Monday, August 30, 2004

Attachment

My current dilemna/inquiry is a look into the nature of attachment.
On Saturday night I went to the satsang at the ashram in San Ramon. I knew I would be late, but wanted to go after having a couple of emotionally draining days. I knew that being in a space with the other devotees, letting go in song and praise would be the best and easiest way to get back in my heart and feel validated, really.
I sat there, listening to the end of the satsang, where Swami Dayamrita was sharing a funny story about Amma and trying to catch an airplane to and from Spain with no sleep. Missing not only the first part of the satsang, but also the opening chanting had me wanting to connect even faster. I exhaled deeply and snuggly wiggled my butt onto my pillow, gazing at the framed compassionate smiling Amma ahead of me. This was the first time I had gone to Amma's without SadaSiva. I was alone and thought I wanted to be alone. Once the satsang was over the bhajans started up. i didn't have the books ot sing along so I was challenged to pay attention and sing back in call response style, the bhajans are sung without the assistance of the books. The softer, deeper bhajans brought me right to tears. Tears at the difficulty I had with my Mom earlier in the day; tears at the missing and longing to be with SadaSiva; tears that I could feel the attachment in my heart and body. I wanted SadaSiva to be with me. I felt like i needed to be at Amma's in order to reconnect with her. I know that connection is available always, everywhere at any time, but I needed the reassurance of everyone else there that I was where I was supposed to be and I was a right human being.
I grew self-conscious of the amount of attention I had on myself and my "needs," I hoped no one was looking at me. I wanted to be alone with my needs, attachment, and tears. I could feel the longing in my heart to merge with Amma, with God, with Light, with Truth. i laughed and cried at my silly attachments and the critical finger-wagging I was doing at myself in response to my silly attachments. It was all pretty funny, really. Since SadaSiva and I have been dating it has been relatively effortless to stay present, clear, taking each day absolutely. On Saturday I could feel the attachment start to settle somewhere in my body. We talked before about how what most people define as "in love" is just attachment. Was that what was happening? Was I falling in love and attempting to attach myself to something? But there's nothing to attach to. Said more accurately, was I building up an expectation? That's when trouble arises in relationships. Expecting anything is a set-up for failure and disappointment.
So I am currently exploring this idea of attachment. It is certainly not a new phenomena in my life.
Amritanandamayi, Mata Amritanandamayi

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Barometer for spiritual progress

Here is an infallible barometer to find out the degree of your spiritual progress. How would you feel if:

1. Your clean hands or best clothes are stained. This morning I did laundry and some ofthe ink from my shawl got on two of the only white shirts I own. I was not happy about this. I took them out fo the washer, brought them upstairs and dunked in some bleachy water all day. The yellow did not come all the way out. I knew that I was thinking about something trivial and not worth the investment of energy. I like my hands dirty, just not dirty hands on my body/face. I am looking forward to seeing how I have evolved around this question some day.

2. You stumble down or commit a blunder and are laughed at. I have noticed recently that whenever I am saying my mantra, singing a devotional song or resting my attention on either my heart (anahata) or third-eye (ajna) chakra I have no concern for how I look, where I'm going, if the light is green or who is around me. Mostly this is when I am walking somewhere, which is a lot of time, not owning a car. When I am inside a thought loop, looking at other people or receiving all the myriad stimuli that exists in the city I am hyper conscious of how I look, who is looking at me, what kind of car that is, worried about what if I fall in the middle of the street, all that stuff. I think as a practice I could take on putting myself in situations where I "look a fool" or say something "dumb" or generally stick my neck out in a conspicuous way, as a way to grow beyond my comfort as it relates to this measure.

3. You are hurt accidentally or stung by an insect or scorpion. A scorpion...jeez..Mosquito bites are irritating enough. I am remembering a section of the book I'm reading by Swami Paramatananda where he describes picking flowers at 4:30 in the morning from a flower garden that is dimly lit and covered with snakes and scorpions. Once he stopped thinking about himself in contrast to the scorpion he did not receive any bites or discturbances from the creatures. This is another area where I am a big ol' whimp. I have a lot of separation between me and crawly things. Last night at Amma's I was having fun with this fly that didn't fly during the bhajans. Normally I would've smooshed it with my bottle, thinking it to not belong there on the carpet; last night I sang to it and thought of it as my little friend. Accidentally getting hurt, this happens every day, but then there are no accidents. I cut my finger on the knife most times when in the kitchen, but that has more to do with moving too fast with a dull blade.

4. You suffer from illness or pain. That is kind of vague but I will take it to mean something serious, not an upset stomach...oh wait, the point is being able to maintain peace of mind when these things happen. Oh yes, when my stomach hurts or my back has a cramp, a lot of time I have to talk all about it. It is rare that I sit with the itch or the pain, my mind immediately wants to hop over to the sensation and start analyzing it. Now I am aware of the fact that I do this, so that's progress.

5. You do not succeed in your efforts. I definitely want to "do right" and be acknowledged for it, especially at work. I have been practising doing one anonymous good deed a day. An idea I took from the Wisdom Course. I have developed an anonymous relationship through this practice with the homeless guy near me that sits out in front of Blockbuster. I left him a pillow, and the next night he was sleeping on it. All his other pillows were tossed to the side. I cannot describe how proud and happy I felt. I would like to practice doing more deeds like this, anonymously or not, and not attaching to the good that I feel in doing those things. Doing them for the sake of doing them, not the spiritual or personal reward I think I'm due or relish in.

6. You do not get a thing that you want, or find that some thing you possess is missing. Possesssing things is becomg way less something I care about at all. It has been remarkably easy to get rid of so many things of mine. I think one of the most personally valuable things I own is my laptop. I would be pretty upset without it. My altar items are pretty favorable too. I am kind of attached to my hair as well, but since it is getting thinner, I guess I am receiving some training in that attachment. There aren't a lot of things I own that I couldn't do without tomorrow. Not getting a thing I want is more difficult. I do have this expectation that I will spiritually evolve and I don't know what thing I'll get, but I can tell I have an expectation that it will be realized and I will have something measurable. Sometimes I think I will be one of Amma's swamis, or be the head of a spiritual group of some sort, not a guru, but maybe the head in charge of one of her ashram's, but it has been really easy not to put a worldly goal out in front of myself like that. Whatever is to happen will happen.

7. You are kept waiting for a long time by some other person. I usually only care about this when I have been drinking coffee. Because when I have been drinking coffee I suddenly become very important, and my time is important. When I am not in AFB-mode I love when people are late, or even better, don't show because then I can take in the world around me; look at the cracks in the street, talk to the person beside me, smell the air, watch people and all their funny ways of moving through the world.

8. You are insulted or abused for no reason.

9. Others fail in their duties toward you. I have a lot of compassion for this. I believe everything that happens is supposed to happen so if someone "fails" in their duties towards me there must be a lesson to learn that wouldn't have been learned otherwise. Now if they failed me and I owed to someone else something that I was counting on from the person who failed me, that's another story. I think I usually hold a grudge or dislike that person that failed me because they caused me to look bad.

10. You suffer a loss or bereavement. I haven't experienced much in the way of death of people around me in my life. I've never suffered the loss of anyone super close to me. My relationship with death feels like my relationship with birth in a lot of ways.


If none of these can disturb your peace of mind and you are indifferent to them, you have won the struggle and achieved 50% self control. God sends trials and troubles to strengthen your character: Greet them and test yourself.

this barometer was written by Swami Sivananda, taken from www.sivanandadlshq.org/teachings/baro.htm









Friday, August 20, 2004

Love

It's funny, this question of love. On the evolution list somebody posted the question "What is Love?"
To that I replied, "I love this question about love and what it is. what am i loving when I love love? Can love love itself?

I think that a lot of people identify love with attachment unconsciously, that NEED feeling. "don't go, I NEED you." I need your particular type of affection, carress, the sound of your voice. I think the essence of love is that state of union where two beings recognize themselves and are relaxed into a space of oneness. For me, that often looks like looking into another person through their eyes for a long period of time, deep soft, penetrating gazes where we don't really have to blink; where i "witness" them as timeless consciousness and i myself am timeless consciousness. That is love for me. Usually my attention is on my third eye (ajna chakra) and there is nothing to think about, say, do or be. and I feel an incomparable bliss-state in my brain, my body.

Then today, Eknath's Thought for the Day is:
Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days? -- George Bernard Shaw
Often we try to build relationships on what is pleasing to us, particularly on physical attraction. But if there is anything sure about physical attraction, it is that it has to change. We cannot build on it; its very nature is to come and go. Physical attraction is a sensation -- here one minute and gone the next. Love is a relationship. It is pleasant to be with someone who is physically attractive, but how long can you enjoy an aquiline nose? How long can you thrill to the timbre of a voice when it doesn't say what you like? It's very much like eating: no matter how much you are attracted to chocolate pie, there is a limit to how much of it you can enjoy. Beyond that limit, if somebody merely mentions chocolate, your stomach stages a revolt. If you want to build a relationship, build it on what endures. To build on a firm foundation, we have to stop asking, "What do I like?" and ask only, "What can I give?" Then there is joy in everything, because there is joy in the relationship itself -- in ups and downs, through the pleasant and the unpleasant, in sickness and in health.


This reminds me of another passage I have kept close to me about admiring beauty, but not taking beauty home and putting it on the shelf.
Awhile ago I had this thought about how to say something or someone is beautiful to them or to really even acknowledge a person (this is big in our community) is to pay service to their ego and is a disservice to honoring that place where we are all the same. Not to say ego is bad, it serves a purpose, but I know that I have accepted acknowledgement and referred back to it, held on to it as though it would be a true statement the next time I plucked it out of my memory. "So and so said I was sweet and grounded, this must be true again and still." My practice for awhile when I was still pretty active in the community was to let the acknowledge pass right through me. Not let it attach itself anywhere to my being. Just receive it. i still like that model, and it is a continual practice.

If love really is available in the opening into oneness and I experience that regularly what is the reason or intention behind investing in a romantic relationship. And i have come up with: merging deeper and more consistently "through the two-bodied interplay" as Deida might say. I'd say 'experiencing a deeper expression of God through the connection of two souls.' it seems like the more intimately I know someone the more difficult it is for me to continue to bare my soul, but the more I do, the deeper I can be to God, to love.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Food

Those who take wisdom as their highest goal, whose faith is deep and whose senses are trained, attain wisdom quickly and enter into perfect peace. But the ignorant, indecisive and lacking in faith, waste their lives. They can never be happy in this world or any other.

--Sri Krishna to Arjuna. The Bhagavad Gita, chapter four, Wisdom in Action. paragraphs 39/40

I find that I don't "crave" any food besides oatmeal the last 3/4 weeks. I don't even crave oatmeal, it is what I eat, what sustains me and what my body easily and happily digests. Today I had a vegetable burrito at Chevy's. It tasted like the burrito you would find on a menu: four-color-processed, arranged, photographed with a flash. Sensual cravings, especially food, is less of a challenge than it has ever been. I am going to have to figure out where to eat lunch downtown.

Food has always subconsciously served as a substitute for whatever emotional need I've wanted met/fulfilled. Food has been a crutch in the past. There is a flavor, texture, aroma to satisfy every desire, sensual longing-I find I am not grasping to be emotionally fulfilled.


**********
I am not sure when I wrote that - about a week and a half ago perhaps. As I reread the above and think about how I feel like I am eating in the old patterned unconscious ways it saddens me. I know it is all a process of contraction and expansion and I am definitely in a contraction period with food. Part of it has to do with the law of physics that talks about a body in motion staying in motion and a body at rest staying at rest; well, for me with my eating habits, when I allow myself to eat something I wouldn't otherwise eat I then tend to want to keep eating that way, unconsciously - and it feels more difficult to get "back on track," retraining my brain to be satisfied with oatmeal and a small amount of fruit. So just now I put down the yummy bowl of broccoli and rice with cheese because I am full and don't need to finish every morsel. I have always eaten every morsel on my plate. I do keep in mind what one of Amma's swamis said when he recommended we eat only what we need, that is what had me put the cheesy-broccoli down. I want to not need food, not be driven by it. I read something else recently about one of the reasons we need to sleep so many hours is because we eat so much so soon to the time we are going to sleep that the digestion process tires us out and slows us down, before our mind has a chance to shut off. Sleeping gives our brains a chance to turn off for some hours.




Saturday, August 07, 2004

In the beginning

It is August and my plan to travel will begin in January, maybe later. I think January will be perfect as I feel ready to dive into the next realm of surrender and release and merging with the divine-fully, knowing that that is where I will dwell and it is distinct from where I have been. The conversations are fewer and they happen with fewer people. I can feel the peace soaking into my skin.

Wow. I am planning where I want to stay, how long, the costs, soliciting opinion and advice from the myriad ton of people that have traveled for extended periods through India already. Single women, couples, Westerners, so many have traveled to drink from the mouth of the source. Why India? Anne opened up the doors to India for me through her friendship with Hinduism when we were together. We went to the Rathyatra, read a little of the Baghavad Gita. Though she didn't talk that much about what it meant to her and the significance, I quickly and easily found myself absorbing the knowledge and fruit that this pathway to God, of God offers.
Then I put it away for many years but the familiar sight of a Jagganath sticker or Krishna playing his flute would bring a smile to my remembering heart.

Over the years I got involved with men, did transformational courses designed to enhance and increase my ability to communicate effectively, ask for what I want, be the one in the driver's seat of my life. Designed to wake up to life, realize that life is short and I have power, and there is an "I" here that wants to make a difference. Through Landmark Education I learned that I had been living my life from my own self point of view. I believed that because I lived the way I did and thought the way I thought that everyone must be doing their lives the same way, thinking more or less the same way I do. Really that way of thinking is so limited and confining and most people in the US are doing life this way. Landmark is a knock on the head.."Hello....wake up to the world. Realize that you are choosing your life the way it is. Life is not happening to you, you are creating it- in all of its glory, misery, discomfort and form." That was a big wake up call to me. Thank you Community and thank you Rich Reinholdt for asking me to do the Forum, for holding my hand through all the weekends and tears and joy and confusion. That, December 1998, in a lot of ways, in when I consider my spiritual life beginning-even though I wouldn't have defined that experience as spiritual.
Just today I realized that while I was a kid and went to church with my Grandma-sweet little old women kneeling in the pew, rosaries in hand, Hail Mary full of Gracing, that also created the Anitra I knew myself to be-spiritual, but more religious. When my Grandma left, went back to Pennsylvania, that was the end of religion, spirituality as I knew it until now.
After Landmark and during LM, I did the Sterling Women's weekend, Arete several times, sensuality living, reading David Deida-more transformational work oriented around being a fully-expressed feminine, sensual, creature living life as her essence in the space of community. All of those experiences that I have had since 1998 have created to and contributed to who this body, this person, this identity, the Anitra that people are referring to when they say "Anitra."
John Stewart [my new, old boss] left me a message on Friday saying that everyone is excited for me to come back to work there and while in the shower I had to laugh and pause for a moment wondering which Anitra they were happy to have back. The ten months ago Anitra. She was doing Bikram four times a week, had been out of a two year relationship with Aaron for three months, had been seeing a new guy Adam that was making her excitedly, wildly nuts and not sure what was next, thinking that becoming a sensuality leader, instructor was the path, but afraid to tell anyone at WF that except her boss. Hmm...guess they'll be happy to have her back. Oh, and the Anitra that would smile at everyone and wasn't afraid to look people in the eye. I always felt the discomfort people experienced in my subtle directness, but oddly enough when they think back I am sure they remember something about my unconventionality that struck them in some way. They'll be glad to have back that girl who was strangely comfortable to be with, a breath of fresh air in the stale , 17th floor banking world where millions of dollars are excanged but no presidents are actually seen. It all happens on paper and over the phone.

So it's 2004. It's been 6 years since I started to wake up, was even aware that life was something more or different than going to school, finding a job, sticking with it and doing the same with a man. that's what people do. That's what I was queued up to do. you're 29 Anitra, when will you get married and have children. Mostly only I asked myself this question. But I knew that I wouldn't do it because everyone was doing it. I didn't see Lord of the Rings and Star Wars in its re-release and everyone was doing that. But even with my rebellion and free spirit, somewhere in there I knew Iwanted to have a kid, to imprint my gentic makeup with my fabulous man's [whomever that might be at the time] genetic makeup and presto, we'd have a lil' one! Like baking bread. zucchini-walnut. but I am not married (phew) and didn't get preganant (double phew..). That might be something I am excited about one day, but today, August sixth, two thousand and four is not the day, alas.

After Adam and I, well after I decided that I needed some space from Adam (three months to cool the flames) I had space to be with me and look into what I wanted to do with my life, when it is not defined by the man I'm with. Aaron and I started to see one another again, that was sweet and beautiful, but still I felt that longing in me to be alone, to not be with a man. The comfort, familiarity and ease with which Aaron and I related made it all so natural. It was good for us to stop doing that. Especially when I realized that I wanted a particular type of relationship and Aaron wasn't ready to do that, neither was Adam. It is all so right that things happen as they do, when they do.

I knew that I wanted to live my life devoted to love. but how does that look. who does that and can actually sustain a place to live, food, etc.. I knew I wasnt going to found an organization that saved 4 year old southeast asian babies from eating undercooked rice. that's an overstatement obviously, my point being that I didn't have the motivation to start or create a movement; not that those pursuits aren't needed and essential - it is just that I am much more free, nebulous, whimsical, formless. It would be irrantional for me to consider showing up at the same place everyday and to make plans hosting forums and panels and organizing meetings and creating fundraisers- I am not that woman. Thank God for the Deirdres and Marcies of the world! I use to think the reason I wasn't inspired to create an organization or movement or cause was that I was too self-focused, and maybe I am, I do have a lot of planets in the first house that underscore the emphasis I place on self-knowledge, self-development, self-realization--and I am an attention-grubbing LEO. :) that's a joke-I am, but I am not the limelight, needs to have all the attention on me type of Leo-yes, some would disagree, but anyway, that's not why I'm here.
The bigger question confronting me How was I going to live a life opening hearts, loving people, sharing the gift of loving to love, listening to gain understanding, crying to be expressive as an energetic organism that has the capacity to cry-it's all energy- and the universe wants to experience itself through us.
The planets want to live as their highest selves through us. How can I live a life based on that. Who's going to pay me to live like that? I thought a man but then I saw how that desire and structure to live devotionally free and surrendered to love in the framework of a man/woman relationship was using him and that didn't feel right to me.

I know, I'll be a gypsy. My Mom will love that one. I will wander through cities, countries, states, provinces, territories and I will get by, because I believe, and God will take care of me. And of course I feel drawn to India. India is ancient and rich, and full of God, and prayer and magic and worship. So that is how this whole thing started.

Since then, then being sometime around April/May 2004, my plans to travel have taken a more developed form. I met Amma. I met SadaSiva. I met Swami Kartikeananda. I started doing spiritual practice (sadhana) with SadaSiva. Amma is my guru. She gave me a mantra. I stopped going out to parites and have gotten rid of most of what I own. I am integrating. I am standing on the bridge, the bridge between Venus and the Sun. the sun is so bright, it is my planet, he burns up all the confusion, the lack of clarity, the mud and says this is your path dear one, while venus so luxuriously, sensually and palpably beckons me with her sweet scents of rosewood and nectar. She has given me so much of who I've been, the juice of the last 20 years. I thank you Venus for lifting me on your shoudlers so I could sing, strut, taunt, love, sparkle and gleam as a butterfly, bedecked with charisma, character and dazzling gifts. As I enter further into the Sun I am moved to further purify and liquify. The gifts of the Sun feel like they will continue to strengthen my spiritual practices and discriminating faculty.

As my path twists and turns and reveals itself in the simple, pure form, the trodden dirt path, printed with bare feet and lined with dust; I walk in peace, in light, quietly, sweeping through as a whisper does in a soft moment of surrender, toward a life unbound, yet structured and well-traveled. Devotionally, selflesslessly- through knowledge, experience, guided by truth.