Back to basics

"Shakti Ma" - Oil painting on Wood by Clarity West 

Why do I meditate? It's time to get back to the basics. It's been close to ten years of meditation and I got lost. I got lost in the technique, in the discipline. The reason I started to meditate was because I loved to sit there and love God. I loved to feel his/her peace, her light, her joy. It would fill me up like nothing and no one ever could. But I got lost. It became forced, stiff, disciplined and the joy was lost. So I have been meditating less lately and feeling incredibly guilty. I'm not doing enough, it's not deep enough, not long enough. Tonight I did a quick and short meditation and the whole time, I talked to God. I loved him and felt the peace. When my mind started to wander I got up and said goodnight.I am learning how to be with God, how to be with people. I am re-learning how to be in this world. Un-doing all these unhealthy patterns of behavior I learnt in the world. My defense mechanisms, my protection, my fear, doubt, worry, it all needs to be undone. The community, is a good place for this but it's painful because all I want more than anything is to be open. So many people here reflect back to me the exact things I want nothing to do with. Those parts of myself I want nothing to do with. I love God so much, she is everything to me and being in this world has been something I avoided and shut myself away from for years. It was like being on a ride with my eyes closed and missing the entire thing and then ending up somewhere and being like, "how the hell did I get here"?  Now it's time to consciously come back, open my eyes and slowly figure out how to live this life in a somewhat healthy way. Not what I was taught in school or home but to re-invent that. To create, to CO-CREATE a life that is beautiful, amazing, loving, abundant, kind and in tune with the flow of life.

Society - A failed experiment

What's missing in our society today is culture. The balance we as people used to receive from living within a tribe or community was brought in countless ways. In Native American culture for example, women expressed their beauty through traditional dance, ceremony, home-made garments. Men could express and use their energy in physical activities and bonding with other males. This allowed men and women to express the gifts they were given in a healthy and natural way.

In our modern day society there is no outlet to express this creative force we all feel. Thus men are forced to express through their work output, material belongings and physical appearance. Women through shopping, physical appearance/sex appeal and social status.  The coming together uses drinking, night clubs and other unhealthy social environments to re-create a skewed sense of what once was the norm, being part of a community.

I am convinced that community is the only way to happiness. If we look back over the less than 100 years these modern day societies have existed (the city) we can honestly say it all seems like a failed experiment.We are coming up to the end of 2012 here and I am willing to bet the social structure and the system will be taking a dramatic turn. This is all just intuitive perception and what I've heard around the spiritual circuits but I can honestly say I am grateful for the shift in consciousness that is taking place. I am happy to be a part of community and know now that I will never be the same after this experience.

Trouble with authority

I was asked today if I have trouble with authority. Who, me?
Well, I thought a lot about that this evening. And it dawned on me. Yes, yes I have had trouble with authority, since I came to this world in fact. In kindergarten, on the very first day of school, my mother dropped me off and didn't tell me she was leaving. I was so busy playing, that I didn't notice her leave out the back. When I clued in to what was happening I ran out of class after her. The principal tried to hold me back but I kicked him and ran away. I ran all the way up the hill and caught up to my mother.

I am growing tired of form, of structure, of ritual, of ceremony, of technique. I am at my breaking point with being told what to do.  For the last 8 or 9 years I have been living within structure performing acts to beat down the body and mind.  I have done nothing but austerities, ceremonies, acts to reform myself.

I sat up from dusk to dawn, in all night ceremonies on my knees in countless weekend ceremonies held in small teepees, sometimes with 30 or more people. No water breaks, no going the the bathroom. I did sweat lodges every weekend for years, sometimes several times in one week. It got so hot in there that I actually passed out on one occasion. I spent years in the sweat lodges, sweating and purifying myself.

I did long fast, dry fasts, water fasts. Vision quests in the Philippine mountains and holy spots across North America. I fasted in the desert, the mountains and the flat lands of Alberta in the dead of winter. I did deep cleanses, raw food cleanses, sometimes all alone for months at a time. I cold water bathed in icy waters, wading through the snow and ice, dipping my bare body beneath the waters. Water so cold it felt as if it was fire. I've meditated for hours and hours at a time. I've inflicted just about every purifying medicine you can imagine on myself. I've done silent retreats, silent fasts, silent walks, meditations. I've denied myself material comforts, a home, adequate food, usually never keeping more than $100 to my name. I have been punishing myself for years, in hopes of ridding myself of the ego. I am to the point of feeling like, "what the hell is the point of all this?"

Today I did a healing session on the hill for a sweet girl that lives here.
I had a dawning realization. "The suffering stops when I want it to".
It really doesn't have to be this hard.

Yes, I am tired of people telling me what to do. And it doesn't just stem from this lifetime. I know it must stem from a long, long line of suppression and control. Probably coming from many lifetimes of monasticism.

I did rebel for several years in my early teens but quickly got back into spiritual practices when I was 17 after experiencing the pain that comes from a life steeped in delusion.

Anyhow, that's where I'm at. All I can do now is pray that the universe guide me. Is this something I need to overcome or let go of. There must be some balance. I want to let all form of worship and just love God. I want to just be. I want to be happy. I have experimented with not meditating and so forth but usually I end up just wanting to meditate anyways. I am taking a vow tomorrow, for one year. I will tell you more about it another time.

Searching

I have been searching God so hard these past 6 years. I have been storming the gates. Shaking heaven and earth for answers to who I am. I couldn't really go on with normal life, with society living - not knowing my soul.

I have been unbalanced and extreme in my search and I have literally tried everything. I couldn't be happy when I was not meditating, praying, chanting, doing some kind of all night ceremony, fasting, taking herbs, cleansing, purifying, doing yoga, standing on my head, sweat lodging, sacrificing. I have done it all.
Now, I am living in a community that is hosting a college in residence and I am living around a bunch of college students. Talk about learning to come back into balance to another extreme. These are spiritual kids but still, they are college students. It has been really good for me to  just be, to just talk, hang out, go for walks. I am learning to relax. God is always there, she is not going away. It's been almost this feeling like I need to get there now, and to hell with this world. But the thing is, 6 years later the world is still there and it ain't going away. I have literally paid no attention to it as I have gone back and forth from ashram to spiritual retreat to pilgrimage, here there and everywhere. Money, career, all those things have fallen by the wayside. Nothing has changed outwardly from all the moving around but I know myself a hell of a lot better and realize that relaxation is the only thing necessary to get anywhere. When I say relaxing, I mean inward relaxation, being mentally calm, more even minded.

Man, I used to go all the way up and then all the way down and boy, people better get out of the way when I was down. I think spirituality was a big mask for me for what was really going on inside all those years. I had an incredibly bad temper and a lot of  deep sadness. I didn't know how to cope with those emotions. We are never taught in school or society how to deal with feelings. Mostly it's to either suppress them or hide them. Worse so, to take them out on someone else. It's a poison we are taught to swallow, smile and bear. It's a very sad thing. But after all these years and all the austerity and sacrifice, I'm right back to where I started. My emotions and bottled up feelings were all still there. The difference is now, I'm brave enough and responsible enough to face them. I'm facing them, letting them come up, feeling them and releasing them. I'm not afraid to feel pain anymore. More so, I'm sick of bottling them up. It is time to cope with life. I'm not masking it anymore because I have nothing to mask it with. I have given up drugs(for good), relationships (for a bit), the two things that allowed me to hide from myself these past ten or so years. Meditation has actually been another big escape for me. SO these past couple days, I've been sleeping in  and doing shorter 30 minute meditations rather than 1hr or 1.5hr.

These college students are helping to balance me out. Another things too is dancing. I have been doing Inner Dance a lot more these days and I love it. It is a source of much joy. This past full moon I hosted one with some of the students and it was a really beautiful time. I am coming back to enjoying life, not forcing myself or denying myself the things I love.

Enjoying life. WHY THE HELL NOT?

Who am I?

I don't want to live in an abandoned building anymore. I want a home. I'm so tired of constantly healing, I just want to be whole. I don't want to be going through anything anymore, I want to just be. I want to be okay. There is no safe haven here. I can't escape. Everyone room is under construction, there are people  everywhere and now, even more so. I can't escape myself even, I am always just there.

It's scary here, out of my country, living in a new place, in the countryside. I have no job, no stocks or bonds. I am alone although there is community all around me. I long to be around people who know me, people who love me. I have a hard time opening up, trusting people to come into my personal space. Trusting others to know me. Most people's vibration feels so heavy. I have always felt people's vibration and it is so hard for me to keep myself separate from that.

I want to be able to say I hate it here and have someone listen, not tell me I should move to Hawaii or something crazy like that. I do hate it here but where else would I be? There is community here, we meditate together, we worship God together, we serve together. Everyday we all work together to build something, that is of a common goal. Staying in one place is like death for me. It is literally torture of the grandest scale to constantly get up day after day and be on the same schedule. It sucks. But I am in my cocoon right now. I am doing deep inward work here to find out who I am. I swear since I have arrived here I have gone so deeply into healing, I hardly know who I am. It is good and bad depending on the day. I am so sensitive. I can't stress it enough. It is so brutally impossible for me to force myself or affirm to others who I am. I was so strong before. But now I feel crippled, like a frail puppa inside a cocoon. Waiting for the day she will hatch. The thing is, I took this last year to be alone and sort myself out. Or so I thought. Turns out I wasn't actually alone by choice, I was just alone wishing I wasn't. It's looking like divine mother is coxing me to take another year, alone. To be alone and be in my own energies and get to know myself through and through. To stew in my own energies without confusing myself. It's tough you know because being alone isn't easy, especially at this age when the social norm for a twenty eight year old single woman would be to get married right about now. It's sad because for so long I have sought out that perfect someone. And now it seems, I am further than ever.

This next year would be wise to be dedicated to my career. Something I have neglected in a serious focused way as I have always uprooted myself right around the time things start to really happen. Dammit, I just don't have the patience or endurance to stick to things. It sucks. I need more Mars. I need Mars. I need Mars. I want someone to talk to. But so few people just listen. Everyone has something to say. Maybe I can practice being a listening ear for once. Be for people exactly what I want. I'm lonely Master. I am feeling terribly lonely these days and I wonder when I will let this end. It must be me perpetuating this constantly unhappiness and u-satisfaction. Please guide my footsteps.

Divine Ma I'm wanting you to hold me

Staying in one place is intense.

When you are still, you are faced, forced to be with yourself and everything that is inside of you. 

There are so many ways to avoid being with ourselves. For me, it has been travelling. Constantly moving around. It involves all my energy and focus, diverting the attention from the stillness that is conducive to seeing what’s really there. This morning I slipped from my usually morning sadhana and schedule. I slept in till 8:30am. 15 minutes before the morning meeting. I wanted to see what it was like for me without meditating, who would I be, how would I feel. Call it delusion but whatever, it needed to be done. I have wondered of meditation; has it been one of my main ways to avoid being with myself? I sometimes need to be just still. Not striving, nor praying, not asking, not moving, not doing laundry, not surfing the net. Just being. 

Listening to music really helps me. Just being completely still and listening to music. Sometimes I dance or move but I don’t do anything, there is no plan. My friend Bardia did this on our trip to LA. We put on some music, lit candles, put down a yoga mat and closed our eyes. And just were. 

I see that people have a lot of different ways to avoid what they are experiencing within their hearts. With men I notice that they distract themselves outwardly with activity, with friends, with work, with exercise and maybe girls. With women it could be with partners, food, or a lot of mental activity. What is there within our hearts that we are all so afraid to look at, what are we hiding from? For me it is a lot of hurt. A lot of pain from my mother and my childhood, stemming back to birth. Not feeling loved when I came into this world because my mother was in pain emotionally and did not feel support from her family, at the time of my coming. I felt these intense emotions when I entered the world and I remember and felt, and held the imprinting of that emotion, of not feeling loved.  It has become an emotional blueprint, a negative emotional pattern that no matter how toxic, is my comfort zone. Thus, I have attracted these types of situations. Right now a best friend of mine is not speaking to me. Before I returned to Laurelwood we had a phone conversation that didn’t go so well. The most hurtful part for me was him telling me something along the lines of he didn’t really think I belonged here nor did he think I would come back. It was very painful and reinforced these negative feelings. It hit very deeply and until today I couldn’t understand why my heart felt so much deep pain from him. Not that it wasn’t already painful coming from such a close friend, but it reminded me of the way I felt from my mother. And in reaction to this  energy, I got angry. I put out an equal amount of negativity to counteract what I was feeling. I felt so sad afterwards because I have learnt again and again that when a friend is hurt, the best I can do is love them unconditionally and hold the space until that negative emotion passes. I have had this same experience over and over and I wait for the day when I can act instead of re-acting. I invest myself too much in people sometimes. I make their healing just as important as mine and then when I get hurt by the, I take it so deeply. I need to be more emotionally un-involved, like Lakshmi. She does a healing on me and then she kicks me out of the room, whether I am crying or not. There is a healer that is not going to get herself mixed up in the emotionality. She always tells me, "just let them emotions come up, cry, do whatever you have to do but no need to go into the story" . She lets me just cry and be and feel but she doesn't ask me why I am crying. 

Being here, still, in the same place at Laurelwood, committing to something, forces me to examine myself more thoroughly than if I was to just skim the surface at a lot of different places. I've only been home for 3 days, but I have roots here and it scares me to death. It is not easy and the thought of being here for one year, alone, with myself is enough to send me into a deep inwardness already. I have been somewhat withdrawn these last couple days. I am also just feeling really tired physically. I'm not sure if it has to do with all the energy it has taken to resist the anger and sad feelings I feel from my closest friend, I have tried contacting him. He ignores me. It sucks but I will do my best to keep in my heart, in love. 

With the college going on here and so much outward activity, it makes me wonder what this next year will be like in my process of wanting to explore deeper into myself and deeper into my relationship with God. I really feel like I could use speaking to someone who really loves me and has stuck with me. Is there anyone out there?

Rest

It's as if it never happened. The whole trip down to LA for two weeks, the pilgrimage to all of Yogananda's shrines, the flow, the struggle, the highs and lows. I'm just here now, back at Laurelwood and all is calm.

Yogananda took me on a ride and daily, all I could was just let go of my plans and see what he had in store. Go to the store, but don't buy anything, stay here, don't walk there; it was a moment to money tuning in. The reason I say money is because I was tuning in moment to moment as I had next to nothing in my wallet at times and had to stay in the flow to navigate how I would get by. It's amazing how calm and centered life can be when we inwardly relax and trust. The times I panicked or got off center, I caused myself so much more mental suffering when nothing was even wrong. It's amazing. This life is just absolutely amazing. Sometimes I feel like having little money can be a blessing for some people as it really requires a greater amount of trust, attunment and creativity to daily manifest what we need. There is a tendency I see sometimes with people to just trust too much in themselves when they have that kind of material security.

I just finished this big push, two weeks ago now, preparing for Swami Kriyananda's visit at Laurelwood and the grand opening weekend. The flow of energy that went through me to create the designs and marketing for the big event was incredible. It was as if Swamiji and Master flowed right through me to create exactly what they wanted. I could have never done that on my own. I guess the prayers we do here to become clear and open channels works. I have been changed, my consciousness and how I feel about life has changed. Something beautiful happened to me that weekend, to everyone here in the community.

What is next in store for me, now that things have quieted down around here? I'm not sure. But we will find out soon.

Jai Ma