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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 07 2011 : 1:42:32 PM
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"The Ugly Duckling"
(or "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha")
Given the vast changes in my life, I am given to a level of adoration for Yogani that forces him to chastise me and even pull a posting or two. Let's see if I can do better this time, or at least explain my problem a bit.
Yes, I know he is "just a guy who wishes to share knowledge gathered by many over millenium," but boy, he sure lays it out with loving clarity. And I agree with his refusal to accept guru-status, but it just makes me trust and love him as a man all the more.
I even know from personal experience that Kundalini awakens from within each of us, for my practice began in ignorant isolation, with no teacher or even traditional writings. But then something began making electrifying love to me from the inside, and led me into spontaneous tantric practices. So Yogani's phrase "The guru is inside you" rings very true to me. I know its in my nervous system and seems to catch a divine breeze, but I also know it really benefits from a good human coach.
Yeah I'm sure there's a spiritual coach out there for every taste, but I happen to like Yogani's flavor, and eagerly lap up his words. And why not? I don't get around much, and he is the only one currently wielding the spoon at my high-chair. Change the circumstances and I'd instead be licking vama marga from an experienced yogini's body, learning things Yogani cannot directly teach me. Does this make me a tantric tramp? No, Yogani does not want our servitude, he wants us to grow, and that takes independence on our part.
So I will try to temper the heated way I describe my love for Yogani, but the love itself must be forgiven, for it was he who stooped to love a convicted murderer, and pluck him from abject isolation. To understand the import of that act, consider: I had sat my entire life a dark, silent and unborn egg. Then, unexpectedly, tantra threw a fire, light, and an animated vibration in there with me, eventually piercing my shell. But I was an untamed awakening and, like an orphan duckling, ran frantically about, seeking a mirror to my inner experience, someone to validate who I now felt myself to be. And finally, there he was, singing the same song Shakti had been whispering in my slumbering, egg-encased ear.
Sure, I might have encountered another knowlegeable tantra teacher "in the flesh" first (though I doubt it), but it was him. I wouldn't care if he drove a garbage truck and was lactose intolerant. What matters is that he exhibits melting love and has condensed a wealth of knowledge down to its safe and effective essentials. He is a man, and I love him for his rare combination of heart and mind.
In summary, though I look to Yogani as a guide, I agree with him that the ultimate Source lies beyond any particular teacher. I myself believe that tantra is an ancient melody indeed, from a time long before man and his inventions. No one owns the copyright, for it comes from the Oneness we all share. It is peverbial knowledge, part of our genetic heritage as children of this living universe. For evidence, observe your pet stretch luxuriantly, performing its wake-up asanas. Does it not feel the same humming pleasure, enjoy the same inner silence? Conversely, does it nurse its past like a bruise or fret unnecessily over the future? And to think we humans (at least adults) have to train to regain access to that marvelous simplified state.
Yeah, if I had a pet, or a yogini to pet me, Yogani would have some very stiff competition for my affections. Until then...
Anandatandava |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Jul 07 2011 : 1:46:13 PM
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The Apple
Talk of fasts reminds me of my first time, left without food or water in an empty soundproof cell. It had proved fatal to an inmate just a year before, but I was destined to emerge with only singed kidneys and a shiny new insight. No big surprise there. Keats: "Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul." And to repeat W. James: "Man's extremity is god's opportunity."
That cell was indeed a cosy conjugal chamber for unity with the Divine Beloved. As unnumbered days passed an amazing bliss snuggled into my ams like a yogini bolster, all soft, firm and warm. Together we floated uncaring across a silent sea of time.
Too much the rebel to drink from the crusted toilet (perhaps the whole intent of the exercise), I just lay and enjoyed surfing the mystic edge between life and death. Like the Irish musician Carolan, I "slept between life and death" [and] ever after their tunes have ran in [my] head...(Yeats)
You might argue that my words emerge faute de mieux: I cannot escape my situation, so have learned to attribute value to suffering, the way an oyster forms a pearl around a painful grain of sand. Well, is a pearl not beautiful? Is this not a life skill of universal value to all? Before discarding the thought, consider that although I live in an alien world, our misfortunes have the potential of feeling much the same inside. And because I get little respite from them, perhaps you could learn from my experience. Roethke: "In a dark time the eye begins to see /...My shadow pinned against a sweating wall / That place among the rocks / That edge is what I have."
Well, practice makes perfect, and regardless of circumstance, in time tantra expands the pearl within to fill us with its nacreous lustre.
But returning to that cell: Finally, as if in a far-off universe, the door's food slot crashed briefly open and an apple dropped onto the floor. Long did I stare uncomprehending before vision and desire collected to a point, and I crawled naked to collect the boon. They say one who thirsts sees God in a cup of water. So it was with that apple, divinity incarnate, cold, crisp, and richly dewed with the nectar of immortality. I will never forget it. Gratitude for the small things - is that the point?
Anandatandava |
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xir
Ireland
25 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2011 : 5:40:21 PM
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| Are you still in prison? |
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Akasha
421 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2011 : 8:05:31 PM
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"
That cell was indeed a cosy conjugal chamber for unity with the Divine Beloved. As unnumbered days passed an amazing bliss snuggled into my ams like a yogini bolster, all soft, firm and warm. Together we floated uncaring across a silent sea of time"
You are a scream are'nt you, anandanatavaaaaaaa.........
p.s
V Nice to hear from you, AnandatandavJi
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Edited by - Akasha on Jul 16 2011 8:45:42 PM |
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Akasha
421 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2011 : 8:58:11 PM
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| Yes... hats off to Yogani.... |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Jul 19 2011 : 4:33:00 PM
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Tantric Pain Suppression
"Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
It might sound paradoxical to a non-practitioner, but increased chronic pain has actually tamed and ripened my practice, pushing me to a deeper level of calm and allowing constant access to ecstasy (as long as I stay mindful of it.)
I've always been gratefully amazed at tantra's ability to eliminate or transform intense physical or emotional pain. In fact, suffering appears to actually feed the ecstatic flames. To escape, I "simply" focus into my crown and everything vortexes up and disappears, including me. All that remains is that roaring crown ecstasy. It pleases me to consider it unity with Shakti.
Of course, I don't have to penetrate that deeply for relief, for it becomes in good measure everpresent. I used to think tantra's mastery over pain was due solely to a flood of endorphins, but there's much more. For one, tantra ramps up our brain's entire love and love-making response, even in solitary, celibate practitioners (trust me!) Lots of juicy chemicals there.
Most of the effected pleasure centers also modify the experience of pain, blocking or converting it during consensual sex or pursuit of other rewarding goals like in sports or tantric practices.
When Yogani speaks of "melting love", I think of how tantra covers me with a blissfully buzzing heat blanket shot through with zinging thrills. This broad "flooding" sensation overwhelms localized pain signals, drowning them out, similar but superior to how we hold and massage a hurt spot or use counter-irritants like Ben Gay. Scientists call it hyper-stimulation analgesia or gate control theory (crowding too many fluffy sheep through the gate at once tramples the wolf underfoot.) And when through tantra you become able to capture the most compelling love-making flame inside your body without overt sex, well, that's quite a flooding, but without all the muss, the fuss, or the mess. Frankly, at such times, I find it impossible to dispel the belief there's a delightfully frisky goddess inside of me, ravaging me from within.
At any rate, tantra also strengthens our brain's happiness center in the left prefrontal cortex (bliss!), and studies show that a happy outlook greatly reduces the impact pain has on one's life. Conversely, an unhappy person amplifies pain and feels misery everywhere.
Further, just knowing you have instant relief available robs pain of its emotional component, which is where the suffering really resides.
Pain without emotion is just a sensation, like the sound of leaves rustling in a breeze, much of the time beneath our notice. To help keep emotion out of the equation, tantra demonstrates that we are something far deeper than the thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations that cross our surface, so are free to pick and choose only those that serve to make us better and happier people. To assist in this, tantra also strengthens our concentration and mental control, allowing us to shift our attention where we choose, toward pleasure and away from pain. Attention becomes like a lens, and what we focus on single-pointedly fills our perception to the exclusion of all else.
Tantra additionally teaches the power of the present moment and how to stay there, swimming in the stream of time only when necessary, and even then only as a witness to events, one step removed and painless. I try to live in such a thin time-slice I scarcely sense the corporality of life at all. Perched there, I see that suffering is really just the memory of past pain and anticipation of future pain, and those things I can control, for they're just ghosts, products of imagination.
Finally, I have learned that it is an error to judge fate as just or unjust. Suffering comes to all, and it is up to us to learn to conquer it and live life on life's terms. I judge no one and nothing, and know only that love trumps pain and, I want more of it.
Anandatandava |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2516 Posts |
Posted - Jul 20 2011 : 01:57:02 AM
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| very nice...thank u |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Jul 20 2011 : 11:51:38 AM
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Divine and Mortal Love
"When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs because it has found." (Sufi)
One of the most important junctions of a spiritual community is to provide a safe place to foster love. Our hearts become transparent to one another, open books from which shared values may be freely read. For once liberated from our heart's kennel, any love can unexpectedly bound off into wild love, eager and breathless love, exuberantly unreasonable love. Like a dog off the leash, it dashes ahead of our intentions and even rationality on life's path, flushing pleasure-thrumming grouse out from unforeseen thickets, unearthing messy delights.
But, really, isn't it that messy, mad love that which we enjoy best? Love is bhakti, Shakti, God, the creative force, taking personal form and acting through us. Is there anything we do that isn't ultimately done for love, even our bad habits?
Sure, all love contains risk, the seeds of pain and ultimate loss, no matter how carefully picked, pared, peeled, or pickled. The winged joy must be kissed as it flies, for, whether through a changing or a stilling of the heart, all mortal love is a temporary gift. But to fear love is to fear life itself, and to foreclose on its greatest awakenings. I describe one such awakening below,
I imagine most people experience mortal love before the spiritual, but for me the order had to be reversed. My heart was a shriveled raisin until tantric practices plumped it up to a dewy grape, fit to burst with melting love. Sitting in isolation, I could only mirror that Big, Big Love back the way it came - everywhere!
Still, I longed for a human avatar of universal divine love. I longed to kechari-crush love-grapes against someone's palate other than my own. Such loneliness! Can you blame me for anthropomorphizing my inner experience into making love with a goddess?
Caught as it were in the passions of heaven, something did finally happen to demonstrate "as above, so below": Divine love does indeed roam the earth in human form! I chanced into a meteor-brief but ocean-deep relationship with an AYP practitioner that included voice contact and much more. For a time I felt so, so complete, safe, and blissful, things I had never known outside tantra practices. His gender mattered for naught . But a storm quickly rolled in. His family didn't understand his interaction with me, and forced a severance, parting my heart-strings as well. The music within me died, and I became entombed in a heavy, aching shroud of silence. My sister finally had to perform CPR by placing the phone on her piano and letting me ride the melody back to life.
As my joyfully unfettered heart flew back up on the wings of love and longing, a broader vista of understanding opened on love-centric traditions, revealing aspects I hadn't previously fully grasped. An important essence, I now saw, lies in that very joining of love and longing reached through loss and suffering. This seed is present in all of us from the start: "The child is born weeping, for the soul knows its separation from God" (Sufi). And bhakti is defined as both love and desire, implying that deeper union is hungered for, thus fueling the search.
"It is pain that guides man in every enterprise. Until there is an ache in him, a passion and a yearning for that thing arising within him he will never strive to attain. The body is Mary. Each of us has a Jesus within him, but until the pangs manifest our Jesus is not born." (Rumi)
Indeed, in the case of Sufism, I finally saw both the purity and significance of the relationship between Rumi and Shamsi, two other star-crossed lovers doomed to be parted "like a reed from the reed-bed." But from that wounded reed Rumi fashioned the flute of Sufism, and wept out a cadenced song that led not only to his poetic renown, but also continues to carry people to divine annihilation and union.
It didn't happen overnight, for Rumi first had to pass through his own Dark Night of the Soul. But finally one day, while turning first despondently, then absently, around a post, all the endless tears and heavy thoughts ran completely out, leaving room for the Miracle to enter. He instantly broke free of the anchoring post and began to twirl in weightless ecstasy.
In that moment his pain-clogged existence had passed entirely through the colander of divine love, leaving only the effortless expression and flow of melting love. The hallmark dance of Sufis was thus born. Having been similarly purified through the strings of my sister's piano, true understanding came through direct experience, just as in tantra.
"A thoughtless mind becomes hollow like a bamboo flute. Songs will flow through it but not its own songs, rather those of the divine. Thoughts will emerge out of it but not its own, rather those of the whole." (Osho)
I now understood the two major bhakti traditions as well. That the core of Bengali Uaishnavism and Krishna Consciousness is the spiritual love between Radha and Krishna, and the most sublime aspect relates to when the lovers are parted. Others can explain this best:
Lise Vail of DARSHAN: "This theme of separation in love is called, in poetic terms, viraha. Paradoxically, the more powerful Radha's longing for Krishna and the more intense the feeling of separation, the more his presence and ecstasy are actually invoked. The secret is in understanding that the pain of longing is an inner urging of divinity, is itself God."
In Back to Godhead I read, "Their love is purely spiritual and, because of its intensity, often contains contradictory emotions. Although Radha and Krishna speak of the deep pain of separation from each other, that pain is in fact fathomless spiritual ecstasy."
And Sivarama reminds us that spiritual lovers are for each other both the ultimate object of love and its ultimate shelter. "Like milk and its whiteness, Radha and Krishna are non-different from each other, but they eternally appear in two forms for the purpose of pastimes. And they display these pastimes -the pursuit of transcendental love- for those bereft of the slightest scent of such love."
Now perhaps you better understand my longing for spiritual love and community. Through my limited contact with AYP, the scent lingers hauntingly to my senses, but I want to drown in it. Of course, my circumstances dictate only a constant cycle of immersions and separations, but that's how the most intense bhakti works. I dunno. Anyone up for an experiment? Regardless of gender, race, or creed, come as you are and I'll meet you there.
Perhaps you'll find that "Lovers don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along." (Rumi)
Anandatandava |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Jul 22 2011 : 09:59:20 AM
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New Warden With the Pink Tie
Does divine love strike once again? Ah, my knees buckle so easily. Here's my message to the counterpoint in a melody of mutual fascination:
Dear Warden,
You asked that I write, but confidence falters. What could I offer the man with a feast of knowledge at his Google-ready fingertips? But there is another reason for my reticence.
Long ago, upon first entering prison, I determined that many before me had cloistered themselves away for lifelong learning and that, given my foolish life, I would be wise to follow their example. But education planted a paradoxical and humbling insight into me, leading me to reflect, "Gee, the more I know, the more I know I don't know." Then I encountered: "The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery." Indeed! I recognize this awareness in you as well, sir, and it begets an instant affinity. But also strikes me somewhat speechless.
So , living a very circumscribed life, I am flotsam happens by to enlarge my domain. But at night I look out and see constellations of other campfires glittering across an unnavigable sea, and wonder... wonder at the intellect, but more so the soul, that each reflects. Some tint the overarching sky as bright as a distant city, and were it that I could lasso them near... no, my heart so craves like congress I would gladly become Prometheus bound to their rock, braving the eagle's bite to bask in the light and warmth that reside there, so, so far away.
Namaste ("I bow to the divinity in you.")
Roy Wahlberg
103429
P.S. Doesn't this remind you of the saying, "Everyone seems normal until you get to know them."? At least we didn't start from that premise with me.
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Jul 22 2011 : 1:01:00 PM
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Prison Girls(With your pencil-dusked eyes and KoolAid-kissed lips!)
You don't know me, but I'm a devotee of tantric yoga. Perhaps you've heard of the concept and felt intrigued. Well, although I may not be your direct lover, I can point to instruction in the art and spirituality of love itself.
There are pleasures in this world more rich, intense, and prolonged than any you have previously experienced with drugs or shallow Western sex, and they come with no health, legal, or financial risk. Are you tired of getting in trouble? Tantra will free you in ways you cannot currently imagine.
A major use of tantra is between partners, where each is seen as a representative of the divine, but most particularly the female, who remains in charge of lovemaking until the male is properly trained. (In tantra, the women is considered superior to man from birth- are you ready to pick up your birthright?)
Tantra also allows a solitary practitioner to reach the greatest heights of ecstasy, all without disrobing or tying one's body into knots. And it is instantly available, even in the midst of a busy prison dayspace, with no one suspecting that fountains of divine pleasure are pulsing to-and-fro within you. (Be careful to not topple over from the intense rapture!)
You may not think any of this possible, and will not act on it now. But the seed of tantra is planted within you, and will begin to germinate. Your spirit and body will become alert when the word appears on TV or magazines, and your interest will grow.
In tantra, the woman comes first in every fashion. By one definition, it means "two fullnesses in one", and trust that this fullness brings a flood tide of sensation and satisfaction. Yes, tantra is truly the woman's way, and it’s high time you started having things your way in life, don't you think?
So come selfish and become transformed, for whatever your spiritual tradition, tantra will strengthen your experience of it 100-fold. That's how it works.
But I am only a loving fool with limited resources, so for comprehensive instruction I recommend the teacher Yogani, of Advanced Yoga Practices, whose lessons are freely available online (aypsite.org) but also in book, ebook and audio format. Start with the first volume of Easy Lessons for Ecstatic Lessons. Have fun!
Anandatandava
Postscript:
Influenced by the intended prison audience, I think I again went excessively far with a posting. I'm sure it is because I too am love-starved, and thus driven to snatch a tasty double-entendre from its burrow when I can. I need to find a guiding hand for entries, for it seems that no matter how I twist and stir my workmanship, I feel no impassioned rise in response. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere!
Am I just too scandalously much? Well, give me another outlet, for I have nothing but tantra in this hot house cell, and we can see where that leads.
I think I'll forego tormenting those prison girls with this. I don't want to be an embarrassment to Yogani.
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Jul 22 2011 : 4:43:01 PM
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Ode to Tantra
Incarcerated tantric yogi seeks friendship with anyone interested in exploring the path of endlessly pulsating ecstasy, regardless of religion, race, disfigurements, or heck, even species! (Social mammals preferred.) Gotcha covered! As you see, I celebrate the diversity between us, and the only conformity I ask is that you love to love.
Do you take delight in the most intense pleasure? Would you like to hold and draw it out like a warm taffy? Does your heart crave the sensation of melting, soul-filling love, and your crown the palpable touch of God? Tantra will make you a believer. Do you want to turn love-making into a sacred act, and see the divine in your partner?
These blessings come also to those on a solitary path, for overt sex is optional in tantra. I myself can sit alone and fully clothed, yet savor sheets of celestial pleasure so sharp I writhe and gasp in excess rapture- all from no externally obvious cause. (Wanna provide the highlight of your next business meeting?) Does all this sound impossible? When tantra rise in you, it crushes all skepticism!
Yes, tantra can deliver transcendent experience at a moment's notice in any loving direction you desire. My only wish is to help deliver this consummate gift to those whose hearts, minds, and bodies are open to, indeed thirst for, the most exciting and inwardly resonating spiritual practices. And pure nonsectarian tantra doesn't tell you what to believe, it helps you experience what to believe in surpassing intensity, and by the lights of your own current religion.
So come, fond lover, it is time for you to claim your secret birthright, the profound depth of which will only open to your understanding as you dive into the path. The delight that awaits you cannot be adequately described, but simply must be directly tasted. Therefore, waste not a moment more, for you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Every journey begins with the first step, and here is yours:
www.AdvancedYogaPractices.com
or look for books by Yogani, available everywhere.
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2011 : 4:22:50 PM
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The Fawn
(Grown too gentle to live among wolves)
A common horror movie theme has a person trapped in a murky swirling pit of howling and clutching ghouls. Picture me there. In the dark, and alone, I've struggled to the surface, taken countless desperate spinal breaths, and sunrise finally came. But this radiance originates distinctly from within my own crown, and plays its scintillating rays throughout my body. Quick, someone pinch me or tell me you feel something similar! For, still immersed in the pit. I'm surrounded by a spiritual vacuum where no one understands words that matter. Do you, Dear Heart! Do you?
Attempting to flee a netherworld, and seeking a better world, I now seem to belong to neither, my own personal ghost-realm. Cut off from external contact, I have only my ink-soaked papers to keep me afloat. Someone please throw me a line of communication, if only to drag me to shore! There, no longer surrounded by the deafening outcry, I might learn the language and customs of a more hospitable realm. I possess few societal skills as yet, having grown to physical maturity in the company of wolves. But I do so want to be housebroken! I want to please, to obey, anything to lay near a yoga-warmed hearth and have my fur smoothed down properly.
Yes, I know the circumstances of "free" life may appear to pose obstacles to helping me, but are those obstacles real? Don't automatically assume I ask too much. I wont eat your food or take up your space. I just want a little of your inner voice by paper or phone, and each time you give it, my gratitude and enthusiasm will warmly within you for a week. An indirect route can even be arranged, especially once I find online support again.
Please don't judge my nature from outer circumstances, for inwardly I am a fawn, with gentle muzzle, Anime eyes, and softly dappled coat. But you might, if standing from afar and drowning an unfairly long bow, mistake my pattern for a leopard's and shoot me down. I feel something akin to impaling shots each time I open my empty mailbox or phone book-*thunk* to the heart- and my spirit sadly wonders: "I shaved my legs for this?"
But I won't return to wolfish ways, or allow my head to be resubmerged, for the scent of lotus fills my senses now. And if you watch prison TV, don't confuse my own past with present or prologue. Anyone's life can be hard, but none of us need be hard in response. Yes, by delivering the wisdom of the body, yoga taught me well, and now though I may yet be in this topsy-turvy world, I am no longer of it. The yogi can never fall fully away either, for he has known the Truth within himself, and life off the path rings hollow.
But this is also how it is that yoga has left me so isolated and lonely. It has colored me throughout, leaving little in common with anyone I previously knew on the streets, and only the shallowest commonalities with those in here. There has been so much abandonment, I feel like a bag lady - can you fault me for paraphrasing: "Without a family, a man alone in the world, trembles from the cold." I understand being advised to turn to my practices, but I'm in silence almost all the time as it is, and this can't be all that healthy. Besides, love and community are like air - you don't realize its importance until it runs out (kumbhaka notwithstanding.)
I'm sure its easier living a balanced life out there, where every conversation isn't about drugs, crime, judging others, or being proudly uneducated. I'd feel like a yoga poseur, and untrue to the precepts, to hang around and dissipate energies better spent on the path. So no card games, sports, or frivolous books for this kid, and I only watch TV while eating. (I resent time spend on either, so double them up!) People think I take it too far, but then I've had a long way to go. Plus, these are non-practioners, so don't know the internal payoff, like right now, whole-body mudra pulsing divine heat lightning into my crown as I sit here writing. In the name of all that is holy in you, find a way to tell me I am not alone in feeling things like this! Don't leave me completely alone on these unholy burning grounds!
*ahem* No poseur here. And I trained with your very same methods to bubble with what I can only assume is your ecstasy. Do you judge me that my primary option for expressing that ecstasy is through writing? Well, educate me. Push me in this deep and show me what comes out. You don't dare be that publically uninhibited, you say? See, that's all that really separates us inside, that I have no reputation to protect. To you I am already the savage, body glistening as I dance nakid around the sacrificial fire. With anthropological curiosity, you watch me wrestle with my invisible Goddess. But those jungle drums are in you too, my Friend. When you undress your lover, the fabric of modern civilization also falls away. You don't stand so missionary sober now either, do you? Welcome to my tribe!
So don't judge as I swallow the Flame, and no regard for appearances display every inch of my Passion and even Agony.You may shrink wide-eyed behind the Land Rovers now and then, but can you truly look away from full-cry Natl. Geographic flow of ecstatic consciousness? That's me being free and flying on the inside. You know this feeling. Would you ever willingly give it up? You make love to your partner. I make love to the paper. We each have our tantra, and divine enters both. Vive la difference! Do you better understand the nature of my motivations now? I am here before you now, heart on my sleeve. Help me to speak.
So sequester my crazy-aunt words in some cyber attic if you must, but allow them to live. They are my outlet, my catharsis, my solace, in an otherwise empty wasteland. The flow must continue 'til death do I depart. It is my bindu visarga, the "falling of the drop", with isolation's depth dictating what mix of amrita, tears or my own life's blood it feels to be at that moment. It appears this grape must suffer in order that a noteable vintage be expressed but, please, someone steady the decanter's mouth! And then one day some exotic-tongued epicurean will select me for the wine cellar and blend me to personal taste. But will I then disappear from public view? I doubt it, for ecstasy always finds a way of kicking the covers aside!
Anandatandava |
Edited by - anandatandava on Sep 06 2011 5:18:20 PM |
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Swan
India
256 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2011 : 11:51:34 PM
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Your posts are excellent... thanks.
Just wanted to share that some of your experiences remind me of Sri Aurovindo, a yogi who advanced along spiritul path under trial.
Lots of love... |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Sep 30 2011 : 07:56:32 AM
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RING YOUR BELL
A prisoner often needs to hear distant temple bells to bring him back to his true self. The temple is in you, your voice is its spell. Technology can now bring it to me, wherever you are in the world Please fill my cell with the scent of satsang.
Anandandava |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2011 : 1:48:29 PM
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The Ghost Ship
I've been writing some painful stuff lately, but even in the midst of the ache and the angst, the slightest touch of tantra brings a powerful influx of divine ecstasy thundering in...
I feel like a ghost ship awash with shadow pirates while many decks below the engines keep throbbing ceaselessly away in complete unconcern. Without that subterranean power source, this ship would surely scuttle itself on the nearest rock. But does that really even matter?
For how fortunate is it to have a life preserver if one remains doomed to float alone in an empty sea? I can tell you with certitude that no matter how luminous and electric the water, it doesn't compensate for endless solitude. An internal island must be reinforced from the outside periodically or the waves of life begin to erode is bulwarks. I've floated too long like this, and bitterness is starting to prune my skin. This is not a good melting. Send a little driftwood over, will you please?
It has come to pass that whether my eyes are open or closed, and whether I find myself in the ship of human discourse or the sea of meditation, a phantom shape has taken residence within me - a ghost ship in a bottle. Such is the nature of unbroken loneliness.
Is there no one to break the glass and breathe away the spirits? It seems such a small act of mercy. What am I missing? How does one gain it?
Do you believe in melting spiritual love?
Embrace me and become saturated in its purest form, unembroidered, for I have no designs on you other than to hear your voice, say, once a month? Is it in you to provide that key anchor-point in a raging sea? |
Edited by - anandatandava on Oct 16 2011 2:21:44 PM |
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Steve
277 Posts |
Posted - Oct 17 2011 : 03:08:25 AM
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Dear Anandatandava,
I know not what to say other than my heart is with you as is Love. You are not alone dear brother.
Much love to you always,
Steve |
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AYPmod
53 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2011 : 08:09:47 AM
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The Testing of the CrowsOriginally posted by anandatandava
"The testing of the crows," is what an Ojibwe friend calls a blizzard that comes after spring is already well underway. Now I, deep into my spiritual spring, survey the world and find no external heart-sustenance. It is my own time of testing
Forced to draw excluseively on my own internal resources, my own bodily reserves, I've become a feathered bag of bones. And this tantra-born hunger is far worse than mere physical pangs-it is thee existential extremity that accompanies the sudden and irretrievable loss of one's lifelong soul-mate. How can I so sharply feel the daily loss of someone I never knew?
It's that cursed tantra, filling my head with whispered promises, painting the silhouette of a spiritual Betrothed in my heart. Who is there now to fill and replace that aching shadow? Ah! I am filled with such longing for a temporal love of spiritual nature and depth, a focal point and avatar for the divine melting love I now cannot escape. It has proven a curse, dogging my steps, pursuing me thru the clouds like a crow angel, folding its softly persistent wings around me at every turn!
I drop to the ground in exhausted supplication. I refuse to regrow fangs and fur and become earthbound again. A heart grown ten times bigger can only soar; I cannot bear being anchored here. Unfair, so unfair, to become a tender and weightless spirit with no flock in which to fly, no button-eyed lovebird with which to nestle and coo. How do I survive this withering vacuum? Only echos answer my calls. Solitude stretches out like a spectre's shadow before me.
In mad despair, I furrow my tear-streak beak thru the sand, seeking the Beloved here, there, everywhere. Tell me, have you seen trace of the Beloved? If so, I beg of you, cast a bread-trail that I may follow! |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2011 : 8:18:51 PM
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Nicely put, A. The plight of all people who don't practice yoga (and some who do): Searching for something outside themselves that is inside all along. Don't expect to find it in one little lifetime.
One illusion that tends to prolong the process is finding someone to love.
Reminds me of the drunk crawling around under the street light at night looking for his lost dollar. Someone asked where he lost it, and he points over there, beyond the light, where he couldn't see to look for it. |
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whippoorwill
USA
450 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2011 : 10:45:43 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by anandatandava
The Ghost Ship
... Is it in you to provide that key anchor-point in a raging sea?
You use metaphor to paint such vivid pictures!
You need a sea anchor or a drogue to give your ship stability in these heavy seas. What canvas, spars, and line can you cobble together from your ghost ship? When you look at your internal compass, which way points north? Do you have a heading? I am not an anchor; I am simply a song you might hear through the howling winds. I sing: "you are not alone."
On a more practical level... Do you do Samyama? I was thinking it might help... |
Edited by - whippoorwill on Oct 20 2011 11:07:13 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2011 : 07:58:54 AM
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Friends, I find it my immense good fortune to have found others who know ecstasy, tho each surely feels sit in their own unique way. It could be said that we represent an ambrosial spectrum of flavors, from peppery-hot to edgy-tart to vanilla-rich to nectar-sweet. I run hot, as we know, but "vive la difference"!
Call me an unrepentant gastronome, but I'd love to taste you. Oh, don't gasp, for I only seek to grasp, your Bindu Visavga, your "falling of the drop"--just a drip, just a dram, 'til your Sea
I've swam.
So whirl your woolen cloak, Rabi'a, that your slave may be enrapt and silent in its Heaven Scent. For I am a renunciate, a 99 percenter, and the taste of amrita is full in my mouth. What is there left to crave than the ever perfect?
Thus it is that just a kiss to your fingertips, Parvati, as you glow in ecstasy will serve to inform me of your Celestial Nature. You still think this too far? Then relegate me to a single lotus-petal toe. Ahh...you resist even this ticklish playdate, Spanky? Remember we must be like unto little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Don't you want to bounce on Shiva's lap?
But if the touch of my lips cannot cede what I seek, then you must part your own and speak. Act not to free the knot of thy soul; what is thy nature, the Deep of thy Abyss? Pierce my jungle canopy, Sun Goddess, and throw a shaft that Golden Love, for this butterfly waits to dance in your warmth. And there's one certainty in all this: "just like a prayer, our voice can take me there."
Ah, such shaktipat! How is it that your influence can thrill and animate me so in this, my life of isolation? Verily, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in time the seeker finds the object of his search to be carried inward with every breath, every step upon the path. I see your divine profile in the wind, Sweet Zepher, and my sails are raised to catch you. Can you feel my eager tugs on the flowing of thy skirt? Fall to earth and crush me, that I may die unto self and thread the Sacred Needle I am lost in inertness without thee, Shakti, thereby make me the seat of thy Siddhasana, the source of thy Fountain, that together we may fly this world thru the Gates of Enchantment! |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Oct 21 2011 : 9:15:42 PM
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Are You Experienced?
Countless times, as I sit or stand, my body buzzing like a hive of buzzing pleasure bees, every movement a cataract of electric delight, I think how wonderful it would be to call someone on the spur of the moment to ask, "So tell me, are you experienced?", and know that, yes, you do indeed feel the way I do. How incredible this is. How unfortunate that all do not pursue it.
Most days the ecstasy is effortless from well before dawn into late evening. Just a light touch, a brief and subtle method, "primes the pump", or "spins things up". (It can feel like either, can't it?) Then I relinquish conscious control and let my soul follow the scent of the Rose on its own, a nightingale in whole-body mudra.
If, other than sambhavi, I relax my body completely, it is as literal a falling into the arms of God as I can imagine or mortally bear - Fire! Fire! The Fire of Love! Every breath a shimmering sheet of Holy Flame, every heartbeat a Sunburst in a suddenly infinite inner sky. Every so often I notice that I'm rocking slowly back and forth in the Heart, the very Heart, of that purifying Crucible. Then the rapture swallows me entire again.
Have I said things of this nature before? Well, does it not bear repeating? This is the liturgy of a spiritual ecstatic, engraved on the soul, and scrolling out as I become haplessly inverted over the pen like a static-charged sock (*crackle*). Like Rumi and Shamsi, let us enter retreat together, where I will entreat you to read from your holy books to me. But take care, lest I eat the pages from your hand out of sheer devotional desire.
Ecstasy often arrives as a complete surprise while my mind is engaged elsewhere. For example, it can come surging up and thru me as a self-existent, living force when I rise from response. (You wait to make love when I awaken, Parvati? Then kick me next time, for I don't want to waste a moment!)
Ecstasy can come when I raise a toothbrush to my mouth. (Shakti, you enjoy mint?!) It can come when I cross my legs (hero's pose is less obvious than siddhasana in public), or when I push/pull against resistance, or step up to a urinal (what a odd tantric shrine that has become *blush*)
But perhaps my favorite moments are when ecstasy arrives as a spreading/melting palm-like pressure or 'touch' on the top of my head, and so demands entrance I cannot resist regardless of circumstance. So I stagger half-blind to a supporting structure, and let the Ocean crash down into me. I so love these, the moments I seem so clearly not alone, and they become a thrilling call-and-response: "God?!" "I'm here." "God?!" "I'm here."
If real, just imagine the Grace, how great the Touch, to save a wretch like me! If not, consider what loneliness I must contain to begin seeing the Companion everywhere. But if pain is the dynamo that generates this Divine Light, should I really wish to be saved? What happens to the mystic when his cave is unsealed? These matters are beyond my ken. But should you think to become my guide, I offer this, from Hebrews 13:3 "Remember the prisoners as if chained with them...since you yourselves are in the body also." (It feels unseemly to appeal in this fashion, for in truth I am beneath your station.)
Well, I daren't exhaust my kind scrivener any further. I could use help there as well, as I have no online access. |
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whippoorwill
USA
450 Posts |
Posted - Oct 23 2011 : 12:49:40 PM
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Hi Roy:
The frank answer to the "are you experienced" question is no. I've been doing meditation but for a short while (maybe 6 months), and there are no kundalini fireworks for me. I can feel some energy moving in my body now, which is immensely cool, but mostly I have a little bit of silence and a lot of joy. I get the little miracles of a happier marriage and happier children. (Right now, the twins are playing music, jabbering, and dancing around above my room. I swear that if there was ever an earthquake here, I would not notice. A modest midwest earthquake cannot compete with those two.)
But what's up with this unbridled loneliness? Is it that no one there is able to relate to you? Or are you literally not able to speak to anyone? Are you in the hole again? Are you allowed to walk or jog around the yard to get some good grounding in? I'm just curious about your circumstances. I know they are what they are, and it doesn't do to dwell on it, but they might provide some context....
and...
quote:
(It feels unseemly to appeal in this fashion, for in truth I am beneath your station.)
Not true. "There, but for the grace of God, go I." Who knows where life will lead us or what choices we will make?
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Edited by - whippoorwill on Oct 23 2011 3:07:06 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Oct 26 2011 : 10:05:09 AM
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THE WINDS OF CHANGE
The election of a liberal governor has brought winds of change through Corrections, blowing away a blanket of constraint I'd apparently grown accustomed to.
Now they're trying to shoo me out the door, and things are moving swiftly. In an effort to "wake me up" to their world and prepare me for parole, I've been steered into spending all day as a GED tutor and in school for Microsoft MOS and optical networking certification.
It's nice having a small income, and I'm excelling at everything, but there's two people in me and the tantra side is stronger. I've been successful by Western standards before, but still had a lonely ache in me that only drugs and alcohol could momentarily dull, and that led only back to prison. I'm not lonely in my tantra practice, so which do you think I trust?
Looks like the biggest constraints now are within myself.
Yes, the gravitational pull of love could draw me out, but what with all the legends that have accreted like barnacles to my hull, and the huge web of words I've spun that search engine spiders will eventually explore, I'm afraid I've braided a noose that throttles off much chance of finding what I need. But I can't stop, for writing and ecstasy are tightly linked in me at present, and I require both to survive. What an irony for something to be so internally nurturing but also so eternally isolating. But I can see how it evolved.
Until now, the system completely restricted me from the productive use of my mind, so I instead learned to use it to escape on a raft of words. AYP, by providing a sea to float it on, has kept me alive log enough to figure myself out, and for a number of alternative ports to come into view. But all those I currently see are Western ports, filled with men all trying to scrabble over each other. I was once King Rat myself, so know it to be a weighty crown indeed, much different from the buoyant ring that now pulls me up to Heaven.
So I'd rather stay on my raft and meditation seat, where I compete with no one. But there's risks in that too. Friends say, "Roy, you're institutionalized. There's a world out there, and people would benefit by your presence." But then so many of them get out, get drunk, and come right back! *laugh* So their words fall flat.
My only hope is to find another raft to swim toward, or a place to safely moor mine. I fear open water, open society, and this prison ashram is all I know. Where is another that will have me? Seriously! Where is sanctuary, where is safe harbor?
Further, is physical freedom a moving from the dark to the light, or the light to the dark? Whose robes will stand as firm as these prison folds? Will it be a spiritual community, something stabilized by the vigor and warmth of many, or a single magical soul who may see humor or inspiration in an oft-hapless ecstatic?
Anandatandava |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Oct 26 2011 : 4:26:49 PM
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THE PEARL
Tantra arcs from root divine,
Self-born stone, 'tis that I climb.
To coax Oyster's depth unfurl,
Ocean temps across her Pearl.
Who's moist your folds since waves began?
You must awake to more than clam.
To walk this path it means no sin,
The time has come to breathe...me...in! |
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Radharani
USA
843 Posts |
Posted - Oct 28 2011 : 02:00:28 AM
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| I can totally relate to much of what has been expressed here. Blessings to you, bro. |
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From Anandatandava
