Just Be Yourself

Swamiji says no two sadhus will have exactly the same repertoire.  I don't even feel like a proper sadhu to begin with.  Might as well just roll with it...

Sometimes I don't think I'll ever be like some of the other disciples, so pure and sattvic and rhythmic.   Although I hope I do head in that direction...

I come from the soil of dead heads and hippie freaks.  Of LSD and dancing into the wee hours of the morning.  Of Neem Karoli Baba (I still think he had something to do with the Grateful Dead...Maa too, for that matter).

I come from the crazy free style chanting of the sweat lodge, from dancing naked in the forest soaked with moonlight.  I worship Shiva and Shakti...I worship how I've learned from my teachers and my Gurus.  But I also worship in my own way.  The Goddess is mine to know.  Shiva is mine to know.  I want to know them.  I want to be in communion with my own soul.  That is my journey alone -- no one else's.

I had an astrology reading done long distance by one of Shiva Bala Yogi's American disciples.  At one point in the reading she told me that spiritually doesn't look like anything.  It's just you being in harmony with your own Self.  I didn't understand what she was telling me at the time.

I used to dream of being able to walk around in all orange.  Now I know that I wanted that for my own ego - as a prop to hold yourself up as a yogi or yogini in your mind-build identity instead of actually going through the process to really become one.

Now, I would rather know my own soul and walk around in jeans and a tee than wear orange and have a big ego about my "renunciation."

I would rather know no Sanskrit and know my own soul than know Sanskrit grammar and yet not know anything about the Divine Mother.  Although, I really want to know both.

My first spiritual teacher told me spirituality was about blindly bumbling backwards.  Swamiji says you need a goal and you need a plan.  My spiritual life involves both.