Authentic love comes from a mind that doesn’t turn away. It comes from a mind that faces the possibility of not getting what we want, of losing what we have and being separated from whom and what we love. An Awakened Life
Loving authentically can be very painful.
Still…
I would not…could not turn away…
Health, a light body, freedom from cravings, a glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance of body: these signs indicate progress in the practice of meditation. - Shvetashvatara Upanishad
I would add to this list, the ability to touch and be guided by the still peacefulness in the center of ourselves.
I’m in a philosophical mood today. This post suits my mood. I published this about a year ago now on Defining Spiritual Presence my old Blogger blog. I have nothing to add to this post, except to note that my experience of no mind has only grown deeper in the months since I posted this. I have not achieved my goal of no mind in daily life….but my viewpoint of this state of being is becoming…familiar. I mean that word in a specific way. Not familiar as in mundane, but familiar as in a magical companion. It is like a living being that rides with me through life…informing every thing. I am enjoying that learning process very much…Here’s the post:
There is a state of consciousness which Buddhists call “no mind”.
With the right supports in place, I have achieved this state of consciousness. In my daily life, I have yet to achieve that state on a daily basis, but that is my goal.
The first time I achieved that state I was standing staring at a sacred ceremony unfolding before me. I was looking at a tree that seemed to be an awakened being that was receiving the power of life through it as dancers made patterns of rhythmic movements in concert with one another surrounding that beautiful tree. They were praying for help and health for all life…the drum beat… Whistles blew…and my body was moving rhythmically in place in support of the dancers. My breath came in slow pants in pace with my feet….and the drum…and the whistles.
I stopped thinking of hunger and thirst. I stopped thinking of my back and legs aching. I stopped thinking of my feet being cold in the mud. I stopped thinking of anything, but the focus of moving in the moment and the unspoken fervent wish for healing for those that needed it. Nothing else passed through my mind. I just moved and silently wished…
I can still feel my gaze in that moment. It felt like a stream of power flowed out of my eyes, that saw the heart of anything it glanced over. It felt like my heart was connected to the heart of the universe and that I was simply a beat in it…one beat was my life time….and it was long enough. It felt like I was a part of the air around me…as if I were transparent and it passed through me…that it was breathing me, not me breathing it. I felt as if the light was dancing inside me…burning away whatever I didn’t need…giving life to seeds for the future for me….germinating them. I felt as if a song was being sung through my soul…something I’d never heard more clearly…I was in a state of receptiveness that measured life only in the present seconds and had no attachment to the last or the next.
It was a state of being. Just being. No attachment except to wishing for healing and being open to being used by that healing as it needed to answer the prayers…
That was not the last time I’ve had such a moment…but it was the most intense experience of it so far…
This series of perfect moments have informed every moment of my life since then. I changed in those moments. In those moments love became the most important thing in my life and I began to make a study of it…as I started to describe in a post yesterday.
Still…it is hard to know just what else has changed in me that I have yet to notice or understand…experiencing something like that isn’t something that can be put into a box, nor described in it’s full exquisite detail. It is not a spectator event. What happened in me might be similar to what others experience but neither I nor anyone else will ever experience just what I did in those moments again. They were unique to the exact events and consciousness of the moments.
I have great gratitude that I paid attention.
A song by Karen Drucker
This is a repost from Defining Spiritual Presence which I had forgotten about until a stray reader cued in on it the other day. I guess maybe I should take a second look at that blog. There may be some other stuff there I want over here after all. *smiles*:
When I regularly attended Sufi events, I often made time to join in on Dances of Universal Peace
I was remembering the dances recently when I was reading a blog post about Tantra and spiritual eye gazing. There is a particular dance that is done for soulfully greeting fellow dancers. The music and the song that go with this dance is a willowy, gracefully swaying rhythm which has a tendency to make a person dive into the belly and view the world from that rooted, quiet perspective…yet it also is one that increases the blood flow and so it simultaneously draws out a lighter, more rapid breath pattern and you find yourself shifting to a dual perspective in which your face infuses with light and you begin to radiate love from the face.
During this dance half the group is going clockwise and half counter clockwise and at various points of the dance, the dancers pause and bow to one another. In the first phase of the dance, the leader allows the dancers to let the music work it’s magic to arouse the soul…next the leader will have the dancers view their bowing partner with a deep eye gaze. It without fail will cause most of the dancers to begin to weep at the beauty and vulnerability this causes in each other…
To be seen deeply when each person is suffused with such love of the soul is a thing which cannot be truly understood until you experience it first hand. It is a viewpoint that allows no hiding…yet it is unconditionally loving. That is incredibly beautiful.
Make no mistake, many people resist this experience. They cannot hold the gaze. Those who can still hold the power of this gaze on their partner and allow the love to wash over them….usually by the time the dance is completed, each person has over come their resistance.
By the time the dance is completed the room is pulsing with the power of this Divine series of touches upon each other…and the dancing has only just begun.
This is the final segment in a three part series on invocation, ecstatic body postures and chakra skills. To date, I have shared two ecstatic body postures which work to open two chakras and alter consciousness, opening one to etheric energy: Ecstatic Body Postures and Ecstatic Body Postures II.
This final post in the series is combining these posture skills with invocation skills, which I taught briefly in this post called, Invocation. You should review these posts before trying to put this cluster of skills together for the Divine Light Invocation.
The Divine Light Invocation is a spiritual mantra which came to a visionary named Swami Sivananda Radha. I strongly recommend that you purchase the book and cd that shares not only instructions on this Invocation and the ecstatic body postures that attend it, but also teaches tools for mental and emotional purification and balance. Its a wonderful training and I highly recommend it!
For those of you who do not choose to make this purchase or who are curious, here is a copy of the mantra. It is published without permission.
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I am created by Divine Light.
I am surrounded by Divine Light.
I am sustained by Divine Light.
I am protected by Divine Light.
I am ever growing into Divine Light.
I learned of this invocation directly from Radha’s long time friend and student; Mable. I’ll refrain from saying Mable’s last name and in fact, I’m sure that many of Radha’s students would disprove of my calling her by her first name. The thing is, Mable was her friend and so long as I’ve been aware of Radha’s existence I’ve thought of her as Radha, not Swami, because that’s what Mable called her…regardless of those details, Mable is a part of Radha’s spiritual lineage and gave me permission to teach this practice to anyone that I thought needed it. I strongly direct you to personally experience the transmission of Radha’s teachings however. Since you don’t have Mable, get her book or cd, so that you can experience her voice and the energy of her thoughts. That imparts a great deal that is unspoken about this practice.
I believe in this meditation and its power. I have seen it work…and so has Mable, who once had a levitation experience in the presence of Radha and this invocation.
To do the invocation properly, do some full body movement that gets everything in motion for about two minutes. Next inhale and follow the directions from the Standing Ecstatic Posture post, reciting the invocation as you move completely into the body posture.
Relax and breath, remaining aware of the Divine Light infusing you with love…
Inhale and follow the directions for the Standing Ecstatic Posture II, reciting the Invocation again as you shift into this second posture. Relax, and breathe, remaining aware of the Divine Light infusing you with love….
You may want to shift in and out of these two postures until you feel full and renewed. When you do, then you can bring your hands together in the prayer position over the heart, embracing a deep gratitude for all that the Divine Light provides…
Let this grateful emotion wash over you and open your heart chakra to the source yet again, tensing your arms back into Posture II and visualize that you are overflowing with Light and love, and that this overflow returns to the source, connecting it to you…
Relax the posture.
Return to this last instruction of gratitude and overflowing energy connecting you to the source…and then see someone in need of healing standing in the stream of light going back to the source. See that person filling with Divine Light. See that person joining with the Divine Light; becoming one with it….
Release the visualization and return to the prayer position and just breathe with the Divine Light for a few moments…
Then thanking the Light, release the meditation.
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