Opening to the Infinite

What I find most difficult to let go of is linearity. The theory of reality that says the universe is a logical, rational system of cause and effect. It's a nice theory. But it just doesn't work. We can walk a spiritual path taking one step after another in what we think is a reasonable method, our sadana, our path.

But then something happens and we find we are not on the path we thought we were on, we are not in the place we thought we were, we are further along or further behind, and we are heartened or disheartened...then it happens, we have a moment when we see it isn't about linear progress, it's about letting go...it's not understandable, it's not logical, our awakening just Is, that Isness may not follow the prescribed path, one foot after another...because at some point we stop walking and stat to fly, and when we fly all bets are off, we are flying! And the nice mechanical, linear, rational path we thought we were on gets blown apart. We find we are somewhere else than we thought we were, or thought we ever could be. I've realized it's not about reason, it's about grace.

Thank you my teachers for showing the way, for helping me see past the fear to letting go of my strength, the intellect...Now, have flown with my own wings...we are the seekers, we are the walkers and we are the path...it was there all the time...now I am at the right altitude to see it...and to see that the path never ends, just as we, ourselves never end.

An Afternoon's Meditation

"We send vibration out into the Universe ….and the Universe answers us back.” - Manorama

Yesterday was spent in meditation sitting by a stream in the Pennsylvania countryside. I took part in a silent retreat.  I did little in the way of participation with the larger group I went primarily for the opportunity to sit alone for a few hours with a clear intention. 

When I got there I found a spot by the stream then moved to a small rock island in the middle of the water. I had to wade through a little ways to get to the middle but I was all alone on the water. I heard nothing but the flow of the water over the rocks, the wind in the trees and the sound of my own heartbeat.

My goal for the day was to become more familiar with the three female deity mantras. I had already created a short kriya for myself last week, to recite the three goddess mantras, one mala a day for a week, the first week would be Lakshmi, then Durga, then Saraswati. I’ve been working with the Lakshmi mantra everyday over the 6 days. I'd start with that, then I'd move to Durga and last, Saraswati. 

I felt the Saraswati mantra would be particularly powerful in that place next to a flowing stream. Saraswati is first a river goddess. Her other many attributes flow (pun intended) from her first being a river goddess. Learning, music, study these attributes came later in her evolution. I saved her mantra for last, wanting to have time to sink into myself, by then I would have better focus and I wanted to be focused to chant the river goddess' mantra while sitting in the middle of a fast running stream. 

Sitting by the water, watching the flow of the stream as it passed,  I began chanting inwardly the deity mantras as I had learned them listening to Thomas Ashley-Farrand’s “Mantra: Sacred Words of Power” on CD.  I began with a single round of the Lakshmi mantra. I put Lakshmi first.  I’m the most familiar with the mantra, so she came first, one mala, 108 recitations. 

 “Aum Shreem Lakshmyay Swaha,

Aum Shreem Lakshmyay Swaha,

Aum Shreem Lakshmyay Swaha” 

Lakshmi, abundance, friends, food, money…I played the images through my mind as I chanted inwardly, silently, moving the vibration through my mind at the point of arising, behind the third eye. 

Next came Durga: 

“Aum dum Dugayay Namaha, 

Aum dum Dugayay Namaha,

Aum dum Dugayay Namaha,” 

Durga, her name in sanskrit means 'invincible', she is the mother protector of all beings, even the Gods go to her for protection. She is the slayer of demons, with her beautiful shining face and her many arms full of weapons to protect the innocent from harm, we certainly need more Durga energy in our world right now! 

Around the bead string 3 times. I was feeling amazing, light, clear, hollow but not empty. By now the sun was shining, the flowers above me  were illuminated by the bright sunlight and the air was sweet with the smell of flowers and the sound of the moving water. 

Third in the feminine trinity, Saraswati, I had saved her for last on purpose. I began the first round of her mantra: 

“Om aiym Saraswatyay Swaha,

Om aiym Saraswatyay Swaha,

Om aiym Saraswatyay Swaha”

Saraswati, goddess of rivers, streams, flowing waters, she is the imaginative force of Brahma’s creation and keeper of the deep secrets of the natural world, . Her attributes are: wisdom; the life force of water; healing; grace; scholarly study; music; language; writing; the power of words; even the vibration of words. Words which are the source of creation itself. She is also the goddess of mantra itself which gives her mantra great vibrational power. 

She floats on a white lotus blossom, symbolic of pure wisdom. 

Thinking of these attributes of Saraswati, I suddenly felt the urge to open my eyes. I looked across the stream, about 60 feet from where I sat, to the other bank, I saw a large weasel, with black fur, emerge from an overhanging tree root. At first I thought it was a feret, but then realized it was way too big. It was at least 18 inches long, and black from it’s pointy head to the tip of its tail. It quickly ran along the bank and disappeared out of sight.  I looked back at the tree root from which the animal emerged but saw only blackness, darkness, “deep secrets of the natural world” I thought to myself. 

Interesting that the weasel appeared just as I started the Saraswati mantra….Manorama has a saying that resonates true for me, (and this was a perfect example): "We send vibration out into the Universe ….and the Universe answers us back.”

 On this day the reply came pretty quick! ...the deep secrets of the natural world... A thought crossed my mind. The things that are in front of us that we don't or can't see.

I closed my eyes and returned to my meditation. As I finished my first round  I heard a loud, “KAW-KAW-KAW” and a shadow passed over my closed eyes. I looked up to see a blue heron, with wings splayed wide flying over the middle of the creek, he was flying low, about 20 feet above me, I measured his wing span at about 7 feet wide (and I’m a pretty good estimator of size, having been a carpenter for 25 years). 

I stopped the repetition of the mantra and grabbed my phone to take his picture. He perched high up in a tree about 30 yards from where I sat. The minute I pointed the phone at him he turned sideways and his natural camouflage made him almost invisible! He didn’t want his picture taken! 

With all of this going on I continued chanting the mantra inwardly but I kept my eyes open. Saraswati was revealing herself to me, granting insight into the natural world that existed by the creek. The river goddess revealing the hidden nature in that creek bend to me as I chanted her mantra. She began as a river goddess, thousands of years ago, the Arryans built a great civilization around the Saraswat River. The river itself is long ago dried up, only the goddess' name remains, a reminder of those ancient times living by the river.

I continued my chant to Saraswati when two large birds flew overhead. The heron, along with his mate, had come again. His mate, who was only slightly smaller and a lighter steely gray color, swooped down to the water, landed on a rock about 15 yards from where I continued to sit looking downstream, reached out with one long leg and snatched a fish from the water in her claw then flew off further downstream, the same direction he had flown when I first saw him. 

The male heron flew up and down the stream once more before I left for the day. He was  still faster than my ability to snap his picture! The weasel didn’t return from hunting by the time I picked up my mat and meditation cushion to leave. I didn’t see it again. 

Naturally, I wonder if my invocation to the goddess of rivers had anything to do with my seeing the animals who make their home by the water. I have sat by other streams, I’ve only seen one other heron, and that was in a nature preserve, not by a creek bank. I’ve never seen a weasel outside a zoo. What I find most provocative was the timing of their appearance. Which happened within a minute of my beginning to chant the Saraswati mantra. 

But such things shall be, as they should be, a mystery. 

I walked back towards my car, said goodbye to the teacher running the retreat (I think she was a little worried I was having a bad time) and slowly drove away. As I turned onto the main road to go home, I realized that I was only driving 20 miles per hour in a 45 zone. Not typical for me! I took a few miles to get used to driving at a normal speed, and by the time I reached the highway I was back up to 65 ! 

How different the pace of nature is to our modern pace. We race through life so quickly , always going to the next thing. 

Taking the time to connect deeply with nature is the perfect antidote ! 

A concise guide to The Four Noble Truths of the Buddha (based on a dharma talk by HH The Dalai Lama)

1 To live is to struggle. Many translations of this are “life is suffering”. I like the word struggle in place of suffering, I think it gives a clearer picture without the connotations of ‘suffering’. We all struggle, we struggle to attain wealth, success, education, honors, to win wars, to beat out the other guy, these are all ways we struggle, Buddha talked about a world without struggle, a world built on equanimity. We may hear these words but they seem too far away to attain. The four noble truths give us a path to equanimity that we, as human beings, can follow. 

2 Desire is the root of our struggle. We desire things, material things, spiritual things, emotional things…the list is endless. We desire, it seems a part of human nature to desire. Can we learn to live without desire? To stop desiring? 

3 It is possible to stop our struggling! 

4 The way to stop our struggling is to follow the middle path. The middle path that Buddha taught has 8 stepping stones. I think of them as instruction on how to place our feet in order to stay on the path. 

In nutshell the fourth truth says that our actions have meaning and that we can learn to control our human activities by study of our thinking, our doing and our states of being (you may notice the 8 steps fall into these 3 categories quite neatly). 

Right Understanding

Right Thought

Right Speech

Right Action

Right Livelihood

Right Effort

Right Mindfulness

Right Concentration

We start by being aware of what we know, then expand that awareness to how we act, and lastly to how we think. When we gain a deeper understanding of the human condition our thinking, actions and states of being align with our true nature. Aligning with our true nature stops the struggle. When we cease our struggle and learn to flow with life our world becomes a better place to live for us andn everyone else.  

Meditation, Breath, Diet and Stress: Healing Your mind while bringing your life into balance Part I

We all deal with stress. Some stress can be good for us, pushing us to set and achieve goals.  But largely stress makes us tense, fearful and jumbled. Working harder and faster at jobs we often don’t like to do the whole time pushing our minds to concentrate when we’d much rather be picking flowers or taking long walks in the countryside. Stress is part of our modern life. The australian aborigines, it is said, have no word for stress in their language! But, not so for us ‘modern’ types. While I’ve given no serious consideration to making a sudden life change and running off to live in the wild there are lessons that can be learned from ancient cultures on how to handle the pressures of life with more grace and calm. 

The ancient teachings of yoga and ayurvedic medicine give us a holistic approach to handling stress. How we breath, eat and think may all contribute to either high or lower stress levels. Learning how to perform these common, everyday activities in the correct way can provide long term relief from stress, and give us some conscious control over how we are feeling. When we learn how to eat, think and breathe (yes, breathe!) in ways that nourish and support the natural functioning of the body, stress relief comes as a side effect of upgrading our habits.   

First, we must learn to breath correctly. Breathing is something we do everyday, every second actually. We can’t get along without it, yet no one knows how to breath correctly without first getting some coaching to better understand the mechanics of how we breath and how our breath affects our moods, emotions and our ability to focus the mind. The lungs are two sacks that inflate with the contraction of the diaphragm. The diaphragm, which is shaped like an umbrella, pulls downwards on the lungs, elongating them, which reduces the air pressure inside the space (by increasing volume) and air from the outside rushes in (by diffusion) to fill the semi-vacuum created by the expansion. Next, the diaphragm relaxes (and returns upwards) which compresses the lungs and pushes the air out. While this activity is going on in the lungs, the heart will typically have beat 6 times. The average ratio between breath and heart rates is 1 to 6, that is, one breath for each six heart beats.  

Armed with a basic knowledge of how we breath we can learn how to breath correctly. That is, calmly and deeply. You might want to first lay down on the floor, or other firm surface. Place your hands on your stomach and breath in. Did your stomach rise or fall? If it rose you are breathing correctly, if it fell, that is, contracted down towards the floor, then your breathing is reversed. This is very common, we are taught as children to stick our chests out when we breath. But we should be allowing the abdomen to expand, the larger part of the lungs is located in the bottom of the lung, which expands into the abdomen when the diaphragm descends. 

A way to correct your breathing, if you are expanding on the exhale is to lie on your stomach in the yoga posture called: makarasana or crocodile pose. Begin by lying on your stomach, fold your arms underneath you to support your forehead. In this position focus your attention on expanding the abdomen as you slowly and steadily inhale. Really feel your stomach as it presses against the floor and then, as the diaphragm relaxes and you exhale, the weight of the body will cause the abdomen to contract. This is a good way to begin practice of diaphragmatic breathing and will train the breath to move smoothly in and out as the abdomen expands and contracts. 

In the next article we’ll talk about diet, begin our discussion of meditation and see how controlling stress using diet and the mind can help you handle the day to day pressures of life. 

Till then stay calm, breath deeply and remember: Steady practice brings reliable results.