2014

As a teenager in Boston, I participated in civil rights marches. These marches were silent and orderly, with large numbers of people coming together. Later, at Washington University, there had been protests, but these were more about venting anger than reaching resolution. After being present for some of those demonstrations, I realized what was going on and withdrew. Eventually, there was a shift, and we all came together to express our anger and desire for peace in the university chapel.

Protesting in the streets was not new to me in 1972 when I came across it in Berkeley. While working on my Master’s degree at Mills College in Oakland, I was intensely studying Tai Chi Chuan with T.R. Chung on University Avenue in Berkeley. I would take a bus daily from Oakland to Shattuck Avenue or Telegraph Avenue and then walk to Chung’s storefront. One day, I finished at Chung’s as it was getting dark. I had not seen the news and was not expecting anything as I began my walk to the bus stop a few blocks down Shattuck. Apparently things had really blown, and people were angry and beginning to gather in the streets. I continued to walk, minding my own business, just heading to the bus.

Out of nowhere, a four-door sedan stopped in the middle of the intersection near where I was. The four doors opened and four large men in the blue riot gear of the day charged out. One of them was running right toward me, with his menacing baton up in the air ready to come down. I watched, curious but uninvolved because I “knew” I was not part of this play. It never occurred to me that the policeman did not know I wanted no part of the conflict. I just stared and did not move. This happened so quickly, yet for me it was quiet and timeless. When the man was just about to reach me, he tripped on the curb and landed face down with his head at my feet. My response was to bend down and ask him “Are you OK?” I still had not grasped that he had been heading toward me. Someone from behind grabbed me and pushed me down the street. “They’ll think you want to hurt him. Run.” I left the man still lying on the ground, and escaped a couple of blocks away where there were no people.

For me there had been no anger, no conflict. I was detached and had no resistance. I was not a doormat; I felt that policeman was a human being like me, and though he was in the role of riot policeman, he was still me.

The riot police in Berkeley were called “Blue Meanies” because of their one-piece blue suits. Years later, when I was Head of security in Baba’s ashram, I was “Rohini the Meanie”. I enforced the rules of the ashram. There were many who did not like the role I acted out, especially people who were rebellious. But I came to understand conflict from all sides, and, with Baba’s guidance, learned how to let it go.

Non-resistance

Resistance

Doormat

Standing up for self

When we accept what is in our world, we are then able to choose how to act appropriately. We are not doormats; we are able to stand up for ourselves and yet not be resistant. Non-resistance means we can hear what someone is saying to us. The more clear I am, the more I see others’ points of view and understand where they are coming from. We are not fighting. We are not in conflict. This is where “other” disappears. It is just us.

If I hurt you, I hurt myself. This is the understanding into which each of us must grow.

If you love, then I love. Conflict and resistance disappear, and even when we are angry we are yelling at ourselves. This is what I call healthy narcissism. When we come to this as our living experience, then no matter what happens, it is only us. There is only the pure Subject. Love permeates everyone and everything.

Love and Conflict

December 22, 2014

Rohini explains how to approach conflict in the spirit of love.

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Displaced Anger….

December 22, 2014

Rohini uses a foursquare to clarify displaced anger.

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Christmas Open House 2014

December 22, 2014

If you are true….

December 21, 2014

If you are true, you can’t spin in the pleasure of guilt.

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!….

December 21, 2014

We are all feeling the effects of a globally rough year. So much pain and misery through illness, natural disasters, war and conflict. As we approach the holidays, we need to look to how these observances began. The world was no more peaceful then than it is now, but God shone through the chaos of those times with great Love.

Why we celebrate the holidays has so often been lost. At their core, these holidays call us to remember God manifesting clearly on earth. They call us to surrender, so that we know how God informs our lives, and we live in that awareness. Great Beings like Baba have shown us how to answer that call.

Today is no different from back then. God shines through and suffuses all with Love. Our work is to live each day being connected to God in the Heart, and to participate in the great Game with the Love that is our birthright.

Peace,

Rohini

Depression is….

December 21, 2014

Depression is your lot in life Your birthright is happiness You are deep, sensitive, and truthful Your are shallow, selfish, and oblivious

Dealing with Conflict….

December 14, 2014

Conflict

Harmony

Engagement

Complacency/ inertia/passivity

Whether we live in community or alone, we all face conflict. It comes in countless different shapes, sizes and styles. And since the world is here to help each of us remove ignorance, we each have conflict in forms designed specifically for our benefit.

The root of our word “conflict” is the Latin verb confligere, which comes from con– (“together”) and fligere –(“to strike’). The Latin noun conflictus means “contest”. From this we should see the virtue of conflict. We are contesting. We are coming or striking together. We conflict with people, objects, situations, nature, ideas, and ourselves. There really should not be a problem with conflict. It is an important venue of learning. The question is what we make of conflict in relating with ourselves and others.

We avoid conflict only because we have not learned how to act appropriately in conflict—how to use it wisely. What we run from we will run into. If we are trained in how to deal with conflict clearly, to neither escalate nor run from it, then resolution will be available for all.

No one sees the world in exactly the same way. We each have different vibrations that shape how we assess our world. We approach a situation, a person, an idea, an object, nature and ourselves differently. As in The Art of War, we need to know ourselves, our opponent, and the terrain. If we do not, then there is little chance of winning the contest.

When a conflict involves anger, that vibration needs to be directed appropriately. Here is a foursquare that illuminates this problem:

Displaced anger

Appropriately directed anger

Safe release

Dangerously exposed

Recently we have seen people protesting injustice. These protestors are angry, and it is their right to express that anger. Some of them, however, feel powerless and have a storehouse of anger they do not know how to express clearly. They are then displacing their anger and taking it out on their neighbors through vandalism and looting. Why, we keep asking, do these people destroy their own neighborhoods? If we look at the foursquare above, we can see the reason. People who do not feel safe in their expression of anger will look for an outlet, for what they believe is a safe release.

The problem is that this kind of displaced anger will not provide a safe discharge. Also, there will never be a resolution if you use this form of expression. The conflict cannot be resolved because you are not addressing the conflict in the appropriate direction. If you consciously confront the conflict, you are shining a light on the situation all around and can see clearly what is involved. You can then choose to communicate appropriately and discharge your anger in such a way that it aids in resolution. For instance, when Joseph Welch said to Joe McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?”, his clear and appropriate expression of anger woke everyone up from the spell and McCarthy lost his prestige, and hence his power.

Our fear is that if we express our anger directly rather than displace it, we will be dangerously exposed. Everyone will know how we are and where we stand. But they will know these things anyway. And being clear and clean does not belittle us or others; it frees everyone to arrive at the same clarity, and then at resolution.

Stuffing anger within ourselves is also a form of displacement. Yet another is what we too often call “taking the high road”, which is usually displacing anger by directing it at ourselves. We say we are letting it go, or it’s not worth it; in truth, we are actually saying we are not worth it.

We now have an abundance of models for displaced anger and violence. What we lack is models of appropriately expressing anger. Where are the role models who have actually expressed anger cleanly? Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Eleanor Roosevelt redefining the position of First Lady by standing up for civil rights. Martin Luther King expressing his appropriate anger through powerful yet consciously nonviolent words and demonstrations. John McCain explaining with clarity and depth of experience why it is important to release the torture report.

When we forsake this kind of clarity and appropriateness and remain attached to a conflict, it never ends. We are bound to our opponent, whoever or whatever it may be. We never get away. Have we not seen that the United States has been in a perpetually unhealthy relationship with terrorists since 9/11? We are in it together. We express for each other the qualities that are within both of us, and we hate. We will not free ourselves from terror until we give up our appetite for conflict.

Appropriately expressed anger resolves conflict—if not with adversaries, then within ourselves. When a conflict is resolved, we are no longer trapped in an adversarial role. We are detached and free.

“Taking the high road”….

December 14, 2014

“Taking the high road” usually means displacing anger by directing it at ourselves. We say we are letting go, or it’s not worth it; in truth, we are saying we are not worth it.

Displaced anger….

December 14, 2014

Displaced anger Appropriately directed anger Safe release Dangerously exposed

From the Many to the One….

December 7, 2014

A few years ago in a coffee shop at Cambridge, UK, I had a discussion on the nature of Reality with an Anglican priest. He had earned his doctorate from Oxford and appeared open to thinking outside Christianity. However, he believed that the individual always remains separate from God. For him, union with God was not an option; believing in it would be human presumption. The best we could hope for was moving from the image to the likeness of God but remaining distinct. As for me, I am aligned with some of the Christian and Indian mystics: if we surrender our individual identity, we return to our true identity in God. What the priest believed we maintain—our individuality—is exactly what I believe we have to give up. The priest and I ended up having to agree to disagree about where we were all heading. He was committed to dualism and I to non-dualism. The duel was a draw.

Recently I had a similar discussion with someone who thought dualism in any form was delusive. This time I found myself on the other side, arguing for dualism having its place as a stage of sādhana.

Dualism and non-dualism are maps that express the path from God to manifestation. Depending on a person’s temperament and capacity, one map will serve better at first than the other. Baba always said to first teach śāmbavōpāya, and if the student was not ready then step the practice back to where they are. We will all eventually reach non-dualism; when, is another story.

People may even ask why I teach the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, because it is a dualistic path. The map is actually very helpful in seeing our afflictions and the way beyond them. Where we end up is kaivalya which is aloneness, or at-onement—for all intents and purposes, non-dualism.

The truth is, we live in relative reality, which is based on dualism. If we artificially superimpose Absolute Reality on the relative, we will be inappropriate at every turn. Even the Śiva Sūtras, a great tantric text, speaks of the nature of bondage, which is ignorance. There are three impurities (malas) in Kashmir Shaivism: I am imperfect (ānava mala), I am separate (māyiya mala) and I am the doer (karma mala). These three malas cause us to believe we exist as limited individuals, when in Truth we are not shrunken but the Self of All, Perfect, One, the real doer.

Our ignorance causes us to believe everyone sees the world as we do. According to Kashmir Shaivism, each of us lives in a separate manifested reality (prakṛti). This prakṛti is designed specifically based on our past actions and what we need in order to reach liberation. In relative reality we are limited and shrunken, obscured from the truth.

From the standpoint of Absolute Reality there is only Subject with no object. There is only “sciousness”—not even consciousness, which implies duality—and we are Perfect, the Self, God.

In Absolute Reality, there is no dialogue. All is perfection; there is no conflict, because conflict requires an “other”.

This brings me to another component of Kashmir Shaivism: the understanding of bheda to bhedābheda to abheda. Depending on where we are internally, we will see the world differently. At the start of the path, we see the world as bheda, the many. Everything is other, different. As we grow, we will be seeing the world as bhedābheda, One in the many. Finally, we know abheda, that there is only the One.

Nondual and dual. One and many. Universal and separate. God is nondual; we as individuals (jīva) are dual. Give up jīva and attachment to jīva, which is bondage, and we go from bheda to abheda. Abheda has to be our bottom line; we just do not know it. If we were not That, then we could not realize That. We are already there, and we are not.

In 1975, I was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I had received a letter from Baba’s organization the day before. There was a quote from Baba: “God forgets his own true nature and looks for God. God worships God. God meditates on God, and God is trying to find God. It is God who questions and God who answers.” When I read this it detonated something in me. I was struck. The quote stayed with me for the rest of that day. The next day I walked down by the Charles River near where I lived. Looking out at the water, I felt the Reality of Baba’s words become clear. I experienced the Joke of it all, and laughed nonstop for several hours. It all made sense. There is only God. Abheda. Non-dualism. Pure Bliss.

I did come back to normal consciousness, to the world of bheda (difference). But the imprint of abheda was always underneath bhedābedha. I knew that my direction, and all of our direction, is to abheda (non-difference). We live in relative reality and must function appropriately in this arena. All our vehicles are a part of this reality. There is a big difference between knowing in the Heart who we are because we reside in and are Being, and intellectually knowing the truth as an idea that we strongly believe. In Truth, we are Absolute Reality, but until we know this at all times and in all places and we are truly abheda, let us not pretend. We are in this world of relative reality, and we are accountable to it.

We live in relative….

December 7, 2014

We live in relative reality, which is based on dualism. If we artificially superimpose Absolute Reality on the relative, we will be inappropriate at every turn.

Lady/gentleman….

December 7, 2014

Lady/gentleman Self-righteous/harpy Pathetic wretch Forthright/upstanding

The spiritual path will….

November 30, 2014

The spiritual path will only get easier if we are willing to follow the light of Grace.

So Thankful Practice Is Easy….

November 30, 2014

This spiritual practice is not easy. Going the most direct way up a steep mountain is not easy. How could it be that easy? We are returning Home to who we truly are. I have come far enough to know that there is nowhere else I want to be. With each painful and then liberating dissolution of attachment, I become more thankful:

Thankful for all the “farmers” that show me what obscures my Love.

Thankful for all the lilas (dances) that show me how to be appropriate and make me learn.

Thankful for all my vibrations, which give me something to do—still.

Thankful for all my students who want God and do not resist Love.

Thankful for the shakti that keeps kicking me to God.

Thankful for Baba, who continues to guide me on this path, which is not so easy as advertised.

Thankful for those among my Gurubai (Guru brothers and sisters) who continue to practice and love Baba; you know who you are.

Thankful for everyone who continues to support me as my attachments to body, mind and Rohini dissolve.

Thankful for my vehicles, which are holding up to the pressure of sadhana (spiritual practice).

Thankful for the obstacles placed in my path to teach me one way or another.

Thankful for the Grace that illumines the lessons, so I can learn from them.

Why did anyone ever call this an easy path? Marketing. This path is anything but easy. This path is not easy for the small self. This path is not easy for the body. This path is not easy for anything that resists the Truth.

For whom is it easy, then? For the Truth. For God. How? The Guru’s Grace illumines the path so that we know where to go. That is what makes it easier for us. Before Grace, we are stumbling in the dark, imagining we are somewhere we are not. After the awakening, there is then a light guiding us. If we are willing to only go on the path that is illumined, then it is an easy path. If we still want to live and act according to the character of the small self, then we have a problem. The path won’t be easy at all.

When we are willing to do it God’s way and it is easy, what does this easiness look like? Ease means no resistance, no obstruction. That means when we have surrendered and let go of every thing that gets in the way of resting in the Heart, all is easy. As long as we give up any attachment to who we are not, all is easy. The easy path is easy only because the path is clear and we choose to walk it. If we are still committed to having a “normal” life, whatever that is, then the path is difficult.

So are we to change our clothes and act weird in order to walk on the path? No. We may end up not changing any of our outward life. People around us may not even know we are walking the path. What we surrender is the misguided notion that our outward life in and of itself is the answer. It is not. Our shell can change many times. Each of us has a unique expression given specifically to aid us in learning and moving toward God. All we have to do is let go of the belief that our lifestyle, qualities, personality, talents, obstacles, etc. are in fact who we are.

Even free of attachment, we still get to use all these vehicles. So what is the problem? We do not have to throw them away. We just have to no longer identify with them.

To awaken to this, we have to know somewhere who we really are, which is where Grace comes in. When we have known and experienced who we really are, it is easier to acknowledge and let go of something we are not.

This is when we become truly grateful for the Guru’s Grace. This is when we say thank you for making it easier than it normally would be. The Guru does not take away your destiny. He does not take away your life. He does not make you into a zombie. The Guru shines the light on the Truth. We get to then experience the Truth and grow clear in our direction. We will still live out our past actions, either in meditation or actually on the physical plane. But we will be thankful for the Guru guiding us to who we really are—Love. Though we will wear our normal clothes and speak normally and even work normally, we will experience Love. Then the spiritual path is easy, and we are thankful.

Humiliated….

November 30, 2014

Humiliated Revered Chastened/Directed Inflated

We troll relative reality….

November 23, 2014

We troll relative reality for peace, but settle for distraction.

Settling into Unsettled….

November 23, 2014

From the standpoint of relative reality, everything is unsettled. Even when good things occur, everything is unsettled. The world definitely is unsettled. And the news media and entertainment industry stake everything on keeping everyone unsettled. When there is a crisis, it rises to our attention, then settles down. The truth is, the crisis has not settled; we have grown bored and the media has removed it from the ticker. Ebola has not gone away—many are suffering in Sierra Leone and elsewhere—but we here in the US got annoyed with Ebola, we removed it from our consciousness. Winter is coming in Gaza and people’s houses are still in ruins from the war, but there is another topic off the list.

Why do things disappear from our consciousness? Because if we were to stay with them and confront the problems head-on, we may have to face our own responsibility. So we have hit and run crises. That’s much easier: it’s sort of like a movie or a television show. Two hours are quite enough, now we can move on. So though everything is unsettled, do we really want to be settled?

We troll relative reality for peace. Right now we have to go far and wide for that, so we then settle for distraction. Last week I wrote about being a hermit crab without a shell. Well, two weeks have gone by and still no shell. I have used the very tools I teach, which I learned from Baba, and they have worked well.

The shakti has grabbed me these two weeks. I could have fought it and tried to “live my life”, or I could have surrendered to what was. I surrendered: without distractions, barely functioning and very uncomfortable at times. Unsettled. Internal and external kriyas. Could not eat. Weak. I knew I could not do this alone, so I asked for help. From the UK to California, friends and Guru brothers and sisters helped with support and suggestions on how to cool down, knowing that Baba was with each of us. I had had a dream of Baba on the full moon when all this started.

If I just kept going inward, there would be peace. When I would come out for a little bit, the shakti would not like it and would call me, pull me in. I had to remove resistance of any kind, empty everything out, and then I would settle. The shakti washed through me, removing any obstruction so that there was nothing to interfere with it. My body was continuous with the rest of relative reality. Absolute Reality, where Being resides, permeated everything.

I had no control over the shakti; it is always the boss. My job, as it is for all of us, is to obey. We need to be willing to listen and discern our course. And if we misread, we will find out rather quickly. If we go out when we should be going in, our lives will be more miserable than we can imagine.

Any vibration, whatever it is, obscures who we really are. No matter how uncomfortable, if we can steadily be with our vibrations, we will find them dissolving into the Love that has been hidden. Even if the world around us is unsettled, we then rest in our true nature.

If we practice, the shakti will guide us and will remove our individuality. The Guru will take us out of relative reality and return us to the Absolute. Be ready, be strong. Be not afraid, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Rest in the awareness of the Self, the Guru and God. We can remain silent and in awe at the center while everything around us is unsettled, and also totally perfect.

Patronizing….

November 23, 2014

Patronizing/ despising Respecting/ valuing Mentoring/ supporting Blind devotion

L&Q(11-15-14) The Matrika Shakti….

November 16, 2014

Rohini explains the power of letters to bind and to liberate.

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Removing a Shell….

November 16, 2014

The six-year-old girl looked intently at her image in the mirror. She saw an old Chinese man with high cheek bones, grey hair knotted on the top of his head, sharply slanted eyes, and a long thin beard. His expression was serious, his eyes intense. “I’m in the wrong body,” she thought. “How did I get here?”

This old Chinese man has been with me all my life. My relationship with him has changed, from yearning to be him once more to learning from his presence and realizing the need to let go of him.

As a young girl, I longed to be back “there”. My preferred gifts were always of an Asian character. These requests were minimally indulged, with no grasp of where all this was coming from. My parents did not understand, and I had trouble understanding them. Out of place internally, I never fit in. There was always a nostalgia for Asia, for what I thought was my real life. The Chinese man was always just under my skin.

The truth is, I did not understand what I was doing here in a little girl’s body living in a house outside Boston. Neither did I really understand the Chinese man always so close by. But I felt that affinity with him, and it seemed normal despite the confusion.

As I grew, my attraction to Asia continued with art, movies and finally Tai Chi Chuan. Diving deep into the world of the five excellences, I found Mandarin came easily to me, as did calligraphy. I surrounded myself with green tea, Chinese art, and Asian music. I even got a degree in acupuncture and worked in a clinic under the great Dr. James Tin Yao So. My dress became that of a martial artist, with shoes and jackets right out of a Bruce Lee movie. Outside my Tai Chi Chuan school hung a sign with Chinese letters signifying the authenticity of what occurred within.

The problem was, the Chinese man was stern and unyielding. Everything was serious. Discipline. Toughness. Work. Asceticism. Nothing was ever easy with him around. Though I had a weird sense of pride about the Chinese man, he seemed to encourage a coldness in me.

Then I met Baba, and the Chinese man was allowed to manifest fully. By allowing him the freedom to act, I was able to see that I did not like him or what he represented. He was rigid and unhappy. Something had happened to him, and there was no love.

So I watched as my relationship with the Chinese man evolved. The nostalgia evaporated. No longer did I long for the good old days; those days had never been. I had romanticized him and therefore myself, so my life had not been so good. Baba helped me see this. The ascetic in the mountains had been disciplined, but stuck and attached to the goodness of an austere life without love and joy. I came to understand that the life of intense discipline has its place, but at a certain point attachment to it has to be let go. Baba brought me into the light of love and laughter.

The link to the Chinese man manifested physically as well. When I was eleven, someone came from behind while I was standing by the kitchen counter and startled me. In reaction, I brought my head down and knocked my teeth on the formica. My front tooth broke, beginning decades of caps and trepidation. This culminated last winter with two root canals. The year since those procedures has slowly brought the death of the Chinese man. In his lifetime, he had been attacked and struck in the mouth with a blunt weapon. The pain I suffered prior to the root canals triggered the experience of his anger and hate. There was no compassion or acceptance. No need. He was a warrior ascetic, a tough hermit who could put up with the worst of anything.

For the Chinese man, there was no Grace, only self-effort; the kind of self-effort that brings power and pride. Receiving the Grace and Love that come from God was not for him. My openness to Grace and Love meant that the Chinese man could finally die. Baba’s Grace had been working toward this from the very beginning.

The truth about the Chinese man took a long time to see, but Baba is patient. Once in Ganeshpuri, my teeth were bothering me. I asked if I could go into Bombay to see a dentist. The day-long trip proved that my teeth were fine. Baba said the next time he would just use a hammer. He knew.

With the demise of the Chinese man, the husk of that identity fell away. I am now like a hermit crab between shells—raw, vulnerable, caught up in a transformation. While I feel a sense of loss, I am thrilled to see how my understanding has evolved to reach the final surrender of this samskara. Whether what we lose is positive or negative, we always feel the loss. The transition will take time, and I must not try to enliven what is gone.

The new shell, the new life, will manifest in due course. I am not sure how it will be, but I do know that removing that old shell has already created more room for Baba and God, which means much more Love and laughter.

Everyone is always….

November 16, 2014

Everyone is always ready Absolutely–but not relatively.

Ingratiating….

November 16, 2014

Ingratiating Truth-telling Affirming Badmouthing

Spiritual practice is….

November 9, 2014

Spiritual practice is always your choice–and you have to make that choice at every moment.

Fellow travelers….

November 9, 2014

The greatest warriors know that fighting is the last resort. Resistance is a form of fighting; it may look benign but can be insidious. When we are committed to our individuality, we will quietly resist anyone or anything that threatens our sense of self. This form of fighting is a disease that can destroy a person’s spiritual journey.

“I can’t surrender to another person”. “I need to think for myself”. “I can do the practice without someone directing me”. “I don’t need a teacher”. All these statements are a form of resistance in someone who wants to do spiritual practice. Their sureness reveals the problem that we are dependent already and do not know it. We are surrendered to a voice that undermines any chance of moving forward on the path, the posturing of a self-taught person who already knows everything. Listening to that voice makes for an arrogance with no grounding in the experience of the Truth.

To reach that Truth, the first step is to cease believing that “sure” voice that wants to run the show. Before we can get to non-duality, we have to surrender to something greater than who we think we are. God, the Self, has to be allowed in the room. Compared to God, that sure voice suddenly sounds shrunken and shrill. Another important step is submitting to a teacher. It is not personal. The teacher is not just a louder voice. The teacher has to have surrendered to a teacher and to God. Unless we genuinely submit to a true teacher, we will resist Grace.

But what about testing the teacher? Absolutely. This is done by actually committing to the practice and seeing if it works for you. Testing is not a power struggle. Testing is not resistance. Testing is actually listening and obeying and seeing if there is validity in what the teacher teaches.

“But I do not want to change anything in my life”. Well then, do not start down this path. There is no way to walk down the spiritual path without change. And are you then saying you do not want to give up your misery? Because if you want to get rid of it, your life is going to change. Regardless, there is always change. The change may unfold so slowly that it looks like constancy; but that sameness is not real.

This is where I am going: down the path to God. Do not try to fight me or convince me not to go. Do not say you want to come along and then resist. You do not have to come now. You can wait until later.

This is how I am getting there: by boring into the Heart and letting go of my individuality. Being with my experience moment to moment, letting whatever comes up from the Heart come up, and functioning appropriately on the physical plane. I get there by surrendering to God and Guru. By doing what they tell me because they want what is best for me. By resting in the Heart.

If you want to come along, I would love to have you join me in this journey. I am not in competition with you. I am not going to convince you. I love to share. If all you want to do is resist, then this is not the place for you, and I wish you luck.

Caring….

November 9, 2014

Caring Uncaring Enmeshed Nonattached

Some people troll….

November 2, 2014

Some people troll for things to be hysterical about so they can feel important.

Guarding the Heart….

November 2, 2014

Guarding the door was the beginning. It led me to guarding the Heart. Baba knew what I wanted, so he used my worldly skills. They turned out to be the perfect metaphor for the practice I was looking for. Throughout my life I had always felt directed to the next level. Dance led me in to Tai Chi Chuan, and from there Baba came to take the task of teaching me. As I moved forward, certain aspects of the previous practice were dropped, and something new in a deeper sense was added. In the end Baba had me let go of all the outer activities and rest in the Heart. Free fall became a constant rest.

Guarding the Heart means being with our experience at every moment, letting whatever comes up come up, and functioning appropriately on the physical plane.

When I first went to Baba I had been a successful Tai Chi Chuan teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school I started had over a hundred students. Martial Arts shaped how I approached life. Earning a degree in acupuncture and working in a clinic, studying Mandarin Chinese, and practicing calligraphy were part of my immersion. My aesthetic naturally leaned toward a Zen spareness, and my clothes were informed by my practicing Tai Chi Chuan several hours a day.

During the winter of 1975, I was a guard on the rooftops or patrolling the streets around the Oakland ashram. At the DeVille in upstate New York, I volunteered to be at the gate through which Baba walked to and from the evening program. I willingly missed the program in order to have that one passing minute with Baba. While everyone was in the program, I worked to remain alert guarding the gate.

There was never a problem. Nor was there a possibility of a problem. This was a chance for me to practice. This was Baba beginning to teach me what I had come for. He was teaching me vigilance and one-pointedness without the Tai Chi form—acting in and adapting to any given situation. From there, he was going to move me inward.

This foundational discipline of one-pointed vigilance continued like a thread running through all my subsequent roles around Baba. Whether serving as head of security in Ganeshpuri, standing attentively as Baba’s gatekeeper in the courtyard or by his back stair, working as his appointments secretary during his world tour, or staying all day on Baba’s porch in Delhi rather than go sightseeing with other ashramites, I stayed awake and stood guard at all times, no matter what was happening. Usually it was nothing. But good warriors do not wish for battle. They remain still and always ready. Then they can adapt easily and quickly rather than stick rigidly to a plan.

Baba was my focus. Even when I worked in the ashram library in Ganeshpuri, Baba was my focus. I constantly practiced what he had taught me internally.

Everything external provides an opportunity for the practice, because as is the external, so is the internal. Starting with one-pointedness on the outside, the perceived shifts ever inward. The internal then informs the external. Ultimately, there is only the perceiver, and all else is the perceived. Baba was always moving me to guard deeper and deeper inward. So be with your experience at every moment, let whatever comes up come up, and function appropriately on the physical plane.

With sustained, one-pointed practice, the attention reaches the door to the Heart. At that point the vigilance is thoroughly instilled, having developed from the more superficial practice. The guarding of the Heart forces us to be appropriate always, no matter what the outside may say. Hence Christ’s saying that “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart”, or St. Symeon affirming that we should “renounce all other spiritual work and concentrate wholly on this one doing, that is on guarding the heart”. Even Ho Yanxi, the Sung Dynasty commentator on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, says, “So unless your heart is wide open and your mind is orderly, you cannot be expected to be able to adapt responsively without limit, dealing with events unerringly”.

We are all to guard the Heart and then rest in the Heart. Whether we play the role of householders, monks, or anyone else, we are all soldiers. We must be vigilant. Our relating to the world must be done from the source, which is the Heart and not the head.

Boxes in….

November 2, 2014

Boxes in Frees Sets Boundaries Indulges

Whatever you stuff….

October 26, 2014

Whatever you stuff runs your life.

My Neighbor Elvis….

October 26, 2014

A beautiful autumn day with shifting light, and the wind speaks of the cold and sleep ahead. The leaves are turning, and caught in the waves traversing the garden. Beautiful and sad, a melancholy settles on the ground as everyone and everything scurries in preparation for what is coming. All this is very familiar.

What is new is the disappearance of Elvis and all his friends and co-actors. About three weeks ago, when the weather was deciding whether to change or not, our neighbors left. What a summer sharing the garden with them.

Elvis, with his red cravat, was in charge of the feeder. He took his job seriously and did not fail to make sure everyone knew what was allowed. When Elvis was not drinking the nectar himself, he was guarding over it and regulating its use. Others, mainly females, were allowed to imbibe or chased away at incredible speed.

The dance was amazing. Always coming and going, weaving in and out of the branches in patterns that no one could think up. Witnessing this, it was clear that thought could not even be ascribed to any of them. They were with their experience, they let whatever came up come up, and for them there was no question that they were all functioning appropriately and efficiently.

The darting and diving were amazing to watch. So fast and able, so clear and decisive. But that was not the greatest part: seeing the action so clean and direct, all of the birds passionate and disentangled participants.

Elvis’s stillness was gloriously aware. Though I loved to watch him dive and chase others from the feeder, when he stood totally ready without attacking or retreating was the time to really watch and learn. Elvis was one-pointed without being rigid. He could move in a heartbeat without forsaking stillness. When most of us think of hummingbirds we have in mind a constant movement. The wings never stop. Elvis commanded through his still awareness.

Elvis was the king. One day a large hawk came and settled on one of Elvis’s boughs. Elvis was not far away. The hawk never went for Elvis. He wouldn’t probably because the hummingbird is too small. But we knew it was because Elvis was the king of the garden, and when he stood at attention he was bigger than any other bird entering this terrain.

Elvis knew who he was, knew who the other hummingbirds were, knew the other birds and thoroughly knew the terrain. There was no movement, no going forward, unless appropriate. No retreat occurred without the utmost of strategy. Elvis did not think, he knew.

Birds like Elvis are teachers of stillness. They may not have our level of consciousness and sophistication, but they are committed and decisive, both in stillness and in action. And even in action, they remain still. Elvis was, in his limited way, one-pointed. And it was brilliant to see. Though I attributed individuality to him, he had none, nor was he looking for any.

My summer was spent sharing the stage with Elvis. Whether I was inside or on the deck, every day was interspersed with sitting and sharing the stillness and life with Elvis. Such a large being in a small body, his presence was always felt. So alive.

Looking forward to next summer when Elvis returns—or at least an Elvis impersonator.

Juvenile

October 26, 2014

Juvenile

Mature

Fun

Stodgy

L&Q(10-18-14) Practicing the Practice….

October 23, 2014

Rohini clears up misconceptions about the practice.

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Recent Questions….

October 19, 2014

People have all kinds of ideas about what spiritual practice is and isn’t, and even when they get an explanation they interpret what they hear or read in all sorts of ways, most of which are off the mark. In this blog post, I will be answering some questions that have recently arisen. If you read carefully, you might find your own questions cleared up.

Did Baba make clear in his teachings that liberation is not for the individual?

I can’t recall any time when Baba taught otherwise. He always stressed that the individual cannot be liberated, and that the only way to liberation is to give up our attachment to, and wrong identification with, any separate identity. In the end, the small self must go: the one doing sādhana is not the One who endures. This was always very clear. If someone did not see it in Baba’s teaching, that does not mean it wasn’t there—it was everywhere. I specifically went to Baba because that was what he taught.

For me, the truth that all individuality, all separateness, must be let go—the reality that there is no such thing as a liberated individual—was always evident in Baba’s teaching. Below are a few examples from his writings:

When the Shakti of the Self contracts, She is known as a limited individual, subject to innumerable births and deaths. She remains a transmigratory soul as long as She is contracted, but once She expands, She becomes Paramashiva. (Secret of the Siddhas, 179).

Bondage and liberation exist only when there is division. The ideas of bondage, liberation, and so on, apply only to a person who, because of māyā, does not understand his true nature and is afraid. (Secret of the Siddhas, 204-5)

“I can do nothing;

it is the universal Self who does all.”

This is sublime teaching.

“I will accomplish this work;

I have already done it.”

This is total ignorance and pride. (Reflections of the Self, 109)

[The Guru] regards this world not as matter

but as the embodiment of Consciousness.

For him there is no Maya, no body;

whatever exists is Shiva. (Reflections of the Self, 201)

Many people around Baba never grasped this teaching. Most of them were not prepared for what Baba had to offer; that’s why Baba used to say, “I give you what you want, so that someday you might want what I have to give.” It has been an eye-opener for me that so few people got anywhere near the real teaching. I think it’s true that many of the people who congregated around Baba were simply experience junkies. That’s why all they have now is memories of experiences.

Perhaps I should stress that an intellectual grasp of non-duality is all very well, but to know and inhabit that Reality requires a long and arduous grinding down of the individual identity. This begins with knowing how that individual identity operates. There are plenty of spiritual seekers who believe they can advance toward liberation without doing that painstaking work. They get nowhere, except in their heads. The techniques that I present—other than the foursquare, which I created—are all time-honored internal practices that Baba taught. Whether you call it śāmbhavopāya or St. Symeon’s third level of attention and prayer, constantly boring inward toward the Heart until consciousness rests there is the one crucial practice. It makes no difference where you are on the path; until you reach liberation, that is the practice that matters. It uses the will. If you are not doing this, nothing else you do is likely to get you anywhere.

How did Baba teach you the practice, and what do you mean by “boring in”?

It’s important to realize that when I was alone with Baba by the back stair, he taught me wordlessly, through the Great Silence. It was never an intellectual exercise. From the moment I encountered Baba, I was determined to get what he had, and was going to study only with him. I wasn’t interested in what anyone else in the ashram wanted to teach. Why sit in classes with “teachers” when I could learn from the Guru? How many people never understood that the only teaching worth knowing came from Baba himself, and it was imbued in all its fullness? It was never, for me, intellectual learning. If a teacher’s clarifications are intellectual, they will only get people an intellectual understanding of what Baba taught me silently and experientially.

“Boring in” is what Baba taught me by the back stair. It is the core of the practice, and it rests at the heart of all mystical traditions. You should take it almost literally—the only difference being that you’re not using a drill, you’re using the will to redirect consciousness back into the Heart, through all the bodies that serve as vehicles of the Self. As you practice, your understanding and experience will grow clearer and subtler. I describe this practice in my book. It is simple, and very difficult. But it is the practice—anything that doesn’t center on this right effort of the will is off the point. Anyone who tells you that this isn’t the highest practice has no real awareness of thousands of years of teaching and lineage and scripture, in all mystical traditions.

Can only tantric Gurus give śaktipat?

The notion that only tantric adepts can give śaktipat is misguided. They may be the only ones who call it śaktipat, but even a cursory reading of the Gospels and the saints’ lives reveals that there have been living lineages of spiritual awakening in the Christian tradition, and the same histories can be found in almost any tradition. Sufis speak specifically of masters passing on awakening experiences, and what do you think is really going on in those Zen stories of masters hitting their students, who promptly become awakened? I give śaktipat, and I don’t think of it as tantric; it is simply part of what Baba taught me.

Hopefully these questions and answers will clarify the practice for you. As you continue on the path, the practice will unfold as it should.

When faced with an obstacle….

October 19, 2014

When faced with an obstacle, be careful to take into account your own tamasic qualities. They may prove to be greater obstacles than the one outside you.

Complacent….

October 19, 2014

Complacent Awake

At ease Panicked

Spiritual experiences….

October 12, 2014

Spiritual experiences, like any other experiences, are not who we are, and we should not identify with them.

Walking Bliss….

October 12, 2014

Lokānanda samādhi sukkam. The Bliss of the world is the Bliss of samādhi. Sahajsamādhi: walking Bliss. This is why I went to Swami Muktananda. Baba had imbibed and lived this understanding, and I wanted to learn and imbibe it from him. Prior to meeting Baba, I had known very powerful energy experiences. I had seen lights and colors, heard sounds, felt the power of the chi charging through my body and out of my hands. So when I met Baba, the powerful experiences people had from being around him didn’t impress me. Powerful experiences were not what I was looking for. I wanted to be the Truth and live it 24/7.

I knew nirvikalpa samādhi; it was being in “the zone”. That is not what I was looking for. I knew nirvichāra samādhi, where my mind grasped higher abstractions without thought. That is not what I was looking for. I knew ānanda samādhi, when I was completely absorbed in Bliss. I was not looking for that, either. I wanted asmitā samādhi, where I would be pure I-awareness, and then nirbīja samādhi, where “Rohini” would dissolve and only the Self of All would remain. In that state, “Rohini” would be enlivened as needed. Baba knew and lived there. Baba taught me the practice of returning Home, and what I teach now is what Baba showed me. He was constantly directing me away from identification with the individual.

Spiritual experiences, like any other experiences, are not who we are, and we should not identify with them.

Baba always said,

“Meditate on your Self,

Worship your Self,

Kneel to your Self,

Honor your Self,

God dwells within you as you”.

Baba was not speaking about the small self as the Self. That distinction was obvious. What has to happen is that the small self must be surrendered, so that we can re-cognize the Self that, as Baba made clear, is our true nature.

There is a Sufi story in which the Sufi laments that whenever he is present God is not, and when God is present the Sufi is not. The Sufi says, “No matter how much I beg and plead, God always says, ‘It is either you or Me’”. This understanding is so vital. The individual will never become enlightened; the individual is not who we truly are.

The practice Baba taught me is Sahajsamādhi: looking into the Heart and out at the world simultaneously. It is purely internal. We bore into our center, always moving toward the Heart. This is to be practiced all the time, not just when sitting. This is a practice that removes our attachments, grinds down our wrong understanding, and moves us to truly knowing who we are. As I always say, be with your experience, let whatever comes up come up, and function appropriately on the physical plane. This is how we dig down through the shrunken self and let it go. This is how we keep learning we are the Knower and not the knowing or the known. We let go and redirect our attention into the Heart. Eventually, we rest in the Heart and look out at the world. In Kashmir Shaivism, this resting in the Heart is termed Shāmbhavopāya. In the Christian tradition, it has been called the third level of attention and prayer.

By Heart I do not mean the physical heart, or the subtle heart of thoughts and emotions, or the heart of the causal body where we experience deep sleep. This Heart is beyond the waking state, the dream state, and the deep sleep state. This Heart is the Witness of those three states. The Heart is in the fourth body, the supracausal body. It is the turīya state, the fourth state, the state beyond all mutability. The Heart is far beyond where the individual resides. Here there are no emotions, thoughts, or any of the vehicles needed in the waking, dream or deep sleep state. Here there is only the Self, only God.

The blogs of the last few months have been pushing us in our practice, emphasizing what must be given up if we are to continue to work deeper and deeper toward the Heart. I have written about self-hate; remember that the root of that self-loathing, whatever other forms it may adopt, is our inescapable memory of our Real nature. We remember our True Self in spite of the fact that we now wrongly believe we are its vehicles, especially its faculty of knowing. This is our first wrong understanding: we misidentify the Knower as the mechanism of knowing.

The faculty of knowing takes ownership of all our experiences, including our spiritual ones. It is enlivened by the Knower, but because the Knower’s subjectivity is now infused into it, the faculty of knowing believes it is alive and conscious. Metaphorically speaking, the moon thinks it is self-illuminative, when it is in truth only illumined by the Sun. The Self illumines the faculty of knowing. The faculty of knowing is the habitat of the shrunken self.

In that light, ordinary human existence is a kind of slumber. When the scriptures say “wake up” and “great beings never sleep”, it is not that they do not rest their bodies and go to sleep. It means that they are awake in the waking state, awake in the dream state, and awake in the deep sleep state. These great beings dwell in the Heart, where they are always awake, and witness the life of the individual. These beings are all-knowing because they know who they are in Reality, and are no longer attached and identified with their individuality. This is what Baba taught, as have all the great teachers and scriptures of the world.

The final freedom from the merely individual happens when we surrender our faculty of knowing to the Self of All. We have then disentangled from all our vehicles and rest in our true nature. Until now the faculty of knowing has been doing the spiritual practice. Sādhana is always done by the shrunken self: by purifying and stilling itself, it reaches a place where it is purely an object, and the Knower of all objects is the only subject. Then we no longer think we are the image in the mirror, taking the non-Self to be the Self. We are the Self, in the Garden of the Heart—as, in Truth, we have always been.

Shyster….

October 12, 2014

Shyster Upstanding citizen

Clever Sucker

Baba’s Work….

October 5, 2014

One of the greatest misconceptions about spiritual practice is that it is selfish. Unfortunately, the world is full of pseudo-spiritual “paths” that really are nothing but self-indulgence. Real practice is the opposite. When we actually do it, the world changes on a deep and subtle level.

It’s hard to fathom this. Few people want to grasp that by turning inward and giving up our hate, we change the world. The truth is, these people would rather have spiritual practice be something they do for themselves alone, as small selves. When confronted with the reality that the stakes are higher than that, that practicing carries the added weight of responsibility to the world, they don’t want to take on that accountability. But we are all accountable in this way, whether we like it or not, and whether we practice or not.

God enlivens the world; that means God enlivens all vibrations, including the most prevalent vibration of the moment. In Indic traditions, there are three foundational vibrations, which combine like the primary colors to make up the manifested universe: tamas (inertia, ignorance, and darkness), rajas (activity, desire, and pain), and sattva (calm, clarity, and brightness). Right now, the world is steeped in tamas—in ignorance, complacency, and destructiveness. As tamas moves toward rajas, our actions are colored with this darkness, which manifests as hate. How does that affect each of us? Tamas and rajas will influence us based on the makeup of our small selves and how detached we are from them. The more we are detached, the more we move toward sattva—wisdom, discernment, and peace—and so we are able to see tamas for what it is and respond appropriately.

Whether we are active in our hate or complacent and therefore passive in our hate, we are sharing in the vibration of darkness and ignorance. We are contributing to the evil in the world. The only way out of evil is to shine the light of sattva on it. Then, with the conscious awareness of our agency, we work to still by facing and being with this vibration of darkness. Each of us needs to still for all of us.

This is true because, from the standpoint of the Absolute, each of us actually is all of us. We are the Self of All. In that sense, every person exists simultaneously as a manifested being and as the Unmanifest. We exist as manifested beings in relative reality; here, we each appear as separate entities existing in time, living and dying and performing actions both good and evil. But in Reality we are the Absolute, which is pure Love. The Absolute gives rise to the manifest. Just as Christ said that everything, both good and evil, comes out of the Heart, all manifestation comes out of the Absolute. God is All.

From the standpoint of Absolute Reality, there is no good or evil. Everything is God. In relative reality, though, we enact different parts in the cosmic play. Some of us will do mostly good and some of us will do mostly evil. We are all in the Great Game, and we are accountable for what we do as characters. We live as individuals in a universe of cause and effect, and we must reap what we have sown. It all ultimately balances out, but at some points the Great Game tilts into tamas. This provides an opportunity for the good to rise up and right the balance, just as in World War II people arose and joined together against the evil of Nazism. Without such evils, goodness gives way to complacency, which then gives rise to outright evil. These cycles are just cause and effect playing out, so that every character in the Great Game has a chance to choose God or not.

This is what we are seeing now. For instance, ISIS is clearly evil, but in truth God dwells within its adherents just as much as in the most saintly people on earth. Ebola is a natural evil, and it, too, is a manifestation of the Absolute. But in relative reality, we cannot pretend we are in the Absolute. In the Great Game, the good must be accountable and stand up for Truth; otherwise, there is no redemption for anyone. We can actually make a difference. All of us.

But how we go about making a difference makes all the difference. Standing up for Truth must begin within each of us. We can only take appropriate action outwardly if we have realigned ourselves with God inwardly. We cannot come from some self-deceiving place called “our truth”; we have to throw our idealistic notions into the fire of Truth. Only when we accept where we are, redirect our will, and surrender to Love can we free ourselves from ignorance and hate, and discern right action.

By turning inward, accepting our own self-hate, and working to be still rather than project that hate outward, we contribute sattva to the world. This is the spiritual practice enjoined on us by so many traditions, scriptures, and teachers. By using our will, we redirect our attention back into the Heart, the cave of the Self, and rest there. From that stillness, we can see and act clearly, without attachment.

Baba was here to help bring the world back from the vibration of evil. He spread his message and awakened the spiritual energy in hundreds of thousands of people. Though only a few wanted what he really had to offer, most people who encountered him found their lives unexpectedly changed for the better. For each person who received Baba’s grace, the world shifted. It was then their task to practice inwardly and continue in their own lives the work he began. Those who truly practice know there is nothing selfish about this work. They know that each step they take toward God moves everyone in that direction.

We can only take appropriate action….

October 5, 2014

We can only take appropriate action outwardly if we have realigned ourselves with God inwardly. We cannot come from some self-deceiving place called “our truth”; we have to throw our idealistic notions into the fire of Truth.

Surreptitious….

October 5, 2014

Surreptitious/ Sneaky Transparent/ Up front

Discreet Brazen

Recovering Our Agency….

September 28, 2014

“The world is a mess. We are a mess. This is just the way it is. There is nothing we can do. It hurts, but there is nothing that can be done”. All of these are normal statements and concerns expressed everywhere, by all sorts of people. Yet for most of us, “concern” will be as far as we go.

You may argue that you have no power, no venue, no access to anyone, and when you have in fact put forth your voice in concern absolutely no one comes back and nothing is done.

It all appears hopeless, and from a worldly perspective it may be. So why am I writing about this? Why am I even bringing up the discomfort of the hurt, the powerlessness and the hopelessness?

Because there is something we can do. It may be too late to change the current tide, but if we all participate it can change the environment and prevent a future filled with living nightmares for so many of us.

If each of us stopped reacting and resonating, and instead began responding from the Heart, the world would appear to shift. In fact, we would be seeing for the first time the openings for Love. Different choices would begin to arise. These opportunities have always been there; we just were not aware of them.

In Dante’s Hell, no one moves. Each inhabitant of Hell stays in one place, either completely immobile or going in eternal circles. In his journey, Dante comes upon the damned, and from the place of their punishment they share their stories. Dante then moves on. In Purgatory, everyone is moving toward Paradise. Everyone will get to Paradise because they have admitted their sins. By admitting their sins, they acknowledge their accountability, which means they have agency. Not until we admit that we have agency can we move forward. So in Purgatory everyone reaps what is there for them and then they move on to Paradise, where all is pure and filled with the Bliss of God. All three places are here on the physical plane: Hell is tamasic (inert and dark), Purgatory is rajasic (active and painful), and Paradise is sattvic (still and bright).

As long as we identify as victims—victims of our environment, victims of any kind—we have no agency and therefore we are in Hell. As reactors and resonators, we forfeit our agency. Once we respond appropriately by being a conscious participant in the world drama, we get out of Hell and begin the long road of Purgatory through consciously reaping what we have sown and practicing right action. Finally, as pure agents of God, we reach Paradise. All this can happen right here on earth. But in order to live heaven on earth, we have to give up what keeps us in Hell, what keeps pulling us back down into Hell.

The Yoga Sūtras tell us the same thing. When, out of ignorance, we wrongly identify, we lose our Real subjectivity; then, based on this mistaken identity, we are either attracted to or repulsed by what we encounter. We then cling to this way of life. Our wrong identity is only an object, a collection of vibrations—not who we truly are. When we are attracted to something or someone, we resonate with their vibration; when we are repulsed, we react against their vibration.

Resonating is not empathizing, is not being kind or compassionate, is not connecting, is not fitting in, is not being appropriate. Reacting is not standing up for ourselves or sharing our true voice.

Resonating is all about vibrations and sharing them. As children, we internalize the vibrations around us, and we either resonate with them or react against them. We end up building a collection of tuning forks within us that vibrate automatically. When we resonate with another person, what we feel is really our own vibration, not the other person’s; there are two tuning forks humming the same note.

We resonate because we do not want to be ourselves. We unconsciously abandon ourselves to the frequency of the moment. This self-abandonment becomes our strategy for meeting and connecting with others. We decide that sensitive people are connecting with us and we with them, but in truth we have no core, nor do they. Who we “are” at a given moment is our vibration at that moment.

The opposite of resonating is being self-contained and inwardly clear. As I have said before, only in this state can we respond appropriately. People committed to resonating will regard this as being disconnected, when in fact no real connection is possible without it.

Resonating

Self-contained

Connected

Disconnected

The uncomfortable truth is that resonating is really love full of hate, not real Love or compassion. By resonating with others, we perpetuate our deep-seated self-loathing. In abandoning ourselves, we abandon everyone else—even the people we convince ourselves we are “connecting” with. Only when we are coming from our core and not lost in vibrations can we truly empathize. Agape comes from the stillness of the Heart, not from resonating.

Resonating can be a beginning in the Guru/disciple relationship, but it must not last. The Guru/disciple relationship is the disciple surrendering into the groundwater where the Guru dwells. Many people around Baba did not surrender to the Real; they wanted to be enlightened small selves. As a result, they only resonated with Baba’s shakti, so that when Baba was gone they were left with nothing but memories. They then moved on to resonate with others. As disciples, we should have agency; after all, the Guru’s job is to make the disciple the Guru. Baba always said, “You have to have a strong, healthy ego to be able to surrender it”.

Please let us all join as accountable agents in stilling evil, in illuminating the darkness that turns all Love into twisted, tortured love. Hate is abundant and thriving, disguised as righteousness, caring, knowing the way, without any questioning or reflecting or agency. So sure, so emotional and so empty.

As we approach the anniversary of Baba’s Mahāsamādhi, the world needs us to have agency. Using that power to choose and act, we must surrender consciously, with all our hearts, to God and Guru, so that we can all take our place in Paradise as the only true agent, the Self of All.

If each of us stopped….

September 28, 2014

If each of us stopped reacting and resonating, and instead began responding from the Heart, the world would appear to shift. In fact, we would be seeing for the first time openings for Love that have always been there.

Resonating….

September 28, 2014

Resonating Self-contained

Connected Disconnected

Being sensitive and compassionate….

September 21, 2014

Being sensitive and compassionate does not mean resonating with someone else’s vibration. Only from stillness can we be compassionate.

Approaching the World….

September 21, 2014

No matter who we are, there are only four possible ways we can engage with the world: reacting, resonating, responding, and empathizing. Where we choose to land on this spectrum of action determines our degree of agency, and therefore our humanity.

If I were to write nothing more than reactions to life, I would be showing you that I was at the mercy of the world around me. My practice would not be very detached, and I would be sharing the fact that I had no agency. Reacting to life means my sādhana would be just crisis hopping or pleasure jumping. The five senses would then be the vehicles that guide my practice. I would have no core.

Resonating with the outer environment would show that I still have a lot of work to do disentangling. When we resonate we are vibrating with the world and people around us, like tuning forks playing the same note. Some would say that this is a good thing, but even in this situation we forfeit our agency. We have no control over our reaction. So if we walk into a room with someone who is angry, we will resonate with them. We may think we are “connecting”, but in fact we are only absorbed in our own vibration, as the other person is in theirs. We can’t help anyone when we resonate with them; it’s the equivalent of two people clinging to each other as they both drown. We see this in countless relationships: what draws people together is only the fact that they resonate on a certain frequency, not that they truly connect. Two people drawn together by a shared vibration of self-hatred may believe that they are in love.

The way to use resonating in our practice is to see that when we resonate we have something to learn. The vibration we have can now be acknowledged, and we can work to still it in ourselves. The environment created an opening for the vibration that was already in us. Once we have stilled that vibration and mastered it, we will no longer resonate with others who have it. We will no longer make the mistake of believing we are on the same page as someone else when in fact our vibration is our own.

Responding to life is a recovery of our agency. Here, we are clearly assessing what is in our world and responding consciously and deliberately. We are no longer at the mercy of the world and people around us. Because we are disentangled, we neither react unconsciously nor resonate; we now have the distance to evaluate with discernment. This is where I speak of being with our experience, letting whatever comes up come up, and functioning appropriately on the physical plane. By responding appropriately, we will grind down the ego. Our wrong identification with the non-self is worn down. There is a discipline in our approach to life. We can only respond to someone else’s sadness appropriately when we do not use them as an occasion to wallow in our own sadness; we can then offer real sympathy, not self-indulgence masquerading as sympathy.

To understand true empathy, you have to understand subjectivity. The world in relation to the mind is an object. The mind in relation to the Self is an object. When the world is the object, the mind will appear to be subject. At other times, the mind will be an object. The mind is not self-illuminative. The Self is the only absolute Subject: it is the Perceiver, and can never be perceived. It is the Self of All.

When we empathize, we are in the groundwater of the Heart, and actually feel what someone else feels without resonating. We have not lost ourselves. We know the experience is theirs and not ours; we know it is not who we are. If we were resonating, we would just be feeling our vibration. By surrendering to the Self, we become capable of truly being with others.

Being sensitive and compassionate….

September 21, 2014

Being sensitive and compassionate does not mean resonating with someone else’s vibration. Only from stillness can we be compassionate.

Approaching the World….

September 21, 2014

Never good enough….

September 21, 2014

Never good enough Perfect

Learner/ Striving/ Growing Nothing to be done/ Dead/ Pointless

Crumbs….

September 14, 2014

For many years I have used the story of Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs as an example of how we go Home. For us, the breadcrumbs are still there. We can follow them back to who we really are.

The last few weeks my work has been focusing on the self-hate we all have. We have seen that our hate toward the world is actually outward-turned self-loathing. The first step Homeward is stopping the outward hatred. Then comes the hardest moment: choosing whether to continue turning inward and facing our own self-hate, to stay quiet looking outward, or to return to the arena and spew hate everywhere, knowingly or unknowingly.

The question is why go through all the ugly reality of our small selves. Why would anyone choose to face that head-on? Simply, it is the only way Home. We cannot get Home without facing and letting go of our self-loathing. The breadcrumbs are still there. They will be there for our sake. So many things we think we have left behind we must acknowledge as still being with us. We have to choose to retrace our steps back to who we truly are. Each new crumb we come upon is a clue and will help us in our journey. The more we face and pick up the crumbs, the lighter life becomes for us.

The problem for many of us is that we would rather be fattened up and cooked in the oven by the witch than turn around and face ourselves. That way, unless we are rescued—and even if we are—we have no accountability, no agency. We maintain our victimhood. For those who want that, there is plenty of support.

Those of you who truly want to be yourselves will have to search high and low for a guide to help you decipher those breadcrumbs. Swami Muktananda is just such a Being. He guides his disciples Home to Joy and Love and the Truth of who they are. Baba is a guide who knows the terrain of darkness, ignorance and pain. He knows how to bring us out of our self-loathing and into the light of our Home in the Self of All.

Again, for anyone wondering why we just went through that dark patch, have you noticed you can handle it better and are not so identified with it anymore? We have plenty of darkness to face, but as we learn, we find the ease and willingness to move into this part of the inevitable journey. We cannot avoid it forever. Turning away from the fattening and facing the small self with consciousness is the initial step. Then we have to move into the darkness with our light of consciousness shining so clearly that the forest of ignorance is illuminated and we know how to go Home.

When he was in his body, Baba took his disciples through this passage time and time again. For each of us, the darkness had a different twist that was not easy for the untrained eye to see. But he was and is such a great guide, moving us to retrace our path and clean it up as we go.

What a wonderful adventure. Accountability is so freeing. As we retrace our steps with our guide’s help we are more and more free to love, because we are more and more accountable and therefore more and more Us. We have turned around, and are moving farther away from the witch’s oven. Home is just ahead. Let us keep following the breadcrumbs to Love.

You can’t scrub….

September 14, 2014

You can’t scrub the small self clean. The only way to clean up the small self is by no longer identifying with it.

Obtuse….

September 14, 2014

Obtuse Insightful

Cautious Too fast

Victimhood: the Way of the World….

September 7, 2014

This is going to be the final blog in this series. I want to address something that is going to be uncomfortable for many readers: attachment to victimhood. This subject can be raw, and it can trip a wire that may bother people who have not faced that attachment in themselves. It is crucial to recognize that I am using the term “victim” in a spiritual sense—not in terms of physical or emotional events, but in terms of how we see ourselves. The point is how we attach to, recoil from, or generally identify with the word “victim”.

The further we shrink and objectify ourselves, the more we become victims. Even bullies see themselves as injured or deprived, so we all self-identify as victims. The victimization we seize on may be concrete or abstract, physical or emotional, but we all have a relationship with victimhood. It is a vicious irony: we dream of unity, and achieve a mockery of it by being united in aggrieved victimhood.

Here is a simple foursquare to start working with this dynamic:

Victim Assertive / Powerful

Innocent / Not accountable Bully

Self-identified victims—we could call them career victims—think of themselves as good, caring, deserving, nice people. Above all, they are right in their thinking. Yet if we are really honest, when we are around people who primarily see themselves as victims, we feel them radiate something other than goodness or innocence, and we find ourselves put off. How many times have you been around a victim and found yourself inexplicably angry? There is a reason for that. Victims are great haters.

And victimhood has its appeal. The more objectified we are, the less accountable. If we act out of a sense of victimhood, we automatically feel we are justified. As recent events have shown, even the police now see themselves as victims. In situations for which they are not prepared, they fear for their lives. Then, out of a sense of self-preservation, they shoot to kill. It is clear that they have not been properly trained to discern the difference between a misunderstanding and real danger.

We now inhabit an atmosphere suffused with threat. So in order not to appear as a threat to ourselves or others, we assess ourselves as victims. As victims, we arm ourselves against the world—unwittingly becoming threats. Everything is geared toward terror, so we fear for our lives and shoot.

This is only one example of how we now live in an emotionally heightened environment. All around us, especially in the media, emotionality rules the day. Even our news reporting is governed by emotion. Emotionality is equated with authenticity. We see emotion as the seat of our true subjectivity; as a result, the person in the most dramatic emotional state is seen as the most “real”. And our designated victims get a free pass. At the same time, the ideal of heroism has been reduced to surviving a situation in which we might have been more completely victimized.

We have cultivated around the world a support system that idealizes victimhood. Not only the media but also many in the “helping professions”, various forms of activism, and political groups maintain the focus on victims and our obligations to them. If you can stake a compelling claim to the role of victim, then anyone who disagrees with you is cast as the bully.

And what is perhaps most disturbing about this is that we have so cheapened victimhood that the real victims suffering right now go unnoticed, or are given brief spells of attention before being trumped by other self-appointed or media-appointed victims. Our attention lasts the duration of a hashtag.

At a deeper level, the self-identified victim spreads hate. Career victims hate, and they want the rest of us to join their family. Hate binds us together tighter than love. They encourage us to take sides inappropriately, to resonate with their violence, to participate in their self-centered worldview.

Again, there is a difference between people who are being victimized and suffering and those who cling to their victimhood and use it as a power play. The question is not whether someone has physically or emotionally victimized you at some point; it is whether you are going to insist on being identified as a victim afterward.

Anyone tempted to cling to victimhood in this way should consider that to identify yourself as a victim may give you leverage with some people, but in a more real sense it is to give up your agency. To become human is to recover your agency by letting go of all victimhood. But with agency comes accountability. Rather than be accountable, many people see more advantage in being victims.

We don’t have to operate this way. Each of us must work to give up our own sense of victimhood. Until we do that, we will remain caught in the ugly cycle of victimhood, hate, and violence. Love is the only answer. Not the love that opposes itself to hate, but the Love that transcends all separateness—the Love that has no interest in victims, and produces none.

Align yourself….

September 7, 2014

Align yourself not with the love that opposes itself to hate, but with the Love that transcends all separateness.

Always in trouble….

September 7, 2014

Always in trouble Innocent/Free of blame

Accountable/Responsible Insignificant

Explaining Liberation….

September 2, 2014

Rohini reads from Jnaneshwar’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.

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How Hate Manifests….

September 2, 2014

Rohini illustrates how all hate arises from self-hate.

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We do not need to….

August 31, 2014

We do not need to hate in order to discern evil. In fact, in order to have that discernment we must be free of hate.

Drawing Out the Poison….

August 31, 2014

Hate is so mundane. Last week, I wrote that in order to hate we have to maintain the small self, and in order to maintain the small self we have to hate. Everyone has hate; everyone uses it and everyone is motivated by it. This hate is the first and most important distortion of Love. Everything we do comes from and is based on this hate.

Self-hate, the hate we are unwilling to face, motivates us to manifest that hate outward further into the world. I turn in and see my self-hate. So I turn out and project it outward.

We all profess to hate hate. That in itself is hate. We do not need to hate in order to discern evil. In fact, in order to have that discernment we must be free of hate. The love that is opposed to hate is not Love. The love that is opposed to hate is attached to hate, and cannot see clearly.

Our task is to be true even around haters. Can I love in a hating environment? Remember, our small selves arise from twisted Love. And as we as individuals become more separate and empowered, our hate becomes the only thing we have to offer.

True Love melts the borders of selfhood. But we distrust anything that will cause us to leave our prison cell of the small self.

Self absorption of any kind comes from a deep-seated, deep-seeded self hate. We are small selves lost in themselves, not realizing that the very basis of the small self is self-hatred. Again, this is not the small self hating itself for its misdeeds. This is the small self hating itself for existing at all.

In our fundamental ignorance, we mistake self-hate for self-love, simply because self-hate is a kind of self-absorption. It is a way of being caught up in ourselves. We are swimming in our own sewage, but because of our own ignorance and darkness we cannot see it. I hold onto my small self because I hate myself too much.

But for all this, we would rather hate than learn to live in Love. Despite what we may say, almost no one wants Love. Love requires too much hard work. Love requires us to surrender our separateness. That’s why, if you want to get rid of somebody, then Love. If we really Love, then people who are committed to self-hate will not want to be around us.

If you are willing to surrender to the work of Love, you must first know and accept your self-hate. You cannot get rid of something you refuse to accept. Then, you must understand the process by which you got from who You really Are to the self you hate. Here is how it works:

The True Self. You Are who You Are, the Self of All.
Ignorance. You mistake the image of the Self in the mirror of the intellect (buddhi) for the Self. You lose the Subject in the object of the mirror. As soon as you take the non-Self to be the Self, you lose yourself in that image. The false, small self emerges. Because the small self has a memory of its True Nature and knows it is false and shrunken, it hates itself for existing. Its existence is a prison cell.
The small self hoards its hate, collecting reasons for hating itself. It fills its prison cell with various forms of self-hatred.
The small self tries to unload its self-hatred by projecting it out into the world. It hates others.
The small self recognizes that it is throwing out hate and decides to restrain itself. It calls itself a “good person” or a “spiritual person”. But it is still stuck in its cell with all its self-hate, and all its “good” words and actions are tainted with that hate. So it has not begun to do real work yet.
The small self begins to reflect truly and to clear out its cell—not by trying to project hate outward, but by owning, accepting, and dissolving hate. This is what foursquares are for.
Once all its manifestations of hate are neutralized, the small self is back to its simple, basic self-hate.
When liberation arrives, all separation is healed, and all hate dissolves.
You will never then be “Rohini”, “Sue”, “David”, etc. again. You will enliven the small self and remain the Self. Love then manifests through the small self without any twist or taint.

Liberation means re-cognizing our True Nature. In Śiva Sūtras III.9, it says, “Such a one who has realized his essential nature is a Self that is only an actor (on the world stage)”.

In Jñaneshwar’s poetic commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā, Ārjuna awakens in just this way:

Filled with pride in my personality I thought that I was Arjuna in this world and said that the Kauravas were my relatives.

In addition to that, I had the evil dream that I would kill them and then what should I do? But the Lord wakened me from my sleep….

I, being no one, thought I was a person and called those my relatives who in reality did not exist. Thou hast saved me from this great madness.

We do not need to….

August 31, 2014

We do not need to hate in order to discern evil. In fact, in order to have that discernment we must be free of hate.

Avoiding….

August 31, 2014

Avoiding Facing

Strategizing Antagonistic

The Root of Hate….

August 24, 2014

Rohini explains what lies at the root of hatred and spiritual misery.

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The Rotten Root of Hate and the Route Out….

August 24, 2014

God is Love. Love is our True nature. If we want to be autonomous, we must reject God, and therefore reject Love. So we twist Love into hate, and call ourselves individuals in our own right.

But the small self, the shrunken self, is a prison, and we “know” that and hate it. We all have the memory of who we really are. That is why we long for something more: we know that we are more than “who we are”. But we run from this awareness. We run outside, even further away from the Self.

Self-hate is an unavoidable outcome of ignorance, “I”-ness, attraction, repulsion, and clinging to life. Put another way, our self-hate arises through our mistaken identification with imperfection, separateness, and doership.

Inherent in our self-loathing is the awareness that what we hate, we actually “know” is not who we really are. We hate, however, for the wrong reason. We believe we hate ourselves because we can’t be happy, and therefore go outside ourselves looking for that happiness. But in truth, we hate ourselves because we know that our unhappiness arises from our not being who we really are. We always do “remember” our True nature.

But we work to forget. Ironically, we hold onto our small selves because we hate ourselves too much. We cling to what we hate so that we might forget the real reason we hate it. The choice to be infinitely less than who we really are is so painful that we turn even further outside, and project our self-hate onto and into the world. When we turn inward we see our self-hate, so we turn outward and project that hate elsewhere. Our self-hate informs everything—even what we tell ourselves is love.

We created this prison. We diminished ourselves. So we believe we are freeing ourselves by projecting out of ourselves. But we are going the wrong way. We will have to go through the self-hate of the non-self in order to get back to the Self. Hate is just twisted Love. When we give up ignorance and wrong identification, we untwist our manifestation of Love and let go of hate.

So the answer is to turn in, disentangle from what we loathe and re-cognize who we really are. Again, remember that self-loathing and self-love are just twisted Love. Love is who and how we really are—but as long as we remain locked in our self-hate, we are incapable of Love. The self-loather cannot simply decide to love. The Lover loves. The self-loather has to sacrifice itself in order to have the Lover emerge from under the cloak of hate. The self-loather emerges from the Lover. The self-loather is the twisted and shrunken manifestation of the Lover.

The popular delusion that most perpetuates our self-loathing is the belief that we are the creators of our own Grace. We are encouraged to believe that we can free ourselves on our own. In Truth, everything comes from God, even our self-hate. When we experience that truth, we can see how self-hate can in fact help us in our journey back to the Self. Embedded in self-hate is Grace. Grace makes us unsatisfied with our prison; it reveals to us that who we hate is not who we are. Self-hate helps us to let go of what is not us. It helps us to detach, if we are strong enough to seek Love. Then we surrender to God, Love and Guru. We no longer fight against our true nature.

We cannot get rid of our self-hate if we refuse to accept that we have it. Until we accept our self-hate, we will resort to a range of strategies to conceal it from ourselves and others.

Numbing

Denial

Stupidity

Vagueness

Confusion

Distraction

Defensiveness

Guilt

Processing

Victimhood

Blame

Assuming

Rationalization

Stubbornness

Beating up on self

Having it both ways

Making light of

Apologizing

“Nothing ever changes”

Having glimpses

“Not my fault”

Abstraction

Regret

Coldness

Planning

Good intentions

Enthusiasm

Counterexamples

Overriding

Resignation

We have two choices: either turn outward to avoid the Truth using these strategies of concealment, or turn in and face the Truth of our ignorance and wrong identification, and free ourselves by returning to Love.

In order to hate we have to maintain the small self. In order to maintain the small self we have to hate. The only way to Love is to surrender our cherished autonomy and accept Grace. Then we can be liberated from the prisons we have made for ourselves.

If you want….

August 24, 2014

If you want to get rid of someone, then Love.

Wasteful….

August 24, 2014

Wasteful Custodial

Nonattached Possessive

Respecting Lineage….

August 17, 2014

If we want to learn, we have to surrender to instruction. This holds true in any area, but never more so than in spiritual practice. When we submit to instruction, we have to willingly diminish our autonomy. By giving up our say, we climb out of the kiddie pool of shrunken ideas and plunge into the ocean of true knowledge.

What tends to keep us from this surrender is our own self-loathing; we hate whomever we think we are. Who we Truly are, the Self of All, rebukes in its very Being all our narratives about ourselves. Though we conceal this from ourselves, we hate the shrunken selves we perpetuate with our narratives. We refuse to accept this self-hatred, so we project it outward onto the world around us. Once we have made this move, we have given up all our power to outside forces, and we have no ability to free ourselves and get back to the Real.

True teachers of any sort are situated in a lineage. They submitted to instruction in order to become masters in their chosen fields. They completed their apprenticeships. If we don’t surrender to a spiritual teacher and instead believe we can do it ourselves, we are self-directed and will never be able to give up the small self. Instead of working toward the Bliss and Freedom of the True Self, we will continue to insist on our miserable autonomy as self-hating little tyrants.

The Guru is always bringing us back to the Real. The Guru listens within us and shows us how to be happy. We do as the Guru instructs, and we experience happiness. But we are furious about this. We want to create and choose our own happiness according to our own individual will, so that we can feel absolute sovereignty over our lives. So we hate the Guru. And we act out against the Guru.

Life with Baba was filled with chances to choose between Love and hate, and he always gave us opportunities to let go of our read on things in order to see them as they truly were. Every day there were tests for anyone who was willing to take them.

In 1977-1978, I worked in Baba’s courtyard in Ganeshpuri. Many a day I would stand there alone; often not even Baba would be present. One afternoon, Baba was looking out the window of the meditation room into the courtyard. He looked like Krishna himself. He smiled at me and indicated that I should come to the entrance, which was on the far side of the building. Then he disappeared from the window. When I parted the curtain in the entrance, Baba was standing just behind it. He gave me a hug, and I hugged him back. It was a close, tight hug. I then pranamed and left.

The next day, Baba was at the same window again, looking radiant and full of Bliss. He signaled to me and left the window again, and I went. This time, he kissed me lightly on the cheek and held me close. I pranamed and left. This time, I didn’t like it. I felt I was being tested, and walked away uncomfortable.

The next day, Baba was there again. When he signaled for me to come and left the window, at that exact moment Ron Friedland, then president of the SYDA Foundation, happened to walk by. “Ron,” I said, “Baba wants to see you in the meditation room.” I’ve always wondered who was more surprised when that curtain parted.

Later that afternoon, Baba’s valet said to me that Baba had had work for me and I hadn’t come. I did my best Indian head nod and said, “Yes, I know.” That was it. When I saw Baba later and ever after, he treated me with the utmost respect and Love, and I always felt I had passed a test.

Over my years with Baba and after, I knew many people who had wonderful experiences and grew tremendously in Baba’s presence. At some point, each of them hit a wall, a point at which what happened for them with Baba would not fit into their ideas of themselves and enlightenment and spirituality. Most of these people wanted their shrunken selves to be enlightened; they wanted to maintain their autonomy as separate people and possess liberation from there. Never mind that Baba always taught that there is no such thing as a liberated individual. This rebelliousness against Reality, God, and Guru led them to reject Baba, often in the harshest possible terms. The shrunken self is vicious when it feels threatened, and regards itself as the ultimate victim. These people did not want to surrender to the lineage or to God.

I love Baba with all my heart and soul. He has never let me down. His Love melted my self-loathing—because I surrendered to the Guru.

Teachable….

August 17, 2014

Teachable Resistant

Gullible Discriminating

If you have been taught….

August 17, 2014

If you have been taught how to learn, what you learn after that is not “self-taught”. If you are self-taught, don’t be so proud. It is nothing to be proud of or to advertise, because everyone will know you don’t know how to learn.

We are in fact….

August 10, 2014

We are in fact isolated when we operate as if the individual is the sole entity and the soul’s true identity.

Be Not the Moon….

August 10, 2014

We say the moon is so bright tonight. We should be saying the sun reflects beautifully off the moon tonight. The sun is the source of the moon’s light. Please tell the moon this, because it thinks it shines on its own. We as individuals think we shine on our own. And in our present predicament the individual has shrunk so much that it is just the brain. So if we drug the brain, we change our selves. But the brain is not the source; it is only a vehicle. And the brain cannot love. Through drugs, the brain can produce pleasure; if that is the final goal, we are not looking at the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave, we are the shadows.

Last week I wrote about lovers and the righteous. “We are to give up even survival over love. So much of the fight these days is because we believe we will not survive if we do not kill the other. Even this idea of survival has to go so that love of God shines here.” Now we need to ask, “Who wants to survive?” The answer is that the individual wants to survive, at all costs. And survival for the individual means having a certain level of safety. Hence,

Safe

At risk

Closed off/ Isolated

Engaged with the world

But are we safe when we isolate ourselves? Not necessarily. And are we at risk when we engage? Also not necessarily. We are in fact isolated when we operate as if the individual is the sole entity and the soul’s true identity. In order to be an “individual”, we have to isolate ourselves from the sun, the Self, God, which guides us and keeps us truly safe.

The individual believes “kill or be killed”. In the Yoga Sūtras, clinging to life is the last of the five afflictions. From ignorance of who we really are, we fight to keep our small self, our character in our narrative, alive. In spiritual practice this small self, the moon, has to be put in its proper place. We have to cease to identify with it and instead use the small self merely as a foot soldier for the true Self.

To be Lovers, we can no longer identify with our individuality. This is not an easy task; it is not asked lightly. As someone who once loved to fight, I know what I am asking. Hate and fight feel so much more “alive” than love and peace. Are they? For whom are they more alive? The haters? The fighters? They imagine it as vital and a great rush, but even The Art of War by Sun Tzu says differently:

“Therefore those who win every battle are not really skillful—those who render others’ armies helpless without fighting are the best of all”. (trans. Thomas Cleary)

Killing does not help us survive; it is a small self solution designed to keep us in ignorance. Love is the only way to live, but to love we have to acknowledge the Heart to be the sun it is. The Heart informs everything.

This Love is not the opposite of hate. This love informs even hate. Hate is a mere emotion, while Love is the source of all. Hate is just twisted Love. It comes from our wrong understanding of ourselves and of life itself.

Self-loathing/ Doormat/ Enabler

Self-assured/ Leader/ Tough love

Humble/ Of service/ Fosters growth

Arrogant/ Tyrant/ Crusher

Mean/ Hateful/ Selfish

Kind/ Loving/ Selfless

Honest/ Straightforward/ Self-contained

Doormat/ Enabler/ Self-loathing

These foursquares foster inequality. We must give up our desire to be unequal. In order to be equal, we must give up survival of the small self. We all must own all these qualities to free ourselves from the above foursquares. When we do this, we will Love with all our Heart, mind, soul and strength—and even body and brain.

Even The Art of War says the greatest warrior wins without fighting and definitely without killing. We can discern without hating. We have to give up even hating those who hate. Loving is living.

Self-loathing/ Doormat/ Enabler….

August 10, 2014

Self-loathing/ Doormat/ Enabler Self-assured/ Leader/ Tough love

Humble/ Of service/ Fosters growth Arrogant/ Tyrant/ Crusher

When we see….

August 3, 2014

When we see ourselves as righteous, God takes a back seat to our individuality.

The Lovers and the Righteous….

August 3, 2014

We all want peace. We all say that, and yet our actions show a different desire. Vengeance, retaliation, revenge—what a great dance. The dance of hate. I have more in common with my brothers and sisters of the Muslim faith who love than I do with my brothers and sisters of the Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist faiths who hate. How can I stand by my Buddhist family that kills Muslims? How can I stand by my Hindu family that kills Muslims? How can I stand by my Christian family that kills Jews and Muslims? How can I stand with my Muslim family that kills Jews, Hindus and Christians? How can I stand with any of my family who rapes women, abuses children, attacks and kills?

Where is my family? My family is scattered across the earth, hiding. We are a family of lovers no longer identified with our religions or nationalities or ethnicities. We must now rise up and love. We must still any hatred and anger that remain within us. Our task is to love, just love. If enough of us actually allow love to shine freely, without the cloak of hate that tends to lurk within us, then we have a chance. We are to give up even survival over love. So much of the fight these days is because we believe we will not survive if we do not kill the other. Even this idea of survival has to go so that love of God shines here.

Swami Muktananda was of the family of lovers. The scriptures I read and share are the scriptures of love. And yet the family of hate will use some of these scriptures to justify their hatred. We are all saying we worship God. But there is a difference: we are either the lovers of God or the righteous of God.

When we love God with all our Heart, mind, soul and strength, we are a family that brings joy and sees that there is one God for all of us though we praise and worship God in different ways. We are not attached to our way or our ethnicity because God is our focus.

When we are righteous, God takes a back seat to our individuality. We insist that we worship the only correct way. The belief is that the only true God is ours, and everyone else’s God is a false idol. We know our language and expression and rules are the only principles to live by. Convinced that we are right(eous), we forsake God.

The more we forsake God, the more involuted we become. We are now lost in our righteousness. We attract others who are also lost in their righteousness, and now we can dance our dance of hate. That is our greatest form of worship: to hate and kill the “other”. Fundamentalism and rigid righteousness from all religions, ethnicities, and nationalities brings us all into battle. To come to the love of God, we must give up our righteousness. That is true for all of us.

The funny thing is, there is no “other”. We are only looking in a mirror. We are seeing ourselves across those lines. We are seeing our own reflection.

I have been told that, had I been in Germany during the Nazi era, this “other” would have killed me. I have been told that this “other” will come for me in America. I know this “other” is me. I am here. I am looking in the mirror. My task is to remain nonattached, discern the appropriate course of action from moment to moment, and follow it. If it is appropriate to fight, I will—but without righteousness or hate. If my fate is to die by my own hand in the guise of an “other”, then it is God’s will. So be it. I will go loving God, not losing myself in the “other”, no matter who or what that apparent “other” is.

Dehumanize….

August 3, 2014

Dehumanize Humanize

Superior/ Efficient/ Detached Naïve/ Codependent/ Sentimental

Surrender….

July 27, 2014

According to Indian philosophy the world is made up of the three gunas or constituent principles. They are different vibrations. These three principles are tamas, rajas and sattva. They combine in infinite permutations to form the manifested universe. When we put these three in complete balance and still them, we are said to have completed our sādhana. Combinations of the gunas make up our vehicles as well as the world outside our bodies. Our minds, therefore, are made up of the three gunas.

Tamas (inertia) is the cause of ignorance. When tamas predominates, we as people will be dull, lazy and stupid. We will read life from this viewpoint and respond to the world with “heedless indifference”.

Rajas (activity) is the cause of pain. When rajas predominates, we will be agitated, anxious and impulsive. We will approach life as a fight. We will live life embattled with the world.

Sattva (calm) is the cause of peace and happiness. When sattva predominates we will be calm, bright, light and peaceful. We will approach life discerning its truth and able to accept how it is. We will love life and act appropriately.

Each of us is a combination of the above three. Our task is to move from tamas to rajas to sattva and overcome the expressions of each. We are to own, master and transcend the gunas. Ultimately, we are to transcend even sattva, so that the gunas cease to control or be part of us. We then will find ourselves resting in the Heart, being the Self, and knowing we are All. At that point the gunas will cease to attach to us because we no longer are in the Play.

Surrender serves an important part in this journey. Depending on where we are at any given moment, our definition of “surrender” will change and we will be approaching surrender to God, the world, and surrender itself in very different ways.

So depending on which guna is running your life at the moment, you will “surrender” very differently. When we are tamasic, surrender is losing, passive and dark. We will find ourselves “putting up with” something rather than facing it. We will be fatalistic, saying that our situation is just the way it is and there is nothing we can do. We are actually miserable and stuck, believing we have surrendered. We have lost and have nowhere to go. We are sitting in the muck, determined that this is the only option. We may think we are doing sādhana, but we are attached to where we are. There is no way out.

When we are rajasic, surrender is active. It means surrender to impulse. We will surrender to an urge, an idea, a food, an activity, or a person. We will think we are free and giving ourselves to the event, thing or person. We will lose ourselves in the other and believe it is a good choice.

Finally we come to sattva. In the place of sattva, surrender will be letting go of what is actually appropriate to let go of, and having equanimity and acceptance. Our action will then be right action.

When my son Aaron was six he had not developed his ability to lose graciously. His belief was simple: if you win then you are a winner; if you lose, then you are a loser. Not a surprising view for someone his age. But if he were going to grow to enjoy games, and eventually life, whether he won or lost, he would need an education in surrender. Surrender for him was synonymous with losing, and losing meant life was miserable. Winners got to enjoy life triumphantly. We all tend to start with this understanding.

For Aaron’s sake and mine, I knew it was time to move him through the process of surrender. Checkers was the venue. We set up the board and began the play. I knew the part I had to play if my son was to be free and actually win. So I destroyed him. At first, he took it with a tense and unhappy expression. I remained as light and free as I could possibly be. “That was a great game. Don’t you agree? Let’s play again”. And so we played again, and again and again. Each time I destroyed him. Each time I related how good it was to play together. The game itself was fun. It did not matter who won or lost.

Tears of frustration streamed down Aaron’s face. I did not stop, and neither did he. He could not win the game, and he was lost in trying. We played on.

And then it happened. Aaron gave up. He surrendered. What did he surrender? He surrendered his attachment to his idea of winning. He saw that it was not making him happy, and that winning and losing were off the point. He accepted and played and enjoyed. Though he never actually defeated his checkers opponent that day, he WON.

Game over.

Depending on where we are….

July 27, 2014

Depending on where we are at any given moment, our definition of “surrender” will change and we will be approaching surrender to God, the world, and surrender itself in very different ways.

Hears ands Connects….

July 27, 2014

Hears and Connects Registers information without connecting/ Superficial

Gooey/ Smothering/ Demanding Unintrusive/ Efficient

If you do not have….

July 20, 2014

If you do not have the vibration, you no longer have the narrative.

The Guru Models….

July 20, 2014

All my years with Baba taught me how to live. Baba was a great model for life. When I say this I do not mean that he showed me I should wear orange robes if it is not my dharma. I do not mean that he showed me that I should live in an ashram if it is not my dharma. I do not mean that he showed me that I should be a Hindu if it is not my dharma. Instead, Baba modeled that each of us has a part to play and we should play that part fully. He modeled that we are not to be identified with the part we play; we should be detached and free. He modeled that we are to uncover our Self; we are to reveal who we truly are and be that Truth.

Baba modeled by being true to himself. He knew who he was and who he was not. He was identified with the Self because that was who he was and is. All his action came from there. Baba’s every action shined a light. Whatever he did revealed the Truth of the moment. What did Baba do? He sat, spoke, walked, ate, played, worked, chanted, emoted, mediated, read. And through each and every action the light of Grace shone.

For me, if I cannot be awake in the mundane actions of life, how can I be awake to contribute to the greater good? Most of us are blessed with a life conducive to practice. In other words, we are not bombarded with the frantic life of someone in the public eye or with the horrific pain of living in a war-torn environment. We do and will have challenges, but if we allow for the light to shine on them we can see that they are there for us to grow closer to God. Yes, all experiences provide that opportunity, but some are easier than others.

If we as a whole are maintaining balance, then the swings of pain and pleasure within the world are small. When we are off balance, then pain is great for some and pleasure great for others. When we, as individuals, are off balance, we can alternate between pleasure and pain. Our separateness becomes more pronounced and concealment rather than revelation becomes the goal. Darkness becomes more prevalent, and the qualities of greed, anger and delusion influence our actions. We remain outward turned, and refuse to reflect because we say it is too painful. And yet we do not acknowledge the pain we are swimming in daily.

Baba knew what I needed; he handed me a stick and told me not to be afraid to hit someone. Baba knew how attached to the martial I was. By giving me permission to be just that, he freed me to embrace it consciously and ultimately to still my investment in the fight and be free from that attachment. Baba modeled acceptance, which then allowed the light of consciousness to reveal the truth about the part I am to play.

In class we are now reading “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. For me, this approach is so familiar and comforting; a way to assess the world around us clearly and to proceed in our action effectively. Baba was a monk who understood All. Because of this understanding, he was able to model an appropriate approach for each of us. By allowing me to be a fighter Baba made me into a Lover.

Our world is presently out of balance. We cannot simply decide to be peaceful, because that unbalance informs everything, including our approach to peace. If we each approach the imbalance in our lives with honesty, inwardly turned and recognizing that we are all contributors to this imbalance, then we can take the first steps towards disentangling and finding real balance and acceptance. We can learn, as Baba modeled, to still our narrative so as to reveal our true nature, which has never left. We will then act from the true Self and will right the imbalance within and without. Thank you, Baba, for modeling for us all.

Impulsive….

July 20, 2014

Impulsive Restrained

Spontaneous Unresponsive

The Guru’s Grace….

July 13, 2014

The five-fold action of God is as follows: Create, Sustain, Destroy, Conceal, Reveal. As human beings and therefore shrunken manifestations of God, we perform these five activities in a diminished form, believing we are powerful. We obviously create, sustain, destroy, and delude/conceal. Revelation or grace is harder for us, as individuals, to see or perform. Our “grace” is the grace of the small self: power and control rather than Love. This idea of grace usually means hitting “reset,” pretending to wipe our slates clean. So we continue the cycle of birth and death.

God clearly creates; just look at the wonder of birth, of life itself. God sustains the continued existence of the universe. Destruction happens on the level of decay, natural disasters, and human destructiveness, in which people who, in gratifying themselves, actually serve as the instruments of God’s destructive activity. God conceals by hiding the truth from us so as to maintain the game. As part of that game, we delude ourselves, insistently thinking we are honest and clear-sighted. If we only had these four activities, then we would never escape a constant misery. Create, sustain, destroy, and conceal. Create, sustain, destroy, and conceal. Over and over again. Where is the solution, the way home?

God’s fifth action is grace/revelation. God uses the Guru as the means to manifest His Grace. Shiva Sūtras II.6 says: The Guru is the means. “The Guru who has attained Self-realization can alone help the aspirant in acquiring it” (Singh 102). The Guru is the Grace bestowing Power of God. The Guru always shines a light. If the Guru is in the room, light still shines even if those nearby are blind to it. The Guru does not judge where to shine the light; it just shines. To be in the presence of such a being is a great gift, not to be taken lightly.

Swami Muktananda was one such being. To sit in his presence was to bathe in the Bliss of the Self. Baba shined the light of God everywhere he went. It emanated out of his body. The job of the people around him was to receive the grace.

Because of you, Baba I woke up.

Because of you, Baba I live and die.

Because of you, Baba I know my Self.

You were beyond pleasure and pain. You were about knowledge of Truth, not just shakti. You taught me what surrender is and what to surrender to. You taught me that we surrender all the time, just to the wrong things, the temporal. You taught me how to surrender, how to let go as a practice that rids us of all that is not Real. You taught me that I wasn’t just to sit and bask in your greatness. You taught me that I had a responsibility and an actual dharma to pursue.

We all have a part to play. We are not to be passive, but active; we are to work side by side with the shakti and the Guru to eliminate what keeps us from Us. We are to be a part of the cleaning crew.

God even uses false gurus—as agents of concealment and destruction who ironically help to deliver grace. Baba used to say, “Thank God for false gurus. How else would we know the true?”

The job of the true Guru is to uncover and destroy concealed delusion. We are to participate in this destruction of darkness. The problem is that so many times we believe we “know” the practice. The Guru removes our delusion about our practice.

People used to say, “I practice; I chant the Guru Gītā every day, I follow the ashram routine of chant, meditation, service”. People did not understand that those activities were only scaffolding, only the external discipline. There is nothing wrong with chanting, meditation, and service, but they are not sufficient on their own; they have to be performed while practicing inwardly. The practice is internal, using the will to surrender all to God and Guru; to rest in the Heart at all times. Practicing means giving up our individuality. That is what Baba did in relation to his Guru, and I pray I am strong enough to give all up to Baba.

Baba persistently destroyed my ideas of practice. He was always stripping away my wrong understanding. We never consciously choose ignorance, so when the Guru cuts like a surgeon trying to save the patient we may believe he is mean or cruel. If we resist, then the procedure takes much longer for us.

The Guru provides the function of grace for God. We are to surrender in order to receive this grace. We cannot receive the revelation if we are holding on to our ideas of ourselves, the Guru, and what practice is. When we surrender, our ideas disappear, and with them our ignorance.

We have to resolve this foursquare before we can share in the revelation. It is easy to maintain delusion; only the Guru will remove it.

Guru

Small self/Individual in own right

Dictator/Tyrant

Disciple

The Guru is the way God delivers Grace to us. The revelation Grace brings is that in Truth we are and have always been the Self.

We never consciously choose….

July 13, 2014

We never consciously choose ignorance, so when the Guru cuts like a surgeon trying to save the patient we may believe he is mean or cruel. If we resist, then the procedure takes much longer for us.

Guru….

July 13, 2014

Guru Small self / Individual in own right

Dictator / Tyrant Disciple

Watching and Waiting….

July 6, 2014

Is God everywhere or only where we want Him to be?

Our flight back to Baltimore was supposed to leave at 4:30, getting us back to Baltimore by 7:30. Here it is 7:00, and we have not moved other than from gate B1 to gate B9. We have been texted that the flight was leaving at 7:40 then 6:30 then 6:10 then 7:30. Now we are waiting until 7:30 when they will update us as to when or whether we are leaving this evening.

There is chaos here with so many people not knowing what is happening. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. We are all waiting for the Groom, yet He does not arrive.

Are we ready? When He comes will we be vigilant and not lose our focus? Will we hear when He comes or will we be distracted and miss our flight? There have been many last calls for this person or that person because their flight is about to leave without them.

So we sit here. God Is here. Can we see Him? People tap on phones and iPads, distracted. People in their heads, wandering in all the stories that a novelist comes up with on an average day. There is nothing any of us can do. We are all practicing surrender. No choice.

Then the announcement that we are going to board. Cheers resound.

Once on the plane, we are seated and waiting again. Everyone anticipates takeoff. All looks good. There is sun. Still daylight. The captain tells us there are no problems. We wait. We wait. Then we get another announcement from the captain. Our flight has been assigned a different route. We do not have enough fuel to travel that route, so we are turning around and going back to the gate to get more. Now it is close to nine. It is hot on the plane, and we are all just waiting again. Will the Groom come? Did we miss Him?

Not yet. We are loading more fuel. When the bridesmaids left for fuel, they missed the Groom’s arrival. Will we miss our chance? Are we willing to be patient and move toward the goal no matter what? The weather has finally cleared out. We are hot and waiting. Children. Men. Women. Life. All waiting. New announcements. Time moves and we stand still. Patience. How will this play out? Will the Groom come and we, as bridesmaids, all be awake? Will some of us know? Will any of us know? Distractions accumulate, and we still wait.

What is the lesson? What is each of us to learn? What do we share? Humanity. God. Life. Love. Relative Reality and Absolute Reality. We all share whether we are aware of it or not.

Finally, so many hours later, we take flight. Tired and worn we all make it home.

The Groom is always here, and the wedding is always ready to happen, no matter where we are.

Attacked….

July 6, 2014

Attacked Affirmed

Challenged Flattered

The Groom is….

July 6, 2014

The Groom is always here, and the wedding is always ready to happen, no matter where we are.

What Unity Means….

June 29, 2014

We are all the philosophies and all the religions.

We are all Muslim. We are all Sunni. We are all Shia.

We are all Christian. We are all Orthodox Christian. We are all Roman Catholic. Baptist. Methodist. Episcopal. Presbyterian. Lutheran. Congregationalist. Unitarian. Mormon. Adventist.

We are all Jews. Reformed. Conservative. Reconstructionist. Orthodox. Hasidic.

We are all Taoist. We are all Buddhist and all the sects of Buddhism. We are all Shinto.

We are all the traditions that fall under the name of Hinduism. We are all Jain. We are all Sikh. We are all Zoroastrian. We are all Santería. We are all animist. To name a few of the many.

We are all nationalities and geographic origins. American. European. African. Asian. Australian. Islander. Israeli. Palestinian. Serbian. Croatian. Bosnian. Cuban. Irish. Canadian. To name a few of the many.

We are all ethnic groups. We are all races. Unfortunately, we race for superiority. And that is the joke.

What truly makes us special is the Heart, where we are all the same. We are all equal in Absolute Reality. In our ignorance, we cling to relative reality in order to be special.

Baba used to tell us the story of the Lords’ Club. He would tell us this story over and over.

The only people who could be in this club were lords. And yet, in order to run the club people had to do different jobs. So someone had to be the doorman, someone had to be the president, someone had to be the cook, someone had to be the janitor. But all the members were lords. So what they would do is draw lots by week for positions. So each week somebody else was the cook, somebody else was the president, somebody else was the janitor, somebody else performed whatever role.

And nobody treated anybody differently; everyone was treated with respect, because everybody was a lord, and everybody knew that everybody was a lord.

And in Truth, that’s what we are. We are the Lords’ Club. Everyone is a lord. Everyone: no matter who they are, no matter where they live, no matter what the color of their skin, no matter what nationality, no matter what socioeconomic status, is a lord.

And yet we do not treat each other with that respect. And we’re all determined to climb up some ridiculous ladder of power and control. None of us gets love as long as we do that. Only by surrendering to God and resting in the Heart, where we’re all equal, do we know Love.

I want us to work to let go of all that keeps us different and special. This doesn’t mean we then change the color of our skin or adopt different nationalities so we can all be the same. No: we don’t pretend we’re all the same. We all know we’re all different. But our job is not to be attached and identified with difference of any kind.

So we all play our various parts. That’s important. But we’re not to be attached to our part, not be identified with any aspect of it and say, “This is what makes me, me.” It doesn’t.

I want us all to work to still, and to liberate ourselves from the false identities that keep us from contributing Love, living in Bliss, and knowing the Real.

We all know we’re all different….

June 29, 2014

We all know we’re all different. But our job is not to be attached and identified with difference of any kind.

Unempathetic….

June 29, 2014

Unempathetic Empathetic

Detached Smothering/Clinging

Skipping the First Step….

June 22, 2014

Everything and everyone is perfect. If we are to use this belief as fact, which is what is implied by the people out there saying, “You are perfect just the way you are”, then we need to be consistent. The murderer is perfect. The cruel person is perfect. It is all perfect. Everything is perfect.

But usually these shouters of truisms will be the judges of where and when everything is perfect. They are perfect, and anything they deem perfect is perfect. The Truly Perfect, the Self of All—which, to them, has nothing to do with their identities or pronouncements—doesn’t factor into their judgments. When these people are tested by the Truly Perfect, they tend to decide that the “wrong”, hurtful and mean are not perfect. The Absolute, God, is then “perfect” everywhere and in every way—except where and when they decide.

We cannot have it both ways. We can try every mental move possible, but we will not be able to be happy or in harmony. Frustration with life’s refusal to conform to our “good and perfect” plans will always be coloring our perfect perfection.

So in order to be true to the Self, we have to first be true to our small self. We have to start where we are, just as we are. The small self is not who we really are; it is the vehicle through which we manifest. We use it, it is not us. We defend it when we identify with it or at the very least are attached. So relax and look at it clearly; there is no need to defend it. The small self is not you.

But when we do something wrong…then what? If we do something bad then we are bad. We cannot accept that. “I cannot accept that I am bad because then I will be bad”. In order to maintain our idea of perfection we will have to blame the outside. We will have to blame others. We are good, it was not our fault. So are the others not as perfect as you? If you are perfect, then so is everyone else. You made a mistake. You did something wrong. Admit it, learn from it, and move on.

Everyone wants to skip this first step and move on to being Perfect Bliss.

If you are perfect just the way you are, then you are perfect being bad, wrong, mean, cruel, good, right, kind, and any other adjective. Stop filtering, denying, and not accepting things just the way they are. We cannot move until we assess and accept where we are with no judgment, just fact.

People who say that they cannot accept that they are bad or stupid or whatever are missing out on tremendous joy and relief. The freedom that comes from this acceptance is amazing. We are then able to choose our actions and not delude ourselves. There is not a person who has accepted all of themselves who has not also had this experience of relief and usually great laughter. Our attachment to our ideas is what makes this acceptance so difficult, and not the fun it actually is.

So if you want to move in your sādhana, you have to stop skipping the first step. We cannot move until we first accept where we are. That means we have to assess clearly and not pretend to be somewhere we are not. So what? We are all stupid. We are all smart. We are all learners. We are all know-it-alls.

Get over your small self. We are playing God, and we all think our creation is the best. It is perfect. We look at each others’ small selves and see so clearly what someone else is doing. We need to accept what we do and where we are.

Stop skipping the first step: “Be with your experience whatever it is”. The way we skip is by judging our experience and then working to ignore or erase it. We tell ourselves a story.

When we allow ourselves to be with our experience whatever it is, let whatever comes up come up, and function appropriately on the physical plane, then we can begin to laugh at our ridiculousness. We can see our delusion, and the light begins to shine. We then can all share in the joy and love of who we really are. We can disentangle from who we are not and we can shine forth.

We are all. ALL.

We cannot move….

June 22, 2014

We cannot move until we first accept where we are. That means we have to assess clearly and not pretend to be somewhere we are not.

Too busy for you….

June 22, 2014

Too busy for you Available

Have a life Clingy

Perfect….

June 15, 2014

All my years with Baba taught me to be true to my Self. The way to get there is to accept where we are now. And now. And now. That means giving up judgment, now. So many people say, “I am perfect just the way I am.” Yes, you are correct. You are perfect as a mean, kind, honest, insincere person.

We are perfect, and our shrunken selves are also “perfect”. But we need to assess them as they really are. “I am a good person” is a belief, and granted I sometimes or many times do good actions; but I am not good all the time. Also, not everyone will assess my “good” actions as good. So who I am is not “good”. Then I must be “bad”. But I do not always do “bad” deeds. So who I am cannot be “bad” either. So who is perfect, and what does perfect mean?

Here we need to be careful. My idea of myself is perfect for the part I am playing in the cosmic play, but I do not like the story and its actions all the time. I have to accept that perfect is perfect because life simply is.

Om poornamadah poornamidam

Poornaat poorna-mudachyate

Poornasya poorna-maadaaya

Poorna-mevaa-va-shishyate

Om. That is perfect. This is perfect. From the perfect springs the perfect. If from the perfect the perfect is taken, the perfect remains.

Absolute and relative reality are both perfect, but when we live in relative reality it does not appear perfect because of our limited understanding. From the standpoint of Absolute reality everything actually is all perfect. All.

We live in relative reality as long as we have temporal vehicles. We are perfect, we just don’t know it consciously. We may know it intellectually. We may think this perfection with various phrases and sayings. We may even believe that everything is perfect. But until we have given up our attachment to our ideas of ourselves, no matter what that idea is, and have surrendered our individuality to the Absolute, we will not have a chance of consciously knowing our perfection.

Perfect Imperfect

Static Dynamic

In order to uncover our perfection as Reality we have to start where we are. If I believe I am perfect and you are not, then I am not where I say I am. To get to “everything is perfect”, I have to know how I am. I have to assess all my qualities and actions and call them what they are. Hence the foursquare. It is a great way to uncover all the aspects of my perfection. I am perfect and okay. I am static and okay. I am imperfect and okay. I am dynamic and okay. As we accept our placement moment to moment, we will see that what we thought was us is always changing. What we are identified with is not the Self but the ever-changing story we have created.

So as we start practicing, we begin to see that we are not happy, but we are perfect. How can I get to perfection as Love? To Absolute perfection even while living in this body and functioning in relative reality? By accepting the box I have created and called “me” and accepting that it makes choices based on its survival and not God’s will. Until we reach this acceptance, we are out of alignment with the Truth.

Sādhana begins with acceptance. Be with your experience, whatever it is. Let whatever comes up come up. And function appropriately.

Absolute and relative reality are both perfect….

June 15, 2014

Perfect….

June 15, 2014

Perfect Imperfect

Static Dynamic

If you surrender….

June 8, 2014

If you surrender to God you become independent.

For God’s Sake Live Your Life….

June 8, 2014

The most clear resistance I meet with is the push against living our lives to the fullest. So sad. Baba wanted me to be independent and free to experience the Bliss of the world, which in fact is the bliss of God. Granted, there were times when I fought him, not out of thinking he was wrong but out of my own deficiency. I was afraid to stretch. Ultimately, and luckily for me, I loved Baba more than I loved my shrunkenness. He pushed me, stretched me, prodded me, encouraged me, punished me; he did at any given moment the appropriate action to move me to God.

How do we move toward God? By accepting that we are alive and living our life to the fullest. Not by being selfish and boxed into our personal narratives, thinking we are safe. Remember, if you are boxing yourself in, you are also boxing everyone else in. The boxes in which you put people may be smaller or larger, but they are boxes nonetheless.

“But I wish…”, people say. This is wrong understanding; it is just a comfortable kind of hopelessness, a refusal of life. And if you really want and wish, then go for it and see whether the direction is appropriate or not. I always say I would rather make my own mistakes than someone else’s. Taking responsibility in this way is living your own life. If we look outside for our motivation, then we can tell ourselves we are not responsible; whatever or whoever is out there is to be blamed when things do not go according to our plans.

Living to the fullest is riding the horse in the direction it is going and accepting where we are going in harmony with God’ s will.

In 1979 when I was Baba’s appointments secretary, I hit a wall. I was seeing too much around me that I did not feel comfortable with. This was never about Baba, but some of the people around him. A person I worked closely with was more interested in personal power than in God. I could not at the time resolve it within myself and be okay. So I was in conflict with the environment around me. I loved working and being close to Baba and did not see that there was a way out if I wanted to remain close to him. Little did I know, Baba knew everything, including all the power plays and politics. He knew how I felt. He knew it all. I was in fact limited in my understanding; I still equated physical closeness with internal closeness. I also loved Baba as an amazing expression of humanity. So I wanted to remain “close”.

Baba wanted me to be free and independent. He did not want me to be small. He did not want me to be afraid. He did not want me to settle and not live my life. Baba wanted me to fully express God’s greatness. This is what he wanted for each of us. He was fighting for my Life. And in his love for me Baba destroyed my narrative. Not what I would have expected. He did not care about the organization; he did not care about the mission. He cared about each of us in the truest sense of the word. He cared that we live in our Hearts, and express and be the Bliss of God.

So for the sake of the Self, one day Baba turned my world upside down. I thank him every day for that gift. Baba quietly spoke to me for over an hour. Without so much as raising his voice, he told me how disappointed he was in me for not having been true to myself and spoken up. Then he removed me from my position as appointments secretary. As he made clear later, he did it out of Love, so that I could be free.

As the days, weeks, and months moved on I kept my mouth shut. I did not complain to people close to me or to myself. I did not blame. I was responsible for what happened to me. My job was to learn from it, not wallow in it. I kept quiet internally so as not to support a narrative that had no reality such as victim, unjust, mean, or anything else I could have come up with. By keeping quiet inside and out I knew I was burning up the karma. This was not easy, but I wanted freedom and Baba was helping me attain this. He was making sure anything that was in the way, whether I was aware of it or not, was removed.

If we want to live our lives fully, we first have to recognize and accept that our shrunken selves are not self-illuminative. We have to realize that the only source of light is the Self of All. Until we make that leap, we are merely like the moon, deluding ourselves into believing that we are the source of the Light we only reflect.

Independent….

June 8, 2014

Independent Dependent

Rebellious Serving

Selfish Sādhana….

June 1, 2014

We do sādhana for ourselves. We also do sādhana for the sake of the Self. And if we all did sādhana for the sake of the Self, then we would all be living in peace and love. We would not be killing, and we would not be blaming. We would be taking responsibility for our actions and being empowered to change ourselves and the world.

But as small selves, we do not want love. The small self can’t get love; it can only get attention and coddling. It only seeks enabling. As small selves, we choose to be victims. We want to be soothed, and we call that compassion. So our selfish sādhana really is selfish; it only serves our small self. We are forcing others to cater to our needs. True compassion and Love are neither enabling nor needy.

In Reality, each of us is All. There is just the Self. As each of us truly changes and turns to God, everyone changes. So we should be selfish—in the sense of Selfish. Then we will all benefit. Each of us going inward and doing tapasya will actually be contributing to the greater good. We create a furnace within that burns up our impurities. As we move closer to God, the world moves closer to God.

It follows that the further we move away from God, the worse the world becomes. When we insist on a stable narrative, a stable small self rather than a core that resides in the Heart, we stray further and further from Reality. We then believe our narrative is the core of our being. If we find ourselves taking things personally, then we should know that we are identifying with our narrative. That is okay if we are conscious of it, but then we should not pretend to be somewhere we are not. We need to accept where we are; that way we begin to gain distance from our narrative.

But if we are identified with our narratives, then even what we consider selflessness becomes selfish. It can even become monstrous. As Erich Hoffer observes in The True Believer, “The inordinately selfish are particularly susceptible to frustration. The more selfish a person, the more poignant his disappointments. It is the inordinately selfish, therefore, who are likely to be the most persuasive champions of selflessness….And though it be a faith of love and humility they adopt, they can be neither loving nor humble ” (48).

In order to get rid of our selfishness, we must accept it, and all that it entails. If we want to be truly human, we have to accept all that lies within us. If we refuse to accept, we become emotionally, sometimes physically violent defenders of our narratives. Thomas Cleary explains this in his excellent introduction to Sun Tzu: “Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu show that the man of aggressive violence appears to be ruthless but is really an emotionalist; then they slay the emotionalist with real ruthlessness before revealing the spontaneous nature of free humanity” (28-9).

In Yoga Sūtras 2.34, Patañjali makes clear that evil inclinations arise from greed, anger, and delusion. At a pre-verbal level, these vibrations emerge, like everything else, from the Heart. If we refuse to accept them, we choose to let them run us and contribute to the disharmony in the world. If we ruthlessly face ourselves, accepting and mastering whatever vibrations come up, we will no longer construct narratives to defend.

So choose your selfishness. You can have the selfishness that perpetuates the very things you complain about. Or you can have the Selfishness that manifests Love.

Positive thinking….

June 1, 2014

Positive thinking is being positively miserable.

Saint….

June 1, 2014

Saint Tormentor

Pathetic Powerful

The Goal Is the Process….

May 25, 2014

Rohini shares the process.

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Grow up by Giving up….

May 25, 2014

One day in late summer, in the heat and humidity of Maryland, I was out on the deck when I heard a horrible whine. I could not figure out what animal was making the sound. The animal sounded injured. Finally I saw a hawk, a male hawk, screaming. A female hawk flew into the area and the young hawk went crazy flying after her. The female turned around and left as fast as she could.

Searching on the internet, I uncovered that this was not a fluke event. The female was the mother of the young male. The mother hawk had waited too long to kick her young one out of the nest and encourage him to learn how to survive. So when she finally threw him out he had no tools to survive on his own. His cry was the cry of juvenile hawks when they are in this condition. Now he would either figure it out or die. For the next couple of weeks I watched this apex predator pecking around in the dirt looking for worms, bugs and anything he could possibly eat. The season was at a point when all the easy prey had already been taken.

Obviously, this hawk struggled. He would walk in the field looking for food. He even would crawl along the fence looking more like a sparrow than a hawk. The mother would occasionally show up, and he would fly after her as she evaded pursuit. And the cries were pathetic. When I told some people, they would say, “Oh, the poor thing”. No: the mother crippled him and abandoned him, but he certainly did not need sympathy. He needed guts and perseverance. I waited to either hear a change or silence. Finally, one day I heard him make the familiar call of an adult male hawk.

How many children are in that hawk’s dire situation? How many of us are crippling through life, unwilling to “be” alive and “live” to our fullest? We win by losing, believing that is the only way to get love. We may have gotten attention that way, but we did not get love. When my children were young I had a sign on the wall: “Get attention by doing things right, not by drama”.

The culture of self-esteem produces young hawks unable to survive. We are bringing up children who win by losing. The winner is the victim, the most crippled. As Radhakrishnan put it in his translation and commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, “The tāmasa nature is dull and inert; its mind is dark and confused and its whole life is one continuous submission to environment” (319).

Here is a foursquare that might illuminate our understanding:

Codependent Independent

Connected Isolated

Through this culture we create a narrative that poisons us. We buy our narrative of victimhood and goodness and innocence. And when we buy it, we then contribute to our own poisoning. In seeing ourselves as victims, we submit to environment. We then have no choice and are determined to be mired in this Hell. We aspire to be and remain in our childhood experiences.

In the introduction to his translation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Thomas Cleary quotes Master Sun: “Look upon your soldiers as beloved children, and they willingly die with you.” But he also points out that Master Sun counsels against being indulgent, so that your soldiers become like spoiled children (24-25).

Sādhana is about letting go of our cherished narrative and realigning ourselves to God. The Guru is the parent that is constantly supporting the sādhaka in this process. It is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process, so that when the disciple stops fighting the Guru everything goes easily and joyously and with great humor back to God. Who we truly are is “perfect just the way we are”. But as long as we believe we are the narrative we perpetuate, the joke is on us. And this is so sad, because we look and act like that apex predator pecking for worms.

Everyone wants….

May 25, 2014

Everyone wants to drag their small self to God. Not an option.

Codependent….

May 25, 2014

Codependent Independent

Connected Isolated

Honoring Baba’s Birthday 2014….

May 18, 2014

Rohini shares her love of Swami Muktananda.

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Surrendering to Baba….

May 18, 2014

Why do we seek great spiritual beings? Why are great spiritual beings here? What do great spiritual beings offer? The answers to these questions come from my experience with a great spiritual being, Swami Muktananda.

Within each of us is the longing to be whole again. We all move unconsciously towards whatever will bring us to ourselves. We must, though, consciously seek a resolution to the question, where am I going?

A great spiritual being will answer not only that initial question but all our questions. What amazed me about Baba is that he was able to answer everyone’s question from their particular standpoint. Baba was so nonattached that the answers would come out fluid and perfect for each person. Baba was not rigid: the one rule was to be true from within. So outwardly the solution to any situation could and would change. We were not to be rigid; we were to learn to listen and be appropriate, just as Baba was.

The reason we seek great spiritual beings is that they have answered life’s questions and have come to the final experience of pure Love. When we are in their presence, we catch their bliss. It is contagious. We catch their Love and flow with them into the sweetness of the divine. In Baba’s presence, the waves of Love would sweep over us and we would swim with Baba in the divine blue shakti.

Baba was here to share and teach us the Truth. He expressed the divine in all that he did, because there was nothing in Baba that was not God’s. So when he walked, talked, ate, chanted, yelled, laughed, or sat quietly, the divine was always being expressed. For Baba there was no individual, there was just God.

This Love is everyone’s birthright, and Baba embodied it. That was why he was here: to direct us to us, just as his Baba had directed him. Baba wanted us to be just like him. And the more we surrendered, the happier we were, and therefore the happier Baba was—if that was even possible.

Baba was the most human person I ever met. Baba made me human and removed my idea of “normal”. Baba cleared away what we bring to the table, that which makes us miserable individuals. He wiped clear our “normal” to make us actually human.

Many people liked the experience they had around Baba but were determined to remain “normal”. They resisted surrendering to the Guru, and so could not receive what Baba had to offer us. He offered us Joy, Peace, Love, Truth and the release from ignorance. People did not want to let go of what they thought they were. And so they remained miserable, despite having been shown the solution to all misery.

Do you want to be human or “normal”? When we have given up “normal” and surrendered to God and Guru, the “normal” individual does not get in the way of our lives.

Baba gave us true autonomy. He did not want us to be dependent; he wanted each of us to be free. Baba swam in the bliss of divine Love, and that was his legacy. Even today, anyone who focuses on Muktananda and surrenders to the Guru will come to the Bliss of freedom.

If we are determined….

May 18, 2014

If we are determined to hold on to who we think we are, we may remain “normal” but we will never be fully human.

Receptive….

May 18, 2014

Receptive Closed off

Impressionable Discerning

Raised By Baba….

May 11, 2014

When people say there is nothing like a mother’s love, I ask them what they mean. The usual responses to my question are unconditional love, warmth and compassion, softness, caring, and giving. For me those qualities are not limited to a mother’s love. They are not gender based. I have met men with these qualities. My Guru, Swami Muktananda, lived and expressed them.

As a mother, I hope I have demonstrated these qualities, but not only these. My job has always been to model being fully human: both male and female, both strong and soft, both caring and disciplining, both giving and receiving, both fun and serious, both principled and open.

My job was never to protect my sons from living their lives, but to give them the skills to handle whatever they came across. That meant training them and making sure they were equipped with the appropriate tools. There were skills that both had to learn, and ones each had to learn that were not that important to the other. If I did not have the ability in a particular area they needed, I would find someone who did. This work was never about “the mommy”; it was about equipping my children for the life in front of them. By teaching them the truth, I showed them they did not have to be naïve. By not shying them away from the Real, I took on the responsibility of showing them how to embrace the Real.

Many people say that as we get older, things change. No, they do not. What we faced as children, we will face as adults—unless we work hard to learn our life’s lessons. The foundational skills are crucial to how we will approach our life’s challenges. This goes for everything in our lives. As a mother, I knew that parenting was not about my idea of my sons; very early, each showed his strengths and weaknesses, what needed to be developed and encouraged and what needed to be reined in and discouraged.

I was brought up at a late age by Baba. Because, having learned from him, I embrace all qualities and work to manifest them appropriately, some may judge that as a mother I am cruel, mean, or harsh. Maybe they are right; but I am also kind, compassionate, and soft.

The following foursquare is for all the parents and teachers out there. Accept all these qualities and free yourselves to be more fully human and to respond to others as human beings.

Cruel/mean/harsh/no love Kind/compassionate/soft/love

Strict/disciplining/clear/caring Fawning/condescending/weak/enabling

Baba modeled this nonattachment, and raised me to do the same. As a mother, I raised my children in the tradition of Swami Muktananda. If you have any questions, feel free to ask my sons.

Many people say that as we get older….

May 11, 2014

Many people say that as we get older, things change. No, they do not. What we faced as children, we will face as adults–unless we work hard to learn our life’s lessons.

Cruel/mean/harsh/no love….

May 11, 2014

Cruel/mean/harsh/no love Kind/compassionate/soft/love

Strict/disciplining/clear/caring Fawning/condescending/weak/enabling

Where We’re Going

May 10, 2014

Rohini discusses the inward path.

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Four Stages of Samadhi

May 10, 2014

Rohini takes us through the different stages of samadhi and encourages us to experience them with her.

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Going Inward

May 10, 2014

In this brief video Rohini will lead you inward.

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Who Is God?

May 10, 2014

Rohini demonstrates levels of understanding God.

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Mirror, Mirror….

May 4, 2014

When my two sons were born, I felt that one of the most important jobs I had was to be a mirror for them. As I looked into their eyes, I would also be looking into my Heart. There was a strong feeling of connecting with them, and this was not about me; this was about us in the greater sense. My job was to help them become fully human and give them the tools to function appropriately. This was about love; it was not personal. God was to guide our actions.

The point was not to make them the center of attention. It was to help them cognize that they existed within themselves, so that if they were left alone or not given attention they had a sense of being. There would be an awareness of self.

If no one is looking at you, do you still exist? This is a good question for many people today who are looking to be gazed upon. They might prefer to be adored, but they will take any form of attention available. Because they did not establish a sense of self when they were young, they are still looking for the mirror so they know they exist. This is a form of Asmita, losing subject in object. When I would look into my sons’ eyes I would not lose myself, and I was encouraging them to be themselves. “I see you in there. Hello”.

How ironic: the culture that proclaims that we are to be free and independent is the culture that creates bondage and dependence. We neglect and abandon, and call it helping people be themselves.

The resulting belief is that if we are not the center of attention, we have no value. Spiritual practice redirects attention from the individual to the Real Self. A good teacher does not want to be the center of attention; neither should you want to be the center of theirs. God should be the center of everyone’s attention.

But in the culture we have created, the highest state for the individual is to be the center of attention. In contemporary America, we strive to be the center of attention. We all want to be celebrities. A celebrity rates higher than the President, because celebrity is about personality, while the Presidency is about public service.

Our pursuit of attention is humorless, even when we try to get attention by being clowns. We are seriously committed to this goal, because we believe it will maintain our existence. And we see the people who tell us to give up striving for attention as rivals. Of course they are telling us that; if we are the center of attention, then the eyes are off them.

We manage to think of ourselves as the center of attention even when we are passively watching something. Sitting and listening, or looking at a screen, is in fact being the center of attention. If you are looking at a screen, it exists for your entertainment, and you can change the channel at any time. So you are both inert and the center of attention.

A good leader is not the center of attention in his eyes. He is with everyone else, but he has given up his individuality to fulfill the position. A good team member will do the same. And if we all did this, so much more would get done clearly and efficiently. A poor leader won’t delegate until he is so weakened that he has no choice. Some leaders, like some parents, belittle their authority in order to be loved. Still, celebrity is the goal: to have the individual exalted rather than the task or ability or expertise. We are looking to be the center of attention for everyone else without having anything to offer.

This foursquare will help us dismantle our attachment to celebrity.

Center of attention Nonentity

Vilified /Disgraced publicly Allowed to live/ Left alone/ Privacy

Once we are nonattached, we can align ourselves appropriately in the world. If we are in the Heart, we are no longer the center of attention; everything is the center of attention. Which is to say God is the center of attention.

If we are in the Heart….

May 4, 2014

If we are in the Heart, we are no longer the center of attention; everything is the center of attention. Which is to say God is the center of attention.

Center of attention….

May 4, 2014

Center of attention Nonentity

Vilified /Disgraced publicly Allowed to live/ Left alone/ Privacy

The Three-dimensional Foursquare….

April 28, 2014

We have been working with the foursquare tool for many years now. It evolved from dichotomies to foursquares a decade ago. Now it is evolving further to aid in our uncovering and dismantling of our system.

In order to build a foursquare, we must start by depersonalizing and objectifying the issue. This is done by using qualities we all can relate with. From there, we uncover the opposite of the quality. Once the dichotomy is defined, we then find the positive and negative forms of each term in the dichotomy. For example:

Crippled Healed

Cared for Abandoned

Crippled Healed

Dependent Independent

Cared for Abandoned

Supported Neglected

We usually start working with a foursquare by focusing on what we perceive as being done to us: the “outside to me”. From there we must look at what we do to others and to ourselves. So now we have a three-dimensional foursquare.

To me by the outside

To others by me

To me by me

From here, we can see the more outward, incidental causes and work our way back to “To me by me”. Once we have owned and accepted all three versions of the foursquare, we can choose to irrigate the field or not. We are definitely not at the mercy of the outside; it is always our choice. We can choose to react or to respond appropriately.

Dismantling the system this way allows us to see our power in our life. We are now free to use the qualities in the foursquare appropriately. Our ability to be manipulated is now diminished in regard to this foursquare.

Using one of these fundamental foursquares, we can see how we structure the questions and unfold the process. We ask ourselves the following yes/no questions and give our honest answer of the moment. We do not give what we think or “know” is the “right” answer. This tool does not work if we are using just our intellect; we have to be willing to give our emotionally honest answer. This emotionally honest answer is the only right answer of the moment. This answer will change as we use the tool and keep asking the questions. When we honestly reach 24 yeses ten out of ten times on a regular basis, our experience will be very different as we engage with the world both within and without.

I. To me by the outside:

Am I crippled by others? Am I healed by others?

Am I ok with this answer? Am I ok with this answer?

Am I cared for by others? Am I abandoned by others?

Am I ok with this answer? Am I ok with this answer?

II. To others by me:

Do I cripple others? Do I heal others?

Am I ok with this answer? Am I ok with this answer?

Do I care for others? Do I abandon others?

Am I ok with this answer? Am I ok with this answer?

III. To me by me:

Do I cripple myself? Do I heal myself?

Am I ok with this answer? Am I ok with this answer?

Do I care for myself? Do I abandon myself?

Am I ok with this answer? Am I ok with this answer?

If we do not dismantle that foursquare, this is how we choose to live: our lives will be guided by beliefs that all revolve around the power we associate with crippling and abandoning. We cannot want God and power. So to get power, we will either cripple or be crippled—these are the only options. There is no room for God in our calculations.

We may choose to be powerful by crippling. If so, we will want people to be weak, fragile, injured, ill, miserable, or otherwise at risk so that we can be powerful. We will sabotage others so we can feel strong.

We may choose to believe that if we are not crippled, we will be abandoned, not “loved”—that if we are independent and healed, others will leave us. We will then use being crippled and being abandoned as powerful tools. We will use them to get others to “care for” us and “heal” us the way we want.

Regardless, we are either the cripple or the abandoner. We switch back and forth. Only one person in the relationship will be allowed to be powerful or healthy. If you are walking on eggshells, someone is trying to cripple you—and that someone may be you.

In order to be free from this or any other foursquare, we have to give up power. We say we want to be happy, but are we willing to give up power to be happy? That means we have to be willing to be wounded. But we have to be able to handle being wounded, and we have to develop the capacity to heal ourselves. When we are healed, we are truly independent, and truly cared for.

We are definitely not….

April 27, 2014

We are definitely not at the mercy of the outside; it is always our choice. We can choose to react or to respond appropriately.

Crippled….

April 27, 2014

Crippled Healed

Cared for Abandoned

Knowing the Road….

April 20, 2014

The reason I started down this path was that I had to. I knew that what I wanted to know was there, wherever “there” was. What did I want? Happiness and peace. Knowing the Truth, the bottom line of life, I knew would give me lasting peace and joy.

Thus began my treasure hunt. From science back to my first love of dance. From dance to Tai Chi Chuan. From Tai Chi Chuan to the five excellences. From the five excellences to Swami Muktananda. The truth is, the search was more about the teacher than the activity. The outer activity was only the occasion for the teacher to drive me further toward my goal.

Annelise Mertz used dance to bring me to the freedom of vitarka samādhi. For her we were not dancing unless we had discipline and were in the zone—conscious, clear and without thought of any kind.

T. R. Chung demanded that we surrender to what was beyond the form of Tai Chi. Being an internal practice did not mean being inside the body; internal meant letting go of the body and moving the chi. The body was required to be disciplined, but this was not the goal. It was not the body that provided the force, but the energy within and beyond that moved everything.

Though I loved both of these expressions, neither Mertz nor Chung could give me what I was looking for. Frank Pierce Jones further supported my direction, as did Dr. So, my acupuncture teacher. They all willingly gave what they had to offer, but I was not satisfied.

I was having powerful experiences but did not understand them; nor did I have a good context to put my mind at ease. It was then that I encountered Swami Muktananda. He was the Teacher. He knew the answer to my question, and he could show me how to get there.

It is now forty-six years since I started consciously walking this path. Muktananda left his body in 1982. Since that time I have been working to embody what he taught me.

What did he teach me?

He did not teach me that the goal of sādhana is a happy small self that has supernormal experiences.

He did not teach me to remain limited and okay with that.

He did not teach me to then limit God so I could contain and understand Him in my shrunken idea of myself.

He did not teach that the Witness is the rudimentary awareness of my emotional and thought constructs. I did not take nearly fifty years to achieve an ordinary sense of objectivity.

Baba spoke of the Witness in the turīya state.

He spoke of the Self in the Heart beyond the waking, dream and deep sleep states.

He taught that the Witness is the witness of the three states because It resides in the fourth state, outside the other three.

He taught that God is in fact everywhere at all times.

He awakened people’s spiritual energy, known as kuṇḍalinī. Once someone is awakened, divine Grace will assist them if they put forth right effort with determination and devotion.

If you have a kuṇḍalinī awakening but no experience of the Witness, then you will believe your experiences belong to the small self. Every experience then only feeds and expands the small self, which thinks it owns everything.

The goal is not to have supernormal experiences and an expanded idea of who I think I am. If that were the goal, then I could just take hallucinogens.

The goal is not to think of myself as a good person. It is not to like myself as I construct myself to be.

The goal is not to feel powerful. People want to prove that they are more powerful than anyone else. They want to be beyond anyone else’s control, including God’s. This is just idolatry.

The goal is to experience that God is within you as you, wherever you go. To experience at every moment that you are not the doer, that God is the doer, that God is All—not as a concept, but as a Reality.

To arrive here, you must give up your identification with who you think you are, with all the thought constructs that make up “you”.

This sādhana is active, not passive. If you want misery, just remain passive. If you want bliss, give up your pain, along with your pride in your pain. The spiritual warrior kills his own misery and comes out triumphant by surrendering and going to God.

All my prior teachers paved the way for Baba. He then taught me this. And this is what I teach.

Smother….

April 20, 2014

Smother Let be

Involved Neglect

The goal is not….

April 20, 2014

The goal is not to have supernormal experiences and an expanded idea of who I think I am. If that were the goal, then I could just take hallucinogens.

Give Up Good….

April 13, 2014

I’m a good person. I mean it. I’m a good person.

That’s the problem.

The Fall was the creation of the small self. The fruit that brings knowledge of good and evil signifies the ignorance from which we must liberate ourselves. The small self is not a good person. If you are a good person, then you are also a bad person. Stop projecting the bad onto others. You want to be equal? Then be equal by surrendering to God and letting go of your individuality.

People work to maintain their individuality. They keep secrets in order to prevent people from knowing and understanding them. All people committed to their dark secrets assume everyone has a dark secret. They try to make everyone equal by making everyone deviant, just like them. That way they believe they can still call themselves good. Rather than raising themselves up, they try to pull everybody down—especially those they see as morally and spiritually superior. Their real deviance is their attachment to their deviance.

Believing we will die if we surrender is the delusion of death. That “death” is actually life. What people call “going and living my life” is actually death. The life of the small self means the death of the true Self in our lives. It’s total delusion.

The delusion is that we can be happy locked in our individuality. A happy small self is impossible.

And yet we are encouraging the small self to think of itself as a good person; that is good self-esteem. We cannot accept that we do anything wrong—we only have accidents—so we end up projecting wrongness on others. We are innocent and others are bad. We define bullying down: if someone says something about us that we do not like, then instead of learning from the situation we say we are bullied and feel justified acting out with knives or guns or tongues. We are the victims, and the one who says those mean words is a bully and should be punished. The problem with this worldview is that those mean people are as innately good as we are. Our read of reality is a double standard; it does not make any sense.

So we force people into the small self’s idea of unconditional love, which is the acceptance of anything we do, no matter what. We are good people. In the meantime we are acting inappropriately. Love means putting up with my dysfunction and supporting the delusional idea I have of myself. NO.

This is where the Abrahamic traditions have it right; we have to accept our innate badness. The Fall is true. We need to get over ourselves both as good and as bad. The small self is not innately good or bad; it is a made-up construct; it is not who we truly are. We need to return to ourselves, and we cannot do that unless we return to God.

The Enlightenment brought us to think of ourselves as something more important than we are. We are not the center of the universe. We are not special. We exist. It is only in returning to God that we are who we are, that we are Alive. When we return to God we will see that the self we thought was so important did not even exist.

Because we have taken God out of the equation, the I that is perfect is the me I think I am. We are confusing absolute with relative reality. We do not realize that what is truly good is something we have to surrender to. It is not just who we are now. If that were the case there would be no evil, no cruelty. We do in fact have to develop character and practice good; it does not come innately.

The psychological, corporate and pharmaceutical complex has removed God from life. God is just an idea within the framework of the small self. We are who we think we are. So we believe whatever we do is true and good if our intention, our thought, is good. We live in a world of excuses against the rest of the world.

A self-righteous man once asked the great Sufi saint Rabia what more he needed to do to be holy. She replied, “You haven’t dealt at all with your greatest sin—the fact that you exist.” As long as we want to be separate and special, we are committed to the small self. We must give up the delusion that our attachment to goodness will bring us closer to God.

Good….

April 13, 2014

Good Evil

Weak Powerful

We must give up….

April 13, 2014

We must give up the delusion that our attachment to goodness will bring us closer to God.

The deeper we….

April 7, 2014

The deeper we go, the more space we have internally.

It’s Not about the Packaging….

April 7, 2014

When I was growing up, gift-wrapping paper was not emphasized in my house. The present was what mattered; how it was packaged was of little import. Though presents were wrapped, the paper was quickly torn and thrown away.

As I grew older, I learned to appreciate beautifully presented gifts. The packaging provided a certain excitement about what was to be uncovered. But what was under the paper was still more important. No matter how perfect the wrapping, if the inside did not fulfill something, there was disappointment.

As a cheerleader for the St Louis Cardinals I would wear bell-bottom jeans, and demonstrating against the Vietnam War I would wear a dress. Someone once said to me, “You cannot wear a dress to the demonstration”. My response was that I did not know there was a dress code. I was testing the packaging, what was important and what really did not matter.

This was true for me as a dancer. I knew that, no matter how perfect my leotard and leg warmers were, if I could not live up to them as I danced, I looked ridiculous. When I had my school for Tai Chi Chuan in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I was interested in the form, Taoist texts, acupuncture, the I Ching and the Chinese language. Only when I was publicly demonstrating the form did I wear the “uniform” of a martial artist; street clothes were my norm. My aesthetic was austere, with an appreciation of Zen, Shaker and Bauhaus combined: nothing too much.

Meeting Baba was a shock to my sensibility. Bright colors, patterns, shapes and designs; none of the packaging I appreciated. And yet Baba gave me everything I was looking for inside. The packaging seemed all wrong. I have a terrible voice, so chanting was an important part of the daily activity. Movement mattered to me, so we sat a lot. The clothes were not at all conducive to being a martial artist. The outside was really hard to adjust to, but I knew Baba was my Guru.

My packaging was all wrong for the ashram, or so I thought. As a guard I was outside much of the time. One day, a longtime ashramite told me Baba did not like girls with suntans. Nor did Baba like girls with short hair. I had both. There was clearly a conflict between what was going on outside and what was internal as I saw it.

Once I did the form in a field where I thought no one could see me. The President of SYDA saw me and said it was beautiful. I said that I thought Baba would not like it because it was not part of the program there; he replied that Baba would never be against something so beautiful. I felt great relief and saw how much I was attached to my idea of the outer packaging. Maybe the ashramites wouldn’t have approved, but the one who mattered, Baba, would have.

Baba tested me over and over again on this. The packaging does not matter if there is nothing underneath. When everyone was wearing saris, Baba had me wear suits. When everyone was wearing their fanciest saris Baba gave me a white cotton one to wear. He kept stripping away all my ideas of the way things should look, even when I was sure I did not have these ideas. Baba was never about his packaging; he was not the package. This gave Baba immense spontaneity, a freedom to be appropriate to every situation because there were no rigid ideas about how things had to be. The package always served Baba, not the other way around.

There is nothing wrong with packaging. We all have some form of it. Mine tends to be minimal, which is packaging of a sort. Still, I love Evensong at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. It may not be my style, but I can appreciate it and it is beautiful. There is something underneath.

So if you take away the packaging there had better be something of real value underneath. If it is only really nice packaging with no real gift, we will be really disappointed when we tear away the paper.

Team player….

April 7, 2014

Team player Prima donna

Nonentity Fulfilled

What Do You Prize?….

March 30, 2014

Misery loves company. That saying is thrown around like a trite and empty truism. But if we actually look at this phrase, actually feel this phrase, the truth and the sadness of it becomes evident.

Have you wondered why the phrase “Love loves company” does not have the same truth or reality? After so many years of peddling the removal of pain and the pursuing of Love and God I am finally coming to understand why so few are interested in my product.

Misery loves company. People are more interested in maintaining their connectedness through misery than in freeing themselves and being with God.

God is One. God requires complete surrender. It is either God or the individual. Very few people actually want that. God demands too much to be with God. God just does not appreciate how hard it is. If God would lighten up a little, then maybe God would be an option. But just Love? Just God? Too limiting.

Misery is easy, and readily available. Without our turning inward, without even a lick of discipline, misery is there for us. So easy. So comfortable. Shared misery is what brings us together and what keeps us together. When confronted with the unacceptable prospect of Love, people will work resolutely to maintain their misery.

So here I am in the business of taking away people’s pain. How stupid, how naïve. I offer a product few people want. When people actually buy my offering they then either deny that they got it or at best hide it away as a guilty pleasure.

Baba used to say “If you see me as a clown then I am a clown”. Through the years, I have pondered this and never quite understood what he was saying. How could anyone see him other than as I saw him, a self-realized being living and teaching all of us the way back to God? In my naivety, I believed everyone saw what I saw and wanted what I wanted.

Baba removed my pain, and as he did that he taught me how to do it for myself. Baba wanted us to be free, not dependent on him. When he left his body, I struggled because I loved him so much and missed him. I felt he had left me; but he had not. He gave me the way out of pain and inward to God. Every day, as I remove the next vibration of pain and move further on the path, Baba is with me, encouraging me to practice.

I approached teaching with that same naivety, believing that everyone wants the removal of pain that comes as we walk Home to God. Most people don’t want their pain taken away; they come to me to challenge themselves and see if they can win by maintaining their misery and sense of self. Resistance is the characteristic that these people work to nurture. They have eyes only for power and control, not love. Maintaining their misery is the goal. I am circus act, a carnival game that allows people to test their sense of self. People want to win the stuffed animal and go home feeling secure in their accomplishment.

So for the few that want their pain actually removed: Love loves company.

Misery loves company….

March 30, 2014

Misery loves company. People are more interested in maintaining their connectedness through misery than in freeing themselves and being with God.

Self-sabbotage….

March 30, 2014

Self-sabbotaging Self-nurturing

Team player Self-indulgent

The Straight and Deep….

March 30, 2014

Rohini demonstrates the way in. Please be aware that swear words are used for emphasis.

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Reaching the Third Level….

March 24, 2014

The third level of practice, which is called śāmbavopāya (path of Śiva) in the tradition of Kashmir Śaivism, uses the will. All traditions teach this practice, in which we rest in the Heart by a well directed will. Obviously, this is not easy; it requires discipline and complete surrender to God, Self, the Absolute.

Yoga Sūtras III.17 says that through intense concentration, meditation and absorption we can and will separate the name of an object, the idea of the object, and the object itself, which are normally merged in our consciousness, and be able to understand what lies beneath all utterances. Many people do not realize that there are distinctions among these three. When they say the word “Heart” and imagine Heart, they believe they have gotten to or are in the actual Heart. This is a major problem for most people pursuing spiritual practice; they believe that if they think it, then it is real.

This is idealism at its most negative. Idealism should be a signpost that leads us first to the belief that what we want exists and then to the conviction that what we want is real and attainable. We will be able to go from the word to the idea to the actuality, if we have separated these three different understandings.

Scripture says if we call a name, we will get what we call. So people of all sorts, from the traditionally religious to the New Age, call on God and anything else, downwards to the most superficial. They use mantra with emotional earnestness and probably wonder why nothing manifests for them. Such manifestation happens only after we experience the distinction of name, form, and idea, and have surrendered all that is not God.

We have to be free from identification with all that is not God, with all that is temporary. Then, when we call the name we get both the idea and the object. Sages were said to have fought battles by calling weapons into manifestation.

If we want to go to the Heart and rest in the Heart, then we may start with the name and then go to an idea in our minds, but we have to give those two up and actually go to where the Heart is. Where is the Heart? Beyond the waking state, dream state, and deep sleep state. The Heart is where we “know” we are the witness of the three states.

What then should we do when we are unable to practice at this level?

When obstacles and past impressions show themselves to us in ways that distract us, we have to go back to practices and tools that are more obvious and can aid us to reestablish and maintain our foothold in the third level.

What are these practices and tools? Below is a list of some of these.

First Level tools and practices:

Rituals

Chanting

Breath

Environment – incense, cleanliness, listening to sattvic music and chanting,

Healthy lifestyle – eating moderately and healthy, sleeping appropriately, exercising

Good company and community

Attending a place of group worship

Second Level tools and practices:

Study

Mantra and prayer

Remembering

Seeds

Foursquare

Reflection

When we use these tools and then get back on track, we can again redirect our will toward the Heart. We again actually practice, because we have returned to the path that takes us Home. We are able to distinguish our mental machinery from us and disentangle out of those vehicles with which we have been so identified.

Then we are no longer deluded by words or images in our minds; we are able to discern that we are redirecting our attention literally out of the head and into the Heart.

Do you want….

March 24, 2014

Do you want power or God?

Sharp Intellect….

March 24, 2014

Sharp Intellect Dull

Mean Gentle

Where Is the Heart?

March 23, 2014

Rohini shows how deep we have to go to get to the Heart.

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Who Am I?

March 23, 2014

Rohini shows the nature of witness consciousness.

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Internal Only….

March 17, 2014

Exoteric and esoteric are two terms I rarely if ever use. They basically split everything into external and internal. While in the UK recently, I met up with a dear friend from the ashram. He said that Baba taught both exoteric and esoteric practice, and that most people went to the ashram for exoteric practice, thinking and believing it was esoteric. My friend knew I had not gone to Baba for anything exoteric because I had already been immersed in the external and knew its limitations.

As I have been focusing on making sure everyone who studies with me understands the internal practice that Baba taught, I have been wondering why more people do not practice it.

At the ashram, many people believed that shaktipat was the esoteric, internal practice; they thought that once they got shaktipat, then as long as they did the outside dharma of chanting and meditating and selfless service everything would move along internally. I knew this was not the case from my practice of Tai Chi Chuan. No matter how much I practiced the form, even after my kundalini was awakened, when I stopped and did something else as simple as eating, walking, or anything in ordinary life, all was lost.

Baba appeared in my life because I was looking for someone who could teach me how to have that inner experience all the time, not just when I was doing an external ritual or practice. Baba was and is a realized being who gave people the experience of Witness Consciousness. I knew in my heart of hearts that he could teach me the practice that would allow me to be me all the time, not just in glimpses. So I gave up everything that did not matter to follow him.

Baba knew what I wanted, and I was emphatic that I was going to learn from him, that he was going to teach me. From the outside I must have appeared arrogant and pushy, but I never cared. I was on a mission. I knew Baba had what I wanted, and I was going to make him give it to me. Aggressive, persistent and one pointed. Friends and lifestyle were not my goals; the practice, devoid of anything external, of trappings of any kind, was what I longed for.

Baba was full of Love and gave each of us what we wanted. His kindness to me through all the years as I had to strip away the trappings of emotion, personality, and ideas showed me the level of compassion he had for each of us.

Now, so many years since that day my Guru, who gave me what I wanted, left his body, I wonder why so many are so focused on the exoteric. Baba used to call me naïve, and he was so right. I thought everyone wanted what I wanted, everyone knew the esoteric practice he so willingly taught. I realize now that people got distracted by the outside practices.

My manner of teaching is not popular. I am extremely boring in that I keep pointing to the Heart. I drive into all my students the practice of attention, of the will directed into the Heart. Boring into the Heart and resting there: the gift Baba gave us. So many people think they are in the Heart—but thinking they are in the Heart doesn’t make it so. I realize now that most people practice being in the Heart in their heads. In other words, practice for most is just a really nice idea.

No—the internal practice uses the will, not the head, not ideas. The esoteric practice is literal, the Heart is actual. God is Real. God is. In order to know that, then rather than just believe it, we have to practice the internal practice that every tradition has at its core: the practice that Muktananda offered to all of us.

Only through our stillness….

March 17, 2014

Only through our stillness can God’s vitality fully shine through.

Deviant….

March 17, 2014

Deviant Pure

Adventurous Puritanical

What We Do Here….

March 9, 2014

Spiritual practice is not nice, sweet, or soft. Spiritual practice is not easy. Spiritual practice will turn your world upside down for the better. Spiritual practice requires rigor, vigilance and non-attachment. Spiritual practice requires humor. Spiritual practice demands surrender and redirection to what is Real. This steep path requires courage.

There are three levels of spiritual practice. Each level is more internal than the previous one. The first level uses the five senses. The second level uses the mind. It is not until we go inward enough to the third level that we actually begin to approach the real work. The third level uses the will, constantly boring inward toward the Heart—not the seat of emotion, but the ground of our being. The Heart is the cave where the Self resides. This is where our adventure leads.

We cannot simply practice on our own; we don’t have the discernment to assess where we are. This is where a teacher comes in. My teacher was Swami Muktananda; over nearly a decade, he taught me one-on-one the real internal practice that leads to liberation. Baba awakened people and guided his disciples into the Heart, so they could reside in the Self of All as he did. This is my lineage, and I teach what Baba taught me, as I continue to practice and learn.

My teaching room is both a training center and a laboratory for spiritual practice. We learn such skills as inward listening, meditation, scriptural study, stilling vibrations, burning up karma, and disentangling from our outward vehicles. This involves not only time-honored methods but also techniques I have devised, including resolving the foursquare, using the seed tool, dismantling the “love machine”, and assembling the life puzzle. At the center of our practice is actually getting out of the head and into the Heart, so that we can gain non-attachment and discernment. These tools are practiced with the grace that comes from shaktipat. Through practicing here, we come to know the whole world as a place of God. God is everywhere and with us at all times.

To that purpose, I hold group classes every week via Skype and Webex. By signing up for them, you get to participate in this rigorous and rewarding path. I have also published a book, Walking Home with Baba: The Heart of Spiritual Practice (Bancroft Press, 2012), which explains spiritual practice and contextualizes it through my own experiences.

We all need support; we cannot do this alone, nor do we have to. This online resource provides free weekly blogs, practice points, and foursquares as well as a variety of class videos.

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Remember: Practice may not be easy, but the Love we dis-cover within is worth it all.

You don’t have to….

March 9, 2014

You don’t have to leave the Heart to think. Thinking will only be clear if you rest in the Heart and enliven the mechanism of thinking.

Cold….

March 9, 2014

Cold Warm

Reserved Emotional

Under the guise….

March 2, 2014

Under the guise of looking for unity, we tend to go to the most superficial. Real unity is found only by turning in to the deepest core of our soul.

Being a Free Actor….

March 2, 2014

When people come to my classes or see me privately, we usually use situations or people in their lives to show how to apply the practice in the world. Though this is truly an internal practice, it has to be used and applied to inform all of our life. So after a class people leave the laboratory and hopefully implement what they have learned. Of course, this is hard work, and it does not come easily or quickly.

In the Hagakure, a book of observations by a samurai turned monk, there is an apt passage on translating the internal into the external: “There are two kinds of disposition, inward and outward, and a person who is lacking in one or the other is worthless. It is, for example, like the blade of a sword, which one should sharpen well and then put in its scabbard, periodically taking it out and knitting one’s eyebrows as in an attack, wiping off the blade, and then placing it in its scabbard again. If a person has his sword out all the time, he is habitually swinging a naked blade; people will not approach him and he will have no allies. If a sword is always sheathed, it will become rusty, the blade will dull, and people will think as much of its owner” (translation by William Scott Wilson).

After people leave class, I am still in the laboratory, and since I do not go out much people may wonder where I apply the practice. I actually practice myself, and classes are one way I apply my practice. This is a very important point; when I meet with people I am applying practice. All my day is practice—in quiet and in action. In the last few years, I have been expanding my field of action. My website and its offerings are much more extensive. Writing Walking Home with Baba also stretched my practice.

Another way in which I have always applied my work is in supporting my sons and their endeavors. Ian began integrating his work into I.R. Consilium (irconsilium.com) about two years ago. Aaron created Linguisticator (linguisticator.com) and then ELT-Tiger (elt-tiger.com). Any project that will promote peace, stability, security and prosperity in the world interests me, and Ian and Aaron have both created businesses that support that work. With I.R. Consilium I am stretching my action by working with people who do not pursue spiritual practice. I contribute to the work of I.R. Consilium by applying the skills I have gained through my practice. I know that if I am not practicing, there will be no results of any worth.

The message for each of us is this: we are not the doer. So no matter how small or great our action, if we are caught in our small-self vibrations, then we are “the doer” and all we put forth ultimately reflects that. Our read on how to act is based on our vibrations. If we still those vibrations and surrender, our actions take on an ease and clarity they usually lack. This does not mean that if I am in my Heart I will now write the perfect paper or win the gold medal in downhill skiing. It means that I know I am not my vehicles, and I can now use those vehicles to their highest level of competency. When I was a dancer, my fellow dancers and I practiced hard and constantly so that our vehicles could do whatever was asked of them. Then we were to surrender and just be as we danced. That was the only way to dance. If we let go before we gained technical mastery, then we would enjoy the dancing but we wouldn’t be very good.

Practice is an internal way of life. How the internal state is to manifest has to be discerned from the deepest place we reside at every moment. By acting in this way we move deeper within while our actions reflect that depth. In order to work, I have to spend time alone. If I do not get that time, my outer work has no basis and therefore lacks in every way. Our interior directs our life in both good and bad ways. If we are not conscious, our work is not conscious.

The deeper we go, the clearer our path will be. Listening within will guide us and show us the opportunities that are there for us. We cannot go deeper than our deepest vibration at any given moment. But when we succeed in stilling that “deepest” vibration, we will find another underneath—until we have stilled all vibrations and rest constantly in the Heart.

The point is to free ourselves from anything that keeps us from the Real. Remember, ignorance is taking what is not Real to be Real; what is not Self to be Self; what is not eternal to be eternal. Once we are ignorant, we then lose our subject in that mistaken object, i.e. our vibrations, our shrunken self. We are then attracted to or repulsed by certain things because of who we think or “know” ourselves to be. Finally, we cling for dear life to this ignorance because we believe it to be our selves. We have to let go over and over again. Over and over again, we have to say with absolute conviction, “I would rather have nothing than this” until our vibrations are still and God shines through as the Doer of all.

We need the laboratory, no question; but if we do not then go out and apply the practice, we are missing the Truth that arises from all our work. God is everywhere. To return Home we have to be no longer attached to the act we perform. Face Reality: God is the actor, the act, the director, and the producer.

Special….

March 2, 2014

Special Ordinary

Lonely Fits in

L&Q(2-22-14) Redirecting the Will….

February 25, 2014

Rohini explain explains the core spiritual practice of redirecting the will into the Heart, and leads students in doing that.

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The Pursuit of Friction….

February 23, 2014

Friction is the force that resists an object’s movement across a surface. In practical terms, it slows down an object’s movement. Though it sounds like something we don’t want, without friction we don’t have traction; without friction we cannot move forward. And if we avoid friction in one place, we will unwittingly be moving into it somewhere else. If we feel no friction, we believe we are going with the flow. In truth, we cannot move.

So much of what goes on in America now is about avoiding friction. Whether it’s a refusal to compromise or a desire to live a life of uninterrupted pleasure, our goal has become to no longer work. Ironically, we even work ourselves into the ground in order to reach our life goal of leisure. But by avoiding the effort to overcome friction, we are creating a society dedicated to dullness. Dullness then runs the country.

We spend much of our time pointing to the intense friction in other countries, but fail to see the tension that is forming here. No matter how slowly life appears to move, there is always change; we cannot and will not stay inert forever. The three gunas, or properties making up the world, are tamas (inertia), rajas (activity), and sattva (clarity, calm). Whether we are aware or not, we are always heading toward a balance of these properties. We want the three gunas to be in harmony. So if we are inert, then unconsciously we will want someone to be active in our midst. If we are lucky enough to have someone sattvic near us, depending on where we are we will be drawn into sattva or we will rebel.

By sattvic I mean really clear, bright, and peaceful—not as an idea, but as an actual state. Part of what is going on in this country is that, however much we may complain or express concern about collective issues, we pretend that as individuals we are all fine. We decide intellectually that we’re “fine”, and we make sure our lives look “fine”. Most of us are anything but fine, and if we let ourselves feel, we would know that.

American society was largely built on a strong work ethic. When we work hard, we improve ourselves by overcoming friction; we may even reach a level of prosperity. From there we retire, believing we have earned the right not to work. Thinking we want what is best for our children, we encourage our children to work less hard than we did, and try to spare them from stress. We want our children to be frictionlessly happy—but that’s an oxymoron. Instead, we produce laziness. From laziness we get to incompetence. From incompetence we slide into decadence. The prosperity will be used up by our seeking only pleasure and not doing conscious, meaningful work.

Work actually makes us feel better. A life of leisure is not healthy, and we must shed the belief that it is. The pursuit of happiness does not mean we get happiness without friction. Pursuit means we can or may go after happiness, and how we do that is work. If we think pleasure is happiness, then we are really just greedy gluttons. The expectation of happiness without any effort has become the perverted American dream. We have lost sight of the difference between having a right to pursue something and being entitled to it. We have little work ethic in the right sense, and even less stamina.

America distracts itself from its real work, which is cleaning itself up. America spends much of its time “fixing” others instead of actually fixing and taking care of itself. And because we do not really fix ourselves, we cannot and do not discern appropriately how to fix anything. This does not mean we should be isolationist; what it means is that any work we undertake abroad has be rooted in hard work done at home.

Our children are being brought up without healthy friction. “I want” and “give it to me” are the phrases of an indulged child, not one who is developing character and a well-directed will. Indulging these phrases brings the child to not learn how to develop effort. Even our schools are now complicit; in order to appease parents and conform to current psychological models that still hinge on “self-esteem”, they aim to make education as frictionless as possible. And frictionless education is another oxymoron.

Children need to learn how to overcome friction. My job as a mother was not to protect my children from bullies, adversaries, challenges, and friction; my job was to give my children the tools to face and overcome the friction of life. I helped my children see that they had choice—it was their choice. These days we keep the secret of life from our children. What is the secret? Work, discipline, and properly directed will. Those things will bring us to a satisfaction that ultimately leads us inward, to Love.

Attention is the fuel….

February 23, 2014

Attention is the fuel. We maintain our addiction with our attention, our will. But attention is also the cure—if our attention is in the Heart. Depending on where it is, our attention will feed the addiction or starve it. Boring into the Heart burns away our attachment to twisted love.

Entitled….

February 23, 2014

Entitled Dedicated

Deserving/Self Confident Insecure/Workaholic

Accept, Let Go and Redirect….

February 17, 2014

We have to accept what we bring to the table in our lives. We have to accept that we love the vibrations we perpetuate. We have to accept that we misdirect our attention. We have to accept that we remain addicted to the vibrations that make up our “love machine”, and hold on to them for dear life.

The mind is not self-illuminative. Sometimes it is a subject and sometimes it is an object. When the mind is a subject, when the voices within our mind appear to be who we are, our attention fuels our love machine. The vibration we are attached to at any given moment is our addiction; we believe it is who we are, and even life itself. This wrong understanding leads us to cling for dear life to a false identity.

When the mind is an object, we are able to see our vibrations for what they are, accept them, and work to give them no attention. We then can disentangle from them and redirect our attention back toward and into the Heart. We are actually withdrawing our attention back Home. Once we have accomplished this, our attention is in the Heart and from the Heart. Our will is directed by the Heart. We are then realigned, and we function from the Heart.

“Whatsoever makes the wavering and unsteady mind wander away let him restrain and bring it back to the control of the Self alone” Bhagavadgītā VI.26 (Radhakrishnan)

“This alternative is in short the direction of the thoughts and energies of the mind towards God. Direction, rather than repression, is the method… for achieving self-control.” (Swami Prabhavananda, The Spiritual Heritage of India,122).

People ask, “When did things go wrong?” The answer is, “When they were going right”. When things are “fine” is when we lose our vigilance, forget, and turn our attention back to our shrunken self.

We have to keep letting go of our wrong focus and redirect our attention into the Heart. When we are attached to our vibration, cannot redirect our attention, and in truth do not want to redirect our attention though we know we should, here is how we can do just that.

Cease all outside action. Stop reacting to whatever is going on outside. When the outside no longer supports your reaction, you will not be able to make your vibration “reasonable”.

Strap yourself in a chair and go for the ride. In other words, find a place where you will have no distractions. At the very least, allow yourself no distractions.

Now be with whatever vibration you have and do not waver in your attention. Sit with this internal experience; give yourself permission and have the courage to be with it. Let yourself have what you have always wanted and resisted. Hear your story; do not be in your story.

Accept that your life, like everyone’s, is based on wrong understanding. Practice is not the annihilation of the small self, it is the annihilation of our wrong understanding. Listen to all the rationalizations and know them for what they are. “I can’t accept I did this”. “I am not a bad person”. “I am a good person”. Accept what you have. Then stop listening, let go, and redirect into the Heart.

Still the vibration not with words, because words will not still your vibrations. Words only mask our vibrations. Will stills our vibrations. Attention is how we shine our will. When we focus our attention on our vibrations themselves, the light of our consciousness burns up the vibrations. We have faced our addiction with the only weapon that works, our will.

Stop holding onto the world, either by grabbing it or by rejecting it. Renunciation is not rejection. Rejection is repulsion, which is a form of attachment. By rejecting all we say we want to get rid of, we hold on to it. If you do not let go, the vibration and its expression only get worse. You are then attached to suffering. You have to know what you are surrendering; it is suffering and misery. True renunciation is letting go of what is not Real and surrendering to the Real.

We must not let the small self regain control after we have let it go. In order to regain that control we will have to trash the person who loves and helps us. Practice ruins our miserable lives. We are then no longer separate or special; instead, we become human.

So give up now before your misery gets bigger. We have to be really strong to let go of our ego. Discipline on all levels strengthens on all levels. We have to face what we do not want to face and accept it. Let it go. Then, using your will, redirect your attention to the Heart and to God.

Once we change, we have to reap what we have previously sown; then we can and will find ourselves saying “I’m sorry” a million times. We see what we did, learn from our past, and are able to accept, let go, and redirect our attention to now.

We change the future by being conscious in the present. As Kālidāsa wrote in the Kumārasaṃbhava, “They whose minds are not disturbed when the sources of disturbance are present, are truly brave” (1.59, translation Radhakrishnan).

Laughter in Orkney….

February 16, 2014

While on vacation in Orkney, Rohini thought for a moment about her students back home. This was the result.

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Practice can seem….

February 16, 2014

Practice can seem easy and natural until it requires us to accept that we are not “the good person” we believe we are. Then we turn on the practice with hostility.

Sucker….

February 16, 2014

Sucker Sceptic

Generous Cynic

Laughing at Your Own Son….

February 16, 2014

Rohini laughs uncontrollably after making a joke about her own son.

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Spiritual Practice Ruins Your Life….

February 10, 2014

Approaching spiritual practice, most people get excited and jump into the process that is sure to bring them to enlightenment. If they have stumbled into actual practice, however, it will not take long before they realize their life is ruined. If their life is not ruined, then they have not begun to practice.

My whole life was turned upside down after my first month with Baba. I had had a successful Tai Chi Chuan school with a hundred students on Mt. Auburn Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Everything needed for a successful life was in place: a great space, great students, my teacher in California. In addition to my other education, I had a degree in acupuncture I had earned with Dr. So in his inaugural class in the US, and had studied Chinese language. I taught, traveled and was well known. I had even demonstrated Tai Chi for the Taiwanese consulate. Even though I had continued to search for someone who could answer my deeper questions, I had a successful life.

On my return to Cambridge from that first month with Baba, I was not sure what I was going to do. Baba had revealed Truth, and I knew I had to go study with him, be with him. I had no idea how I was going to do that, especially since I had such a successful life. As soon as I went to my school my landlord told me that a Rockefeller wanted to buy out my lease. I said yes, not knowing how I was going to make my living or how I was going to be able to be with Baba. My whole life turned upside down. I had never liked Indian trappings, and now I was going to be with an Indian Guru. I knew none of the outward lifestyle. I have a terrible singing voice, and of course they chanted everyday. So much of my discipline was about physical movement, and now people just sat there. My life was ruined. Why?

Our lives have to be ruined in order to go Home, because if we are really practicing we are realigned internally, and that will change our outward manifestation. Our lives and all our decisions are based on our “love Machine”. When we give up the machine, our motivations will change. If we just take on board new concepts and external rituals, we will not change our lives. We will just have intellectual pablum. And that is sad.

So my life was ruined—and I am so glad for that. As I practice, whatever has not been ruined needs to be. Slowly, though I am always me, my life is being transformed. By anchoring into the Self and God, we remain true; our whole being is realigned with God.

If we do not surrender, whatever we are holding onto will only get bigger until we cannot hold on anymore.

In the fourteenth century, the great Dominican mystic Henry Suso began as a committed—and proud—renunciate, withstanding all manner of privations and rejecting rather than being nonattached. He was annoyed by most human contact. God ruined his seemingly perfect spiritual life. Scandal engulfed Suso when a woman accused him of fathering her child. At first, he could not understand how God could do such a thing to him. But when a local came to him offering to do away with the baby, he insisted that he see it. On meeting the infant, Suso realized that his task was to accept the child as a gift from God and take responsibility for it. His world, and his idea of himself, had been completely dismantled. Only at this point did he surrender—by surrendering his idea of surrender.

Our task is to surrender to God completely on all levels, and have only God left to be the doer.

Rejection….

February 10, 2014

Rejection is not renunciation.

Renounce….

February 10, 2014

Renounce Attached

Reject Connected

Ned Quist’s Wonderful Review of “Walking Home with Baba”….

February 3, 2014

Let me begin with a full disclosure: I studied with Rohini Ralby for nearly eight years from about 1993 until 2001. During that time I learned my first tai ch’i form and worked through some very difficult issues with her as my counselor and spiritual advisor. Together with my wife (also her student) Rohini provided me with the tools to turn my life around during a very difficult period for which I am forever grateful. I will also admit that I have perhaps allowed some of those tools to rust a bit… So for me reading this book was both a way to rekindle some of that earlier experience, to remind myself of what I had learned before and to recognize that some of things I thought I’d learned, I’d only partially understood. And, that I’d fallen out of practice. But that was my experience of this book and therefore my bias.

If I may borrow a musical term, Walking Home with Baba is a kind of rondo form, with Ralby’s stories of her guru Baba, (Swami Muktananda (1908-1982)) forming a refrain between a series of practical spiritual lessons. The stories, many of which take place at the Ganeshpuri ashram in India, are all from Ralby’s personal experience between 1976 and Baba’s death in 1982. The lessons would make a book by themselves. They include such topics as an introduction to spiritual practice, the Foursquare personality game: a technique of exploring and recognizing how to own the opposites and contradictions in your life, and the practice of meditation. They are all explained in quite simple straightforward language. There are, to be sure, a collection of Sanskrit words sprinkled throughout the text, but all are explained, and repeated enough, that they become a kind of new vocabulary to the patient reader (there is also a handy Glossary in the back). The one chapter I had difficulty reading, because I was not familiar enough with the source, is the commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, which as Ralby herself notes, requires you to “raise your game a bit to follow the subtleties.” But, then again, while this book is written in a clear and very understandable style, it isn’t intended to be “easy.” It is an introduction to a practice. It’s short enough that you can read it in a day, but difficult enough, that it bears much rereading.

Nothing is sugar-coated, including the stories of Baba. They are sometimes humorous. My favorite in this vein is the story of Baba cooking kir with Swiss chocolate, for a Brahmin (p. 73). They are also full of the petty venialities brought by many of the guests to the Ganeshpuri ashram. Baba is sometimes angry, sometimes gentle, but always giving what is needed, often with a touch of impish humor. The stories create a gloss on the lessons, but also a way into the lessons in the form of real life experiences, with Baba as guide.

The title, Walking Home to Baba, is a metaphor for the journey to finding God within. As Ralby notes in her conclusion, its not an easy path “Reading this book may have given you lots of ideas, but if you walk away satisfied with only ideas, you will got get far along the path.” (p. 155). So this is most definitely NOT Chicken Soup for the Soul, it’s more like an invitation to a discipline, one that is both demanding and highly rewarding, but not easy. Note to self: The reason the path is difficult: because it takes practice!

A Great Review of “Walking Home with Baba”….

February 3, 2014

There are two important things which I look for in a spiritual book. The first is authenticity. Has the author genuinely experienced that about which they write…or are they reorganizing concepts which they have read in other books. The second is, does the author clearly present an effective practice which will guide the reader to a direct personal experience of what the author promises via the conveyance of the book.

What Rohini has written is authentic. I was there, during the time period covered in “Walking Home with Baba” and I witnessed many of the events she shares. She had a direct, personal relationship with Baba. The type of personal relationship that surgically removes chunks of the ego…without anesthesia. I couldn’t have known what her internal experience was at the time, so I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. The practices she offers work. She actually did all of the practices she shares, with powerful focus and depth. She has experienced what she is talking about, which actually is the only way one can effectively guide others. Really…what other author has two amazingly accomplished sons, verifying on the book cover the direct positive experiences of growing up in practices, guided by their mother…really.

— Eddie Oliver, COO and Board Member of Baba’s Spiritual Organization.

The Love Machine Part Two….

February 2, 2014

How we resolve the love machine:

The love machine only keeps running because we fuel and maintain it. We even make sure to fix it when it breaks down. Any time the machine breaks down, we are given an opening, a wonderful opportunity—but we don’t take advantage of it; we don’t recognize the experience of actual love, and we reject it. Instead, we see ourselves as having lost, or gone weak, when in fact we have a chance to be equal with everyone else. Rather than expand the opening and go into the Heart, we desperately work to fix the machine.

One of the most important ways we keep the machine running is by fighting it. It’s usual to believe that if we don’t fight the system, it will take over, but it totally takes over if we fight it, because then we are one-pointed on it. We hold on to something by fighting it; the one who fights is the one that feeds it. That voice is part of the system. If you want to stop keeping the system, you have to stop fighting it. You cannot move forward until you do this.

Remember, though, that not fighting does not mean letting the vibration take over and swimming in it. Neither does it mean thinking the small self is bad—who is thinking that, anyway? The small self is a vehicle we need to function in the world; not the small self, but our wrong identification with the small self, is the problem. And you can’t just decide you’re not your small self anymore, because the one making that decision is the small self. Though the small self can be a subject, we are sometimes aware that it is also an object, a vehicle. We have to do the work of consciously disentangling from the vehicle. The true Self is never an object; it is pure Subject.

Once you’ve stopped fighting, you can recognize the “love” vibration for what it actually is, and call it by its real name. When we face our delusions, we shine a light on them that allows us to see them clearly.

Next, accept the feeling and know that you work to feel it all the time. This first acceptance is really just intellectual. Emotionally, you still believe love and all relations and relationships are based on your “love” vibration. Let yourself have the “love” you have always aspired for.

Everyone wants the fast train to resolution. Forget that, unless you are willing to completely surrender, and stay surrendered. Otherwise, just accept that you can’t and won’t accept. What can you do to move? Accept that you do not want to accept. “I can’t, I won’t, and you can’t make me” is the litany of the small self. By accepting, we stop punishing our own Heart.

Then, be with the experience, for however long it takes to get to a place of total acceptance. Once you have fully been with it and accepted it as what you want, you can begin to let it go. You have to be willing to give up your “love”, without knowing what will happen. The belief is, “If I give up my ‘love’ vibration, no one will ever love me or want to be with me ever again”. We believe that if we don’t maintain the system, we will die. Though this is a complete delusion, you will find that you are committed to it. You have to be willing to have nothing rather than your system. Until we fully accept this, we will at best only oscillate between moments of acceptance and eons of maintaining the system.

It is not that there are no more situations encouraging your vibration and that you no longer feel it. It is that you are not looking to create or maintain those situations so you can feel your vibration “makes sense”.

Only then can you still your “love” vibration, and uncover that true Love was always there, hidden beneath the distortions. We now rest in our true Self, in the Heart, where love is Love.

You can’t just….

February 2, 2014

You can’t just decide you’re not your small self anymore, because the one making that decision is the small self.

Embarrassed….

February 2, 2014

Embarrassed Comfortable

Self aware Shameless

The Love Machine Part One….

January 26, 2014

It’s all about recreating our childhood vibration, which we call love. We call it love (or safety, comfort, normalcy, etc.) because it is how the small self gets attention, and therefore power. For the small self, power is the surrogate for love. Intellectually we hate the vibration and look for “solutions”, but emotionally we crave it and keep looking to maintain it, and we find other “solutions” to help us do that. We go to people and situations that will support the vibration, yet we say we want out. And in truth we want out and are out.

The love machine does not create love. Actually, it is a system for twisting love. When we realize that, we try to change it from within the machine itself. But the one who fights the “good” fight against the system is not only a part of the system, but is the one who feeds the system.

How we set up the love machine:

We set up the love machine initially when we were very young, and all we knew of love was the caregiving environment we inhabited. Whatever experience we had, we called it love. The most powerful person in our world becomes the exemplar of love. By imbibing this experience without any discernment, we then became attached to it, and began seeking to maintain it.

How we can uncover our love machine:

First we have to feel the vibration we aspire to have. We may intellectually know that this vibration is not love, but emotionally we believe it is.

Next, we have to recognize how this “love” is nurtured. Who, what, when, where, why, how, does this happen? What kind of person or situation encourages us to experience this vibration? What qualities must this person or situation have in order for us to feel our vibration of “love”? What kind of experience and mental chatter do we have around them?

Finally, I need to know my “solution”. My “solution” is what I do when I recognize intellectually that the experience I’m having is not real love, and I try to “solve” the vibration. For instance, if my “love” vibration is in truth anger, I may use numbing as my solution. Or if dread is my vibration, I may accommodate as my solution. The truth is, I do not want to leave my system, so my solution is in fact part of my system, and keeps me inside my system.

Take the example of a person whose childhood experience of love was one of deep insecurity, despondency, and fear of abandonment. That vibration will be what he calls “love”, and he will spend his life trying to nurture and maintain it. He will gravitate toward people and situations that make him feel insecure, despondent, and fearful, and avoid people and situations that actually offer him security and acceptance.

First, he must recognize his “love” vibration for what it is, not what he calls it. This means being willing to face a delusion that has shaped his life. Not easy, but necessary. We must have courage to do this.

Then, he must come to grips with how he nurtures his “love” vibration. What sort of people, situations, and thoughts encourage him to indulge it?

Finally, he needs to identify his “solution”. It may be to reject outright, or to take what he calls “the high road” and put up with things he shouldn’t tolerate, or to obsessively analyze and then discard. Each time the “solution” is applied, it hits a reset button, and the machine starts humming again. Often, people will deflect an opportunity to recognize their system in order to hit reset.

Stay tuned for next week when we discuss how we resolve The Love Machine.

Disorganized….

January 26, 2014

Disorganized Organized

Relaxed Anal

God is….

January 26, 2014

God is the only healthy narcissist.

Facing the Deeps….

January 20, 2014

Why does the New Age thrive in the United States? The willingness to put in hard work seems to be leaving American culture. In recent years we have come to value pleasure and positivity, accomplished with little to no effort. We “deserve”. Equality now means that everyone has the same level of input no matter what. Expertise has been relegated to the status of mere opinion, and people with real depth and breadth of knowledge are mixed in with everyone else.

As a nation we have lost sight of what equality and freedom really mean. We are equal and free to pursue our dreams. But our dreams have become nightmares to my way of thinking. We tend to be looking for constant pleasure, constant good feelings for the small self. We are lost in the pursuit of self-esteem, which brings us to desire whatever we wish to be fulfilled whether it is plausible or not. There is no reality testing, because that would hurt or bruise my self esteem.

The small, shrunken self, our individual self, defines love as pleasure and power. This superficial understanding is reinforced by superficial practice. So much of the New Age is about first-level practice as the final perfection. First-level practice involves the five senses, and no matter how sincere we are in its practice this level alone cannot take us to God and real Love. For so many, the final perfection is about having beautiful ideas that lull us into feeling good about ourselves and others. But true spirituality is not living in the land of the lotus-eaters.

In America we are so much about idea and image rather than reality testing . We rationalize and avoid owning and facing our mistakes. We protect ourselves, we numb ourselves, we run from things that hinder our growth rather than overcome them. We drug ourselves as a solution to our problems. We would always rather be the victim, so that we’re not accountable. In this culture, the one with the most problems and behavioral triggers is the winner. Being responsible for our actions, which would indicate choice and self-control, is not seen as a viable response to life’s situations.

Sadhana is all about owning and facing the truth, about calling something what it is. Sadhana requires courage, because it demands that we face and own up to the fact that we are the ones responsible for all we do. When we face and still the vibrations for which we are responsible, we then have the choice to realign our motives and therefore our actions. We can then choose to change our actions. Remember, all decisions made from the small self are specifically designed to keep the small self alive and in control. We have to know our system in order to get rid of it.

Evelyn Underhill speaks to true spirituality when she discusses the Dark Night of the Soul: “The ascending self must leave these childish satisfactions; make its love absolutely disinterested, strong, and courageous, abolish all taint of spiritual gluttony. A total abandonment of the individualistic standpoint, of that trivial and egotistic quest of personal satisfaction which thwarts the great movement of the Flowing Light, is the supreme condition of man’s participation in Reality”. As Johannes Tauler affirms, “we attain to the fullness of God’s love as His children, when it is no longer happiness or misery, prosperity or adversity, that draws us to Him or keeps us back from Him”. Ultimately, this means being able to live the words of St. Catherine of Genoa: “My me is God: nor do I know my selfhood except in God.”

As Underhill establishes, “The self, then, has got to learn to cease to be its ‘own centre and circumference’: to make that final surrender which is the price of final peace”.

We must as a nation and as spiritual practitioners face the deeps. We must know that we can never solve what is deep by superficial means. We have to go deep to solve the deep.

We must know….

January 20, 2014

We must know that we can never solve what is deep by superficial means.

Covert Torment….

January 20, 2014

Covert Torment Nurture

Test/Educate Coddle

Talking, Doing, Being….

January 12, 2014

Idealists are idealized, and there is little people will say against them. We tend not to argue with them; most of the time they are right. Other names for idealists are visionaries, idea people, intellectuals, and talkers. Many of these people believe talking and sharing ideas are at a higher level than doing, and think their job is done when they have expressed their ideas. When this is the case, idealists need others to put their ideas into action.

Doers: these are the people who are vital and yet in many ways invisible. These people of action are seen as lesser than the idealists; yet without them ideas do not manifest. Doers tend to rely on visionaries to guide their activity. But without discernment they may follow the wrong ideas and the wrong idealist. The discerning doer will see clearly and bring into action the ideas of a clear and appropriate thinker. The inert actor will act blindly, motivated by ignorance. The passionate actor will just act, and his actions will be dark or clear according to his internal state at the moment.

Some people have within them the ability to use both the power to think and the power to act. If they know their own capacities, they can function well on the physical plane. But there is another level of action, and it is only available to people who have mastered and are no longer attached to any of their abilities. These people appreciate and know their own capacity for both word and deed, but they are not identified with those skills. These people live in the center of Being, where all else is a vehicle enlivened by Being. So whether they are thinking, talking or acting, they are first being, and everything evolves consciously from being.

This is not an idea, this is a reality. This is actual living in the Center of Being. We can go there, live there, and act and function from there. In order to do this, we have to examine all our ideas and discern which are valid and which are just nice ideas. We have to face where we are—not as a concept, but as a reality. There can be no mixing Absolute Truth with relative reality. If we all lived in Absolute Reality and imbibed that Truth, then there would be no need to journey home. There would be no need for this blog. There would be no need to practice.

The reality is that we inhabit relative reality to learn what we each need to learn. Each of us has a different path in life because we have different lessons to learn. Once we face this truth within ourselves and accept it, along with all the pain of having been out of alignment, we can then actually do the work of going Home to who we truly are. Again, only if this is more than a great idea will it lead us into action to go Home. The action is not easy. It is not fun much of the time. It forces us to see the horror of what we have done and what we do. This action also brings us to love and joy. There is so much relief when we surrender to reality and Reality.

What do you then think and do in order to be? Right now, redirect your attention into the center of your chest; doing this will lead you inward to the Heart. Then keep your attention there and dig in, going deeper and mining what you find there. Mining means actually facing, and owning, mastering and transcending what comes up from the Heart. You actually have to burn and dissolve all that has cloaked your Love and covered who you are. You will then be centered in who you are, not who you thought you were. These are not concepts; they are actually practices, real actions. We do them in order to BE.

Grumpy….

January 12, 2014

Grumpy Cheerful

Honest Fake

There is so much relief….

January 12, 2014

There is so much relief when we surrender to reality and Reality.

Strategic….

January 5, 2014

Strategic Haphazard

Out of Touch Engaged

The Ease of Spiritual Practice….

January 5, 2014

Working to redirect to the true center is not easy; sometimes it can be extremely difficult. Somewhere in popular discourse, “ease” became a word that sat next to “spirituality”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First of all, the question needs to be “easy” for whom? If “spirituality” is a lifestyle driven by concepts and ideals, then “our small self” does have an easy time of it. The ideals are the driving force to remain in the head and emote an effusive expression of those ideas. Next we ask, what is easy? The “what” of “spirituality” is an imaginative modification of the mind, which then remains focused on “ideals” and assures us of our righteousness and clarity. Our surety lasts until we hit the rock of reality and hurt like hell, and we lose our “sweetness” and “spirituality” completely.

Hopefully, we then search for real spiritual practice and are lucky enough to find a good practitioner and teacher. Once we have applied ourselves to true spiritual practice, we will see the error of ideas and ease.

When we realize that true spirituality is not idea-based, not emotion-based, not personality-based, not energy-based, we are then approaching the “whom”. The appearance of ease disappears and the confrontation and hard work become clear. As we continue down this path, we will see the value of hard work. We will understand how little we understood before, and we will want to delve deeper into the true practice—which, though not easy, will remove our pain and misery.

Getting the outside world to change is not the goal of practice. If we align ourselves properly, we will see that what must change is how we approach the world, though the world itself may not change at all. We will just relate with it differently, which will make all the difference to us. Our job is to change us. Our job is to remove our ignorance, to remove our attachment to the ephemeral centers of life, and return to our true center in the Heart. Remember: if you can perceive something, it cannot be you. You are the true perceiver. The small self cannot be us, and we should know this because it is not self-illuminative. Sometimes the mind appears to be us, and sometimes we are aware of witnessing it. We are the perceiver; we are never the object.

So when we think we are practicing and we are “sweet” and “nice”, look out. We are probably centered in an idea. In its fickleness, the mind will move on from that center to a new, more attractive center. None of these is who we are; they are just a bunch of words we have brought together to fool ourselves. We are locating ourselves in an ever-changing vehicle. Not until we let go and turn to the hard, disciplined work of real spiritual practice will the light of Grace shine and guide our effort in the right direction. Then we will rest in our true nature. Remaining in our true center no longer will be hard work; it will be just what we do and are. We will be riding the horse in the direction it is going, Home.

Our surety lasts….

January 5, 2014

Our surety lasts until we hit the rock of reality and hurt like hell, and we lose our “sweetness” and “spirituality” completely.

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