2018

What the shrunken self wants: to stay the way it is, continue to bring to the table what it has always brought to the table, and have everything work out in its favor unconditionally.

Righteously indignant….

December 23, 2018

Righteously indignant Accepting

Just Allowing unsafe and criminal behavior

I Know Who I Am….

December 23, 2018

After reading her poem titled “Centric,” Rohini explains how Grace is crucial to getting beyond a merely intellectual understanding of the Self and to actual experience of the Self, which is where spiritual practice begins.

Christmas Open House 2018….

December 18, 2018

The Truth Prevails….

December 18, 2018

Rohini tells the story of when she received a powerful experience from her Guru Swami Muktananda in 1979, and relates a story Baba told her at the time as a way of teaching her how the world works, and how Truth works in the world.

Self-punishment is not….

December 16, 2018

Self-punishment is not a tool for good. Beating yourself up is a way of not learning.

No Parting….

December 16, 2018

the moon was full
the son was gone
i cried

shining in everything
i missed you

until i follow your path
i am lost

the light infused
guides
the moon

back

to fullness
reflected

surrender

only to find

son did not go
down
appearances
can deceive

He never left
now
i cry

in joy

No recourse….

December 16, 2018

No recourse Good options

No decision to make / clear path Too many choices

Cruel Pleasure….

December 10, 2018

Rohini reads aloud her poem “Cruel Pleasure,” which is about how people committed to their narratives project their idea of normal onto the world, and make cruel decisions based on that system.

Cruel Pleasure….

December 9, 2018

there are monsters

competition different
from
seeking pleasure

what works
Love here
working

can’t compete
have to choose

competence

by projection
make place of Love
normal
bring normalcy
of no love

chooses
different concrete
action

than love
which manifests coldly

different playing fields

saliency determined

each highlights
completely different
treasure hunt

can’t win them over

what drives them

treasure

power
enhanced
amplified

what they
say
do
see
relate

path lights up
accordingly
motivation

normal like them
being the center
making monster good
human

trying
can’t

Love
destroys

The stronger and more….

December 9, 2018

The stronger and more ingrained the attachment, the less capable we become of discerning right and wrong.

No Love….

December 2, 2018

no love
does not
save us
no
Love
saves us

monster emotes
feeling
with no love
fooled by
show
with no love

monster sacrificed
humanity
for ideal

Love within
love awakened
remorse
frees us
expels the monster
within us
outside playing
destruction

crushing morale
amoral
ill moral
moral

of
the cautionary tale
Love
breaks through
amorality

God is
everything
seed
we know this
monster denies
living in an
abstract
where God has
no teeth

God is
always waiting
always witnessing
always
in all ways

God seeds
in every pore
monster’s dissolution

patience

Fanatical….

December 9, 2018

Fanatical Reflective

Focused / knows path Unresolved

We have to go over….

December 2, 2018

We have to go over our experience again and again and try to ascertain the facts. Because the facts matter. If we only take a few puzzle pieces and fill in the gaps with things that suit our shrunken self’s narrative, we will only do injury, to ourselves and maybe to others.

No love / no feeling….

December 2, 2018

No love / no feeling Intense feeling

Protected Dangerous

No Love….

December 1, 2018

Rohini reads her poem, “No Love,” which is about how delusion always ends in its own destruction, and Love, which is God’s nature, always prevails.

Surrendering to Win….

November 25, 2018

state actors
free actors
state the actors
know your part

the warrior embraces
boredom
on all levels

as a weapon
as a tool
as a way of life

patiently he bores into
the enemy
and wears him down

with the vibration
of non-attachment
acceptance
Truth
perseverance furthers

as the warrior is
willing to call
the action
according to facts

he waits for
peace to arise
no need to push
the point

the one that fights
is a beginner
is shortsighted

only if all else fails
does the warrior
remove his sword
from the scabbard
last resort
and feels like
failure
so much to learn

sit still
wait for peace
dissolve the
conflict
within to
resolve
without

then clear action
ahead

a warrior awakens to
the virtue
of boredom

If we just try….

November 25, 2018

If we just try to do things in our idea of “the right way”, assuming instead of asking, we lose our humanity.

No love….

November 25, 2018

No love Love and joy with others

Invulnerable Committed to people who don’t love

Surrendering to Win….

November 24, 2018

Rohini reads her poem “Surrendering to Win,” which is about how a true warrior’s ability to dissolve and resolve conflict arises from nonattachment.

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Best Features….

November 24, 2018

Rohini invites her students to share their ideas about their best qualities, and creates fourchotomies around those traits so the students can own, master, and transcend them.

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Rasa….

November 18, 2018

heavy handed heavy footed
light touch
Ram
the truth

only way
break the spell
to return

to light
to Self
to God

surrender
accept
relax
emerge

won’t hurt
tastes
feels
looks
smells
sounds

the rasa
of the Heart

give up

not the earth
do we get

life
Love

eternity

Loving, and being….

November 18, 2018

Loving, and being willing to lose for the sake of Love, is not the same thing as throwing yourself under the bus.

Accepted member….

November 18, 2018

Accepted member Outsider / interloper

Conformist / forsaking and abandoning self Maintains integrity and sense of self

Performance….

November 11, 2018

pain individualizes
us
separates us
Love removes
all separateness

pain becomes the
addiction
individual
sustaining itself

Love dissolves
created boundaries
individual
losing its identity
reaching for pain once
more to know
itself

Love seen
as delusion
ruins every
thing
pain called
Reality
not reality

Love called
pleasure
not Bliss

individual so
smart
God uses it to
maintain His
play
and yet
His play is
always Love
and follows
those rules
no matter
what the scene
the act
the drama

always a comedy
always one troupe
always one actor
always one theme

surrender your pain
the essence
of individuality

surrender to Love
lose your part
becoming whole

The conflict between….

November 11, 2018

The conflict between the gunas and the vrittis is manifest in our refusal to call our experiences what they truly are.

Humility….

November 11, 2018

Humility Arrogance

Helplessness Agency

Performance….

November 10, 2018

Rohini reads her poem “Performance” which speaks to individuality and Love that dissolves it.

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Boredom….

November 4, 2018

boring

bore in

boring in

the kingdom
through
which

we must
bore

and bear
the agitation
of boredom

until
all dissolves
in
clarity
clearly
no refraction

The appropriate experience….

November 4, 2018

The appropriate experience to be having is the one you’re actually having. So have it, be with it, honestly.

Defiant….

November 4, 2018

Defiant Listening

Knows own story Played

Don’t Go Viral….

November 3, 2018

Drawing on Yoga Sūtras 4.3, Rohini explains how, though external causes may seem to drive our reactions, in truth they only create openings for tendencies within us to come out, and we can immunize ourselves through owning those tendencies and achieving nonattachment.

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Fall Garden….

November 3, 2018

Passage….

October 28, 2018

across
valley
up
mountain

only to go
back down
mountain

across
bridge

along
two edged sword

challenge
for what
never for who

we are

The delusion that….

October 28, 2018

The delusion that spiritual practice will lead to more and more pleasurable or “good” experiences and fewer painful or “bad” experiences misses the point completely. The point is Love and non attachment in the midst of whatever happens.

Prideful….

October 28, 2018

Prideful Modest

Knows own value Self-negating

Muktananda’s Gift….

October 27, 2018

On the anniversary of Baba’s mahasamadhi, Rohini reads her poem “Muktananda’s Gift,” which is dedicated to her Guru.

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Refraction….

October 21, 2018

calm down
reproach

be
accepts

let go
when
ready

not to control

then
hide
box

get ready
to let go

by being
allowing
vibration

label
deny
distance
explain

think
experience
is
not

be
what is
is

In order to be….

October 21, 2018

In order to be truly safe, we must be willing to feel what we truly feel and call that feeling what it truly is.

Put up with….

October 21, 2018

Put up with Hold accountable

Patient / tolerant / understanding Judgmental / hardhearted / dismissive

Ode to Sylvia….

October 14, 2018

where are you now

the house you clung to
so proud of
is
gone

do you wonder
wander

have you settled in
to the job
of learning kindness

so foreign so
difficult
for you

demanded from others
exempt for you

committed to your story

as your house crumbled
your strong will
determined

to imagine yourself
eternal gorgeous

hold on you did

even death defied

peace was boring love was weak

conflict pleasure
fought for

applauded

o great teacher
your house burned
have you returned
to play

to learn your lessons

o Sylvia
piece of work

you were the cautionary tale

did you learn from you

i did

so appreciative of the
part you played so
well

Seeking to re-create….

October 14, 2018

Seeking to re-create your system’s idea of “home” will keep you from being able to go Home to Love.

Cave in….

October 14, 2018

Cave in Stand firm / stand up for self

Receptive Defiant / obstinate

Before and after photos of the garden and leaves….

October 13, 2018

Grace and Effort….

October 13, 2018

Rohini discusses the nature and importance of Kundalini, and the necessity of both self effort and Grace.

The Promise….

October 7, 2018

you promised no
more flood
I lied
no more destruction
did I

I have created
a mess
and I must
reap My own
doing
I must model
how to return
to Me

the destruction of
the temporal
destruction of what
to realign back
to who

I am

Don’t look up….

October 7, 2018

Don’t look up, into your head, to find out what you’re feeling. The only thing there is ideation. Look in toward the Heart.

Flaky….

October 7, 2018

Flaky Awake / astute

Lighthearted / light touch Heavy-handed / downer

Ark of Ascent….

September 30, 2018

whether miniscule
or
monumental

the way home is
the same

whether one by one
two by two

or All by All

we return by
slowly or
instantly

destroying ignorance
breaking bonds with
temporary

and the emergence
of the Real the
Always

It takes energy….

September 30, 2018

It takes energy to turn in. To misappropriate your energy is to degrade your ability to be with your experience.

Never your fault….

September 30, 2018

Never your fault Always blamed

No impact / weightless Important

At the Table….

September 23, 2018

bring to the table
good food
good company
good cheer

care cares for all
no one is left
with
out

whether flat or round
the table is
full
nurtured by God

no pretense
lies
hate
see what’s on the table

know what you
brought

clean yourself
to see
the Real table

our narratives
starve us

leave us hungry
for truth

though full we can’t
partake
we fed so long
on empty
satisfied not an
option

retreat before
returning to
the table
wash thyself
to see
what we have
missed

If you are not….

September 23, 2018

If you are not willing to be with your experience—if you are dissociative or vague or in denial—you will be completely vulnerable to gaslighting and other forms of manipulation, because you will never have a firm grip on the facts.

Disrespectful….

September 23, 2018

Disrespectful Respectful

Tells the truth Flattering

Guest Blog by Maurice Yearwood: Milking Apprehension….

September 16, 2018

“At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.”

~ Steven Pressfield, Author of The War of Art

I have always felt an intense shiver through my body in moments when action is required. The feeling has been with me since childhood. To this day it haunts me, rearing its disastrous presence whenever I want or need to engage in an activity, role, or experience. In most instances when I have this sensation, I do everything in my power to reason why I did not want to pursue it in the first place. Yet, no matter how watertight the narrative I create or quality of bullshiet I feed myself (and others), the feeling remains and over time has grown stronger. After all these years, I recently sat with this penetrating sensation, and I began to feel overwhelmingly weak, vulnerable, hurt, and painfully out of control. However, through this process, for the first time, I was able to face this feeling and give it a name: Apprehension.

Reflecting on my relationship with apprehension, it is agonizing to realize how much it has controlled my life and decision making. Everything from playing video games as a kid to not accepting promotions in my work life. For instance, during the holidays when family members suggested we play a game of charades, I would immediately tense up and decline participation. I would lie back on the couch and casually state, “You all know I am overly competitive and won’t be able to separate myself from this.” My family would nod in agreement and allow me to nonchalantly watch from the sidelines while they bonded over board games. They never suspected I was actually in the corner struggling with intense feelings of insecurity: ultra-sensitive to losing, being wrong, and looking foolish in the process. However, they would never suspect anything because I was a nationally ranked competitive basketball player from the age of fifteen years old. Moreover, every time I was asked to do anything outside of my comfort zone, which caused me to feel the sting of apprehension, I played on that perception of me being all-world. I guess that’s what my Spiritual Teacher, Rohiniji, meant when she said to me, “You put on a show to cover up that you’re a chicken.”

The best solution (or so I thought) to combat apprehension is to create a narrative that supports your moving around it (i.e., running away). In my case, I never thought of myself as a “chicken”; instead, I was merely cautious in my approach to the situation. For example, when I worked at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, in both circumstances my managers offered me the opportunity to manage bigger teams. I turned them down numerous times because I did not want to short-change the people I would be leading. I knew my heart was in psychology, not finance, and one day I would leave banking for good. So I did not want to put myself, my colleagues, my manager, and the organization in a detrimental situation. I turned down more money and higher status for the betterment of others: I was being selfless. Bullshiet! I was apprehensive and scared to death of being accountable for all of those careers, and I did not want the emotional responsibility that comes with it. This constant apprehension ultimately led to my managers being frustrated with my high potential and lack of commitment (their words), and I subsequently separated from both firms.

My managers and coaches always saw potential but never called me out on my bullshiet. Fortunately, I cannot say the same about Rohiniji. During an EU Satsang in mid-May, she jumped all over me, saying things like, “You’re one of the biggest bullshietters I have ever seen,” and “You win bullshietter of the month!” The latter was kind of hurtful considering my birthday was in two weeks. No one wants to win that type of award during his or her birthday month (lol).

Nevertheless, two things transpired as Rohiniji asked me myriad questions I could not answer and called out my bullshiet: (1) I felt wrong in every response I gave, and (2) I felt utterly foolish in front of people I know. These are the primary drivers that trigger me to concede to apprehension and not step out of my comfort zone in the first place! However, something interesting happened the moment I felt the agony of apprehension transforming into to anger. Rohiniji said, “Maurice, I truly love you, but you have to…” I do not recall in detail what she said after that because I was so caught up in a new feeling that replaced the intense sensation of apprehension: Love. Once Rohiniji shared that essence with me everything else washed away, and I found the solution.

Despite finding the solution, I messaged Rohiniji months later and asked for help to deal with my apprehension. My 2018 goal was to write a short book, but I felt paralyzed whenever I even thought about writing. She challenged me to be with my apprehension, all of it, and write something to her. I was frightened. My grammar is terrible. She is a grammar hawk. I sat with my experience. I was shaking. I wrote it anyway. From a different place. It felt right. During our next EU Satsang, instead of chewing me out, Rohiniji thanked me for writing authentically and opened the floor for me to share my experience with the class. I was grateful. But then Rohiniji asked if I would like to turn it into a blog post, and apprehension racked my entire body. She smiled. She knew. Another challenge. Another lesson. The solution is simple, but the moment-to-moment practice is not. The journey will be arduous, but the apprehension (and other vibrations) will slowly dissolve with each step I/we take. I am just thankful Rohiniji is here to guide me along this path … and lovingly call out my bullshiet.

To be with your….

September 16, 2018

To be with your experience, you can’t think it at all; you have to be with it at a vibrational level and let the letters arise on their own.

Humorless….

September 16, 2018

Humorless Mirthful

Serious / knows weight of situation Irresponsible / frivolous / lightweight

What’s Your Treasure?

September 15, 2018

Rohini reads and discusses her poem “Cruel Pleasure,” which speaks to the choice between Love and one’s “normal” way of operating, which is about power and control.

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After the rain….

September 14, 2018

Stasis….

September 9, 2018

Normal has no
ground
only quicksand

sinkingly settling
self
deludes
with thoughts

in an hourglass
thoughts
tell the time
and
we are done
before
we know
anything

the desert filled
with empty thoughts
has
no nourishment
to sustain
life

arid wind blows
our thoughts
globally
inflicts all
on all

thought storms leave
us blinded
no where to travel
grains irritating our
senses

cover ourselves in lies
no where to go
sink into
narrative
lost

If you learn….

September 9, 2018

If you learn at a young age that telling stories is how you resolve issues, you will never believe in facts but rather turn every uncomfortable situation into a story you can live with.

Sanctimonious….

September 9, 2018

Sanctimonious Nonjudgmental

Principled Amoral

Dissolution….

September 2, 2018

my Guru showed
me
Me

i clung to i

He washed me
away

Love was left
as
Me

The Guru only….

September 2, 2018

The Guru only rebukes your illusion of who you are. The Guru would never rebuke who you truly are.

Sullen….

September 2, 2018

Sullen Cheerful / in community

Sober / stands alone Sheep / conformist

Dissolution….

September 1, 2018

Rohini reads her short poem titled “Dissolution,” which recounts her Guru’s grace.

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The Road Back….

August 26, 2018

start in hell
the journey is
to move

keep moving

or
stay in hell
home

or
through hell
to all the facts

face in purgatory

relief
remorse
one road then
alone

not lonely
we each climb
to community

heaven
recognize
each other
as
each us
no
other

recognize

Absolute Fact

If making bad….

August 26, 2018

If making bad decisions is how you always got what you called love, then you will always look to make bad decisions.

Uncoachable….

August 26, 2018

Uncoachable Teachable / willing to learn

Strong-willed Weak-willed

Preserve the Practice….

August 19, 2018

alive
always
alive
hidden maybe
still alive

wake up
wake
up
already

awake

see
veiled
see
unconscious
see
all
us
all

God

by being
with experience
let manifest into letters
act cleanly
discern
discriminate
from within
no thoughts
no vibrations
Love to manifestation

Both high self-esteem….

August 19, 2018

Both high self-esteem and low self-esteem are just ways of deceiving ourselves.

Dedicated….

August 19, 2018

Dedicated Uncommitted

Obsessed / rigid Agile / free

Guest Blog by Seth Dorcus: Speaking Up….

August 12, 2018

I’ve never been one to speak up.

When it comes to sharing my experiences with others, it’s never been something I’ve been comfortable doing. Growing up, I wasn’t encouraged by my family to share openly, and I developed the belief that if I was to share anything, it could only be positive; difficult or negative things couldn’t be shared for fear of judgment or punishment. As a result of this belief, I’ve chosen to hide many experiences and aspects of my life from others, particularly anything I decide they might view as negative. It’s only because of Rohini that I’ve started learning what it means to share honestly, and why it is so important.

This is the second time I am writing this guest blog. The first time Rohini asked me to write a blog, I produced a piece of writing that wasn’t genuine, and I missed the point of what she was asking me to do. True to my system, I hid behind carefully placed words instead of using the blog as an occasion to share my true voice.

Rohini has given me another opportunity to share honestly. And I want to use it to express how much an active participation in class is necessary for me to learn and grow in my sadhana. This has become overwhelmingly clear to me lately, and it won’t let go.

I have the amazing opportunity to learn from a true Guru, but I need to step up to the plate and engage in order to do it. That’s where sharing comes in. I can’t learn if I’m not willing to investigate my own experiences and share them in class. I can’t learn from writing a guest blog if I’m not willing to write honestly. Rohini demands honesty because it’s a necessary first step in accepting reality, facing facts, and moving forward. Withholding and stinginess only perpetuate dishonesty in me; they ensure that I remain locked in a shrunken unreality.

Sharing is not about being perfect or having all the right answers, because I’ve seen that there is so much to learn even from sharing when I’ve messed up. This became obvious to me in the recent Lessons & Questions class “Sure Voice True Voice”. In that class, Rohini gave me the chance to open up and be honest about how I wasn’t honest in the first draft of my guest blog. I had tried doing the blog my way, I had tried attending classes my way, but it was undeniable that morning that my way hadn’t worked. There was only one way forward: I had to speak up and share honestly what I had done, so that I could move forward and recover the agency required not to do it again. That experience was incredibly valuable for me.

When I avoid sharing in class, I miss out on such experiences. I don’t get to see where my wrong understanding misleads me, I don’t get to learn from my mistakes, and I don’t receive the grace of the Guru that I desperately need to know who I truly am and live my life fully. If I merely show up, the most that happens is that I ride the shakti. But it’s always temporary because I go back to doing the same old things when I don’t learn, when I don’t allow Rohini to shine a light.

Everyone else in class also misses the opportunity to learn from my experiences when I don’t share. And this is particularly sad, because I’ve learned a tremendous amount from other people in class over the past four years. I so appreciate those who are here to share and learn, because it actually helps me, too. When I consider this, it makes me want to do the same for them.

Fraz’s guest blog is a related example of how someone else’s sharing has helped me. It came at a perfect time while I was rewriting my blog, and it blew me away with its honesty. I could feel the honesty of his words when I read it. It was less about the words on the page than the vibration I felt beneath them. I see that that is what Rohini meant when she explained how someone could tell that my blog was dishonest just by reading it.

Rohini always says that the classroom is the laboratory, and now that statement has a new depth of meaning for me. Her classroom is the place—indeed the only place I’ve ever been—where I can be completely honest, share my experience whatever it is, and receive Love in return, every time. Rohini meets me precisely where I am, no matter what. I don’t have to worry about the outcome of my sharing, I just have to be willing to do it honestly, and accept the Love she always provides.

Don’t look up….

August 12, 2018

Don’t look up, into your head, to find out what you’re feeling; the only thing there is ideation. Go in toward the Heart.

Rude….

August 12, 2018

Rude Gracious

Dominant / powerful Subjugated

If you’re focusing….

August 5, 2018

If you’re focusing on your issues, you can’t practice. The way to resolve your issues is to practice.

Rituals….

August 5, 2018

performing rituals
consciously
pranam
light incense
meditate
kneel
chant
study
live
consciously
with Love
surrender
care
give
serve
live
consciously
with Love
make food
wash dishes
brush teeth
live
consciously
with Love
dress
walk
work
sleep
live
consciously
with Love
be with experience
let whatever
come up
function appropriately
one ritual
consciously
with Love

If you’re focusing….

August 5, 2018

If you’re focusing on your issues, you can’t practice. The way to resolve your issues is to practice.

Skeptical / questioning….

August 5, 2018

Skeptical / questioning Gullible / naïve / positivity

Doubting / dismissive / cynical Open-minded

Guru’s Purnima….

July 29, 2018

the full moon
grows
while the sun
shines through

as manifested light
my Guru

the Guru
never wanes

manifested Guru
arcs the world
guiding the willing

unwilling willingly
walk back
into shadow

the obtuse’s ink cloaks
the son
manifests any way

the moon surrenders
brilliantly
to the sun

the Guru rises
whole
dark turns to luminous blue

The Guru’s outer shakti….

July 29, 2018

The Guru’s outer shakti infuses the disciple, and in doing so becomes the disciple’s inner shakti.

Negligent….

July 29, 2018

Negligent Attentive

Busy / better things to do / attention elsewhere Nothing better to do

A Poem for Swami Muktananda….

July 29, 2018

Rohini reads a poem she wrote to her Guru, Swami Muktananda Paramahamsa, in honor of Guru Purnima 2018.

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Guest Blog by Christie Petti: Trusting the Guru, Trusting God….

July 22, 2018

When I read Rohini’s recent blog post, “Understanding Authority”, it became clear to me that it is impossible to truly be an “authority” without first having learned to obey and defer to authority. I get to choose, through my own agency, my willingness to surrender to an authority, and in doing so to know that I am going to receive the many gifts and benefits that come from that vital choice. I do not view this choice as weakness or as losing anything. I now see it as gaining everything. In that same blog, Rohini lists the key qualities of an authority: “integrity, honesty, expertise, discernment, and wisdom”. Another critical part of that same blog post is where Rohini clarifies that we should feel “safe” with an authority. This prompted me to a deeper reflection on what “safe” actually is.

I had to come to the realization that what I once “thought” was safe for me was not, and what I thought “wasn’t safe” for me actually was. I came from an environment where almost all my “supports” were not actually supportive of me or ever had my best interest at heart; there was no love. Thus, it took time for me to recognize and accept what real “Love” actually looks and feels like and what “safe” actually means and is. I am deeply grateful to Rohini for shining the light so brightly on this and helping me to see and know through actual experience what it means to be truly safe and truly loved. There were times in the past when, working through difficult lessons and strong attachments, I thought I felt “unsafe”, whether it was being yelled at, quieted, or called names. What I now know is that it was only my shrunken self (which I am beginning to understand isn’t even real) that felt unsafe. My true Self was and is always safe with my Guru.

For a long while, I did not want Love. I fought, hid, intellectualized, and was skeptical of the teachings and of the experiences I had. I am not sure what actually pushed me to finally begin the process of truly surrendering to and obeying my Guru; perhaps it was that my misery had become so overwhelming. Maybe it was something deep inside that knew, but didn’t fully understand, that there is something greater, bigger, better, and truer, and I just need to follow it no matter what. That something is my Guru Rohini; my way to God.

I recall another student a few years ago stating something like, “At some point you’re just going to have to trust her”. Those words stayed with me and over time, watching that student learn and grow in leaps and bounds, I was able to move to a place of trust that allowed me to start obeying my Guru. Rohini has always said “test it out”, so I did. And I have found that her guidance and direction always lead me to a place that is significantly better for me than where I would have ended up left to my own devices. I know where “me” leads “me”. I don’t feel I need to again test out “my way” to see if it will actually work this time. And I know that the risk of putting “me” back in charge is always there if I am not persistent and vigilant about spiritual practice as taught by Rohini.

In thinking about this development of trust, I came up with a fourchotomy:

Trusting the Guru

Distrusting the Guru

Having no agency

Having your own voice

I feel like for me that’s what it boils down to: being willing to give up my shrunken self, which isn’t really me and never was, in order to experience my true Self. That doesn’t mean I never have fear or even some angst, and I may still resist an answer once I get it; but I have tested it out enough to know it is the direction I need to take no matter what. As Rohini has clarified, we don’t need to drink the same water from the same cup 1,000,000 times in order to know it’s water.

At times the guidance, love and support I’ve received from Rohini have meant letting go of my attachments in different ways that were painful and difficult and necessary and freeing. I reflect on how Rohini was with me every step of the way when I almost lost my daughter to sepsis, guiding me with true Love, care, and support through the hell of that excruciatingly painful and horrific experience. Because of that guidance, I can now view that situation as one of the most illuminating experiences I have ever had. Rohini’s guidance is also the reason I recently graduated with high honors. Most importantly, I am beginning to truly love and care about myself; I want to live the life God wants for me. This allows me to love others in a way I never understood before.

I trust my Guru, and that is what allows me to choose to obey. My Guru is always for what’s best for me, for the Self, so following her guidance is surrendering to what is for my highest good.

“I see it” is….

July 22, 2018

“I see it” is never enough. You can see a wall and still keep driving into it.

Negligent….

July 22, 2018

Negligent Caring / careful

Encourages toughness and independence Coddling / indulging

When you are obtuse….

July 15, 2018

When you are obtuse, you’re denying reality, and you want others to join you in obtuseness.

So Be It….

July 15, 2018

to the left
on the mountain
i see
Assisi

i think
for sure this road must be to heaven
climbing the heights
oh my oh my
heaven or hell
locked in narrow streets
theme park

Assisi must be heaven
costumed agitation
no facts
winding up to hell

can’t pull
the dots together
desperate to see
performance too thick

up the mountain
to commune with monks
compline peace
disciplines of Benedict

guided with care
dressed to respect

gates locked
monastery locked
compline locked

standing
back to the gate
rooted and strong
facing valley sunset mountains
just stand
do not move
quiet full and empty
no thought

not even God was welcome
so be it
i heard

compline
by the locked gate

back to Norcia
where the ground gave way
but the Heart survived

try again
barred again
gates remotely open
guided
by forbidding signs
to the dark chapel
we wait

late start
missing the
Rule
darkness anger despair arrogance
no love here
pride refuses community
as they disappear

and we
escape into the light
of sunset

so be it

Grandiose….

July 15, 2018

Grandiose Modest

Self-assured Timid

Your Move….

July 8, 2018

how sad we are
how sad
we choose

my way
i know
my way
i go my way

the right
move

i think
and thought takes
me down the
path
of my way
which is always
the wrong way

how sad we are
we think
it guides us
to a voice
our voice
we crave that voice

that takes us down a
path where always
we lose
and yet we think
keep listening
listening
listening to
what we think
to our
voice

if thinking ceases
failure ceases
Heart emerges

checkmates
the unreal

there are no
losers in the Real

The story happens….

July 8, 2018

The story happens again and again until we learn and remember the lessons.

Callous….

July 8, 2018

Callous Caring

Firm Indulgent / enabling

What Remains….

July 1, 2018

take a fact
from a fact
fact does not remain

Perfect remains

light the sky
can’t see the stars
fog protects our narrative
hides the facts

the facts remain
a safe deposit
no light shining
the fog remains

Perfect remains

with the stars
the microscope misses
the facts
the story remains
as do the facts

Perfect

Hope is not….

July 1, 2018

Hope is not optimism. It is the abiding awareness that whatever God does, God does for good.

Obtuse / foggy….

July 1, 2018

Obtuse / foggy Clear-sighted / receptive

Protected Exposed

Examination….

June 24, 2018

Baba asks me
śakti
that remains inside
śakti
that goes out
the same?

i say no

he looks at me
i continue

the inside circles
the heart

the outside drives
out
hands
feet
head

my body begins
to shake
full scream
rigid
levitates

i go

light and energy
the Witness is awake

i awaken

What is a purified….

June 24, 2018

What is a purified intellect? One that reflects clearly without changing the story.

Invasive….

June 24, 2018

Invasive Self-contained / good boundaries

Gregarious / interested / connected Withdrawn / aloof / distant

Dim Wit….

June 17, 2018

i am tired of the dim light
my sin is boredom
it connects us

yet it is a lie
we are so far apart

as we sit together
i cry
judge judged
you laugh
i laugh

blinded by truth
my glasses fail
we miss each other
and yet we sit side

by side
i choose
no more one small place
one only

the dim light remains
we sit remains
i no longer care

such a fragment of
the way it is

Rejoice that you….

June 17, 2018

Rejoice that you are on the mountain, even if you are crawling up.

Chaos….

June 17, 2018

Chaos Order

Creativity / freedom Dull / rigid

Reflection….

June 10, 2018

face the mirror the facts disappear I am Knowing missing me no reflection just a story the mirror breaks there I am

Doubt is not….

June 10, 2018

Doubt is not questioning or wrestling. Doubt is rigid. Doubt is the sure voice, not the true voice.

Defiant….

June 10, 2018

Defiant Surrendered / embracing

Strong willed Slavish

The feeling of harmony was palpable, and as a community we infused it into the garden.

June 9, 2018

Guest Blog by Fraz Frazier: Words and Timing….

June 3, 2018

When Rohini wrote her “Spiritual Illiteracy” blog, I read it several times over before class. The class made me understand a few things. I realized that by trying to make this journey on my own I was not being self-sufficient but being incompetent. I was meditating, reading the blogs, and listening to the classes, thinking that was good enough and that I was using the tools Rohini gave me. I was neglecting the biggest tool of all, Rohini and her Love for us.

I had also been isolated. I had been fighting for so long in many ways, but the most recent and biggest struggle has been my fight with cancer. I figured that keeping that fight was keeping me alive, not realizing it was killing me quicker. I had been fighting with fear, not Love. I didn’t want to give it up for fear that if I gave up I would die, not realizing that if I give up, in turn I will be free to live.

We never showed much emotion in my family growing up, and it’s taken a long time for me to be able to open up and feel safe. Rohini has always made me feel safe, and being around her makes me feel alive. Rohini, David, their family, and the folks in the class have been behind my family and me always. I don’t think I could have made it this far without them. They are my family, and that means the world to me. I know they have my back, and will always take care of my family.

One day not long ago, my crew was out mulching in Rohini’s garden. I was feeling good that day and had a lot of fun, but Rohini knew something was going on with me. The day after the mulching, I got the devastating news that my cancer had woken up. Rohini had felt the vibration before I knew what was going on.

When I got the news, I called Rohini and we spoke. I didn’t call right away because I wanted to get my head around the bad news. I felt helpless and dark, but Rohini corrected me with a stern but loving voice, saying “Fraz, no, no, you don’t need to get your head around this. You need to feel this from your heart. You need to cry, and go home and cry with Julie.” We did, and the boys saw this and knew something was wrong.

I told Jesse my cancer was back. Wrong choice of words. Rohini explained to me that I should tell him my cancer woke up from being asleep. That hit me hard also. You see, my cancer has never left. It is and always will be in my body. I have stage four prostate cancer that has spread to my bones and to one of my lymph nodes. My treatment helps to slow or stop the cancer from spreading more—or, it puts my cancer to sleep.

In a recent class when we were going over Ian’s guest blog, David chimed in and said how he watches and listens to Rohini choosing her words very carefully for her blogs. A prime example of this is saying “awake from sleeping”, not “back”. That choice of words helped me explain my situation to Jesse again, the right way.

The Guru knows what we need and when we need it. Once again, the careful choice of words and timing. Not long ago, I went out to Rohini’s house to watch a crew take down a large tree. I was excited to see how they would do this, and looked forward to being there. But it was not about the tree. It was about the lesson, the timing, knowing what I needed, the well-chosen words spoken to me with true Love.

True Love, you feel it. I felt it again from Rohini as I broke down and went from darkness and hopelessness to feeling the Love and ability to live. But we need to want it and accept it and nurture it. I was feeling like giving up and dying, but Rohini opens the window for us to breathe in the Love she is so willing to give us. The things that happen to me in the teaching room, and just being around Rohini, are real. I know it. I have seen it, felt it in my heart. I am not saying this because I think I am special; it’s because I want what she is offering.

Despair….

June 3, 2018

Despair Hope

Acceptance Denial

Doubt is a….

June 3, 2018

Doubt is a great way to erode truth.

Repeated apologies are….

May 27, 2018

Repeated apologies are like empty calories.

Baba’s Full Moon Dream….

May 27, 2018

in an outdoor amphitheater
someone asks
what about sadhana?
I ask
have you experienced
been in the Bliss

light of God
for two weeks at a time?

I fall into that experience
brilliant pure white light
filled with Bliss
nothing else
I come back

return to here
the person answers
no
I speak
spiritual practice is not about knowing the world
knowing the world is easy

another man asks Nature?
then corrects himself before I do and says
no still part of the world

I say how sad there have been so few
over all time
even the ones that have gone have
not written the map so clearly
for each of us has something slightly different

so difficult the path
I start sobbing
and wake up

Hopeless….

May 27, 2018

Hopeless Hopeful

Sees reality Lives in fantasy

Hymn to Muktananda….

May 20, 2018

Rohini honors her Guru, Swami Muktananda, during his 110th birthday month, with a poem she wrote, “Hymn to Muktananda”.

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Hymn to Muktananda….

May 20, 2018

not the outfit
not the religion
not the ritual
All was the Self of All

not the education
not the money
not the pedigree
All was the Self of All

not the institution
not SYDA
not something else
All was the Self of All

not someone else
not the things
not the place
All was the Self of All

Swami Muktananda
knew the Self
lived the Self
worshiped the Self
was the Self

Swami Muktananda
loved the Self
taught the Self
shared the Self
was the Self

Swami Muktananda
meditated on the Self
honored the Self
exalted the Self
modeled the Self
was the Self

the Guru in the form of Muktananda
revealed the Truth
revealed the light
revealed the darkness
revealed the Self

the Guru as Muktananda
showed the way
to satcitananda
the Self of All

o rohini do not stray
from the path he shines
do not distract yourself
with shadows

Muktananda is the Heart
Muktananda is Love

Muktananda is the Self
he is the only sacred place
meditate on him
go to him
find him in the Heart of All

Muktananda my Guru
is the manifestation of the Self
opens the gate that takes us
to the Absolute Self

Jai Gurudev

Attachment is not….

May 20, 2018

Attachment is not real connectedness.

Want answers….

May 20, 2018

Want answers Want it your way

Spineless Strong-willed

Kinds of Seekers….

May 14, 2018

Drawing on the legacy of St. Symeon the New Theologian, and on the Bhagavad-Gita and the Jnaneshwari, Rohini explains the importance of understanding one’s motivations for taking up spiritual practice, because not all motivations are equal.

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The Way Up….

May 13, 2018

As we practice, we disentangle more and more out of each of our perceived vehicles, and we keep heading back to the Perceiver. And each time we disentangle, we then are able to see in a greater way what’s actually going on. If we are involved, we have myopic vision. We’re caught in the problem, yet we’re so sure we see it the way it is.

The other day, I was talking with a student about Dante. And I was saying that the reason for writing in the vernacular, as did Jnaneshwar, was to show that when we are coming from that bottom line underneath it all, from the Self, and we allow that to inform everything we say, then writing in the vernacular reveals that the world is God. The world is perfect just the way it is.

At the same time, hell, purgatory, and heaven are all right here, right now. And which realm we inhabit depends on where our vision is, and where we reside within ourselves.

In Dante, hell feels like walking through the Natural History Museum going past dioramas. Each of the stories in hell is a diorama. And the damned are committed to their stories, never changing, locked in. So if Dante said, “Oh I missed that story! I want to hear it again”, and he ran back down to that circle of hell and to that little spot in the museum, he could press the button and hear the same story again. It never changes.

That’s us. That’s us in hell when we’re committed to our narrative, to our character. Nothing changes. We never accept our responsibility. We never accept what we’ve actually done. And we’re stuck. We’re in that diorama forever. We relate the same way; we’re sticking to our story. “It’s the truth. This is the way I see it”. How myopic is that? As a character in T. S. Eliot’s play The Cocktail Party says, “It isn’t hell until you become incapable of anything else”.

We cannot become capable of anything else until we actually confess. But it’s easy to confess in a shallow way. We can confess from within the character we play, but that is not confession. In order to confess, we have to be actually disentangled enough from the character to say, “Whoa. I stepped back a little. That diorama that I’ve been committed to is not all that good. I’m not right. I didn’t see everything as clearly as I thought I did”. Then we can confess.

This is not just saying, “I know I have a problem.” When we say, “I know I have a problem,” we’re still caught in our little narrative. And when we say, “Oh yeah, I do that” or “I did that”, we’re still caught in our narrative. We’re stuck, and Dante is walking by, saying, “Oh, there it is again”. Same story. We have to disentangle.

If we actually disentangle and are present and committed, then we get to purgatory. This is where sadhana begins. From here, we can move. Right here, in the world, we start relating differently; we have now moved from hell to purgatory. And we will face maybe the same situations that we got before. The world we created is the world we created, but we are now relating with the same situations differently. We see things differently. We understand differently. We respond differently. We keep moving up the mountain, and things don’t bother us as much. And we make different decisions. There are also new situations: “Oh my God, I never saw that before. Oh! That’s been there all along. I never knew that”.

We have to keep moving until we are completely disentangled—when we are pure Subject, the Perceiver, not the perceived. Then, we are in heaven. We are still dealing with the same situations we were facing with before. But we see them differently all over again, act differently, respond differently. We come from a place of Love, and All is Love.

That’s what sadhana is about. Hell is here. We can all live in hell. We can all stay in our narratives and just keep them going. Most people do. But through Grace and reflection, we can choose to move from hell into purgatory. Once there, we can practice diligently as we continue to accept Grace. And eventually we can rest in heaven.

Confessing….

May 13, 2018

Confessing Denying / taking no responsibility

Splattering / humiliating yourself Standing up for yourself

Hell, purgatory, and heaven….

May 13, 2018

Hell, purgatory, and heaven are all right here, right now. And which realm we inhabit depends on where our vision is, and where we reside within ourselves.

Mulching 2018

May 10, 2018

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Thank you so much to Bobby Fraz Frazier and his crew, David, Alberto, and Hugo at Frazier Outdoor Solutions, and to Clara Marin, Sarah Allen, Tammy Merther, Ari Baranson, and Jim Condron. Thank you also to Ben Cole and everyone at Blue Moon Farms LLC. The garden is absolutely beautiful.

Guest Blog by Ian Ralby: No Idle Words….

May 6, 2018

I am extremely lucky. Each week, I get to read my mother’s blogs before they are published. I get to wrestle with them, comment on them and learn from them before they become public. And each week, I get to see how important every word of them is.

Each letter is intentional; there are no idle or empty words. Often they have been carefully considered for weeks before being used in a blog, and Rohini infuses them with depth far beyond what any single reading could reveal. The fact that the subject matter on a given week might seem light or mundane does not imply that the meaning is simple.

While there have been great discussions of the blogs in group classes, those discussions have often been inspired by Rohini restating the point of a blog in different ways. People mostly do not come into class having honed in on, and wrestled with, the wisdom contained in the blog.

Sometimes, a word or expression will feel jarring. Invariably, it turns out not to be bad or careless writing but a conscious effort to alert the reader to something that needs to be noticed and understood. While the pre-posting discussions often address those spots, people seldom bring them up in class.

Close reading is not a skillset that only applies to literary texts; it is an active process that allows a reader to delve into any text and unpack its layers. Based on my experience of witnessing how Rohini’s blogs are written and what goes into them, I can say that close reading is the only way to begin to extract their full meaning.

I have blogged previously about my own experience of having either disregarded my mother’s words, or having been selective as to which ones I wanted to hear and follow. The same lesson applies to Rohini’s blogs. I ignore or disregard a portion of the blogs to my own detriment.

I have also blogged about my own experience of guest blogging and the benefit of having to be rigorous in articulating a point that had seemed clear, but proved fuzzy when put on paper. I thought that expressing the benefits of that process would inspire others to want to engage in it as well. Yet few people have expressed interest. Even when I announced the opportunity to guest blog, hardly anyone came forward. So my hope has changed. If people are not interested in writing their own guest blogs, I at least hope they will read Rohini’s blogs with more care.

“It was beautiful.” “I loved it.” “It made me see my own piece in this.” “I felt love when reading it.” These are some of the comments that seem to start off the class discussion of every blog. Empty words, indiscriminately applied to all Rohini’s blogs with virtually no regard for their content. But more importantly, these sorts of comments are discussion killers. When we respond to a challenging blog with a mundane nicety, we lose the chance to unpack the depth of what’s been given to us. If the starting point is “beautiful,” it closes down the chance to delve into the less-than-beautiful reality of our experience. Rohini pours effort and understanding into the blogs; it is an insult to respond to them without any effort or any understanding.

We all need to give Rohini’s blogs the careful attention they deserve—before we show up in class. When we do that, we can ask questions that fulfill the purpose of the blog. We don’t have to come to class “knowing” what a blog is about, but we do have to have put time and effort into reflecting on what it could be about, and on how we see it.

Sadhana is not….

May 6, 2018

Sadhana is not about living a “better” life; it is about living our lives from Love.

Calculating / rigid….

May 6, 2018

Calculating / rigid Responsive / not filtering

Prepared Caught out

Understanding Authority….

April 29, 2018

Baba was fond of the saying, “Only those who can obey can command”. He was himself a great leader, and he had attained that by wholeheartedly obeying his Guru, Nityananda. If we want to understand authority, we each have to willingly submit to authority. Once we have gained this understanding, we can relate with our own and others’ authority appropriately.

We cannot even begin this process if we have an immature notion of authority. If we believe that authority means power, privilege, status, or adoration, then we will never rise above resentment.

Jealous

Fulfilled

Caring / committed

Indifferent / uncaring

Power

Powerlessness

Brutality

Gentleness

Privilege

Poverty

Arrogance

Modesty

Status

Anonymity

Elitism

Humanity

Adoration

Scorn

Flattery

Directness

Resentful

Affirming

Seeking justice

Uncritical

Most people see themselves as superior or inferior to authority, and don’t understand that we each are to play our respective roles and respect others’ roles. When we acknowledge authority, we want to look at qualities like integrity, honesty, expertise, discernment, and wisdom. The truth is, we should feel safe with an authority; if we do not, then either the person is not a true authority or we are unwilling to respect authority, and resent it wherever we encounter it.

People who resent authority often seek positions of authority as a way to avoid having to obey anyone else. What they fail to realize is that with authority comes accountability. So their strategy comes apart. Willingly obeying authority is a choice that we make out of our own authority over ourselves, and obeying a true authority serves as a kind of apprenticeship in handling authority responsibly.

One thing we learn in such an apprenticeship is that an authority is still just part of a team. He has a role to play, but is also, on a deeper level, equal with everyone else on the team. The authority is meant to be there for everyone’s good, bringing expertise, accountability, discernment, and guidance to the team. A good authority also models how to approach situations. It is actually self-destructive on every level to pick a fight with a true authority.

People who resent authority see it as erasing their line, so they try to diminish it, and consequently diminish themselves. By consciously obeying authority, however, a good apprentice realizes that surrender to a true authority is not having one’s line erased. It is actually acknowledging our own agency and authority, and respecting their limits. It is a requirement for learning. And a true authority is above all else a learner.

A humble willingness to learn is a necessary condition of real authority, which requires expertise. One mark of a true expert is that she is constantly learning and loves to expand her knowledge. At each new step, she goes over what she has already studied. Once we are experts, we can see things we would never have noticed as apprentices.

In our relationship with authority, both our own and others’, we are actually engaged in an apprenticeship for our relationship with God, Who is both without and within us. Until we are capable of choosing to obey a true authority in relative reality, we cannot surrender to the absolute authority of the Self of All.

Willingly obeying….

April 29, 2018

Willingly obeying authority is a choice we make out of our own authority over ourselves, and obeying a true authority serves as a kind of apprenticeship in handling authority responsibly.

Resentful….

April 29, 2018

Resentful Affirming

Seeking justice Uncritical

Trouble with Authority….

April 22, 2018

Authority means to have authorship with regard to power, decision-making and requiring obedience. This authority applies to ourselves and others.

If we have a problem with authority, then we have a problem with agency—ours and others’. If we judge authority as bad, we will never take on authority for ourselves. When we refuse our own true agency in this way, we are refusing our authorship. We then find ourselves having to push against something—be oppositional—in order to feel we have any say in our lives.

Until we accept our own real agency and authority, our relationship with authority will always be oppositional. We will see authority as either something to placate or something to resist. We will believe that being oppositional is maintaining our agency, while we wait for the world and God to get on board with us.

But being oppositional is not having agency; it is purely reactive. Whatever we are fighting against or placating defines us. Rebelling against, or seeking approval from, an apparent authority so we can feel special is actually abandoning our agency and authority. If those who try to placate authority lose that approval, they feel as though they have been cast into the outer darkness.

Oppositional

Receptive / respectful

Independent

Impressionable

Oppositional

Listens

Speaks own mind

Pacifies / placates

Flatterer / sycophant

Forthright / direct

Obedient

Rebellious / reckless / tactless

Insulting

Affirming

Candid

Pandering

People who encourage conflict do not accept where they are. They want the outside to change, not them. Internally, they believe they want authority; in reality, they don’t want the accountability that comes with agency. But we all have to give up that lack of agency in order to walk the path. We have to have agency in order to surrender to God.

Sure / arrogant / pretentious

Humble

Authority

Resigned to no authority

Gossiping

Minding own business

Sharing

Can’t be bothered

Calculating / rigid

Responsive / not filtering

Prepared

Caught out

The appeal of seeming to have no agency is simple: we are not in charge, have little or no responsibility, and can do as we please without accountability. Misery supports our narrative because we decide nothing is our fault; after all, we have no agency, so something or someone outside us must be at fault.

When people are oppositional, they manifest their attitude in a number of ways. Resistance to authority often takes obviously combative or sullen forms, such as being defensive, vibing, and sulking to get authority off one’s back. It can also happen more indirectly. People use a range of strategies to oppose and irritate the authority:

Being vague
Abstracting
Obfuscating
Deflecting
Being confused
Controlling information
Hiding
Numbing

Many of these tactics can result in a passive-aggressive withholding of communication. When an authority asks questions as a way of acknowledging people’s agency and authority, some people will react with silence. And some people will not ask their own questions, because they believe that doing so would make them sycophants. If that is the case, how do they learn? And what do they believe authority is here for?

Prideful

Deferential / unassuming

Self-possessed

Ingratiating / obsequious

Irreverent

Respectful / devoted

Undazzled / down to earth

Slavish / infatuated / gullible

When we are oppositional, we may set an authority on a pedestal for a kind of honeymoon period. When we meet this person, we become enchanted and infatuated, and lose our subject in them. Then they invariably do something that does not conform to our idea of them, and we are disenchanted. We are not willing to be equal with an authority on a purely human level, while respecting their position.

In that same vein, some of us believe that if you get help, you can’t get credit for what you do. So you cannot have a mentor, cannot obey authority, cannot acknowledge authority.

In all these situations, people refuse agency because they want to live without consequences. We believe that if we have no agency, then we cannot do anything wrong. But that opens the door to a complete lack of boundaries. We then require an authority as oversight to keep us honest and law-abiding. If we do not have any electric fence in the form of an authority, we can and will do whatever we want and know it is correct because no one says otherwise. We always end up resenting any authority we use this way.

If we want to learn, we have to have a clean relationship with authority. We can only gain this clarity by accepting our own agency and authority.

When we refuse….

April 22, 2018

When we refuse our own true agency, we then find ourselves having to push against something—be oppositional—in order to feel we have any say in our lives.

Oppositional….

April 22, 2018

Oppositional Listens

Speaks own mind Pacifies / placates

Artist Talk….

April 15, 2018

Nasruddin is considered the wise fool in Sufi traditions; stories about him offer us lessons on multiple levels. One of my favorite stories is about Nasruddin’s soup.

Once Nasruddin’s friend brought him a duck. They decided to make soup with it. They cooked the soup and sat and enjoyed it. After his friend left, Nasruddin put the soup in the refrigerator and went to bed.

The next day there was a knock on the door. “Who is it?” Nasruddin asked. “I’m a friend of the one who brought you the duck.” Nasruddin invited him in and looked at the soup. He put some more water in and cooked the soup. They ate and the visitor left. There was not much soup left, but Nasruddin put it in the refrigerator again.

The next day there was a knock on the door. “Who is it?” Nasruddin asked. “I am a friend of the friend of the friend who brought you the duck”. Nasruddin let him in and pulled the soup pot out of the refrigerator. There was almost nothing left of the soup. So now Nasruddin poured water in the pot, put it on the stove, and stirred what was in there. He then served the man a bowl from the pot. The man was furious. “What is this?” he said. “This tastes like hot water, there is no soup”. Nasruddin replied, “Just as you are the friend of the friend of the friend who brought me a duck, this is the soup of the soup of the original soup”.

The same thing applies to our internal experiences. If we trace them back towards the stillness from which they arose, we arrive at abstract, undifferentiated vibrations of what once, externally, had name, form, and meaning. Remove form, which is the outer manifestation of a vibration, and we still have name and meaning. We can still feel the vibration, know its name, and understand its meaning, but we do not have to give it the form we habitually recognize.

My Foursquare paintings make visible our internal vibrations before they manifest into form. We can see the vibrations as they are before we express them through our vehicles of mind and body. By the time we get to the word that expresses our feelings, we are at the soup of the soup of the soup.

Over twenty years ago, I began to play with dichotomies as tools for spiritual practice. From there, I developed a game using two dichotomies; they became foursquares, which I later renamed fourchotomies.

A fourchotomy begins with a quality that is either positive or negative and its opposite, which is also either positive or negative. So if I have the quality of “immobile”, which is negative, the positive opposite would be “agile”. I would then find the positive of “immobile”, which is “steadfast”, and the negative of “agile”, which is “erratic”. That is a fourchotomy.

The purpose of the game is to own and accept all four qualities. Using this fourchotomy, I ask myself a series of eight questions. “Am I immobile?” Yes or no. “Is that okay with me?” Yes or no. I ask myself these questions for all four qualities. When I finally have eight honest yeses ten out of ten times on a regular basis, I have freed myself from attachment to the qualities that make up this particular fourchotomy. Now I am free to express each quality appropriately.

As you can see, the four qualities in a fourchotomy are connected. They share in their vibration. That is why I use the same three colors plus white to make a painting of a fourchotomy.

Immobile / stuck / inert

Agile / dynamic

Steadfast / committed

Erratic / flighty / capricious

My artistic background is in dance, martial arts, and Chinese calligraphy. In all of these, you have to work at the vibrational level; if you operate at the surface, your work is ineffective. Each of these arts also contributed to my understanding of form, movement, rhythm, and space.

In 2011, having already taught painting to Jim Condron for many years, I translated my training into my own painting. I wanted to paint the forms I saw and felt within. I painted whirlwinds for a long time, because they expressed a certain vibration. My language evolved over the ensuing few years, but my expression always came from within. In 2015, I found a way to paint fourchotomies; I call those paintings Foursquares.

As some of you might have already realized, the principle behind Foursquares is a kind of synesthesia. What is felt as a vibration is given expression in color.

I use 10″ x 10″ wood panels. Over the years, I transitioned from using brushes to palette knives, but I always paint the way I did when I practiced calligraphy. This means that the surface I paint is flat on a table rather than propped up.

All four panels of each Foursquare are painted in one session. Before painting, I take anywhere from three or four days to a couple of weeks to sit with the vibrations of the fourchotomies. First, I discern the colors I will use—always three colors plus white. And because each of the qualities in a fourchotomy is connected with the other qualities, their vibrations are connected in some way. Therefore I continue to feel the vibrations of all four qualities. When ready to paint, I make sure I stay one-pointed on the vibration of the quality I am about to paint. I remain with that vibration and then go.

Out of pure stillness, vibrations emerge. By the time they manifest on the physical plane, they are the least subtle. What my Foursquare paintings are meant to express was conveyed in words centuries ago by the Taoist sage Zhuangzi describing the emergence of a human life:

[T]here was a time before there was a life. Not only was there no life, there was a time before there was a shape. Not only was there no shape, there was a time before there was energy. Mingled together in the amorphous, something altered, and there was the energy; by alteration in the energy there was the shape, by alteration of the shape there was the life.*

* Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters, translated by A. C. Graham, 123-4.

In sadhana, we have to….

April 15, 2018

In sadhana, we have to work at the vibrational level. If we only operate at the surface, our work will be far less effective.

Immobile….

April 15, 2018

Immobile / stuck / inert Agile / dynamic

Steadfast / committed Erratic / flighty / capricious

Rohini’s Artist Talk at Stevenson University….

April 13, 2018

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Foursquares: Artist Talk

April 12, 2018

In conjunction with her recent exhibition at Stevenson University, Rohini discusses her painting method for her “foursquare” paintings. Rohini’s talk, which opens with the story “Nasruddin’s Soup,” is followed by questions from the audience.

Rohini Painting “Agile”….

April 11, 2018

Watch Rohini Ralby painting “Agile” at her Foursquare Painting Demo at Stevenson University. The fourchotomy she was painting was:

Immobile Agile

Steadfast Erratic

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Foursquare Painting Demo at Stevenson University

April 12, 2018

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Perfect Mistakes….

April 8, 2018

Mistakes get a bum rap. People are terrified of them. They will do anything to avoid them. They will feel that they cannot make, and are not allowed to make, any kind of mistake. And they juxtapose mistakes with perfection. Being perfect is not making a mistake, they feel. That is where they aim to be. That is how they have to be. And yet they never reach their idea of perfect; they unwittingly always fall short of the mark and make a mistake.

If we do not think it is permissible to make a mistake, we will then deny that we’ve made one. When we do this, we make ourselves incapable of learning anything—and incapable of ever doing anything flawlessly, because we have missed the truth about the mistake. The mistake was a gift for us to learn from.

Where do people get this abstract idea of “perfect”? They believe it is a universal principle that everyone shares. So no one asks, “What is your idea of ‘perfect’?” We each have an idea of “perfect” that no one else shares. So if I am going to be honest, I must then conclude that my idea of “perfect” is not universal, and therefore not perfect. It is not the standard against which I should be judging myself or anyone else.

Makes mistakes Perfect

Willing to learn Know-it-all

If my idea of “perfect” is off, then I need to reassess my idea of “mistake”. Did I take a wrong step, or ultimately was it perfect? The truth is, embedded in the mistake is the solution. So maybe it was not a misstep in the first place. “Mistake” only exists in relative reality, as does “perfect”.

In the Joseph story, Joseph’s brothers make a terrible mistake in resenting him and selling him into slavery. After Joseph has grown up and saved both Egypt and the Hebrews from famine, he says to his brothers, “You meant it for ill, God meant it for good.” If Joseph had not been sold into slavery, he would not have been in a position to counsel the Pharaoh and save many people from starvation. Every mistake is God helping us forward and our being the instrument for God.

If this is the Truth, then people determined to do ill for their selfish motives—the people we deem to be wrong, bad, the enemy, immoral, amoral—are all pawns in God’s play. They may believe they are independent and in charge of their destinies, but they are just being played by God for the greater good.

If this is True, then, again, we need to reassess our definitions of “mistake” and “perfect” and not be afraid to make a mistake or to admit we made one. Mistakes are ultimately perfect, though we are unable to see that because of our limited understanding.

Great scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, inventors, and artists are always making mistakes. In many instances, they gradually uncover the answers to their questions because of their “mistakes”. It is not for us to judge the ultimate meaning of our mistakes; it is for us to accept that whatever God does, He does for good, and our task is to learn whatever we need to learn from whatever happens. When we do that, our mistakes turn into perfection.

It is not for us….

April 8, 2018

It is not for us to judge the ultimate meaning of our mistakes; it is for us to accept that whatever God does, He does for good, and our task is to learn whatever we need to learn from whatever happens.

Wretched….

April 8, 2018

Wretched Learning and letting go

Repentant Careless

In the Ash Tree….

April 1, 2018

Our backyard is filled with birds. During the winter months we feed the birds, and they are always here. Today the sun was out and we had eight inches of snow just beginning to melt. Though it is spring, we just finished a rather wintry storm.

The snow had just melted off the branches of the ash trees close by the deck. The sun was such a welcome relief. We had just finished class when David called me to come into the kitchen quietly. Right outside the window, on the ash tree, was a beautiful large Cooper’s hawk just sitting. No thought: beautiful dark brown mottled feathers full. So comfortable in his own skin. So quiet. No place to go. No rush. His eyes right, then left, then right, then left. Just observing. No thinking, no assuming, no deciding. Magnificent in his own strength and ability without any pride or real awareness. He was just himself.

We watched, too. We were quiet, we were aware, we understood ourselves as best we could. We didn’t move or make a sound as we looked one way and then the other way and then the other way again, and our eyes would fall back on that large bird.

Then a chickadee flew to the ash tree and landed three feet from the hawk. It was not afraid, nor was it quiet; it was upbeat and perky. It felt almost as if the chickadee was bouncing around. He saw the Cooper’s hawk. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t afraid because he didn’t see the hawk. He knew the hawk was there. There was a sense that he had no problem looking at him.

What was his deal? How could he be so audacious? For a small bird to be cocky around a Cooper’s hawk is quite dangerous and foolhardy. Yet the chickadee had no problem with the hawk. Why not? What were we watching? What were we witnessing? I decided the chickadee somehow knew that he was too small for the Cooper’s hawk. He knew that the Cooper’s hawk wouldn’t be interested in him.

A few months ago during Christmastime, we were downstairs when we looked out the window and saw a Cooper’s hawk suddenly dive into a tightly branched azalea bush. He pulled out a junco. The junco had thought he was safe in the twists and turns of the bush. And yet the hawk was willing and comfortable and fast enough to grab that bird. The hawk had no hesitation in this case. The junco was obviously worth the effort; he was plumper than a chickadee, a better meal.

Most of us think we should be the Cooper’s hawk, an apex predator, secure in our own environment. The Cooper’s hawk elicits fear from most animals he comes in contact with. As for us, we watch and admire his beauty and strength. But today I realized the chickadee was the one to be. Too small to be bothered with. Left alone to live quietly and thrive. Today I aspired to be like the chickadee: too small for anyone to even want to attack. Left alone to love God and all His glory.

Personal ambition is not….

April 1, 2018

Personal ambition is not the same thing as potential, and we should not confuse the two.

Self-aggrandizing….

April 1, 2018

Self-aggrandizing Content to be small

Realizing your talents Wasting your talents

Our shrunken idea….

March 25, 2018

Our shrunken idea of liberation is to be ourselves as we are now, yet happier and content with our state.

Guest Blog by Ari Baranson: Learning To Learn….

March 25, 2018

I lost my brother Paul on October 3rd, 2016 to a drug overdose. The decisions he made throughout his life could have taken him nowhere else. Like me, he had opportunities to change, but he refused. Like me, things would get better for a time, but he would sabotage his own happiness to continue down a path that he would have called righteous, but was just foolish.

For several months after Paul’s death, I was confronted with situation after situation where my arrogance and recalcitrance shone through everything I did. At work, where I am training to become a chef, I accidentally cut myself over and over again, but glossed over these incidents every time. Rohini told me again and again that she knew why I persisted in cutting myself, but I didn’t want to hear it. I believed I knew better than everyone. That arrogance only got me into more trouble. Arrogance was the ground of all of my interactions, and I was always confronted by this reality.

It ultimately took cutting myself fairly severely, instead of the onion I was supposed to be chopping, before I was willing to even begin learning my lesson. In class with Rohini, I was finally willing to surrender to the fact that I would never figure out on my own why I had been cutting myself and asked why. Rohini revealed to me that I had no awareness of my own physical body, and that my tendency had been dissociating from the experience I was having, thinking that I was “one with everything.” She also made clear that I had no foundational knife skills.

At the time, it drove me crazy that Rohini knew why I was cutting myself and would not tell me why. Only recently did Rohini explain to me that this was how she was able to get me to reflect. My desire to be right was greater than my desire to learn. So if Rohini knew something I did not, I had to know so that I could be right. I questioned and questioned, and although I could not find an answer, without realizing it I began the process of learning. Instead of being driven crazy, I was driven conscious.

To learn, I had to experientially revisit this ten-second event over and over, and finally realize I had not been cutting the onion the way I was taught, a way that was safe, a way that has been done for centuries. I had believed I was above learning basic knife skills. I needed to learn how to use a knife, and not only use it correctly, but respect it for what it was. I had to cultivate an awareness when using a blade. Every time I picked up a knife, I had to recognize what was in my hand and where my hands were, and apply what I had learned to use the knife in the proper way.

It was not until Rohini told me that I had a respect for knives that I knew internally the truth of her words. It was a shock to me to see that I had learned. In that moment, I felt relieved, and I recognized that Rohini was making me aware of something that I knew, but could not fully grasp. She knew with complete certainty where I was.

That experience helped me start to be a learner. I had to know that I did not know. And now I have to keep learning. Every time I pick up my chef’s knife is an opportunity to be conscious and learn. It is also an opportunity to numb and be reckless. Just because I have grasped the lesson once does not mean a moment of unconscious action or arrogance won’t allow me to slip. The learning has to be constant. I still have to be conscious every time I pick up a knife, or else there are very real consequences.

Learning has become an active process for me, and even writing this blog is part of it. When a challenge or opportunity presents itself, I have to choose to be involved. And I have learned that mere physical participation can be unhelpful and even dangerous if I am not truly present for it. I have to remain vigilant in all situations. There are things I still fear about the process of learning – messing up, being wrong, or falling back to where I was before – yet this fear becomes miniscule when I recognize how my life has changed. I can see now that nothing we experience is a “nothing event.” It can be a cookie, a car, a jalapeño, a roll of paper towels, or an onion that reveals to us everything about how we act, how we think, and what our true motivations are.

Gossiping….

March 25, 2018

Gossiping Minding own business

Sharing Can’t be bothered

Maya and the Five Kanchukas….

March 18, 2018

In the cosmology of Kashmir Shaivism, God (Shiva) manifests the world out of Himself in a series of 36 principles, or tattvas. The first five tattvas are called pure; it is not until the sixth tattva that forgetfulness of our true nature becomes apparent. The sixth tattva is Maya tattva.

Maya conceals God’s true identity. The word “maya” comes from the Sanskrit root “ma-”, which means measure; Maya makes the immeasurable appear to be measurable. It is an essential mechanism of God’s involution into manifestation.

The next five tattvas involve the kanchukas, which appear to shrink God’s limitlessness. A kanchuka is a constrictor. The kanchukas are the coverings of Maya; they appear to contract God into an individual point, or anu. The kanchukas function as follows:

Kalā: Shrinks universal authorship and limits agency

Vidyā: Shrinks universal awareness and limits knowledge

Rāga: Shrinks universal all-satisfaction and limits contentment, creating a sense of lack and bringing about desire for particular things

Kāla: Shrinks eternity of consciousness and limits the experience of time to past, present, and future

Niyati: Shrinks total freedom and all-pervasiveness and limits cause, space, and form

As individuals, we already tend to be comfortable with the path to involution. But we are so unwilling to accept the way to evolution, which is the path of sadhana. Instead, we accept our shrunken state, and then stay shrunken and apply our shrunkenness onto the path of evolution. So our idea of liberation is to be ourselves as we are now, yet happier and content with our state.

With this wrong understanding, we cannot grasp or accept the experiences we encounter on the path of evolution. As we let go of our shrunkenness and expand, the resulting experiences cause us to have culture shock. We cannot relate with them, and so either deny them, shrink them into an idea, or stop doing what brings us this expansion.

When we have culture shock, we get disoriented, and we work to resolve that dissonance by making sense of it on our terms, by relating to what we do know. However, on the path of evolution there are events and experiences that our shrunken selves cannot relate with at all.

At that point, denial becomes the most appealing option for the shrunken self. We forget we had the experience. We pretend it was a dream. We make it vague and, most importantly, we tell no one. By not articulating what we have experienced, we are able to relegate these incomprehensible experiences to oblivion.

The common denominator is appropriating our sadhana into something “we” can handle. Our ability to shrink our knowledge is encoded in our condition. We concretize in order to make sense and believe we have grasped fully, when we have in fact remained shallow, shrunken, and stupid. The kanchukas are in place, functioning perfectly, and we have no consciousness of this. We are the pashu (beast), with the pasha (noose) tightly constricting us. We are imperfect, separate, and the doer of good and bad deeds. We are unconscious of our condition—which is the very essence of our condition: unconscious and unaware of our unconsciousness.

Concrete / differentiating / shallow

Universal / seeing unity / having depth

Down to earth

Airy-fairy / arbitrary / inactive

In order to break out of this prison, to untie the noose, we first have to become aware of our limited condition and accept it. We have to know that we do not know. The Guru helps with this by always challenging our limited understanding. The Guru is the means of untying the knot. By surrendering to the Guru, we are accepting that there is something more. We are accepting our culture shock and are willing to learn, to expand beyond our limited understanding and identification.

We cannot break out of our shrunkenness without outside help. We have to accept the reality that the Guru is outside our shrunken realm. Then we can choose to follow the Guru’s path.

As we let go….

March 18, 2018

As we let go of our shrunkenness and expand, the resulting experiences cause us to have culture shock. We cannot relate with them, and so either deny them, shrink them into an idea, or stop doing what brings us this expansion.

Secure….

March 18, 2018

Secure At risk

Dull Exciting

are you talkin to me….

March 11, 2018

o man wake up the sages say
i am awake i say
go in go in the sages say
i am in i think i am i say
the sages turn their heads away
unkind they are i say

wake up wake up they say again
can’t they see i am awake i say
the truth is concealed the sages say
i see clearly you are fogged i say

birth and death and birth again
wake up wake up the sages say
i see my blindness and how fooled
i am by me and now
i say wake up wake up
i so want to wake up
missed too much latching onto so much
missed too much my seeing
hearing smelling tasting feeling

time is short i dig to the place
where nothing is linear
waiting for the one who will wake me up
finally finally i earn
the manifesting of my Guru
i am ready

yet all my ideas are not the truth
i wake up to reality of my unreality
how sad to leave my created world behind
the world i had worked so hard to maintain

my Guru woke me from my nightmare
he shook me hard i am so grateful
my choice my agency my authority
to leave my authority at the goodwill
at the stone table of the heart
being awakened
from apparent concealment

i saw the pati the noose was untied
i had owned me to let go of me
me as a well thought out construct
here we are with no one to speak with except
Us who was always Me

If you want….

March 11, 2018

If you want to communicate something you know experientially, the words have to come from the place of the experience.

Disappointed….

March 11, 2018

Disappointed Satisfied

Woken up Unaware / oblivious

Maya and the Five Kanchukas….

March 10, 2018

Rohini explains how, in Kashmir Shaivism, Maya works with the five kanchukas to accomplish the self-veiling of God, which leaves us with a sense of separateness, limitation, and lack.

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Purification….

March 4, 2018

When is a cold just a cold? And when is a cold something greater, purification? It is true that sometimes a cold is just a cold. Right now I am in the middle of something more than just a cold. How do I know?

On the physical plane we pretty much know where the virus came from. No mystery, no surprise. It is clearly running its course. But on other levels, this illness is just a mechanism for cleaning out whatever needed to be cleaned up. Once we are practicing sadhana, everything is geared to our education and liberation. Even a cold. The people who have contacted me to wish me a swift recovery have related based on their own experience; few are aware that something more is going on.

In my twenties I read the autobiography of the Chinese Zen master Empty Cloud. When he was in his fifties he fell into a river and was dragged out, seriously ill. People were sure he would die, yet that event precipitated his liberation.

In 1978, when I had a resistant strain of malaria, I experienced my own death. I left my body and was no longer Rohini. There was no sense of separation from anything; consciousness and bliss were all that there was. Everything was perfect. A decision was made for me to return to my body; I did not make that decision, for I do not exist in that sense. This was an amazing experience brought about by a horrific illness.

In 1979, when I experienced the dissolution of the world in the waking state, the event appeared to have been precipitated by a life crisis. But just as malaria does not give everyone an experience of the Truth, neither does a traumatic life experience. Baba, my Guru, orchestrated everything for me.

In 2002 and 2003, I was being treated for breast cancer. After my third chemo, while in bed unable to do anything but go deeper within, I had a very powerful experience of how to exit if I needed to. I would never wish chemo on anyone, and I promise that very few people who have undergone it have had the experience I had. It was not the chemo; God and my Guru used the event to further my sadhana.

I have no regrets about any of these events. They have all contributed to my learning what is important and what isn’t. What is true and what isn’t. What is me and what isn’t.

So today, as I look out the window at the finally sunny sky after five days of being miserably sick, I know something is gone. Something has been washed away with all the fluids that left my physical body. It is too soon to know, but the vehicles have made a shift, and I am content to have it that way. I surrendered to being sick and continued to practice, witnessing while also being a full participant. Manifestation is different.

I do not expect anyone to notice; after all, I just had a cold. So much of sadhana is accepting the reality that most people will not recognize the internal workings of the world. They miss much, but it is a choice. And my work is to stay focused on the Heart and learn what I am supposed to learn.

Purification in sadhana gets subtler and subtler. The vehicles may look the same, but once we are no longer identified with our vehicles we are realigned, and all vibration and motivation and manifestation through those vehicles is utterly changed.

Appropriation makes….

March 4, 2018

Appropriation makes the life stories of the saints and mystics fake news, a nice fantasy.

Prideful….

March 4, 2018

Prideful Deferential / unassuming

Self-possessed Ingratiating

Sadhana is….

February 25, 2018

Sadhana is not about our personalities.

Guest Blog by Aaron Ralby: Fluency in Dialogue….

February 25, 2018

Set dialogues have been vital tools for instruction for millennia. From wisdom dialogues in ancient Egyptian to Alfric’s Colloquies in medieval Latin, scripted dialogues constitute a practical literary form for condensing and presenting essential information in use as well as the ideal relationship between teacher and disciple.

Today, we are probably most familiar with the language-learning dialogues that we had to learn in school or on our own from self-study resources, such as Teach Yourself French, or Colloquial Chinese. Like the dialogue between Naciketas and Death in the Katha Upanishad, the content of these dialogues serves the primary purpose of educating the listener or reader – appearing as a realistic conversation is a secondary consideration.

Despite the advantages and traditional appeal of presenting instruction as a conversation, the dialogic form has many drawbacks, particularly if the student does not understand how to use the set expressions.

Professionally, I develop language-training programs. While memorizing dialogues can be a good starting point, such practices often lead to frustration and a rigid application of language. In English, there are dozens of ways of greeting someone and asking how they are doing. If the dialogue you have learned only contains one or two of these expressions, you will be thrown off and frustrated when you go out into the real world and encounter all of the other ways of greeting that exist in English. Set dialogues can also lead students to try and fit a conversation into one of the prepackaged scenarios they have already learned. This often leads students to answer questions incorrectly with the wrong set expression.

A dialogue is meant to present practical application of knowledge in a condensed and manageable form. It is not designed to provide students with the necessary variation required to use that knowledge in all of the complex combinations of real life.

Sitting in one of my mother’s recent classes, I was struck by the need for fluency in the language of spiritual practice. She asked several questions to the class, and students started responding with random catchphrases and expressions they had heard before. It felt like a language class in which the teacher suddenly broke script, went outside the set dialogues, and actually just started conversing with the students in the target language. Everyone stumbled, panicked, and started trying to fit the conversation into a prepackaged mold.

In many ways, spiritual practice is its own language; or at least contains its own language. When you first get started, you learn set expressions, and pick up basic phrases and constructions. If you think that the sentences presented in the sutras are all you need to know, then you will be like the language learner who only memorizes a few dialogues. You will not understand the underlying grammatical patterns within those dialogues, and you will not go further to develop a true fluency.

A sutra is the most condensed form of knowledge. It needs to be unpacked, and a student should be able to explain it in a dozen different ways – just as anyone learning English should learn a dozen different greetings.

Set forms of knowledge can be a useful starting point, but students must learn to go beyond the set form itself, digging into the underlying meaning and structures. They need to be able to have the same type of conversation or present the same information in many different ways. Just acquiring fixed knowledge is a first level practice. This needs to be taken further into a second level practice through understanding all of the deeper concepts – the grammar of spiritual practice.

Only once someone has developed a second level, grammatical understanding of practice will they be able to use the content of those phrases and expressions for third level practice. This in turn will allow a student to develop true fluency. In terms of language, I call this a plastic ability. It means that a speaker of the language is able to create new variations out of their own understanding, rather than just regurgitating expressions they have learned before. Only through third level practice can you actually develop fluency in the language of spiritual practice. Only then will you have the ability to describe concepts completely from your own experience, rather than from a prescribed framework.

Reads accurately….

February 25, 2018

Reads accurately Misreads / blind

Over confident / smug Making an effort

Able to Learn….

February 18, 2018

When my sons were young, I would ask, “Did you work to the best of your ability? Did you give it your all? Left nothing on the field?” Everyone’s 100% is different, and it also varies from time to time. When we work to our highest level at a given moment, we can feel a satisfaction that we accomplished our best.

Once at a local grocery store, a young woman was working the cash register. She clearly had to concentrate very intently to perform the task. She was working to 100% of her capacity. The man being checked out was annoyed and had no patience for her. We, however, appreciated her determination to fulfill her job.

To be able to learn, we have to have agency and consciousness. With agency we have to have a voice. We willingly demonstrate these things by stepping up to the plate at every level and testing what we have learned. We then discern and adjust. The woman at the grocery store had learned to the best of her ability, and she felt it, and we respected her effort. She was not numb; she was present to what was in front of her.

We can facilitate our own learning in any situation with a few straightforward choices:

Showing up and engaging all our vehicles: body, senses, intellect, data collector, and emotions;
Participating in a way appropriate to any situation in which we find ourselves;
Finishing our work and reporting back, demonstrating that the work is done to the best of our ability;
Asking discerning questions and digging to find both answers and the next level of questions;
Articulating our contributions clearly and cleanly;
Being appreciative and respectful of teachers and others; and
Not whining, griping, sneering, blaming, or being sarcastic.

Questioning is an important component of learning. We must learn how to formulate good questions; they will designate the direction we go. Only if the question is articulated well can the answer be sufficiently clear. In order to ask a good question, we first have to have wrestled with the subject on our own. Only by wrestling can we see the gaps in our understanding.

Once we have expressed our question, we should listen to the answer without starting an internal dialogue and missing what was said. We have to actually listen and then take in the answer.

We then must be able to articulate that answer in our own words so as to confirm what we received and understood. We need to make sure we took in the answer consciously and grasped it firmly. That is the real reason for tests in school: we have to be able to make the knowledge we have received our own, and articulating our understanding on an exam is an excellent way of doing this. Anyone who believes that eliminating exams will promote learning is missing this crucial point.

Able to learn / teachable

Obstinate / unwilling to learn / knows everything

Impressionable /easily influenced

Principled / incorruptible / not easily swayed

In the above fourchotomy, we can see that in most cases when we are unwilling to learn, the reason is that we believe we already know all we need to know. And how many of us are set in our ways, thinking we’re principled when in fact we are unwilling to learn? The questions we all need to be asking ourselves are “Am I too proud to learn? Am I willing to learn who I truly am?” We need to ask these continually on the deepest level, hear our answer, and then ask them again, only this time a little deeper.

Learner

Know-it-all

Know-nothing

Smart

Educated

Feral

Boxed in

Free

Questioning

Swallowing / gullible

Doubting / defiant

Certain / forthright

In sadhana we learn that we have created our narrative and sustain it; we then work to dismantle it, but unfortunately we don’t want to lose it. We would rather pretend we’re something we’re not—that’s our shrunken version of the divine activity of concealment—and then we grow our narrative bigger and better, and we never get off the grid, and we never get to be human. And we’re so sure. We’re so sure we know what we’re doing, we know who we are, we know the way the world works for us. And we miss everything.

When St. John of the Cross faced the Dark Night of the Soul, God was the initiator. This was the supreme learning opportunity: God concealed himself so that St. John would surrender completely his wrong identification, his asmita, and return to his true nature. He became who he was. At every point on our journey, we must be willing to learn, able to withstand the test, and capable of arriving at the correct answer.

Tested / examined

Never learn

Punished

Given a free pass

To heaven and the sage, says Laozi, all creatures are straw dogs; they are temporary, and meant to be sacrificed. “We” are those straw dogs. “We” have to go in order to be who we truly are. That means we have to be able to learn on the subtlest level, the level where we are able to drop the mirror and see the Self. We then will have learned at 100% of our absolute capacity. God teaches and God learns.

We need to make sure….

February 18, 2018

We need to make sure we took in the answer consciously and grasped it firmly. That is the real reason for tests in school: we have to be able to make the knowledge we have received our own, and articulating our understanding on an exam is an excellent way of doing this.

Tested / examined….

February 18, 2018

Tested / examined Never learn

Punished Given a free pass

Rohini’s Foursquare Opening Reception at Stevenson University

February 16, 2018

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Jim Condron’s Diminishing Returns Opening

February 11, 2018

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Spiritual Illiteracy….

February 11, 2018

If we can read something like this blog, we are what most people would call literate. When we look at literacy, we usually think of reading, language, letters, and being able to make sense of the words those letters form. Most of us went to school, and one of the reasons for that was to learn how to read.

Illiterate

Able to read

No responsibility

Have to face the truth

There is also literacy in a specific subject area. If we know a lot about the concepts connected with spirituality, we might consider ourselves literate in that topic. But are we truly literate from a spiritual standpoint?

Spiritual literacy is subtler. On the physical plane, the letters that make up words are representations of subtle vibrations. As young children, we have vibrations that we then call experiences of various kinds. We learn to take in images, sounds, tastes, and feelings from outside and inside, and gradually we put letters on all those vibrations. Those letters become words, and the words form our narrative. We learn the words from the initial caregivers we have as very young children. If we have learned the wrong words to name or describe a particular vibration, we have become illiterate.

There are many people who are certain they had a normal childhood and that everyone sees the world as they do. When faced as adults with circumstances that would objectively be called not normal, these people call them normal. This is a manifestation of spiritual illiteracy.

We are all spiritually illiterate to a degree, because we cannot read properly at least some of the letters that come up from our vibrations. The power in those letters is called the matrikashakti, the un-understood mother that shapes and contracts our view of reality and therefore makes us illiterate. We then cannot discern or hear our vibrations clearly, and therefore just read the letters in our heads and think that works. We miss the name, the form, and the meaning of our vibrations. We speak and do not make sense, though we are sure we do.

Calling something what it is not is the consequence of being unlettered. When we are illiterate, we will confuse numbness with calm. If we are numb, then we can’t read anything at all. We have lost our ability on any level to love. We are completely illiterate and just make things up, creating a false narrative that has no reality. We are connecting dots, but the dots we connect do not make a picture of what really exists. In our numbness, we think we are calm and clear-sighted, so we do not question our perceptions.

In order to move forward, we need to know where we are so we can take the next step. But if we are illiterate, we do not read clearly or at all, so we make up where we think we are. We may be out of our depth, unwilling to learn, refusing agency and responsibility, and clinging to a limited worldview, but we believe we already know all we need to know, so we don’t need to learn, and we should be able to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We believe we are self-sufficient when we are isolated, and consider people who are open to help incompetent.

Self-sufficient

Incompetent

Isolated

Open to help

The truth is, help is a gift, and receiving help is actually receiving the gift. But if we believe that accepting any kind of help is a sign revealing our incompetence, we will avoid help at all costs. This is a sure sign of our illiteracy. We then will perpetuate our own incompetence unwittingly. And we will isolate ourselves, believing we are self-sufficient. Our “literacy” encourages and maintains our illiteracy.

So how can we learn to read? When my children were young, I taught them phonics so they could learn to read the letters on a page. We would sound out each letter one at a time and gradually bring them together into one continuous chorus that made up a word. Each letter had a different vibration, a different sound.

When we begin to learn how to read clearly from a spiritual standpoint, we have to access the pre-verbal stage of manifestation. We have to be willing to actually feel the vibrations we have, be with them, and allow the letters from the vibrations to arise.

For instance, if we have always called a particular vibration “love” but in truth it is actually a vibration of anger, our world and our choices will always be promoting anger around us. We will not know why things don’t work. We will believe we are expressing love, while in truth we are expressing anger. If we are illiterate, we won’t know this. So we need to be willing to be with our experience. Though that vibration has no letters that make sense to us, if we are willing to sound it, feel it, gradually the letters for the word “angry” will arise.

Becoming spiritually literate means undertaking that process for all our vibrations. Once we have done so, we will be able to connect the dots clearly, and see everything in its proper place.

Our System….

February 11, 2018

Our system will never change. Sadhana is not about changing our system. Sadhana is about no longer identifying with our system.

Illiterate….

February 11, 2018

Illiterate Able to read

No responsibility Have to face the truth

Sadhana is not selfish….

February 4, 2018

Sadhana is not selfish; every step we take toward the Self is contributing a step toward Love for the whole world.

Mettle / steadfast….

February 4, 2018

Mettle / steadfast Faint-hearted

Confrontational Peaceable

What Makes Us Human?….

February 4, 2018

What makes us human is a level of consciousness that goes beyond the five senses and a basic striving, a basic will to live.

What makes us human is a degree of consciousness that allows us to perceive, to desire, to will, and to be transformed into Love on a universal level.

What makes us human is Love. Love in the greater sense rather than the lower levels of attachment, which are merely will and desire.

Animals possess will; they desire to live, whatever that means for them. The will to live is encoded in all of us; it is the most basic form of Love. A true human being transcends personal will, transcends personal desire, to and for the greater Love of All.

If the will to live is the most basic expression of Love, then if I feel my life is being threatened in any way, I will actively destroy what is preventing me from living. We see that all around us now. Isn’t that what we all do individually—defend our idea of living?

The Love that a human being is capable of, that full consciousness, is for all—not just for a selfish individual. So if I am truly human, then I want the right to live, and to Love, for all.

We therefore need to choose consciousness if we want to be human, to Love, to transform our desire by disciplining our wills to turn to the Heart. Only then can we begin to Love as God Loves us.

But if we are clouded, if we are numb, we will not, we cannot Love. We are selfish. Our humanity is gone. We are not conscious. The person or people who put explosives in that ambulance in Kabul the other day thought they were conscious, thought they were sure, thought they knew what they were doing and that it was the right thing to wreak destruction. Somewhere they felt their lives were being threatened, because their beliefs on how to live were being threatened. They saw themselves as making a sacrifice for a greater good when all they were doing was destroying themselves and others.

How many times do we blame and destroy because we are so sure we know what is going on, what life is, and what it means? And we reject Love because our lower form of desire—which is will—is devoted purely to our shrunken self’s narrative, a misguided understanding of who we are. Our lives are not threatened; our narratives are. And that is enough for us to do terrible things to ourselves and to others.

Last week’s blog discussed asmita, the loss of subject in object. This is not the same as avidya, or ignorance. In Sanskrit, vidya is knowledge; avidya is not the lack of knowledge but a different kind of knowledge—in this case, a shrunken, limited knowledge in which we take the non-Self to be the Self, the unReal to be Real, the impermanent to be permanent. Asmita is a consequence of avidya: we lose sight of our true nature as the Self of All, as Love, and instead locate our subjectivity in our intellect, which is to the Self as the moon is to the sun—only a mirror.

So for us, the intellect—the mirror—is now “me”. I look in the mirror, it’s me. That’s I-ness, I am-ness, I am—but it isn’t the Self, our true identity. From this place of identifying with the intellect, we lose ourselves even further, in a panoply of wrong identifications. So once we get to “being” our bodies, our jobs, our cars, our anything, we are involuted completely into the material world. And we now cling for dear life to that shrunken existence. That is affliction.

Mired in this limited condition, we look for bliss, and maybe even for truth, but we avoid consciousness. Everyone wants Sat and Ananda, hold the Cit. We do not want to be conscious and therefore responsible. So we choose to be less than human. And we can make this choice to be less than human while convincing ourselves we are completely aware and fully human.

Baba used to say that you have to have a strong mind to get rid of your mind. We have to have agency to be able to give over our agency to God. Our wills have to be redirected to God, away from maintaining our wrong identification. And if we are strong enough to understand what we must do, we will surrender that shrunken self to uncover who we truly are: fully human, universal Love.

The wills of the people who chose to put the explosives in that ambulance were completely separate, sure, and honed in on their commitment to wrong understanding. They could not be more involuted away from God.

In our asmita, we appear to limit Sat-Cit-Ananda—Absolute Truth, Absolute Consciousness, and Absolute Bliss—to the small pleasures and indulgences of the shrunken self. We insist on seeing everything as it relates to us and our desires. We choose unconsciousness, when our humanity comes from our being conscious.

Through all this, the Self remains the Self. Our true nature abides beyond all ignorance and attachment. We will all eventually make the choice to return there. That is our destiny, and also our task. Sadhana is therefore not selfish; every step we take toward the Self is contributing a step toward Love for the whole world.

Taking Full Responsibility….

January 28, 2018

Yes, I did that. Yes, I did it. No, I did not do that. I know what I did. I call it what it was, and I take responsibility for my choice and the action and the consequences.

Do you call what you do what it actually is? Or do you excuse, mitigate, deny? Do you call your thoughts and actions something other than what they are? When you are rude, do you call it being honest? When passive, do you call it being polite?

Overlook / excuse / mitigate

Hold accountable

Forgive

Vindictive / blame

To get to the place of taking full responsibility, we first have to know where we are. When we are clear and clean and take responsibility, we then can Love. When we are all about our own narrative, we miss everyone else’s humanity, and therefore miss Love. Our story is more important than anyone else’s, so we stick to our story and don’t see any other view.

Here are some of the tools we use to evade responsibility:

Be vague
Make it all abstract
Obfuscate
Deflect
Create confusion, both inside and out
Manage others’ perceptions
Withhold information
Hide
Numb
Dramatize

Until we take full responsibility for ourselves and for what we have done, we will never find resolution. If we refuse to look in the mirror and hold ourselves accountable, we cannot learn from our experience. We will always come to the wrong conclusions, and never gain clarity or peace.

Similarly, blame never brings resolution. A beginning step may be to say what other people did, but then we have to see what we did, what we brought to the table, how we participated. And if we do that, we can be free while others remain imprisoned in their own narratives.

Advocate for self

Cave in

Defiant / boorish

Acquiesce

Responsible

Out of control on all levels

Controlling

Off the hook

Blame

Nonjudgmental

Hold accountable

Patsy

Always in the wrong

Free of blame

Accountable

Never your fault

Never my fault

Blamed and judged

Never learn

Encouraged to grow / educated

Mean / cruel

Friendly

Takes care of self

Simpering / ingratiating

Ultimately, we are all responsible for all of us. And we are all here to learn from each other. As shrunken selves, we are wrongly identified with our vehicles, and because of this we reduce ourselves to objects, even as we believe we are subjects.

Once we have made objects of ourselves, we objectify others. Before men can objectify women—or women objectify men—we have to have objectified ourselves first. Where did we as men and women learn to objectify ourselves? From our mothers, fathers, and caregivers—who learned it from their mothers, fathers, and caregivers.

We cannot give up our objectification until we experience the true Subjectivity that is the ground underneath all of us. Once we have experienced this, we can live in the reality that we are all souls connected by Love, and not the objects we inhabit. Our life’s work is to take full responsibility for who we truly are, and live accordingly in that Love.

The youngest (and cutest) Monday Night Class attendee

February 1, 2018

Once we have made….

January 28, 2018

Once we have made objects of ourselves, we objectify others. Before men can objectify women—or women objectify men—we have to have objectified ourselves first.

Mean / cruel….

January 28, 2018

Mean / cruel Friendly

Takes care of self Simpering / ingratiating

Until Love….

January 21, 2018

Until Love is an option, we only have psychological crises, not spiritual crises.

Conversion….

January 21, 2018

Our cars should not decide where we are going. Our vehicles should not be making our decisions.

Our fallen existence is a turning outward from God, the Self of All. After the initial asmita in which the intellect assumes the role of the subject—though it will always be just the moon that thinks it is the sun—we continue moving outward toward objects.

When asmita has reached the point where we are wrongly identifying with our bodies, our feelings, our narratives, our jobs, our families, or whatever, we will need to begin the return journey back to the Self.

At the first level of practice, we change the objects of sense that we focus on. Icons, rituals, and other symbolic and beautiful artifacts remind us to look within.

As we turn our focus inward, we find ourselves facing the mirror, the intellect. Our approach now should be the second level, where we focus on letters, words, and scripture—not just changing letters and words but moving toward their essence, and the essence of mantra. This takes us deeper inward. We have let go of identifying with sense objects, and now we must let go of the letters, so that our will, our attention, will be turned to the Heart without distraction.

Eventually, we settle in the Heart and rest there. Then, our will is in alignment with God, and we are no longer searching or striving. Our will has returned Home, and all that we say and do now comes from there. This is the third level. The three levels, in sequence, lead us back to the Self.

When we start on this path, we believe our mind is the subject. As we practice, we become aware that our mind is also sometimes an object. Who we think we are is sometimes an object and sometimes a subject, so it can never be us.

Our experience of perception reflects this deepening awareness. When we are lost, we see only through our eyes, and we live in our eyes. There is nothing behind them. Then comes a sense of introversion, in that we’re aware of thoughts and judgments and so forth. What will eventually happen feels experientially like a downshifting, where we drop out of the vehicles and see from and through the Heart. Or, in a physical sense, it feels like looking out from the center of our chest. We still use our physical eyes, but they are no longer so important.

So we use the vehicles first of the senses, then of the mind, then of the will. Until we understand them as being nothing more than vehicles, they are actually running us. We have runaway senses, a runaway mind, and a runaway will. It is only through sadhana, through spiritual practice, that we become aware of our vehicles as tools for our use, rather than who we are.

This goes to Katha Upanishad’s analogy of the charioteer. Our responsibility is to keep withdrawing our agency out of something in which we’ve lost ourselves, until we end up finally being the Perceiver and not the perceived. Then we are resting in who we truly are, and from there we shine a light onto our vehicles and enliven them without losing ourselves in them.

Futile….

January 21, 2018

Futile Meaningful / purposeful

Nothing to do Obsessive

My show at Stevenson University

January 20, 2018

There is no escaping….

January 14, 2018

There Is No Easy Path….

January 14, 2018

Recently, my friend Hasan Awan was reflecting on the subject of nonduality and the Direct Path as espoused by Rupert Spira. He asked me for my thoughts. Here they are.

I had to do some research, as I had not previously heard of the Direct Path as a distinct teaching. According to Spira’s teacher Francis Lucille, the Direct Path is one where a seeker arrives at the the Self by hearing the Truth from his Guru or by experiencing the Truth in the Guru’s presence.

My Guru, Swami Muktananda, taught that the bird that flies to paradise has two wings: self-effort and Grace. Baba taught that right self-effort is important, but that self-effort alone will never get us where we want to go. And he said the same is true of Grace: Grace alone will not get us to the Self. We need both right self-effort and Grace.

Without the benefit of a reliable map, a person can misunderstand Grace and wander completely off the path. One example of this is how Madame Guyon, the 17th-century French mystic who believed in openly and freely bestowing Grace without discipline and structure, put people at risk.

I watched Baba give shaktipat, or the descent of Grace, to thousands of people at a time almost every weekend for years. At that time there was a sense that the ground of the world’s consciousness needed to be shifted, so Baba broke with tradition and openly gave shaktipat. He believed that, however people received it, Grace would not go to waste.

Depending on their readiness, people received different levels of experience and understanding in shaktipat. Some awakenings were mild, while others revealed the Self. Some people used Baba’s Grace to feed their egos, while others became unstable. These are obstacles that become especially hazardous once we step off the safe terrain of self-effort. There were also people who actually understood what they were supposed to do and were riding the horse in the direction it was going. Finally, there were people who went home and just lived as they had before.

In Kashmir Shaivism, as in all the other traditions I have studied, there are three levels or means of attention and prayer. We practice these means to traverse the spiritual territory without getting lost. When practiced, each means leads to the next deeper one, until we are resting at the deepest level, in the Heart. The means provide the skills to parse out our vehicles and know who we are not; then we can actually ride that horse in the direction Grace is leading us.

There is no escaping the full extent of the path. People who have no context, no conceptual framework, no understanding of their shrunken self, and no understanding of wrong identification will have to return to the beginning of the path to go forward. If they seem to have skipped portions, it is only because they completed that work in the past. When we return to the beginning after having received Grace, we go with the understanding of where we want to travel. We do not forget Grace, and then can more easily surrender all that keeps us from that Presence of Being.

In Kashmir Shaivism, there is a direct path: a means called anupaya, which is only for the person who has done ALL the self-effort in the past and is completely surrendered. When that person meets his Guru, he immediately attains the highest state with no further effort. He is finished. This occurs very rarely. For those of us who have not removed all our wrong identification, when we receive Grace we may experience the Self and Love and remain there for a while, but then we settle back to where we still have work to do.

Kashmir Shaivism, like Advaita Vedanta, is nondualistic. There is a risk here, in that the notion of an easy path can be tied to nondualism. It is easy to believe that, because we intellectually understand nonduality or maybe have even tasted it through Grace, we are now beyond duality. No—we now have to walk the path. We are all dualistic until we have surrendered all separateness and dissolve ourselves, leaving only the Self.

So it is crucial not to misread “direct path” as “easy path”. There is no easy path, though some people will lure others in by appearing to have one. Receiving Grace early on along the path is easier only in that we have had a glimpse of where are heading; we all still have to do our self-effort. And depending on where we are, the path can be—and usually is—pretty steep.

I found my Guru only after years of intense practice and of having experiences I did not understand. I was looking for someone who could show me the bottom line of life, the Truth. I had let go enough to meet my Guru; I then had to continue to surrender in order to work closely with him for years. I had to work with Grace.

Stingy….

January 14, 2018

Stingy Generous

Protective At risk

If we believe….

January 7, 2018

If we believe we have done nothing wrong, then we have nothing to learn. If we believe we are always wrongly judged, we still have nothing to learn. If we believe we are always wrong, we still have nothing to learn.

Never Going to Learn: Guest Blog by Elizabeth Brandon….

January 7, 2018

The fact that I never learn comes in part from a belief that I can't learn. I won’t be able to understand, and I'm too good for everything to try. It's an arrogant belief.

If there’s a positive side to this, it’s that I would never assume that I don’t need an expert opinion on a difficult topic. I would never for a moment assume that I could "get" whatever it is. I would never say something stupid like, "I’ve had enough of experts."

But the reality is pretty bleak. It means that I don’t even bother to engage with things. New bills that affect my healthcare, reports that explain the state of the world, forms containing information on the important nitty gritty of what affects my life: I’m happy just to rely on the editorials that pre-digest it all for me. I go through life with my eyes closed.

Behind the belief that I can’t learn is, I think, a nihilistic sense that I am probably wrong anyway, so why bother. Sometimes, even when I know something to be true, I let other people tell me I’m wrong because I think it is impossible that I might not be. It’s a way of avoiding conflict. I’d rather be trampled on than say what I know to be true. It isn’t worth causing a fight when I’m so unsure of myself and what I am saying.

And anyway, when I concede that I must be wrong, I can’t be blamed. I try to slide through problems with as little damage as possible and accept as little agency as I can. To appear to have taken responsibility for everyone else’s clumsy mess-ups—but actually for everyone to know it wasn’t me who made the mistake—is the goal.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t my fault. I am always as innocent as a butterfly.

Were I to take responsibility, I would be blamed and judged so harshly that my life would end. The voices, the voices!

The problem of course is that this means I can’t claim my work. If there were something wrong with it, it would be harder to worm out of the responsibility for the mistake. I don’t just say: "This is mine, right or wrong. This is what I did."

Piecing all this together reveals such a desperation. I am desperate to keep things clean, to keep up appearances, to make sure it looks like that nothing is ever out of place. I can’t engage, I won’t engage, because I can’t entertain the possibility of being wrong. So I don’t learn anything. Nothing sinks in. It reminds me of the lines in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land: “You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats…There is shadow under this red rock (Come in under the shadow of this red rock)”. I stay in the shadow of my red rock. Rohini asked me, "Have you ever done anything right?" My immediate answer was no, but I was thinking later on that there was one thing: my master's dissertation last year. I was reflecting on that while, at work, I was handing over projects to my successor as I prepared to start a new job within my team. I realised that in the last nine months at work I've been, some days better than others, learning. How to read a contract, how to decipher meaning that isn't immediately apparent to me by going over a text more than once, how to read language that's dry and sometimes oddly worded.

I have learned these things in spite of myself. That is, I could only learn them when I wasn’t being myself. I didn't do my dissertation my way. I have done my job my way some days, and on those days I fail. Other days I don't. Now I'm getting to see that when I practice, I can and actually do learn.

Stingy of heart….

January 7, 2018

Stingy of heart Generous of heart

Savvy / smart Naïve / foolish

The Mystical Itinerary….

January 7, 2018

Rohini explains how spiritual practice, if pursued with dedication and continuity and assisted by Grace, unfolds in three levels, and she identifies the vehicle emphasized at each level.

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