shree maa and Shree Maa

Jai Shree Maa.  More and more I realize that Maa is the spirit of love and giving.

She really is so much more than just her body.

I can try and deny her...try and put up a shield when I feel angry or hurt that I am not around her like I would like to be.

But ultimately, how can I deny my own soul? It is so sad to push her away! It is the giving up of love and the embracement of anger and hatred. That is not what the spiritual path should be about.

A

Maa is the most beautiful. Sometimes I think her the cause of my troubles (sorry to say), for She is Kali, the Energy of Transformation.  But when I move from the mind to the heart, she allows me to remember that She is the most soothing.

The most loving.

Completely loving.

Always giving love, even when I do not accept her love and then blame her for the resulting discomfort.

She is the Mother.

The mind is veeeery tricky. It creates our own suffering and then shields the truth of our responsibility in this matter so that we blame the outside. Thus we remain in the cycle of suffering.

If I can't be around Maa's body, so be it, but then I at least want to try to learn to live with the soul.

Jesus is part of the path back to her. The act of forgiveness. Of becoming soft, so that we can let the love and the light in.

May all minds be receptive to this love and to this grace.  Swami reminds again and again that kripa, the Sanskrit word for grace, means "what you do is what you get." Kri = do and pa = get.

I think this can be more subtle than practicing meditation and receiving enlightenment. Or offering money and getting good karma. Perhaps the do can be as subtle as the tiniest energeting shift to open up. And then from that, the grace comes flooding in, and opens up the pathway so that even more grace can come.

They do say, after all, that if we take one step towards Divine Mother, she takes a thousand steps toward us.

J A I    S H R E E   M A A

In our hearts, we love you Maa. Please help us not to forget. For your love is always there, but our love makes the difference of whether or not we feel it.

When we have love, we feel your love. It's the same love.

One love. One Maa. One Soul. Jai Maa.

Spiritual Life is a Battle

There's a reason Krishna told Arjuna to stand up and fight.

There's a reason why the story of the Chandi Path is a bloody battle.

There's a reason why the Gurus are both gentle and fierce.

 There's a reason why we struggle.

And, one day, we will succeed.

A Poem to Divine Mother Chandi

Oh Goddess,
Won't you teach me to be free?
When will I get tired of swimming is this sea of misery?


My mind is addicted to all the thoughts going by,
while my soul is married to She Who is Beyond Time.


Oh Goddess,
Won't you teach me to dance on your tides?
Like my Gurus, who with Divine Detachment, keep only you in mind.


Oh Goddess,
Teach me to come closer, Teach me to Surrender to Pure Love,
So that I may live with you in your Holy Yantra Abode.


Your eternal rhythm is the Ultimate Goal.

Purify me of all insincerity.

Hi, my name is Shivani and I'm addicted to attachment.

Authentic Yoga is the Cosmic 8-Step Program.

Points covered in the program:

1. Everything that happens is karmically perfect. All suffering is the result of our own attachment.


2. Events cause activity in the unenlightened mind. This produces more karma unless the seeker uses these mental ripples as inspiration to go deeper, to find Shankara (a name for Shiva meaning "The Cause of Peace").

3. The mind and the emotions are addicted to attachment, while the inner soul is the abode of Chandi (Chandi= the Goddess, "She Who Tears Apart Thought"). Spiritual life is about learning to make the right choice, Chandi, to produce to result you truly want, peace and happiness.  This is a monumental shift. The Guru teaches how to make the shift.

4. Gurus can not make the choice for you, but they can inspire you and give you the tools to make the right choice.  They have a lot of patience.

5. Chandi and the Guru are the only salvation, because they are beyond attachment. 

Back at the Mandir

Wow.  So much has been changing.  Life with a Guru is amazingly full and rich...it might not be easy but it's definitely NOT boring.

I am back at the Mandir now.  My time away was hugely transformative and a great blessing.  Maa knew it would be good for me. I felt like I began to find my soul again. I learned a lot about myself...my real self, apart from the conceptions of what I thought it meant to be spiritual. Apart from who I thought I should be for Maa and Swami.

When I was fighting for acceptance, I felt a barrier between us - now I know it was a barrier of my own making. Now that I feel more of the desire to just find myself, I feel their support and feel them pulling me in. They are Spiritual Geniuses. Masters.

I have more and more respect for them as time goes on. Because they prove to me their selflessness and their love again and again.And I forget and lose faith again and again. But they don't abandon me. I am ungrateful and stubborn, and I find baby steps challenging. They are infinitely patient and forgiving. (Not too long ago I heard a devotee say something to which Swamiji's response was, "I'm in no rush" and looked at me with a sparkle in his eye. The initial comment was not about the spiritual journey, but I think the implications of the response were very deep.) 

And they do not try and shape me into anything other than the pure of my soul, of my own authenticity.

For my first year here I was on the side of one wall, and something that I really wanted was on the other side.  But I couldn't get there.  I just kept walking into the wall.  Now I feel like I am finding the doorway. Maybe not yet going through, but finding it.

I think Truth is the doorway.  Something about being yourself, being totally honest about who you are and where you're at.  I'm pretty sure that that's the space where real surrender can happen, because you are not trying to hide anymore.

Maa wants truth.  She wants purity.  She wants pure love.  She wants all your attachments.  She wants it all.  She told me so : "I want it all."  And Swami told me so too.  "She wants it all."

If you really want to be a disciple, if you want to become her reflection, you have to throw it all into the fire. And then watch it burn.

I think the person who can do that right away is extremely rare. As rare as Shree Maa and Swamiji.  But I do believe that if there is any tiny little part of you that even aspires to that, that the Guru will work for as long as it takes to expand that particle of renunciation until total surrender becomes your reality.

The process definitely can feel harsh on the outside, but I am convinced its for our own good. (Easier to say when you're out of the fire, yes).  And I think they only do it if they get the go ahead from you.  It's like a pact that you're in it together.  You give them permission to operate and try your best to go along for the ride as they do what they do.  And you may not be graceful, but at least you're trying.

And then the process moves forward. And every so often Maa makes a comment, and you remember that she already knows your heart, knows your thoughts, knows your soul, knows what you really want, and is acted accordingly.  That this is all for a purpose.

And you remember your pact.

There is so much to say and so much to explore.  For anyone who reads this, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while.  I'm getting deeper into my seva...seva that I think will be lifelong- working on the temple website and doing some writing projects. That's where a lot of my computer time has been going to. 

I don't know what it's like reading this blog. Perhaps the writing is totally self indulgent.

But I can not write about what it's like to live with God or the bliss of the universe. I can only write about my journey.  About the process of becoming a disciple. Of what it's like to learn from a Guru.

I hope one day I can write it in a way that is without any flavor of "Look at me, look at me."

Jai Maa!

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. 

Perspectives change

You know what...

I thought I would live sooo far away from the world.  Just have nothing to do with it.  I thought that somehow I would live in a little hut in the woods of Vermont and no one would know I was there.  And I would probably be totally impoverished, and just live on dahl and rice.  And of course, in my mind, this was all a very romantic thing.

Now I am thinking....screw it.  That idea of that life clearly has not worked out for me, considering I  I am being pushed deeper and deeper into the world.  So the perspectives are changing to a more pro-active than "tune in, drop out" attitude.  I want to refine and develop a skill set with which I can support myself financially in the world, and with which I can use to serve Maa. 

I want to write, I want to edit, to work on the web, to learn graphic design and learn photoshop.  I want to have creative freedom.  I want to have plenty of money so that I'm not working as a retail clerk in someone else's store for my whole life.

And I want to be able to read the original Sanskrit.  And translate.  And actually know what I'm talking about.

I want to be at the top, not at the bottom.

And you know what else...  I'm going to drink a beer.