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. 

Transformation and Inertia

Transformation is a tricky thing.   You say you want to change but your behavior shows otherwise.  You say you want to become a sadhu, but you hold on tightly to the baggage of your past – physically, mentally, spiritually.  You say you want to leave it all behind, but you are too attached to even know what that means.  Your insincerity is your ornament.  Soon approaching is the time to make a serious change. 

One can not stay around enlightened masters and say one thing yet continue to do another.  If you want to lead a spiritual life then learn to be spiritual.  Or go back and find your momentary solace in the things of the world.  

Not even my back stays straight now.  Everything about me feels crooked.  I am going to watch a movie, rather than sit in front of my alter.  How is that for spirituality?

Something about renouncing.

Shiva is Mahayogi.  The Great Yogi.  The Lord of Yogis.  I don't think he ever allows self indulgence.  Indulgence into the self.  self-ish-ness.

Sometimes I feel so trapped in the lower chakras and trapped in my mind.  Really bound, you know?  It's a struggle and its a bummer.  And the crazy part is that I watch myself do it to myself....it's like a bad addiction or something.

For a long time I have felt like there are two sides to me:  one side is more sadhu like. Disciplined, determined, motivated, in love with sadhana, beautiful - the renunciate.  The other side is a fool - lazy, full of bad habits, so selfish, would rather be anywhere but the altar, always running here and there.  Running everywhere but the Here and Now.

I used to tell myself that all of the negativity would just fall away on it's own, but in my personal case I think that that line of thought is an utter cop out.  It gives the ego an out -- an out that makes it okay for selfishness to stick around.  I know I can't snap my fingers and all of a sudden drop all attachment and be enlightened.  I know there's a natural process.  But the whole way that Shree Maa relates to me seems to tell me that I have more power than I think I do.  That I have a choice.  That it is in my power to make the firm sankalpa to reach for perfection - for enlightenment - for Satyam Shivam Sundaram (Truth, Infinite Consciousness, Beauty).  To reach for only that.

This would mean that throughout the entire day you're renouncing every thought and every action that pulls you away from Divine Perception?  That would be like really living the Chandi.  The mind would have to stay so focused.

To not dot it is to hang your head and cower back into the corner.  To do it is almost more terrifying.

Mother, please bring our minds into focus and strengthen our will so that we may remain steadfast on the Path of Devotion.  Let our mind, actions, and desires all be in harmony - let them all be pure, and let those three work together to bring us to the Highest Goodness.

Jai Maa.  Jai Shiva.

Om Sri Gurave Namah, Om Nandeshwaraya Namah

Om Sri Gurave Namaha.

It is funny how humbling this whole adventure is.  I was SO SURE I wanted a guru – wanted to devote my life to a guru. Study under a guru.  Be with the guru.  Ultimately, become One with the Guru.  She shows me that in doing this I will be asked to make sacrifice.  Sometimes it feels so beautiful and magical, like how you imagine it would be with a Divine Guru.  Sometimes, it feels just plain hard and you realize that the reality is vastly different from the fantasy.  The guru doesn’t tell you what you want to hear.  She tells she what you need to hear.  

Maa and Swami’s path is truly a path of sacrifice.  Of renunciation.   From the beginning I have had thoughts of leaving.  Of going back to my old life in Vermont.  Having my parents buy me that house that they offered.  Opening a ayurvedic cafe or doing henna or something. But so much pain and great confusion comes from questions of leaving.   Great strength comes from the determination to stay – from making the decision to follow one and to stick to it, no matter what.

 Swami says, “It’s nto freedom from commitment, but freedom THROUGH commitment.”  May Divine Mother give me the strength to follow this path to its end.  May Shiva bless me with unwavering conviction.  Om Nandeshwaraya Namaha.  OM I bow to Nandi, Shiva’s vahana (vehicle), the Bull of Discipline.

[Ultimately I do not believe the the question of “staying” or “leaving” has to do with a physical location.  But at this point in my path that seems to be how the concept is most clearly manifesting.]

We have a Dalai Lama “Daily Wisdom” book at work.  One quote that seems particularly applicable is from October 24.  He says, “We speak of three different types of faith.  The first is faith in the form of admiration that you have toward a particular person or a particular state of being.  The second is aspiring faith.  There is a sense of emulation – you aspire to attain that state of being.  The third type is the faith of conviction” (The Path to Tranquility, 324).

I once read of Swami Yukteshwar’s kriya yoga path that the practices of kriya yoga are akin to speeding up the natural process of the soul’s evolution.  Astronomically speaking, this would mean that by performing a certain number of kriyas on a daily basis, one evolution around the sun becomes equivalent to many evolutions around the sun in the life of the practitioner.  Being around Maa and Swamiji, I feel like my soul has been put on a rocket ship and is going around the sun at speeds that are sometimes, to say the least, uncomfortable.  When my mind turns from them my ego relishes the break, but very quickly I long for their guidance and their gentle push.  I miss them, and I miss the intensity of being cooked in the pot of their vibrations.

I feel like a total failure a lot of the time.  I have a hard time even with the basics – eating a yogic diet, getting up early.  Becoming organized and efficient.  I feel like a yogic invalid!  I get grumpy and tired and resentful.  I can not imagine what it must be like for the Guru to be with us youngins – and to do so with such love.  What is it like for them?  What would it be like to live with that sat cit ananda – to become so established in truth and love.  To really attain to sannyas (the establishment of truth within).

Even in the midst of hardship the orange color of renunciation is a fire burning on the horizon.  The sadhus carry with them a certain presence.  A certain funkiness.  A purity of soul and self.  I can only pray for the strength to make that journey up the spine.  To beckon kundalini to bring me from bhur, the gross level of existence, to the cosmic OM.   

Om Bhur Bhuvah Svaha.  Om.