Tag: spiritual guidance

Can I Apprentice You With Love?

On By Donny Lee DukeIn Inner Voice and Vision, seer poetry, soul healing, the hostile powersLeave a comment
a typical image found on channeling sites, source unknown

A poem by Donny Lee Duke

But in your routine,
what is the foundation of the whole thing?
It’s that the technology?
Can you point to God?
What’s happenin’
in your soul’s process with God?

Can you get your soul to speak?
Why always this:
you channel beings
of a particular order?
Can you grasp the inner voice,
hear that on the inside that your record?
Definitely more personal,
it’s got you at heart,
a wide variety of vision.
You’re hearin’ it now.

Now let me speak some
about capital.
You are not Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I hear no substance in your words.
Do you know the power of divine revelation?
It knocks you off your feet,
shakes you up,
makes you confront yourself,
and is really, really, poetic, you know?
No convulsions needed.

We can actually open a gateway
in people’s lives
to hope and possibility.
Wounded by something.
Now let’s go to the doctor,
and the young body
can open now.
Closed it,
closed it earlier,
channeling the soda pop.
I’m sorry,
that is not your next of kin.
I wouldn’t even call it divine.

I’m not gonna be used
by things that destroy
you just tell yourself.
Go get the basics
a little deep man:
we’ve whooped it up on stage.

The eve of creation—
you’ve hit the run around
with a big referral
to some starfish.
It’s got ears,
your soul buddy.
You have to ask it for help
fervently,
ardently.
Your soul rises to the surface
over many lifetimes.
I think you are where it speaks.
I offer you solace
in the form of understanding.
Come with me.

Stupid me,
I am not a perfected master,
not in Realization yet.
I’m sorry I sound so heavy,
so blow your tops off,
so glory in the hole.
I get in trouble
tryin’ to help.
People spit on me
the big bad outcast.
Oh have I sinned,
and so no one lets me speak.
Will you?

The stage the poem speaks of Tonight on Television.

I wrote this poem, or my muse did rather, which also serves to introduce the poem I’m currently disseminating, “Tonight on Television”, to a person who channels, Asil Toksal, after watching a video on YouTube where he channels, or says he’s channeling, the archangel Ariel. The video here. I watched the whole video and left this poem both as a comment after it and in an email sent to his site.

A Mixin’ on the Cosmic Two Yard Line

On By Donny Lee DukeIn ego activism, overhead poetry, seer poetryLeave a comment
photos by Donny, gimped by him

A poem by Donny Lee Duke

Alright let’s look at yah.
Amazing tornado,
it fixes the Yoga
right along its seams.
He reveals the Yoga.

No one’s ever done this before.
Wow, enlightenment.
It’s not possible to ignore ‘im.
He is delivery man.
This upsets the applecart.
Do you admire this or tear it apart?

A nice, safe and comfortable high five.
They’re just startled.
You manifest.
It’s beyond their pale.
If she has it she gives it to yah,
American house maker’s exchange.
You know what?
Put the dog in here.
Nitish bring them all.

Heat—The Inevitable Word
look where he’s wired.
We found him.
He’s in the city.
He’s around the ashram program,
an independent speaker of Sri Aurobindo.

Take him down.
We’re sure this is not the Word.
Who made frogs talk to him?
I was not prepared for the length of his contribution.
I can’t believe it;
he’s put so much out there.

My God the Word.
This is what it looks like.
Where do we put him?
Just leave ‘im alone.
A revolutionary speaker,
a speaking prophet,
are you kidding?
That’s for us.
It’s instant thrown away.

Down, down, down, up/down/up, down/up/down.
Down, down, down, up/down/up, down/up/down. [Heard this strum for the guitar]
I’ve write a song for you.
I collaborated you see,
from the bottom of my heart.
From there to the world,
from my touch with the world.
Even indicate a Spirit itself,
the whole planet.
I can’t see it—
an audience speaker.
It’s so close.

Consciousness saving devices
led by Sri Aurobindo.
I drew up the Alamo.
Drew up by popular mechanic.
I will besiege their house.
I will besiege the Alamo.

The divine comedy of Snob Owens
received poems.
You’re composed too much to be mood.
Your life is mood.
Don’t you know you are a shooting star?
There are other universes, other universes, other universes.
Across the universe across the Self.

What?
Every accomplishment will be made little of.
Is that where I piss?
They don’t understand.
No one understands.
You’re gettin’ a medal for bravery.
I’ve been calling this for years.
All you have to work on is the technique.
I give you the words
I give you the song
Mr. Inner Ear.

Talk and oneness are the same.
I do believe I’ve said my piece.
61 minutes
it’s on the way.
All these poems
the way you bring “Above National Commitments” out into the public?
Hear the radio.
It’s comin’.
Put your hat on boys it’s comin’—
right on the two yard line.

My God the Attitude

On By Donny Lee DukeIn ego activism, overhead poetry, soul healingLeave a comment
photo by Donny
A poem by Donny Lee Duke
Where is that tambourine man?
They don’t let you know everything.
A prime example
of so many things I can’t tell you.
You hold a life of noble purposes but it’s there behind you,
the ominous, foreboding nature of man.

I don’t think there’s cause for alarm
you generate goodwill
all in divine purposes.
You’re healed from your trauma,
from everything outside,
when you surpass yourself.

Can we say rock-bottom
has brought you over to freeway?
My God that smarts.
I don’t know how to tell you divine intervention
puts up with it for so long.
It’s a rock-bottom nightmare.

Divine intervention thrones above.
It has you by the hand.
You’re pulled out one by one.
This is grateful
hasn’t found a home yet.
You’re just stuck in the breeze.

Unfortunately you care,
and it just keeps going off.
This is rock-bottom nature
has overcome yourself.
It’s all in the plan
you come out of this alive.

God really cares.
It’s all over His face.
You just stand there and stare at it.
You wait for the world to show you a way out,
all eyes on that exit.
You’re in a harmony with the world.
It seeks you out.
Finally you find it.

There is no celebrating,
no noise you make
of victory.
You don’t even breathe,
least you draw lines in the sand
you get kicked around by.
Hey everybody I’m done!
Oh yeah?
And you fall again.

The unconsciousness of the mental life,
The mental battle,
The mental drama,
they confound.
We tag along
around the silence.

You have reached a divine rescue
in conjunction with the Earth.
You’ve penetrated the Earth,
and the intelligence behind Nature
moves into position.
You just let it happen.

The harmony that results from that
takes you out of harm’s way.
It’s wonderful isn’t it?
Glory hallelujah I’m saved,
truly.

No American
is that on the ground with you.
They take themselves with a grain of salt—
it was the trip
and all the interconnectedness about him
that gave him the pause—
you’re their bogeyman.

I’m okay I’m blind:
I don’t see a reader one interested in my story.
What do you do with this poem?
It’s the dawn of the day.
We’re gonna be right there where it grows.
We’ll give everybody fare warning,
and it shows up on some bulletin board,
the freshest in line.

Mahakali On The Wall

On By Douglas M.In spirituality, sri aurobindoLeave a comment

Recently here at Harm’s End we were able to finally do something we’ve wanted to do for a while which is upgrade our satsung room with some dark blue carpet and a fresh coat of white paint on the walls. We also got some nice meditation cushions, and the final touch was some nice pictures of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to hang on the walls.

To get the pictures Donny and I went to a place in town called Harpagon Workshop, which is a department of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and which has a very large photo gallery with thousands of pictures of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother of all different sizes. In addition to shopping for the satsung room, I was also on the lookout for one more picture for my room, one that would be directly across from me as I’m sitting in my chair. Shortly after we arrived at the gallery one picture really popped out at me of the Mother standing at the top of a staircase. I was drawn strongly to the picture, and thought it would be good one for my room.

Later on, as Donny and I were admiring the picture newly hung on my wall, he told me that this particular photo was the first image he ever saw of the Mother. It had been on the cover of a book called The Sunlit Path, which is a compilation of the Mother’s writings. I was also already familiar with the photo as well as that book, but Donny told me something I didn’t know about it, and that was that it was taken on the Kali Puja day when the Mother came down the stairs, and then gave blessings to all the ashramites. I found that very interesting since I had drawn the card that represents Mahakali1 that day from The Eternity Game, and I took it as confirmation that this indeed was the photo that was needed for my room. I also thought this could herald more involvement from that particular aspect of the Divine Shakti in my sadhana which is good news since the name of that card in The Eternity Game is ‘Power’ and its aspects are ‘Transformation’, ‘Rapidity’ and ‘Height.’ In the description of the card Medhananda states that:

Her way is a rapid transformation by the sudden and immediately effective removal of all obstacles opposing her divine will.2

For that to happen though:

she insists that we take our seat on the highest heights of our consciousness; only then can she shatter our limitations and smallness. Only when our aspiration mounts like a flame will she remove the enemies from our path.3

So getting Mahakali’s help isn’t easy, but maybe I’m nearing the point where that sort of decisive and irrevocable help is possible. I hope so. I did have one experience of Mahakali’s help a year or so ago on a day when I was caught up in a strong movement of anxiety. I had drawn the Mahakali card for that day and remembering that prompted me to call on her for help. It wasn’t instantaneous, but shortly after that the anxiety quickly lifted leaving me feeling peaceful. That wasn’t the end of my trouble with anxiety, but it showed me the possibility of Mahakali’s intervention.

It bears mentioning as an endnote to this post that after these events occurred I saw they would make a good article showing synchronicity, and had been planning to write it over the coming weekend. On Saturday I also drew the Mahakali card, which prompted me to follow through on writing the article, and I also took it as a sign that writing it was timely and fit with my process.

Notes and References

  1. Mahakali is one of the four aspects of the Divine Mother referred to by both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in their writings and talks.
  2. Medhananda, The Eternity Game, pg 53
  3. Ibid

 

A Film Camera For Mugu

On By Douglas M.In Inner Voice and Vision, overhead poetry, PoetryLeave a comment

About nine months ago or so I was still living in the USA and corresponding via email with Donny about one of our young people at Harm’s End, Mugu, who is 17. The issue was Mugu had dropped out of the class he was taking to prepare him for what in India is known as the 10th Standard examination. It’s the equivalent of a high school diploma in the USA, and is a difficult exam requiring a long preparation, and Mugu didn’t have either the initiative or the discipline for it.

So we were wondering what to do with Mugu, and I brought up as I had in the past that Mugu seemed to have a thing for photography. Rather than putting him in some kind of class, Donny put forth the idea of getting him a film camera and teaching him film photography. My response was that nobody uses film cameras anymore, and that they’re a major expense compared to a digital camera, which, after the initial investment in the equipment itself, can take thousands and thousands of pictures. So I basically vetoed the idea, and as I would find out later Donny was actually okay with that. He thought a nice digital camera would be fine as well.

Then nothing happened for a while after that. I didn’t bring it up again because even though I was okay with a digital camera, I’m a cheapskate, and it would be a big chunk of change for a good digital camera with multiple lenses. I also know how irresponsible Mugu is, and was worried about the camera being lost or stolen. Then Donny brought up the film camera again, and again I argued against it. So he sent me a formation he had gotten from his muse on that matter, one that he felt had come from our teacher, the Mother, which said:

A digital camera
not the appliance he needs.
A professional camera
with lenses
develops his creativity.

Don’t mix tobacco in it.
A digital camera,
there’s a
camera
ain’t a camera
his art would say,
his art,
not mine, yours
or ours —
his camera.

 A boy and his needs.
He needs a camera
just to help him
become a good man.
Become a good man,
that’s our field.
Creativity lost his show
there’s no camera.
Digital not included.1

Now as clear as that was I still wasn’t ready to give up my position on the matter, mainly I think at this point because I didn’t want to be wrong, nor to be overruled by someone’s else’s guidance. My vital also has some problems with jealousy over the fact that I can’t get a formation like that from my muse, can only get some lines here and there or small groups of lines, and that also made the whole thing hard to swallow. So I continued to argue, pointing out that what might be spent on film alone over the course of a year would buy a very nice digital camera with multiple lenses. So Donny sent me another formation that had come a while before but that he hadn’t shared with me. This one said:

Professionality
a camera,
a camera
professionality.
Digital camera
is the wrong lens.
Now get it
Like you’re supposed to
a lens camera.
Douglas don’t want to buy the camera,
Don’t want to
Because it doesn’t make sense
to his practical
intelligence.

 Creativity deserves a chance.
You’re not thinking how involved he’ll be
with a professional camera.
A great occupation
color
photography.
Develop sway talent.

Would you listen?
Douglas has his own opinion.
How are we doing today?
Develop his own opinion.
That’s roll call,
Orange wares. 

Grand market
shopping
must be in town.
Oh it is.
Professional camera
with lens,
telephoto one,
wide angle,
and the one you use mostly. 

A lot of creativity
has room to play.
Amsterdam
doesn’t take him home.
Creativity rules.
What do we do for money?
Trust sweetheart,
just trust
and work.
There’s sadhana.2

Well after reading that I gave in, though the vital didn’t like it at all. By that point I was planning to come to India, but I wasn’t sure when, so Donny and I started looking online for a used film camera in India rather than waiting for me to buy one in the USA and bring it when I came. The search proved much more difficult than either of us were expecting and when we finally ordered a camera we didn’t read the fine print in the listing on ebay.in, and got one that was sold “as is”, and was basically broken. At this point I thought I could ask my mom if I could have my grandfather’s Canon AE-1, which had been sitting in my dad’s closet unused for years, to give to Mugu, and she said I could. So when I came to India back in December I brought that camera with me.

Then we ran into more obstacles. Both Donny and I had assumed that in a country as large as India there would be websites where you could easily buy the chemicals and darkroom equipment, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. You could find things scattered around on amazon.in and ebay.in but a lot of it seemed to be coming from the USA. So we went to a website in the USA, and could find everything we needed, but the shipping was almost as much as the cost of the chemicals and equipment. We had decided to just eat the cost, but then it occurred to me to call Auroville and try to find out if anyone there had a dark room, and knew how to order the supplies in India. From Auroville I got the name of an American man, John, who has lived in Pondicherry for many years, and was formerly an inmate of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I gave John a call and he invited Donny and I over to his house where we had a long talk, and he also gave us the name of man in Mumbai who could supply us with everything we needed. The way it all wonderfully worked out was just more confirmation for us that we were indeed doing the right thing with the film photography.

So we got all the chemicals and equipment to start Mugu with black and white photography. All that remained was a dark room, which is almost completed. Once it is John has offered to come over and give us some pointers from his long experience with film photography. There’s every reason to hope this will be a very positive thing for Mugu, and give him a much needed focus and creative outlet, one that will help him, if Donny’s muse is correct, to be a better man.

Notes

  1. Copyright Donny Duke
  2. Ibid.

My Mind Relief From Madness

On By Douglas M.In Dream Interpretation, Dreams, Inner Voice and Vision, spirituality2 Comments

About a month ago my mind and vital was in the grip of something. I don’t remember what now exactly, but it was something that had been troubling the  mind and holding it under siege for a couple of days. I wanted to get free of the movement but was having trouble doing so. Then I received these lines from the muse in the morning:

Don’t muddy the mind courts (Came at the end of a dream where I was watching a performance of the hip hop group Run DMC)
My mind relief from madness
Mooning.

The first line’s advice was pretty clear, and motivated me to really try and throw the disturbing thoughts out of my mind, but I was having only limited success. Then all of the sudden, in the evening, I noticed my mind got abnormally clear, and it didn’t take much effort to keep it clear. There was no peace or joy or anything, just a quiet, fairly focused mind. Still it was a welcome respite.

Sri Aurobindo says, among other things, that the moon is a symbol of the spiritual consciousness which is above our normal human mind. One of the main movements in the integral yoga is for the sadhak to not only ascend to this level (or levels I should say) of consciousness, but also for it to descend and transform these lower levels of mind, life and body as well with its peace, silence, light and bliss. So what happened here I think is I got ‘mooned’ by a descent from the spiritual consciousness which quieted my mind and gave me relief from the mind’s madness. It didn’t last and was gone the next morning, but it broke the momentum of the disturbing thoughts, and I was able to move past them. I imagine it was important that, prompted by the muse, I was making a strong effort to throw out the thoughts myself. That I feel opened the door to the descent from the spiritual consciousness.

Now as the reader has no doubt noticed, the first line came at the end of a dream. This is a fairly common occurrence, but I have to admit I often can’t make any connection between the lines that come at the end of a dream and the dream itself. A lot of the time the lines don’t seem to have anything to do with the dream.  Here though I can see a correlation between mud in the mind and hip hop music, which overall has a pretty low vibration, one that appeals to the less enlightened parts of the human vital.

Does anybody else see anything in these lines that they want to share in the comments?

I Want Struggles To Be Light

On By Douglas M.In Inner Voice and Vision, PoetryLeave a comment

A few days ago this line from the muse came to me in the morning.

I want struggles to be light.

You can definitely play around with multiple interpretations of a line like this because of the different meanings for the word ‘light’. One interpretation jumps out right away if you take ‘light’ in the sense of something being not heavy or not dark in color. Read this way the line is saying that I want a lighter load of struggles.  There’s no doubt I feel that way often, and I’m sure most people reading this can relate to that sentiment. Another idea though along these lines has to do with my belief that what really makes struggles and pain so dark and heavy is this consciousness we live in which is a state of identification with this mind and body. But as many spiritual teachers have said throughout the ages, if you can enter into a consciousness where you’re identified with the divine, or oneness or whatever you want to call it then you realize that this mind and body isn’t you, is more like a shirt you’ve put on, and you don’t take what happens to them so seriously anymore. Then, even though life’s challenges are still there, they’ve lost their heaviness, and you no longer suffer from them. You deal with them from a state of Light or Knowledge and not a state of Ignorance.  Hand in hand with that idea is a complementary take on the line where ‘light’ means spiritual illumination. This gives the sense to me of struggles being spiritually illumined and transmuted.

Another interpretation that occurred to me takes ‘light’ in the sense of a ‘means of igniting something’ as in “Hey buddy, you got a light?”. It’s a less obvious reading of the line and one that probably wouldn’t have occurred to me if I hadn’t been thinking a lot about something I’d read in the Mother’s Questions and Answers a few days before. I’ll share the quote first before I get into the interpretation.

Quite naturally we ask ourselves what this secret is, towards which pain leads us. For a superficial and imperfect understanding, one could believe that it is pain which the soul is seeking. Nothing of the kind. The very nature of the soul is divine Delight, constant, unvarying, unconditioned, ecstatic; but it is true that if one can face suffering with courage, endurance, an unshakable faith in the divine Grace, if one can, instead of shunning suffering when it comes, enter into it with this will, this aspiration to go through it and find the luminous truth, the unvarying delight which is at the core of all things, the door of pain is often more direct, more immediate than that of satisfaction or contentment.1

So like the Mother says here I think the line could be interpreted in the sense of changing my attitude so that struggles and pain become more a means of advancing on the spiritual path, more a means of igniting my aspiration to go through them in order to reach that ‘unvarying delight’ than something that holds me back when I have  resistance to the pain or depression about the pain. Backing up this idea, I feel, is an experience I had with Medhanada’s Eternity Game two nights before I received this line and a few hours after I’d read the above quote from the Mother. That quote is part of a longer passage where she says a number of things one of which is “When pain comes, it comes to teach us something.”2 As I’ve mentioned in other blog posts, probably my biggest difficulty is contending with the constant chronic pain in my back and knees. So that night after reading the Mother’s words I asked the Eternity Game, “What’s the purpose of this pain?” The card I drew was ‘Dwarf’.

Europe 1997.3 25

In the Eternity Game this card represents the mental being, and as you can see its aspects are ‘Quest’, ‘Next Step’ and ‘Intelligence’. Medhananda gives detailed commentary on all the cards in the game, but he also gives short one sentence descriptions.  The short one he gives for the ‘Dwarf’ card is ‘advance, take the next step.’3 I took this as confirmation that I have to try and take the mental attitude the Mother recommends towards the pain so it becomes more a means of progress. I should point out that for me the fact that my reading of the  Mother’s words was followed by synchronicities with both the Eternity Game and my own inner guidance in just a matter of a few days stresses the need for this change in attitude. It’s not easy to do, and to truly surrender this pain is something I’ve been aspiring for for a while. Hopefully this will help me to take the ‘next step’ with that.

So that’s my take on things. Please feel free to share other ideas in the comments!

References

  1. Questions and Answers 1957-1958  by the Mother pg 41
  2. Ibid pg 42
  3. The Eternity Game by Medhananda pg 133

 

 

A Buddhist Couplet 2

On By Douglas M.In Inspirational Quotes, Poetry, spiritualityLeave a comment

Right now you are identifying.

Switch the master appearance.

The Strength is on the Distant

On By Douglas M.In Inner Voice and Vision4 Comments

This line of guidance from the inner voice came to me some months back:

The strength is on the distant

The first interpretation that jumped out at me was the yogic technique of distancing yourself from undesirable lower movements, looking at them as not oneself and detaching rather than struggling with them. Looking at the line that way helped me to free myself from the weakened but lingering siege of a strong vital reaction that had gotten in the day before the line came.  Do any other interpretations jump out at anyone?