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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 17 2008 : 12:24:06 PM
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Last Saturday there was a shift in my experiencing of the energy, deeper into the here and now. This coincided with a meditation I read on an Amma website - not sure which came first.
The meditation was about devotion to a divine being. As part of the devotion it was suggested to imagine the divine being and imagine me bathing it in milk and honey and other nice things.
This really struck me like a blow!!
The thought of bathing a divine being when they were naked seemed almost blasphemous. Anyway I tentatively started imagining Amma herself as partially naked and me gently and reverently bathing her. I felt it also in my own body as lovely energies and her imagined experience was one of great appreciation.
That went on for a while and then I thought about doing the same with Our Lady. Wow!, this was big for me. The thought of doing this with the Virgin Mary whom I have revered all my life in a very pure and non sexual way was definitely blasphemous to me.
Again I started very tentatively and worked my way around her shoulders, chest, breasts etc.
Not sure exactly what the timing was but by Sunday I was feeling beautiful bliss continuously throughout the day.
What this did was bring Our Lady down to Earth for me, as a real woman, part of the Earth itself. It has become a beautiful practice for me, which I can do anytime I have a quiet moment. It also brings Our LAdy and the Divine into every woman!
I know that my name was up for samyama healing last Sunday and feel there is some connection here. It felt like I was being assisted by something extra - so thanks to everyone who was tuning in.
Louis
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2008 : 1:11:31 PM
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That's beautiful Louis! Thanks for sharing your experience.
When I have chanted the Samputita Sri Suktam while bathing the crystal Sri Chakra in milk I have gathered much devotion to Mother.
How much more intimate can we get than Mother? She is our womb and our breast and changes our diapers and feeds us and steers us from harm (when we listen). She is our everything.
I'm curious, which Amma are you refering to? There are a few out there |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2008 : 2:02:03 PM
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God Louis, when I clicked on that and saw my posts there about Amma I just got a tremendous hit. I am still reeling in waves and tears and it's getting stronger!
Jai Karunamayi! |
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Katrine
Norway
1813 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2008 : 2:54:31 PM
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Louis that's beautiful
Thank you for literally bathing mother into this world.
Not "other-worldly"........this world.
Much love to you |
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2008 : 8:13:05 PM
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Hi Louis.
I was looking for a Goddess ritual bathing video and this is all I could find so far. This "abishekam" is mostly in black and white, but I liked it. She looks like Lakshmi.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gu2QkDt17Fo
Jai Ma! |
Edited by - Balance on Apr 17 2008 8:38:24 PM |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 03:13:04 AM
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Hey Alan
I'm such a fool, I actually thought Ammachi and Karunamayi were the same person!!!.
I know we have had personal correspondance about this by email but thought it best to reveal all here.
As I told you by email I actually ordered six CDs by Karunamayi, thinking they were Amma - Mata Amritanandamayi Devi or Ammachi - I hope I have the names right there.
Anyway the CDs are great and I really enjoy listening to them.
My relationship to Amma - Ammachi is more on an energetic level. I haven't studied much of her teaching and I'm not involved in any way with her organisation so its very much a personal thing from a distance. I'm not particularly drawn to her organisation either, don't know why particularly but that's the way it is.
My experience with her: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....D=3122#27103
and the meditation I refered to is here:http://www.amritapuri.org/teachings...hana/med.php
It gives me great heart to hear of your devotion to Amma - Karunamayi, it says a lot about her to me. They are two Amma's in separate bodies but one Amma in truth, they even look alike (to my way of seeing).
I suppose it raises the question about whether Amma - Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is "my guru". Well this has puzzled me for a bit, I have received so much from her over the past months but ultimately I know "the guru is in me". She is assisting me along the way for a while and I love her dearly for that. The thought might come to me sometimes that she is my guru but it doesn't have much hold - and I think Amma is fine with that also.
Life and truth are my guru and everyone here is also my guru.
Love to all
louis
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 11:44:13 AM
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Hey Louis, did you watch that video? I ran across it again on youtube, but differently with the actual voices of the Brahmin priests chanting in the temple while performing the abishekam to the figure of Divine Mother. Not sure what temple, but I see that it is a fifty year old film. Anyway, the beauty of Mother being ritually bathed, with the offerings being lovingly poured over her form remind me of what you wrote.
I feel Mother is all powerful in Her universe. There is no other.
When I first saw Sri Karunamayi here in Tucson in 2004 I asked her for help with my all-consuming addictions. She has helped me unfold over the past few years in so many ways.
I got confused about the two Ammas too. I would see posters around town advertising Ammachi, the hugging Mother, the one you feel a connection to, and I would confuse them. It was really funny because that first year Amma Karunamayi had just left town and here was a poster saying something like "come meet the Divine Amma in town next week", yet she looked a little different. I thought Ammachi was an imposter or something. I didn't know at the time that Amma, a common name meaning "mother", is given to many revered mothers in India.
I considered Paramahansa Yogananda my guru since I was a teenager. Then recently I have been able to include many saints as gurus as I learned the guru is within and is not limited to any one form. I finally realized that this beautiful Amma Karunamayi who visits me every year in the flesh and showers me with blessings is as physical a Guru as anyone could hope for. This year, a few weeks before she came here to Tucson I silently gave in to accepting her as my Guru incarnate. It is a commitment to deeper personal unfolding that I was not ready to make until now. I know Sri Karunamayi is fully capable, willing and ready to help me according to my capacity. She has already proven that to me. This is intensely private on one hand, yet I feel like sharing it on the other hand. So I bring my two hands together and bow to Mother in us all.
Jai Ma! |
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 12:09:34 PM
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By the way Louis, you took quite a bold and beautiful step there in opening to a deeper intimacy with Divine Mother. It's like you shattered a shell or something.
Blessings to you! |
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 2:26:17 PM
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Dude i don't know this is a big step i can't imagine how u did it, i for person think about waching the legs of the virgin mary or lord jesus but everything else that's too much and it seems wrong for me on all bases.
but to each his ways i guess and you are free to choose whatever suits u.
Namaste
Ananda |
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 2:55:34 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Balance
Hi Louis.
I was looking for a Goddess ritual bathing video and this is all I could find so far. This "abishekam" is mostly in black and white, but I liked it. She looks like Lakshmi.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gu2QkDt17Fo
Jai Ma!
Correction: I guess the old film is an abishekam of Lord Balaji, a form of Sri Krisna. I thought the image was feminine looking. Oh well, devotion is devotion!
Hare Krisna! |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 4:04:25 PM
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quote:
This is intensely private on one hand, yet I feel like sharing it on the other hand. So I bring my two hands together and bow to Mother in us all.
I bow to you with joined hand in gratitude for your sharing of that Alan.
Nityananda says interesting things about a guru:
Sutra 102
A true guru can turn you
From the jungle road of ignorance
To the royal road of spiritual knowledge.
There are two gurus:
The causal guru and the action guru.
The guru who gives the disciple a mantra
Or otherwise initiates him into spiritual practice
Is the causal guru.
The Self is the action guru.
No person can be another’s action guru—
Only another’s causal guru.
The causal guru can lead the thirsty disciple to the well,
But only one’s inner action guru can
Prompt one to drink deeply.
The first instructs, the second acts.
The divine force within all creatures is the Self.
This is the action guru, the supreme guru,
The all-pervading guru—
God.
quote:
By the way Louis, you took quite a bold and beautiful step there in opening to a deeper intimacy with Divine Mother. It's like you shattered a shell or something.
Yes, it did remove something, some tabu. It has similarities to the thread The Unworthyness Complex (http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....OPIC_ID=3759 )- infact their may be some connection there in the release - hadn't thought of that before.
As a child and young adult I was quite spiritually orientated and the term "Virgin Mary" was embedded in my physic with all the "purity" and stuff associated with it - no doubt by the Christian Brothers with whom I was educated.
So it feels like it is that kind of tabu that was released.
quote:
Correction: I guess the old film is an abishekam of Lord Balaji, a form of Sri Krisna. I thought the image was feminine looking. Oh well, devotion is devotion!
Ah well, as you say, devotion is devotion. I had a look too and could only find the same stuff. |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 4:24:26 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by beirut
Dude i don't know this is a big step i can't imagine how u did it, i for person think about waching the legs of the virgin mary or lord jesus but everything else that's too much and it seems wrong for me on all bases.
but to each his ways i guess and you are free to choose whatever suits u.
Namaste
Ananda
Well the fact that you are calling me "dude" probably means you are a lot younger than me - but not necessarly
Ananda, I see the divine femine in everything, in the computer screen, in all the intelligence that created the screen and its development over the years, in the satalite technology that connects us, in the trees, the flowers, in the manure, in decaying matter, in all illusion, suffering, in sex, in all tabu's, in fear, in love, in the ever changing unfolding of the creating and ever enlightening universe.
So stroking the breast of divine mother with reverence and with milk and honey is, to me, an embodiment in me of the reality of the above. It is one more release that brings me a little deeper into the earth of mother. |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2008 : 4:44:34 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Katrine
Louis that's beautiful
Thank you for literally bathing mother into this world.
Not "other-worldly"........this world.
Much love to you
Yes Katrine, that's what it feels like - bathing mother into this world thanks for that
Love
Louis |
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Apr 19 2008 : 11:53:45 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Sparkle
quote:
Originally posted by beirut
Dude i don't know this is a big step i can't imagine how u did it, i for person think about waching the legs of the virgin mary or lord jesus but everything else that's too much and it seems wrong for me on all bases.
but to each his ways i guess and you are free to choose whatever suits u.
Namaste
Ananda
Well the fact that you are calling me "dude" probably means you are a lot younger than me - but not necessarly
Ananda, I see the divine femine in everything, in the computer screen, in all the intelligence that created the screen and its development over the years, in the satalite technology that connects us, in the trees, the flowers, in the manure, in decaying matter, in all illusion, suffering, in sex, in all tabu's, in fear, in love, in the ever changing unfolding of the creating and ever enlightening universe.
So stroking the breast of divine mother with reverence and with milk and honey is, to me, an embodiment in me of the reality of the above. It is one more release that brings me a little deeper into the earth of mother.
lolz i'm 24 years old,
and what u're saying is true cz i for person see glimpses of everything including myself melting into white light everywhere and i mean everything.
but what i'm saying is that the idea is new to me and i need some time to process smthg like this cz it seems shocking to touch the >>>> of the virgin Mary.
hehehe i can't even say it plz forgive me cz i don't mean to be a critic or anything like that but i was just expressing what i felt about the matter at hand.
Kind regards
Ananda |
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Balance
USA
967 Posts |
Posted - Apr 19 2008 : 8:36:52 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Sparkle
quote:
Originally posted by Katrine
Louis that's beautiful
Thank you for literally bathing mother into this world.
Not "other-worldly"........this world.
Much love to you
Yes Katrine, that's what it feels like - bathing mother into this world thanks for that
Love
Louis
I think that is exactly what both Ammas are showing us. The devotion we bliss in is carried out into the world. Mother tells us we are here to love each-other through the devotion that we cultivate in our deep, silent worship.
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Apr 20 2008 : 04:45:42 AM
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Louis wrote: "The thought of doing this with the Virgin Mary whom I have revered all my life in a very pure and non sexual way was definitely blasphemous to me."
Is there any sexual touch to this at all? It sure sounds like it when you put it like that. That before it was very non sexual to think about a female divine being, but now when you allow to mentally bathe her in nude, some sort of sexual tabu is broken??? Sorry if I get it wrong, but I just get an association here...
If it is a sexual touch to it... it may be possible that while you release your shame and other blocked feelings about sexuality and the feminine(which in my experience is very strong among catholics in general and in Irish people in particular) and sort of get over the threshold where sexual energies are accepted as truly divine energies (!)... then what happens is that the Divine Feminine is actually BATHING YOU and makes YOU clean from all the blockages!!! After all... you are the divine Feminine, and you are both sexual, sensual and soft and divine at the same time!
To me, it sounds like it is the feminine (and all what that stands for)inside of you that is finally accepted and taken to melt in your heart! |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Apr 20 2008 : 08:39:06 AM
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quote:
but what i'm saying is that the idea is new to me and i need some time to process smthg like this cz it seems shocking to touch the >>>> of the virgin Mary.
hehehe i can't even say it plz forgive me cz i don't mean to be a critic or anything like that but i was just expressing what i felt about the matter at hand.
Kind regards
Ananda
Hi Ananda, it's great that you are experimenting with it. I find too there are areas that I feel less inclined to go near , but that just gives an indication of the tabu and the work to be done.
In my limited experience of this I would say it is more important to start on an arms, legs, feet and really feel it in your own body also. Then gradually experiment with the bolder steps. I think it will all seem reverent and beautiful at some stage - just my 2 cents
quote:
Balance said: I think that is exactly what both Ammas are showing us. The devotion we bliss in is carried out into the world. Mother tells us we are here to love each-other through the devotion that we cultivate in our deep, silent worship.
Yes, I agree when there is someone in the flesh we have made "contact" with in a loving way, it is easier to embody this in the flesh of ourselves. I find when I bath Amma as indicated, it is easier to feel it in my own body, than when I do it with an image of the Virgin Mary, but nevertheless the Virgin Mary experience is very much in there for me
quote:
emc wrote: Louis wrote: "The thought of doing this with the Virgin Mary whom I have revered all my life in a very pure and non sexual way was definitely blasphemous to me."
Is there any sexual touch to this at all? It sure sounds like it when you put it like that. That before it was very non sexual to think about a female divine being, but now when you allow to mentally bathe her in nude, some sort of sexual tabu is broken??? Sorry if I get it wrong, but I just get an association here...
If it is a sexual touch to it... it may be possible that while you release your shame and other blocked feelings about sexuality and the feminine(which in my experience is very strong among catholics in general and in Irish people in particular) and sort of get over the threshold where sexual energies are accepted as truly divine energies (!)... then what happens is that the Divine Feminine is actually BATHING YOU and makes YOU clean from all the blockages!!! After all... you are the divine Feminine, and you are both sexual, sensual and soft and divine at the same time!
To me, it sounds like it is the feminine (and all what that stands for)inside of you that is finally accepted and taken to melt in your heart!
Depends what you mean by sexual!! I don't feel my base chakra firing up like it might if I have a sexual thought about someone.
It reminds me of when I started meditation first and after being very frightened of demons possessing me etc ( a common thing)< I would pray like mad to Our Lady and experience a full body, every cell in body, orgasm. Well it feels more like that except more like a full body bliss state, barely perceptable as energy but spread throughout the whole body.
But I think you are right, it is about shame and guilt around sexuality. I find if I just stroke the leg of Amma I embody this and immediately go into this bliss meditative state.
I wish it were as simple that I could say in doing this my base chakra is opening and the kundalini is firing - but that's not the case.
My most recent ventures in this are including my birth mother in the bathing. This is something that many people experience, I'm sure, when they look after elderly parents and have to wash them, I never had that experience and don't know whether I could have done it anyway.
So there is lots in this for me, it is ongoing and not a once off quick experience.
Love to all
Louis
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Jan 04 2015 : 03:59:45 AM
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I've remembered this topic which is worth opening up again... We have a large statue of our Mother Mary outside the store... We usually put flowers in front of it and light incense... There is someone who usually takes care of cleaning up the store and the statue... But it so happened that during the holidays we were closing early and he didn't come to the store but during the last hour of the day...
There was some dirt on the statue... So I took it upon myself to clean it up... And to my amazement when I started doing so... It felt like my bhakti soared up high... It was and it felt like a great privilege needless to say... Someone who is as unworthy as myself could be so close to the divine mother... The being of mother Mary was so much felt during that incident. I can't put more words into this experience. It was just love. Pure love. I am grateful to the divine.
Also, it's been 6 years since I participated in this topic Good to see my grammar has gotten better due to practice
Namaste |
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Dogboy
USA
2293 Posts |
Posted - Jan 04 2015 : 07:06:13 AM
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| Thank you Ananda for reviving this thread. Often we compartmentalize various feelings, emotions, desires, devotions; the moments when the divine and the earthbound intersect and resonate in your being like a gong make this spiritual pursuit worthwhile! |
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Anima
484 Posts |
Posted - Jan 04 2015 : 5:35:30 PM
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Hi, guys!
Began learning the Ave Maria prayer earlier today:
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum. Benedicta tua
In mulieribus, benedictus
Fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Ave Maria, ora pro nobis
Pecatoribus, nunc et in hora
Mortis nostrae,
Amen.
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Edited by - Anima on Jan 04 2015 5:45:52 PM |
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NoDogma
USA
123 Posts |
Posted - Jan 04 2015 : 8:32:19 PM
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Anima Deorum,
can you please translate it into English ?
thanks |
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Jan 05 2015 : 02:51:54 AM
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English Translation
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and in the hour of our death. Amen. |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Jan 05 2015 : 09:31:03 AM
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Well, Jesus is getting a good scrubbing tonight. I will not forget behind the ears. LOL.
Just joking...
Sey |
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Jan 05 2015 : 11:25:22 AM
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Dogboy
USA
2293 Posts |
Posted - Jan 05 2015 : 11:45:09 AM
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In my heart I will wash his feet  |
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Bathing Divine Beings
