Sadhana

This poem, from October at the ashram, has been posted elsewhere, but I feel like it belongs here, with this image:
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Photo: Vrindavan Pond, Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm, Grass Valley, CA,
10/10/2010

Sadhana: Night & Day

Swamiji has asked me to transfer the lavender plants
from a broken wood barrel – now toppled
to one side near Krsna temple – into two ceramic blue
containers where they will not die.

This task, as with the many asked, I agree to gladly,
though in this instance see that perhaps
a Karma yogi not-me might take care of this joyful little job
opportunity whilst I serve elsewhere: likely in the kitchen or the orchard.

There are apple trees that need water there. We all know: water added to earth & air guarantees trees will bear fruit eventually; and in addition I offer prana, singing Lakshmi mantras into the many tiny ears of these tender-hearted trees, whom I hope or imagine listen discretely, with subtle green sonic organs hidden in their leaves.
They say Thank You; I sing Srii!!

~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The moment night became too cool, I felt this body bolstered
by a warming wind, a breeze of evening heat rustled
out of the blue-black abyss. Earlier on that too-hot tejas day,
I dove into a ‘Bliss Divine’ on the dock of a man-made pond called Vrindavan.

Smiling my salute to the sun, I am intent on tanning my gums.
This, I am told, is an old Swami Vishnu hammock-practice. Though
this trunk & limbs flow through twelve-plus poses, my focus sits
over my nose, where fiery areolas form fluxional suns who arise & set & rise & set.

Sweating after effort, I shed a layer of t-shirt & shorts & use my skin to swim three cooling loops around the fountain. From the far side, facing east, I am given vision of the secret rainbow resting therein: that Self-same sun being split into its constituents by the perfect scatter of water gone airborne, floating up & folding down as in ecstatic Asana.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Back on the dock, my chilled skin is sizzling in the oven of said sun. I turn & spit;
a sunfish investigates, then tastes. That nobly bold or dumb one bites my saliva and flees to the deep. The spit stretches like trite cheese on impossible TV pizza. Seeing this, the orange sunnies all hustle up, swarming to the surface, hungry for any potential-ojas left over.

Here I pause to take a picture; pause to capture the day’s last light. Here
I pause to wonder what happened to the Puja milk from last night:
when the deity is clean, do we just dispose of those holy leftovers of devotion?
Or, can I try a bite?

The central fountain sends concentric ripples dancing over this underwater Vrindavan. Refracted shadow & light climb the well-worn rungs of the wet wood ladder, climbing through the heavy-set tendrils of a living willow. How a trunk draws water from the earth, shadow & light arise in ripples: rising how kundalini is drawn to the crown of a ripened spine; the way a fruit always falls – in time.
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Photo: Samadhi Estates, Grass Valley, CA
10/21/2010

Stealing Back The Flute
from Hafiz (who else?)

"Something in your soul trusts Me

Otherwise it would not let you near these words.

God has spilled a Great One into each of us,

This warrior is always fearless But also always kind.

The only business I am concerned with these days,

Since I heard the Moon's drunk singing,

Is stealing back our flute from Krishna."
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Just so much encoding.
om shanti aum
3~

Comments

The Karma Yogi Mantra

"It is not about me.
I am here to serve.
I am doing my duty.
I do the best I can.
I offer up the results of my efforts, good or bad."

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With mixed results, I’ve been experimenting with how to share what with whom. Information, eye contact, earth-space – these things and more are for sharing. What we share composes the grounds upon which ‘relationship’ plays out, and ‘relationship’ accounts for the majority of life’s peaks and pitfalls.

What do you share?
It’s a serious question. I invite you to honestly ponder, if only momentarily, what it is you choose to share with the humans you interact with in this life. A key step here is to separate what you hope to share from what actually transpires. This takes practice. Everyone I know shares laughs. What else? Food, yes, but think on an energetic level. Pause here for contemplation.
(my initial list is: healing hugs, joy of play (sports), and true attention or presence, except when not, then it's sardonic intellect and tamasic inclinations)

I was in a Discipline Committee meeting at Suffield once. I’d missed some classes, maybe said some things. And I forget who, but one of the wizened faculty asked me to imagine a statistic, to come up with a percentage-value weighing my contributions to the community in terms of positive and negative poles. He did not make me name the number (no need to make me lie out loud), but asked me to keep the idea with me, and to aim for 51%, that’s all.
Having since studied the principles of the Law of One series (Law of One Study Guide), I find that this way of measuring progress is widely recommended throughout creation. Here, Ra frames it in terms of Service-to-Self (STS) opposed to Service-to-Others (STO). Ra makes it known that 51% really is all you need. Higher is better of course, but if you’re over 50%, you’re on a good course, getting ready to ascend.

Like last week, I've got to share what Ghandi says about service (p 41, The Gita According to Ghandi):

"Real service consists in working for those whom one does not know personally... By and by, the sphere of our service will enlarge itself to embrace the whole world... We should serve the humblest human beings, even those whom we never see, with respect and honor and looking upon them as gods and not as our servants. We should, in other words, serve the whole world."

For me, this concept has helped tremendously, however gradually over the course of years. I start the process by stopping to notice what impact my presence is having on any given situation: am I offering a higher probability of gentleness and joy? or of suspicion and shame? Am I giving inspiration or discouragement?
I hate this question when I’m already irritated, but having been asked, it acts to slow me down and zoom me out, from which vantage point I can choose a new approach; or maybe the same one, if it still suits me. First comes the noticing – only then are we conscious enough to make what we can fairly call a choice.

We are making choices constantly. We chose a human birth custom-designed to present us with the proper sequence of subsequent choices. Sights and sounds, names and form interact in an intricately staged play (I prefer the name lila) of which we are writer, director, props, cast & star. We create great drama to which suffering is inherent.

Is it not true that at times we don’t even bother to audition for the role we were literally born to play? Or at times overact our roles as extras and then shrink from the spotlight; or the opposite, thrive unnoticed until ready for our raucous solo debut. Everyone comes out of nowhere.

In any case, it is a constant balancing act to identify and perform our proper roles. One of the primary ways this struggle takes shape for me concerns how to share my writing. I used to keep it all to myself, thinking a) it was not worthwhile, and b) that I risked being seen as egotistical if I gave it out.
Then it dawned on me that keeping it to myself was just as much a symptom of ego as giving it out, because that falsely presumes that it’s mine to begin with. So I began giving it away everywhere. I encountered indifference, since the people reading had not necessarily requested anything to read or contemplate.

Now, I have learned to enjoy this blogspot format for its flexible level of formality, but more for the fact that it makes my pages available while in no way imposing them on anyone. Once sought, they are simple to find, but it's the initial intention that I'm after. I am going to write, that much is sure; whether anyone reads or not has nothing to do with me, is after-the-fact. I hope people are drawn to it, and get something from it, because I feel that this is my service, and we all want our contributions to be appreciated.

Ego wants appreciation; non-acting Atman does what must be done through me,
then rests.

As it is, I insist on nothing and can only give suggestions, point to the path as I see it, and maybe at best explain the way I understand certain semiotic constructions. That said, I’ve probably posted too many spontaneous poems on the Facebook entity; long, frivolous poems that lack polish. Oh well. We all start somewhere.
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As I said, flexible formality.

“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, composing a love-note to humanity.”
–Mother Theresa

Thoughts

“Whereupon one cannot speak thereupon one must remain silent”

I intend to type on ego, and the process of releasing the fruit of all action.

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Inviting process is simple, not easy. To invite process is to be willing to learn the lessons prepared for us in this lifetime; to see every interaction as having been ordained by divine will, regardless of whether our temporarily embodied egos find it pleasing or painful. To be ‘in process’, or ‘in lesson’, means to be consciously working through accumulated karma, focused on releasing the rock in your shoe that is and has been your hindrance, keeping you from moving freely or at close to full speed. Do you know the rock I’m talking about?

We can only cultivate this widest of mind-views when we know for certain that we are, in fact, incarnated by choice, with a chosen purpose. Only then can we go about determining precisely what that purpose is, before we even worry about how to go about accomplishing it. And yet that is the topic of this discourse, for the certainty, determination and accomplishment are necessarily performed simultaneously.

You're reading this message? You are in the right place!
You're stranded in the snow? You are in the right place!
You're celebrating? You are in the right place!

(For more on this, see Lao Tzu, re: do-nothing.)

We are each a chosen person. Meditate on what merit we must accrue before being born human. What complexity of karma, what extensive existential experience we must have that allows us the opportunity to negotiate the warstorm that is a human birth. To be given free will to choose the experiences we feel we need in order to grow, as well as assisting other masked masters along their paths is an enormous boon and a tremendous responsibility.

Now I hear someone saying, “I didn’t choose [insert difficult experience]…” but zoom out. Try to see the lila for what it is. How everyone has their role, and the part of the villain requires equal skill and abandon as that of the hero. Sometimes we are the bitter mistress, others the loony king. Funny how, the beginning and the end are contained in the Fool.

Yes this happens over lifetimes, but within them too. Micro mirrors exactly the macro, remember. We have gathered talents and tendencies across millennia of births after human birth. Many of us on Earth, many not. There are many here specifically now because it is such an exciting time to be alive. Everyone must feel it happening now, no?

Things are not the same. And they never were
or will be. 2012 is happening as we speak. See it?

Each birth demands action. Couch-sitting is also action, however less meritorious than various other potentials. People are empowered when they are consciously aligned with their highest purpose, their Dharma. Some people are just born to be entomologists, and everyone knows it, and it’s proper, and it brings individual then collective joy when that person reveals new wonders about the land of ants. This is how labor turns to service, work to play and job to joy. Dharma: duty or purpose.

From The Bhagavad-Gita According to Ghandi:

"The Bible says, "With the sweat of thy brow thou shalt earn thy bread." Thus bodily labor is our lot in life. It is best then, to do it in the spirit of service and dedicate it to Shri Krishna [or Christ]. Anyone who works in that spirit all his life becomes free from evil and is delivered from all bonds...
"...we should undertake bodily labor to do service. Man simply cannot live without such work. If he had not violated this law, he would not suffer as much as he does, the rich would not have become masters of immeasurable stores of wealth and the millions would not be suffering in poverty. God is a great economist. He is omnipotent. God never stores, for he can destroy and create the universe with a mere thought. He wants us, therefore, to provide only for each day. If we want anything the next day, we must labor for it."

This is a call for Karma yoga. For service in every action. The content of karma yoga differs for each individual according to the tendencies of mind, deeply-engraved vritti's vibrating on a frequency organically guaranteed to attract predictable patterns of experience. Predictable in form, but not content.

This is the source of Astrology. You are not aggressive because your Mars is exalted and conjunct Jupiter (or something); you chose to practice anger and patience, so you chose a time when the rotation of universal energies made such a birth possible.

Tarot and Jyotish are tools. They frame and explain the archetypal patterns of embodiment. As chess pieces positioned by divine strategy, with all the blunders on the board before us, we make none but fateful moves, daring sacrifice and trust in a cruel and pointless game of such compelling beauty that we’re impelled to experiment deep in these densities again and again.

Now the noosphere is ripe for spontaneous evolution. Our hundredth monkey is coming online any moment now. Get your rest, for we are only approaching the tipping point; we are feeling the velocity of the mere outer reaches of the universal whirlpool drawing us up into a more subtle dimension where heavy energy simply cannot penetrate. Think of gears spinning at different speeds, only one is spinning so fast that the slower one cannot even begin to interrupt it. I think that’s what’s happening now, only the speeds are still too similar, imperfectly polarized, and that’s the source of all the sparks.

Seems like December will be a bit of a wild ride. “Hold together with your loved ones and attempt to overcome any difficulties with the gravity of your Collective Force. This force is the basis of organization and continuity whether in a solar system or a love affair.” (from the I-Ching workbook, hexagram 7, Army, or Collective Force)

From Komilla:
"December is a very complicated month where one has to navigate the cosmic disturbances very carefully. This despite the strength of both Jupiter and Venus. Mars Mercury and Rahu are all in Sagittarius and making multiple connections with each other. The energies get into trouble from the moment Mercury conjoins Rahu on 4th December, then Moon joins then on 6th December and Mercury turns retrograde on 10th escalating the already disturbed vibrations. Mars conjuncts with Rahu on 12th making it the most challenging day of the month. Mars Rahu are volatile together and can create wars or terrorists activities. It is best to keep a low profile that day, avoid being in crowds and not undertaking unnecessary travel. The exact conjunction is at 1.36am PST, 4.36 am EST and 9.36am GMT on 12 December. The energy continues to be disturbed as Retrograde Mercury conjoins with Mars on 13th and then with Rahu again on 15th. Gemini, Virgo, Aries, Scorpio can feel this conjunction the most. They need to watch unexpected anger or aggressiveness directed at them but avoid confrontations. On the world stage the Korean situation can easily go out of hand and governments should use their diplomatic skills to not get involved in conflict. USA has Sagittarius Ascendant and all this activity is happening in Sagittarius - they may face some sudden violence and have to watch terrorist activity. It is difficult to be sure where it can tan take place but the agencies concerned should be vigilant. The strength of Jupiter and Venus is protecting this volatility to a large extend. Also read below of how to calm these tough energies."
--http://komilla.com/pages/Dec_10.html

Where were we?

O right, so who is it that goes on this wild ride? Surely our serene Higher Selves are not perturbed; they offer unerring guidance if we are able to clearly attune to them (who are Us).

Seriously though, why do we decide that we need all this drama? I mean, War? Really? How does attacking others make us safer? Seen essentially, such outbursts are a weakness of ego, a grasping aspect of personality expressing itself in order to expose everyone to lesson. It’s cliché to talk about how those who show the most bravado trying to prove that they’re the biggest bully are precisely those most vulnerable. The same way we all complain about the evil forces in the world, all refusing to take full responsibility for the situation we’ve created for ourselves. We seem to need this traumatic drama as part of the current quantum evolution we are experiencing as a species.
However this will become less and less necessary as the galaxy continues spinning and our underlying vibrations gently skyrocket, allowing us to heal our DNA while becoming more and more conscious of our interconnectedness with the Divine Mother Earth and each other until one day we suddenly behave in such a compassionate fashion that the only potential future shows us living in a Terran paradise. (Self-created, of course).

But that can only happen once we acknowledge our shadow-selves as well. Can we be grateful for the challenges others offer? Understand how each challenge is custom-designed to provoke our awareness in a certain way, inviting us to recite our lines as given or to improvise?
Can we actually treat each other like angels? See each moment as a boon, each action as an offering? If future suffering should be avoided, let’s begin by forgiving ourselves, at which point we can safely move on to learning how to truly love others as Self.

More often than not, when I’m noticing, my lesson is patience.
But other times it’s ACTION.
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Anyway, this is where we’re going. A topic is chosen and we close our eyes and run with it, see what we bump into until we’re done and ready to open again, as now.

‎"(69) When it is night for all other beings, the disciplined soul is awake. When all other beings are awake, it is night for the seeing ascetic." -The Gita According to Ghandi


Hafiz sees clearly in the dark:

SOMEONE UNTIED YOUR CAMEL

"I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.
I cannot act mute
Hearing the world's loneliness
Crying near the Beloved's heart.

My love for God is such
That I could dance with Him tonight without you,
But I would rather have you there.

Is your caravan lost?

It is,
If you no longer weep from gratitude or happiness,
Or weep
From being cut deep with the awareness
Of the extraordinary beauty
That emanates from the most simple act
And common object.

My dear, is your caravan lost?

It is if you can no longer be kind to yourself
And loving to those who must live
With the sometimes difficult task of loving you.

At least come to know
That someone untied your camel last night
For I hear its gentle voice
Calling for God in the desert.

At least come to know
That Hafiz will always hold a lantern
With the galaxies blooming inside
And that

I will always guide your soul to
The divine warmth and exhilaration
Of our Beloved's
Tent."

A Start

To begin with I will show some of what I've said so far that, to my mind, is more or less on-topic.

The first document I will draw from, was the Facebook event description and open invitation for a glorious gathering that occurred in August of 2009 in Mt Desert, ME. My dear friend Ellen and I kinda made it happen, and we named it 'Mani-Fest'. Here, then, is the original Manifest-O:


"Look. Think.
What form do you see that did not start as thought?

(Note that rivers and trees are technicalities, being that they were conceived of by the Higher Mind -- ie Us before this incarnation -- so of course we created what we wanted to find by the time we arrived.)

In cahoots with this spirit, we now endeavor to engage more consciously
in Self-creation. It is our intention that this divine idea be manifested as a gathering: an essential gathering of manifold souls for the purpose of free-form expression
of the all-pervasive Self. In actuality, we seek
to generate the latent joy we intuitively know is resting everywhere,
but dares to expose itself only if the instruments are harmoniously tuned,
if you know what I mean.
So the big idea is basically the genesis of genesis, see?

:A Definition: Manifest, vt, to bring about through force of steady intent;
to create chosen future realities, consciously drawn from the infinite invisible
(the unmanifest); to bring conceptions born in the realm of thought to
fruition in physical reality.

Ellen and I conceived of this thought-form years ago, and diligent
(however scattered) attention has brought it to the brink of reality.
First, Ellen attracted it out of the ether.
Then we thought about it and it grew.
Then we talked about it, infusing it with excited intent.
Now we're writing about it (the heaviest form of talking)
and the enthusiasm is overwhelming.
The thought-form is spreading in depth and breadth,
gaining weight and validity as a probable future with every person who reads this rant.
Actual action is the last thing left.
This is where you come in.

There will be music.
Thus dancing. And chanting.
Thus complete disregard for the so-called quality of the created sound,
for our timbre will be blessed by the intensity of spirit with which we will endow it.
Meaning: play and sing as loud as you like (until 10 pm,
at which point we'll need to be acoustic out of respect for parents and neighbors).
Thus a circle of drummers may gather
deep in the woods to facilitate funky dancing in the dark.
There will be fire. Thus food.
Dawn after dawn after dawn after dawn.
There will be poetry (of this I have no doubt).
Thus release.
Thus blissful elimination of illusory inhibition, a controlled unclenching,
offering up of old, gross and moldy ways of being
that they may be
re-cycled in light
then energetically re-integrated,
thus consciously re-created according to the new mold
(a mold which may in fact be moldlessness).
See?

This is to be,
in every sense of the phrase, a free-for-all.
However, even though money is obviously out of style,
it is still useful in exchange for things like bulk libation and food.
Or, for example, gas money for musicians.
The Golden Rule: please contribute what you can.

Manifest Joy.
Manifest Love.
Manifest Dance!

Manifest Light.
Manifest Peace.
Manifest Fun!

Manifest Mani-Fest!"

And so we did. We painted and danced and stencil-dyed cloth; there was soccer (or footy) and swimming and local supergroovy live music. It was amazing. It was just a start though; I see how in ways we fell short of our vision. It was our first try.

So what I'm inspired to do, is to continue trying. It will necessarily be by proxy to begin, since I am everywhere, but I hope to establish a reliable, semi-permanent meeting place (most likely in or around Boulder,CO) where we can be comfortable, sit, read aloud, drink tea, and sing. And we could do it weekly or more so that we can help us stay focused; be ever-vigilant with where we send our thought-power; and to practice sharing the joy of practice, thereby amplifying its resonant effects.

This is all future speculation.
Next I'll begin with some information samples
Given only the name of Inspiration.