My Sadhana

My sadhana currently consists primarily of sanskrit chanting.  I chant with pranayama -- rhythmic breathing.  I breathe in a mantra (silent repetition) and breathe out the sanskrit verses (chanted out loud).  This is the technique of chanting that my Gurus focus on in their teaching.  Swamiji talks a lot about "learning how to sit, how to chant, how to breathe."  Sanskrit vibrations are very soothing and very divine.  Sanskrit is a language that describes subtle states of consciousness; describes the intrinsic reality of existence.   The words have multiple levels of meanings and each syllable has a meaning as well.  It is one thing to intellectually understand a mantra, a word, a syllable, or the story of a scripture.  It is another thing all together to begin to understand the inner meanings of what we are chanting - to attune to and absorb the vibrations of the mantra, and to watch our consciousness and our experience of life change accordingly.  Swami says we become the mantra.

I think it's like adding a drop of blue into a glass of water.  The water is our mind, the blue is the mantra.

I work primarily with the Guru Gita, Shiva Puja and Durga Puja.  Pu = merit, ja = birth, and puja is the activity which gives to birthto merit.  Swamiji says that the highest merit is the privilege to sit in the presence of God.  Puja is the activivity that guides the mind into the presence of Divinity.  It is a form of worship -- a guided meditation.  When I sit for worship I generally worship murtis - statues that are representations of Divinity.  I have two alters - one at the Devi Mandir and one in the room that I rent.

When I go to the mandir I sit in front of an alter of Ramakrishna, Shree Maa's Guru.  There is a beautiful Ramakrishna murti that stands several feet high, and above Ramakrishna on the wall are two large framed photographs of Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi.  On the alter itself there is a framed image of Chandi, a small shiva lingam (a stone from the Narmada river that is a symbol of Shiva) and a small Durga murti that Shree Maa gave to me when I first visited the Mandir.  At my home alter I have a shiva lingam from my first spiritual teacher and a small murti of Shiva and Parvati sitting next to eachother from Shree Maa

I also like to incorporate Ganesh puja and the Sadhana Panchakam (Five Verses in Praise of Spiritual Discipline written by Shankaracharya, found in the front of Swamiji's Shiva Puja and Advanced yagna book) into my worship.

I feel that with the pujas I am worshipping the divinity that is both inside and outside of myself.  Shiva is the Consciousness of Infinite Goodness (Maa says Shiva is Pure Consciousness), and Durga is She Who Removes Diffculties.  She is a form of Shakti - the Divine Mother, Infinite Energy (Maa says Shakti is Pure Energy).  She is a form of Parvati Mata, the divine consort of Lord Shiva.  And she rides the lion - she is the ideal of the feminine, strong, beautiful, fierce, but also tender, gentle, and modest.  I feel that the more I worship Shiva and Durga, the more I enhance and coax out these aspects of myself.  It is like I am a big conglomeration of so many quailties, some negative and some more positive.  Puja focuses attention on the divine qualities and thus magnifies them.  When I bathe my shiva lingam, I bathe my own soul, I wash my own consciousness.  My mind becomes more pure, more focused, more harmonious.  More peaceful.

When I do puja in the morning, the whole day is better.  I feel that I walk a little more with God.  There is a lightness in my step, in my mind, in my heart.  It's really nice.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati

I love this photograph.  I see it as Swami's inner reality, and the ideal of my own inner reality....the lone yogi (or yogini) in a cave meditating upon the Goddess.

Shree Maa

She is the Sun.

Ashtanga Yoga

How do you become a Sadhu?  Better yet, How do you become a sadhu in 21st century America?

When I first came here Swamiji told me he wanted me to make up a curriculum for a course on how to become a sadhu.  He said that he wanted the course to follow the precepts of traditional ashtanga yoga, or 8 limbed yoga.  (ashta = 8, anga = limb).

In the modern day USA ashtanga yoga is often thought of as a type of yoga class.  In the yogic tradition the physical posture, or asanas, are only one part of ashtanga yoga.  The purpose of asanas is to put one's body into harmony so that it becomes possible to sit in one asana, or yogic posture, without moving.  The yogis say that only then can the deeper states of meditation may be reached.

The 8 limbs of ashtanga yoga as described by Swami Satyananda Saraswati of the Devi Mandir are:

1.  yama : Control your life by organizing your goals and priorities. (yama = to limit)

2.  niyama : Creative a discipline for the attainment of your goals.  (niyama = without limit)

3.  asana : Put your body to harmony.  Make a seat upon which to erect your discipline.  (asana = seat).

4.  pranayama : put your breath into harmony.  (prana = life force, or breath, yama = to limit.  Pranayama refers to breathing practices by which the yogi controls the breath, which in turn controls the life force and the mind.

(At the Devi Mandir we are trained to chant scriptures with pranayama.  That means that you breath in while silently repeating a mantra and then breathe out a certain number of verses.  In this way you are breathing in mantras and breathing out mantras, and your breath automatically becomes regulated by breathing according to a consistent number of syllables.)

5.  pratyahara : Bring your senses inside.  Stop looking outside, turn within.

6.  dharana : Contemplation on 3 - the subject (perceivor), object (perceived), and the relationship between the two (subject and object).  "I love you."

(I have heard dharana, as a degree of concentration, described in terms of water dripping from a faucet.)

7.  dhyana : Meditation.  On two.  The subject and the object.  The relationship is so intense, its intensely understood, it is beyond words, it does not admit a name.  "I am you."

(I have heard this state of meditation described as a stream of oil from a pot - the flow of concentration is pure and uninterrupted.  This is what it's like when you sit with Maa and Swami and watch them perform worship.   Or watch them at anytime really.  You sense a pure, uninterrupted flow of their energy towards the Divine.)

8.  samadhi:  The perfection of union.  There's only One. (Sa = all, Ma = the measurment, Di = the mind.  All is the measurement of mind, or mind is the measurement of all.)

"Those conversant with yoga know yoga to be the complete unity of the individual soul with its desired objective, the Supreme Soul.  There are 6 enemies that cause obstacles in the path of union:
Desire, Anger, Greed, Ignorance, Conceit, and Jealousy.  Destroying these enemies by the limbs of yoga [ashtanga yoga], the yogis attain to yoga."  - From Swamijis video class on Chapter 7 of the Devi Gita 

Life at the Temple

Life at the Temple =  WORK.

I work, and it feeds me.

It is actually a blessing to do any work here.  Put one dish away, you are blessed.  Polish a utensil, you are blessed.  Scrub a toilet, you are blessed.

It's all purification and it feels really good.

If I am efficient in a day and work really hard - especially doing things like cleaning bathrooms, when I finally sit down in the temple after showering for evening arati my mind and body feel so clean.  So purified, and so much more receptive to the vibrations of the Temple, to the vibrations of MAA.

I dont think that we have to purify because are bad.  I think we have to purify so that we have the capacity (on a metaphysical level - in our mental and pranic bodies) to accept the blessings and the Divine Love that Mother showers down upon us.

I think that Kali comes where we like it or not - sickness, death, transformation, the thorns of life's path that make us humble.  But I also think that in order for Kali to reveal to us the soul beneath the veil of the ego, that for that we have to be ready and willing to go through a very deep process.  We have to be open to seeing the truth of our actions, our mind, our current state of consciousness, and egoistic tendencies in order to transcend.  By looking them honestly and feeling the suffering rooted in the negativity I do believe that the seeds can be dissolved.  I think of it as feeling the "sting of selfishness."  When I feel that in an honest, true, and self-accountable way, I automatically want to move closer to unselfishness, to a state of non-suffering.

In my personal experience, my mind is NOT willing to look at the truths of my selfishness in my every day state of consciousness.  She shell of the ego is just too hard - forged from the iron will of a buffalo determined to live life for itself.

Kali is the one who I trust to meet me where I'm at.  When the Dark Night of the Soul comes and the Dawn of Mega Transformation is at hand, it is Kali who I meet.

Sarada Devi used to pray:

"Oh, Mother, let my mind be as pure as the moon."  or

"Oh, Mother, even the moon has stains on it, but let my mind be stainless."

Selfishness is a disease.
The Way of the Yogis is the medicine.
Shree Maa and Swamiji are my physicians.
The Chandi is my story,
and Divine Mother is the Director of it all.

Mother, bring me deeper into my heart and closer to the inner sanctum of your sacred beauty.

You are the purest example of what I want my soul to reflect.

Kali, show me THE WAY.

Jai Maa.

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?

Maa is The Way

At Mandir.

Can hardly believe it's February.  Time is going by so fast.

I have utterly no capacity to become a sadhu.  None.

Maa is the only way.  Dissolving.  Letting Her take over.  Letting Her make the journey inside of me.  Only Her.

That is the only way.  That is The Way.

Maa is The Way.