Thursday, December 30, 2004

one-pointed focus

hmmm. consciousness and choosing people. I have significantly shifted my "worldview" on how I relate to people and where I invest my energy. It is weird. an old part of me would have done practically anything to assuage someone's "suffering" or make them feel better. Seemingly putting others first, but on a deeper level it was putting myself first, wanting to be liked, wanting to not be spoken badly of. And I would get a fair amount of acknowledgement from people about how giving I was to people and stuff like that--a real boost for the ol' ego. The shift is that as I spend less energy "wanting to be liked" and "doing the socially supported right thing" (instead of the greater than my mind right thing) and allow myself to be guided by the divine, people are falling away and my path is narrowing. What I need to do is revealing itself without a lot of complication, drama or confusion. The more I surrender my mind, which really means my opinions, judgments and those things, the more life can happen around me without my thinking I am controlling something or am orchestrating ANY thing.
Believing that it is either God's will or God's grace that is handling the details.

And though I feel inspired it feels different than it ever has--it's not an "UP" mood. there is more peace in my space, a gentle unencumbered silence. It makes relating to people in a rajasic/worldly way much more difficult, but I condemn myself less for being where I am, and not altering my state to try to meet someone. I have been a "chameleon" and able to shapeshift to fit the situation much of my adult life, and that coat is slowly dissolving. It feels good to be developing a sense of self that is deeper than my limited ego, intellect and body/mind. My mind wants to grasp for something to hold on to, but my consciousness is growing and expanding and I can no longer pretend that momentary satisfaction of my senses is leading me closer to truth.

I am continually humbled and inspired by what is really possible at the greatest depths of surrender and one-pointed focus.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

power of now

The last two days I have been listening to The Power of Now by Ekhart Tolle on my MP3 player.
I feel like I have been getting glimpses into being consciousness, witnessing my mind, its chatter and my "emotional body" as he describes it. He says that when we get a taste of ourselves as consciousness we will often spend some time moving back and forth between the two. In moments of meditation i have expeienced this, but in the last two days it has been different. I've been able to see myself as so much more than my ego, desire, needs, wants, and it feels slippery. I get lost in thought loops, and bring myself back as i can, but...I am feeling that space of clarity where nothing matters and everything is lila, divine play. im not "in it"/there right now, but i am tasting it more and more. getting that i am not the chatter of my mind, the power of NOW, and i am not my emotional body are huge gifts. Amma is working in me. through me. there is nothing to say really. i miss sadasiva already.

dream

i had a dream about Amma last night. Sadasiva and I were in a great big church. it was mahogany in color, old ancient wood with ceilings that seemed to be about 60 or 70 feet high. People were sitting in chairs all askew and doing different things, it wasn't organized or led by one particular person. There were about 50 people in total scattered about. Sadasiva and I were reciting some verses from Shakespeare. it wasn't a play of his that I remember but just some of his thoughts/ideas, not a story. IN came Amma. she was wearing all white, her hair was down and moved about and around her like a thick and careful wind. She walked up the center of a partially formed aisle. On her left hand she had an ink drawing of some kind of bird. it was drawn in a very rough way, a sihlouette of a bird in heavy ink. She was holding her hand up and forward as she walked.
I lay back in Sadasiva's lap crying that Amma was here. He kept saying to me "she's gonna get you..she's gonna get you.." Amma walked up to the end of an aisle where Triambika was. She hugged her and I was crying with love and longing to be more a part of Amma. IN her embrace of Triambika she was embracing us and we were all together. I woke up crying, but with no tears, just wet eyes.

Friday, December 17, 2004

openness/boundaries

I realize that I have been collapsing the definition of openness with boundarilessness. I am doing some work now on boundaries through coaching. Openness does not mean no boundaries.
This has been a big lesson recently--not only getting this but setting up boundaries where they need to be, not only for physical safety which comes fairly naturally, but as a way to preserve my energy so i dont leave bits of myself all over town..wow, this is wonderful to have insight to..and not the me that gallavanted all over sprinkling her energy about in times passed.
I have been "closing" myself more when i walk down the street. this has been good, leaving me feeling more powerful and less spread out in the world. Refining, descriminating my existence.

responsibility

this morning I am grateful for the ability to be responsible for myself. When I get triggered by things almost immediately I can claim responsibility for my "experience" of what is happening to me. It usually involves feeling like i want to vacate my body. There are different types of responsibility and the one I am referring to is emotional responsibility. This is probably due to having a a strong Sun and Mercury giving me the power to discriminate in my first house. I suffer a lot mentally. This morning i realized just how self-destructive I can be to myself. It happens very subtly and a lot of the time it is "hidden" but it is plainly visible to me. In the end, only to myself and to God do i need to answer..and God knows everything i am doing/thinking/saying and the self of me that I carry from day to day that is not evolved (I don't know what that is-my mind/brain..) knows what i am doing/thinking/saying, even if nobody else does. if we all just took 100% responsibility for our emotional selves we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not others were holding up their end of things. it is a gift to have this clarity. and i still suffer.
i think the next step for me in having even greater self-responsibility is to "get off it" even faster than I do. The way that I do that now is by listening to something that takes me back to the truth. this morning that was Sivananda Radha's divine light meditation on the BART train. I have grown a lot in the last week in my ability to change the experience i am having. or to get back to truth. as my relationship with my self deepens and my trust in the absolute grows I can always come back to truth when my moods and feelings get the best of me.
I think this is what it means to have emotional maturity at some level. I do not feel dependent on anybody for my happiness or spiritual/worldy success. There is still some part of me that has an attitude about it, like "well i can't count on anyone else so I have to do it myself" and even so- i think this is progress. the key for me is not closing in the process. even though there is "no one I can count on" remaining open to everything that IS while I strengthen and root myself to that which is real is very important.
I have felt such a closeness to Swami Sivananda Radha the last week and read some about her ashram in Canada. i wonder what canada is like. maybe i can go there after or before india. the ticket was only 250 RT from SF. her journey feels so potent to me, i wish i could've met her in her physical form,. maybe i will anyway. Radha will you show yourself to me when we are next together?
that's it. this is it. IT. that. this. I can feel my dissolution into it happening..slowly, but happening.
Aum amriteshwarayai namah

Monday, December 13, 2004

belief surrender trust

I feel such a weight around me. A lot of negative self-talk. Last night I sang in front of my altar for hours. Swami Paramatmananda's bhajans go right to my soul and dance around in empty delightful celebration. And I bought some finger cymbals at Rainbow. I practised making some noise with the things yesterday. There are so many ways to create sound.
Reading Radha's book, coming to the end is hard for me. I have gotten a lot of inspiration and peace from it,. Her journey to meeting Swami Sivananda, his grace moving through her, in such a short time, it is a beautiful story of a Western woman's way into India and sanyas. I want this too. But I know that I am full of so much pride. I have more of the fear-based holding on tight pride than I do the typical Leo self-glorifying pride. not like one is better than the other, but sometimes I hide behind mine not necessarily being so easy to see, my form of pride and self-indulgence.
I am finding it difficult to surrender and open to the divine, to allow Amma's grace to flow through me, I don't know what I am holding on to, I can't identify it. And it is always changing. One minute here, the next minute gone, and the new thing arises-- and so on and so on.
I am having a hard time feeling genuine happiness. Amma says sorrow and sadness lead to more devotion.
I don't want to believe that happiness is external to me, indulging in good food, good company or sensual pleasures. And my venus is sitting right next to my moon telling me that that is where happiness lies. but I know better. I don't think I will feel that ongoing bliss of joyful contentment until I, well as I move closer to the truth. I feel I am making progress, but I guess I expect that I will feel a different way inside. Or it is supposed to look different than it does. And there are so many temptations towads the UNtruth, with all this holiday food, and parties, and Tribe.net, and computers, and the media, and this mind. this mind I have that at times I use in such a powerful way, and other times runs me into the ground. Me,. me ME. Identification with this mind and this body. What about the witnesser. If I were to draw one of those wheels they have you draw where you shade in where your strengths and weaknesses are in different areas of life as it applies to my sadhana and yoga, the area of meditation is the most difficult for me. I can sing the divine's name through the night, I can say my mantra, do yoga--all these things where I am DOing something. But when I try to sit by myself I weasel out of it, have weak concentration and drift everywhere. At least I am attempting to meditate. Like Swami says, we sit for a half an hour and are lucky if we accomplish 2 minutes of real stillness. When Sadasiva and I do sadhana together I find it a lot easier to concentrate and meditate, but that makes me wonder if I am actually concentrating better if I am noticing that it is easier, that is my mind operating. sheesh. meditation comes easier when there is more than my body there. This reminds me of that quote that says you can tell the content of a person's character by how they behave when no one is looking.
But God is always there, seeing it all. Am i a fool to think that I will have the strength, courage, perseverance to realize who I really am. those qualities are pretty present in me, it is the belief, surrender and trust that are lacking. I started to make a list of the virtuous qualities Sivananda said we are to develop so I could clearly see where I can ease up and where I should set a higher intention. I need to pick that up again. For example, in the area of communication I am pretty developed, this serves me well in the world. and around responsibility, I do good there too. not that i will give those up, but honoring them and cultivating other virtuous qualites, like trust, belief, surrender..that's exciting. I am so afraid of losing the illusory control I think I have. what a tangled web I weave.Oh, and gratitude.
I am grateful for:
--a real, pure relationship with a man that sees and lives the truth the same way I do/want to. that our love grows stronger and deeper in its own unique, beautiful way.
--a job that pays well and is going to allow me to travel and practice being a better yogi, yogini.
--that my mom and i are trying to have something peaceful together
--the clarity of mind that comes naturally
--ability to communicate clearly
--that i feel so much and have experienced God fully taking me over.
--that more people are getting greater awareness and are inspired to share it with others
--a healthy body that is getting healthier and more pure
--housemates that I get along with and that are conscientious of themselves
--the "luck" that seems to follow me, guru, that leads me to right place always
--that i am aware of how enormous my pride and ego are and the other self-indulgant behavior i have, allowing me to 'do' something about it.
--that i am adaptable and flexible to my environment
this is hard. and i realize how little i honor and appreciate what i do have. it is usually mixed with self-doubt.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

pigeons

I have some pigeon karma of some sort.
I keep seeing pigeons that are sharply close to dying in horrible situations. I have seen two at different points with significant piececs of their bodies missing, mangled feathers shaking and stirring as if to say please kill me now in the BART station. This one yesterday was missing half its head. The one a couple weeks ago was missing half its back.
Are people doing this to them or is this what it is like to be a bird in the bird world.
I always notice that so many pigeons have clubs for claws or are missing their toes. I guess they can't slow down or stop or else they will die, even with broken toes and dismembered claws.
I don't know why I am so disturbed by it. why it effects me so greatly.

not that i feel necessarily close to pigeons or have bonded with one in any real way, except the one missing half its back where we looked into each others eyes for about a minute, but they are in my space. I have seen pigeon wings in gardens, just hte wings.
sometimes i fantasize about there being a pigeon sanctuary where all the pigeons can live with food so they dont have to fend for themselves or get kicked about and chased by kids down the sidewalk..