environment

it is hard cultivating a spiritual attitude and practice when i spend so many hours in an environment that is rajasic and high-speed. on the one hand, i want to be connected to people, have them feel comfortable and good and generally be related wherever I am. on the other hand there is a price. you know how when you wake up you realize how vivid and real your dream seemed until you woke up and started to experience a different reality.



when i return to my breath i realize i am out of balance. i have had a lot of caffeine and a lot of sugar the last few days. i can feel myself a little bit spun and i am not centered in myself. i am not sure where my center is. i mean, if i think about and get back there......awww there..deep breaths take me back to my center.


the other night i was meditating and i had an experience where i didn't exist. i was not idenitified with any part of myself. i was witness to it all and it was actually a little scary and pretty confronting. it is hard for me not to make wrong my current situation and feel like it is what is making me weak around sugar and caffeine and participating in conversations that do not illuminate or enlighten. but of course it is only that i gradually start to identify with the identity that i create here. i am this way and that way. and it is all fine and good, but it is hard to play the role but not become the role. you know?


so i guess this means it is time for me to step up my spiritual practices. going to yoga tonight and then home to bathe in some alone, quiet time. reading my book on tantra.


hmm..i just want to be alone right now.

the world owes me nothing

Yes, I’m truly a dunce
Living among trees and plants.
Please don’t question me about illusion and enlightenment --
This old fellow just likes to smile to himself.
I wade across streams with bony legs,
And carry a bag about in fine spring weather.
That’s my life,
And the world owes me nothing.


From Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan, translated by John Stevens. Published by Shambala in Boston, 1996.

perspective

when things feel bad i have been stepping back to gain some perspective on the situation. sometimes it is hard because i want to believe so much that anything and everything i do means something and has weight in the larger context of my life, but you know it just doesn't. i read recently that astrology and the influence of the planets holds 75% of our probable future and our actions are responsible for 25%. of course it can be troublesome to concretize the greater forces in the world in this way, but suffice to say, my actions and thoughts are a smaller component of the divine plan than are the cosmic grander cycling of nature. so i keep letting go, it feels like the only non-pain-creating way to handle the difficulties of life. not striving for something, or wishing life was different or creating secret scenarios or strategies to have things be any other way than how they are. sigh. there's some freedom in this, but still i feel sad that my dreams don't play out the way i fantisize they will. it is hard to let go of this.... Perspective, specifically, that everything i want and hope and dream is insignificant in the bigger picture. nature works in accord with her own harmony and vibration. like i know what is best for me. i don't. i completely trust that life will offer me what is necessary to realize closer to truth. i am not always willing and put up mental and emotional resistance, but generally speaking the old paint is peeling and the layers are wearing away somehow, through the work of the divine.

Dear God

Dear God
I hesitate to write to you because i don't want you to feel obligated to respond to me in anyway, but i want to say that i am overcome with appreciation and love for you. My heart is rested and full. and my breath sinks deep in the those soft fluid twists and cavernous falls you created buried beneath the rise and fall of hot supple flesh. attachment creeps in to feeling this way. feeling full of longing to be merged with you entirely in every moment. in all moments. one after the next. you. my breath. my rise and fall. my exaltation. me. i am that. i am you. you are me. with your wisdom, from where does it come? how do you speak so richly and succintly? why do i love you so? i am one of those in love with love types. something with neptune, maybe in the fourth.
i am careful not mistake my love of you for the objects of the world. you come to me in the quiet moments of reflection from pools of calm and tidal rest. and tears perched delicately on the edge of high rocky falls fill my eyes with your charm.
i cry for you. my fierce want softens into gentle rememberance that i already have. hee hee. it is like a game we play, where you pretend to run from me and i see you hiding, so i chase after you...oh Beloved.. i see you. why are you running from me? Please do not leave my side. i am lost without you. help me to remember that to find your secret hiding place i need only close my eyes and find you where you always were, there, sitting tucked in my heart, where you live. thank you for your kindness and forgiveness, and compassionate urging that i do this searching on my own, that the way in is to go within. how can i love you more? how can we ever be anything but merged in this bliss, this peaceful union. i don't know how to say it, but i know you feel me. and we are blessed. your blessings of grace rain upon the land kissing the seeds of spiritual truth residing in each of our hearts.

all, alone, renounce

today, on this day after the new moon, attacks in London and G8 summit in Scotland, I am realizing my real aloneness in the world. And this is good news for me. I started listening to Osho's talks on tantra, wanting to get a better understanding of what it IS rather than all these ideas about what it's NOT. so he says it is acceptance of everything. when we renounce the world we are still focusing on the world. when we accept ALL and everything we are richer and fuller. It sounds like this path comes after we have some control and mastery over our senses, and that people might mistake acceptance of everything as going hog wild after every desire they have-a grave misinterpretation and misunderstanding of these teachings. but what do i know, i am just listening newly and still working all these things out. so i have my life to dedicate to practice. maybe i will never fully accept and surrender to one path. but i will persevere in the direction of truth and God. I get torn about where to go and who to spend time with (which teachers, which path), but i am the most at home in peace when I am alone with God and my practices. Well I have been most at home and in peace in times when i have shared my spiritual practices with a special friend of mine, but i have grown too attached and am learning detachment.
I wish I could be with Amma in her presence for an extended period of time. i guess i could be i am just not doing it. i was told to take things one day at a time, that i don't have a chart that will allow me to make meaningful long-term plans in my life. this feels right. so i am not drinking any caffeine today and will continue to abstain from consumption of much.

in the world but not of the world

"Swamiji, you say we should avoid a worldly mans company. But, Swamiji, aren’t we all worldly men? If I, too am a worldly man, what do I get by labelling another as a worldly man and avoiding his company? I think this is possible only when I renounce the world and come here."

"What is here? Is this not the world? Is Rishikesh not part of the world? How can you renounce this world? Where will you go" These questions put the engineer in a very receptive and reflective mood. "What is meant," continued Siva: "by a worldly man is a man who is full of worldly nature. A man may live in the world, and yet be not of it. That is the secret. Never allow the evils of the world to get into your heart: enthrone God in the heart."

--copied from the Divine Life Society Headquarters website. dlshq.org