moment in time, time opened up and I was aware of the effortless eternity of "now". I never thought I could sit for 62 minutes without moving, but I did and it was so powerful! Whole days seemed like minutes. The same thing happened that allowed me to drive for 12 and 13 hours a day.

After Solstice, I went to the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram in Taos. My last morning there, I led a mala of Gayatri while playing my harmonium in the Hanuman Temple. I sank into the "now" of it and all of a sudden, I was back on the ghats in Rishikesh on my 2nd River of Sound tour with Ginaji. We were in a state of ecstasy and she tackled me in the river and we both came up to the surface giggling and whooping. It wasn't a memory, I was *there*. I then went to Varanassi and revisited events there, to Tiruvannamalai and also visited myself and family back in Richmond in the mid '80's.

Judge Thomas Troward, a founder of New Thought, says that the totality of eternity is available in every second and in every point in space. I think that's why these portals show up when I'm focused on the present moment. Time does exist there, ALL of time and All of space. That's where everything is possible. Deepak Chopra talks about it a lot, I think he calls it the causal realm, but I'm not sure.

Surface and Depth

I feel like I've been posting a lot of fluff lately in my facebook status updates, which isn't my norm. I've had profound shifts on this trip that have shaken the bedrock of my existence, but I can't post about them yet. It feels weird to post fluff when a gaping chasm larger than the Grand Canyon has opened up in my consciousness and I'm dancing on a sheen of apparent reality at the surface, kind of like the surface of rainbow coloured soap bubbles.

I did manage to post a detailed answer to a question of Kimberly Ross's about time portals that I'm going to post as a stand alone blog post, because it's something I've been wanting to say and couldn't. At least the ability to answer questions is still intact, lol. I suspect I still need to integrate a lot and I have a strong need to be quiet. It's so good that I'm in a safe, loving environment with little to no responsibilities to process all this.

I feel intoxicated all the time, but the degree varies. Sometimes I feel so saturated in Love that I feel like my physical body may dissolve into it at any moment. My vision is blurry and my brain is not functioning in a linear manner. I feel like I need adult supervision when I leave the house. Just ask my daughter *grin* How does one lose their phone while pumping gas? I wasn't even using it! I'm on the Internet on my laptop for the first time in weeks (for a laptop junkie, that's saying a lot!) and it's the first time I've been able to even think about processing and uploading pix. Nothing technical appeals. After Kundalini yesterday, the intoxication sensation increased dramatically. I could barely key in the code for the Washington cherries I was buying at the self checkout. I was wandering around the store in a daze. It's a nice daze, but geez!

I don't know when or even if I'll be posting about the deeper stuff. I have no way of knowing. My inner guidance says to be it instead of talk about it. I've been getting the message about "actions speak louder than words" for a few months now and this takes it to a whole new level. It's all good, either way. I'm doing Kundalini meditation and singing and playing my harmonium every day and taking life as it comes with my daughter. At this point, it's all I have room for and it's enough. At least I got it together enough to post this and that feels good. So, for those of you who have asked me to keep you posted on my inner journey, there you have it. Whether or not there's more to come remains to be seen. Peace, out.






Me and Hari Singh, my newest ~Angel~. I am so grateful to have an entire flock of Divine beings, loving and guiding me along my path.

On the eve of my departure

There is a part of me that loves adventure (shocking, I know!). There is a stillness that occurs just before a new one starts. The wrapping up of loose ends is complete and there is time for contemplation. Contemplation of the chapter that is coming to a close and a savouring of the gifts that have been bestowed on me and my life.

Tomorrow is the end (for me) of my Roots of Science of Mind class. I present my final project then hit the road. My classmates all have one more week. I'm sad that I'll miss their final project presentations, as they are all amazing spiritual adventurers and this class has been quite intense for us all. Being immersed in such a highly focused, conscious and awake group for 9 weeks has heightened my communication with the etheric realms. I pretty much have a two way, always on communication channel open with Spirit. It's a good thing, because I'm not doing any of this work, I'm just the conduit. It's nice to have everything flow so effortlessly.

I agree with Colette's theory that we really don't know the source of the information we receive from the etheric. What I call God could really be my own Higher Self. I use a variety of names when I talk about it: Guides, Spirit, the Ma, God. I think it doesn't really matter and they are all interchangeable. What I do know is that the information contains Truth, so I heed it. I've learned by trial and error that it's in my best interests to follow it. It's why some people call me a great manifestor. It's not really me, I just follow orders.

So, on this eve of my departure, I'm remembering a conversation I had with the Ma on the banks of the Ganga in Varanassi in October 2008. I was getting ready to embark on another adventure, my first time being alone in India, and I was terrified. I felt so ungrounded and unsafe and was seriously questioning my sanity. The Ma took me in her arms and told me to relax. She said that I was always held in Her arms and She was going to introduce me to some wonderful people. She was right.

A few weeks ago, She came to me in the middle of chanting with my Kirtan Wednesday chanting sangha. She said "Look around the room, this is what I meant. It's not just India I was talking about." I gazed around the circle at my beloved friends and Love welled up in my heart and spilled out of my eyes. I am so grateful for all the beautiful beings in my life! I'm so glad I had faith and listened when She whispered into my heart.

As I prepare to leave on yet another adventure, my ego has learned enough to know that there's no need to freak out, thankfully. I'm comforted once again by the Ma's words, knowing I carry all my beloved friends in my heart as I journey and meet new people who will become beloved friends. Jai Ma!

My Blog Has A New Name

It's time for a makeover! My spiritual journey has evolved, and so has my blog. I'm gearing up to embark on an immersion into the Sikh practice of Kundalini Yoga and White Tantra as practiced by the followers of Yogi Bhajhan. I'll be spending 9 days in the desert of New Mexico delving deep. I got my first taste of White Tantra the day before Easter and I find it's the juice behind what I've learned so far about Nada Yoga. I am excited to be going deeper into this practice and sharing with you what I'm learning.

The Winter of 2009/2010 was a long dark night of the soul for me. I dismantled a lot of old, unhealthy patterns that were wired into my psyche. I have emerged on the other side stronger and more centered than I ever thought possible. There were times over the Winter that I didn't think I was going to survive the process and I'm glad I had the courage and faith to continue. The blessings have already been profound.

I've decided to recommence my study of Religious Science and am currently enrolled in the last prerequisite for entering the Licensed Practitioner program in the Fall. I am also considering finishing my BA concurrently. All these choices are interwoven and serve to deepen my spiritual practice with the intention of living my life as a demonstration of what's possible and being a resource to humanity. I'm excited about all the amazing wonders that have come as a result of this journey so far, and am excited about sharing recent and upcoming revelations with you here.

Buckle up, here we go!

A New Take On Easter

Center for Spiritual Living Eastside and Amazing Grace Spiritual Center's combined Easter morning service blew my heart and mind open. Once again, New Thought lived up to its name, bringing a whole new wealth of information to the fore from the Easter story in the Bible.

Consider the disciples. They've given up their whole lives to follow their teacher. They've left their families and homes, left their jobs and changed their names, embracing radical new ways of thinking (any of this sounding familiar yet?). I can imagine they became dependent on Him. Then, poof, their teacher is gone. Can you imagine their reactions?

Grief. Loss. Disbelief. Is He really gone? Did we really have that experience, or did we just imagine it? What are we going to do now? All the good in my life today is because of Him! How can we go on without Him?!?

When Jesus appeared to the disciples after His resurrection on Easter morning, he told them what to do; don't cling to him, carry his teaching out into the world. Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." ~ John 20:17 "Feed my lambs." ... "Take care of my sheep." ... "Feed my sheep." ~ John 21:15-19

In other words, "Don't cling to me, I'm moving on. Go do the work I taught you to do." I find it interesting he called them brothers and said "my Father and your Father" implying a position of equality. To me, the message is clear.

We all have amazing teachers. We want to depend on them, but we are called to go out into the world and live their teaching. We are not serving the Greater Good by staying in their protective shadows forever, we have the opportunity to emerge into the Light and live the brilliance we've learned from them out in the world. "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." ~ John 14:12

What a great example this is to follow. What great inspiration. Go forth, in this time of resurrection and new life, out into the world and live what you have been taught. May we all leave our fears behind and show the power and Grace of living in the Light. Sat Naam (The Holy Name is Eternal Truth)