Tag: spirituality

Experience on the Summer Solstice

On By Douglas M.In Dream Interpretation, Dreams, spiritualityLeave a comment

 

I feel there’s a reason why ancient cultures gave such importance to astrological events like equinoxes, solstices, full moons and such things as planetary alignments. Basically they’re days of power, a day you can get a boost for your sadhana or your dream life if you’re receptive. Usually for me, if there’s any effect at all during these times (and a lot of times there isn’t), it’s on the level of dreams. I’ll have a powerful dream or a lucid dream. However during the last summer solstice, which was paired with a full moon, I had a little spiritual uplift that I think was shown in a dream I’d had the night before. The part I’m going to share however is just the end of a much longer dream since it’s only the end that’s really relevant as far as the spiritual uplift that day was concerned.

I put my backpack on and walk down the street and eventually find myself in some woods.  There’s a stream there and in the water I can see these birds, about twenty of them, that have the heads of peacocks but bodies more like an ostrich’s. They’re about as tall as a man and in the dream I regard them as peacocks.  One of them comes up and peers at me curiously though a gap in the trees.  I can see that we’re at a delta where this stream meets the ocean.  I go down into the water which is only about a foot deep and a very beautiful bluish green.  The whole scene is very beautiful as well. The peacock/ostrich birds are moving out into the ocean, and I’m walking with them.  Though the birds are big they don’t seem aggressive nor do they seem to be bothered by me.  If I remember correctly their ostrich-like bodies are black or greyish black.  It’s getting close to sunset and I want to watch the sunset with the peacock/ostrich birds.

One thing I’ve started to notice recently and have shown in a couple of recent blog posts is how a beautiful natural scene in a dream seems to be showing a nice ‘scene’ trying to manifest inside you in your waking life that day or a day or so afterwards. I believe that was the case here. So let me tell you what happened. On the day of the solstice, in the late morning, I went for a ride in my kayak. While I was out, I encountered one of my favorite water birds around here, a roseate spoonbill, roosting in a mangrove tree. I don’t often see them when I’m kayaking so I just sat there for a while admiring the bird and its beautiful pink plumage. When I returned home I noticed I felt cleared out as I often do after a spin in the kayak, since I can get fully immersed in nature. I noticed also that my thinking was elevated, and I found myself naturally pondering some things I’d recently read by Medhananda and Nolini Kanta Gupta and was looking at the world through the lens of those ideas. It didn’t require any hard mental effort or tapasya though. It was just happening naturally and spontaneously. For the most part I can’t remember exactly what I was reading at the time, but I do recall one little aphorism by Medhananda that was on my mind:

Spirit is tremendously solid.
It is like diamond.
In comparison
matter is only a cloud
of probabilities.1  

A little later I took our dog Rosie for a walk. As we walked I was really feeling the stillness in the plants, and while that’s not a common experience for me it wasn’t the first time that’s happened, and I’m sure a lot of people have felt the stillness in plants. This time though, I could also feel the joy that was in the plants, and I caught it a bit by contagion and was feeling joy inside me as well as I walked. I was also appreciating how beautiful and unique the plants were, seeing them the way you might when tripping on psychedelics but to a much much lesser extent. There was one group of plants I encountered that were nothing but huge leaves on stalks which had been planted to hide a fire hydrant. When I looked at those plants, there was something so delightful about those big leaves that I couldn’t resist the urge to go over and touch one, giving a little laugh as I did so and feeling delight similar to what I think a small child does when they do something like that. That delight continued on the walk, and the uplift continued after that. It might have still been there a little bit when I went to bed. I honestly don’t remember now. It wasn’t there the next day when I woke up though.

So what I think happened here was I was able to open to the amplified energy that was available that day and benefit from it in this altered state of consciousness, which was foreshadowed by the beautiful sunset scene in my dream. This idea that a beautiful dream scene is symbolic of a beautiful uplift in waking life is still a working hypothesis for me, but one I’m getting more and more evidence to support. Recently, I had another dream where I was looking at a beautiful blue lake ringed by breathtaking mountains on the far side, and two days later there was a definite shift in consciousness in the evening, a state of peace and quiet. It wasn’t as strong as other experiences like that I’ve had, but it was definitely there.

One thing that I feel is important to point out is the beauty of these dream scenes is beyond the greatest beauty you can see in the physical world or even in normal dreams. I can’t really explain it any better than that, but if you start to have dreams like this I think you’ll see what I mean, see that it’s a certain class of dream or has a certain type of dream substance that can embody that beauty. It might be a glimpse of what Sri Aurobindo calls the subtle physical, but I can’t say for sure.

Regarding the peacock/ostrich birds in the dream I should point out that Sri Aurobindo has said that a peacock is a symbol of spiritual victory and that fits with the fact that I had a little spiritual opening. The fact that the rest of the body was like an ostrich is interesting since the thing that most quickly comes to mind when I think of the symbolic meaning of an ostrich is sticking your head in the ground. If I’m remembering correctly that the color was black that would indicate a hostile force. So I’d guess the element of spiritual victory is still marred by an element of sticking my head in the ground and maybe also a hostile influence. I think the birds in the dream were also connected to the encounter I had with the roseate spoonbill even though the dream birds were completely different. I always enjoy the sight of a roseate spoonbill because pink is the color that symbolizes the psychic being or soul in the integral yoga.

So in closing I think it’s important to try and keep yourself clear every day and not just on days like full moons and solstices. Knowing, however, that you can get a little boost on days like that is a good motivator for keeping yourself clear especially on those occasions.

References

  1. On the threshold of a new age with Medhananda, pg 165 by Medhananda

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.

GOODNESS AS RECOGNITION OF DIVINE PRESENCE

On By Douglas M.In Inspirational QuotesLeave a comment

“The goodness which one man may express in his relation to another is derived ultimately from his own divine soul and is an unconscious recognition of, as well as gesture to, the same divine presence in that other. Moreover, the degree to which anyone becomes conscious of his true self is the degree to which he becomes conscious of it in others. Consequently, the goodness of the fully illumined man is immeasurably beyond that of the conventionally moral man.”

Paul Brunton

More: http://paulbrunton.org/notebooks/6/1

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?

Snowshard that Ape

On By Douglas M.In Inner Voice and Vision, spirituality1 Comment

Recently I was going through my files on my computer and I came across an aborted dream/inner journal from four years ago that I’d forgotten about. It only had a few entries and one of them was this line from the inner voice:

Snowshard that ape

Below the line I had written some comments stating that I thought the line had to do with sexually staring and fantasizing, that this was the ape-like behavior I was exhibiting, and that I needed to stop it. That may very well be true since that was a big problem I was struggling with back then. As Donny pointed out to me however, the ape is more of a general symbol for the animal vital in us and symbols like the dog, pig or goat more commonly represent sex itself specifically. Given this the ape could symbolize any primitive movement such as anger, jealousy, selfishness etc. and not just sex. With this idea in mind of a wide range of movements potentially symbolized by the ape, let’s further analyze the line’s meaning by looking at the words snow and shard.

As far as snow goes, the first thing that word suggests to me is purity, but there’s also the sense of cold or freezing. This gives the idea of stopping the ape-like behavior ‘cold’ and purifying myself of it. The word shard suggests something sharp and dangerous that can cause harm, so here we have the idea of ‘killing’ the ape-like behavior. In addition though I would also point out that when something is shattered it breaks up into shards, and like humpty dumpty can’t be put back together again. From this we can get the idea of ‘shattering’ the movement, weakening it to the extent that it can’t reconstitute itself and become a significant problem again.

So I guess I could sum up the line’s meaning as “Stop that ape in it tracks and shatter that impure movement.” Now one thing I really like about this line is its bluntness, the way it calls a spade a spade. It really helps me see how I’m acting like an ape, so I’ve been making use of the line since rediscovering it. I’ve mainly been using it to remind myself to snowshard the sex movement, but I also used it this morning when some annoyance reared its head. If you’re reading this and think it could help to snowshard the ape in you please feel free to use it.

Sai Mama – A satire

On By Douglas M.In fiction, spiritualityLeave a comment

dial M for milk by Genista, on Flickr
dial M for milk (CC BY-SA 2.0) by  Genista 

(Authors note: This story was written a number of years before the death of Sai Baba.  I was also living within walking distance of the ashram of Mātā Amṛtānandamayī Devī at the time of writing.)

When they (men) think of a manifestation of Divinity, they think it must be an extraordinary perfection in doing ordinary human things…or else they think of things which they call superhuman like not eating food or telling cotton futures or sleeping on nails or eating them. All that has nothing to do with manifesting the Divine. 1 – Sri Aurobindo

Despite having only had two hours of sleep, I literally leapt out of bed after receiving my wake-up call. I could hardly contain my excitement, the excitement that had kept me awake all night long. Today at last, at long last I would look upon the face of God Herself. For I was in Puttaparthy and today I would attend the darshan of Her Holiness Sri Sri Satya Sai Mama, the Galactic Avatar and reincarnation of the great Sai Baba.

Quickly I showered and dressed whilst singing hymns of praise to Her Holiness. Then banishing all vanity from my consciousness I examined myself in the mirror. Judging myself fit to be seen by Her Holiness, I then stood before my small altar. I thanked Mama once again for bringing me here on the first of what I hoped would be many pilgrimages to Puttaparthy. I prayed to her for guidance and strength and to help me be ready to receive what I needed during the holy darshan.

Then I was out the door and bounding down the stairs to the lobby. Upon seeing my obvious excitement the receptionist commented, “Your first darshan, eh?”

“Yes,” I ejaculated.

“Then enjoy,” she said, “Sai Mom.”

“Sai Mom,” I replied and I hit the streets of Puttaparthy where I was immediately solicited by the hover-shaw drivers. I politely declined. This was a pilgimage and I was going to go on foot.

My excitement grew and grew the closer I got to the ashram gate till I thought I might burst. Others of the faithful were on their way to the ashram and a few of them upon seeing me smiled kindly and remarked, “First darshan, eh?”

Then the gate was in sight and it was all I could not to dash inside, but I managed to keep a hold of myself. Then as I passed through the gate my eyes beheld a sight that transmuted my excitement into awe: the Samadhi of the great Sai Baba.

Slowly and with slightly faltering steps I approached this most sacred of all shrines. It was just like the pictures I had seen. There sealed inside a sphere of bazooka proof glass was His Holiness wearing his orange robe and seated in his favorite chair. His eyes were closed and his hands were folded on his lap. He appeared to be merely resting with a look of serenity on his holy countenance. It was truly amazing what the surgeons had done with him. You never would have guessed His Holiness had fallen to his death while giving a helicopter darshan. It undoubtedly helped that his fall was broken by two devotees and a toy poodle, but nevertheless it was amazing. On either side of His Holiness were two simple marble crypts which contained the two aforementioned devotees who, while others ran in fear, had adoringly received God as he descended upon them from above. In front of His Holiness was a much smaller crypt which contained the loyal poodle that never left his masters side. All three has been granted sainthood and Sai Mama had revealed that for their devotion they had all been granted instant enlightenment just before they were crushed beneath His Holiness.

Then awe changed into gratitude and tears streamed forth as I fell upon my knees in front of His Holiness. I bowed down before Him, thanking Mama for this grace, this wonderful grace to be here in Puttaparthy! Then I was lost in a wave of adoration chanting the mantras of the great Sai Baba.

After some time, I came back to myself. I rose up and bowed to His Holiness one last time and departed from the Samadhi. I looked at my watch and saw it was 6:30. Darshan was at 7:00 and I wanted to be early so I started making my way towards the temple. When I got about halfway there I spotted a man with a large tank on his back. A number of people were gathered around him and he was dispensing something from the tank into little cups and giving them out to the people. I was a bit confused by the whole thing until I saw the liquid was white. Then it hit me. It was the Holy Milk of Sai Mama!

Like her predecesor, Sai Mama was a worker of miracles. Sai Baba had possessed the ability to manifest solid physical objects at will such as watches, rings etc. His trademark miracle however was the Holy Ash which he produced in copious amounts from his bare hands. Sai Mama never materialized objects as such but her trademark miracle was the limitless supply of Holy Milk that flowed forth from her ample breasts. At night her breasts were connected to hoses and as she reposed in samadhi the Holy Milk would flow continuously into refrigerated tanks below. I deduced that the milk this man was giving out must have come from last nights store.

I was understandably possessed by a strong desire to partake of the Holy Milk but I restrained myself. I could wait until the Darshan. That milk was for those who wouldn’t be in attendance.

So I continued on my way almost giddy now. When I arrived at the temple I showed my token to an attendant who directed me to the left. Then I found myself at the security gate and once I had passed through a metal detector, a frisking, a latex glove cavity search and an ultraviolet decontamination chamber, I was in.

I almost couldn’t believe I was there. There were many people there both foreigners and indians. At the end of the room was the pillared platform with the carved wooden door through which Her Holiness would enter. I was just standing there dumbfounded until an attendant snapped me out of it.

“Sai Mom,” he said, “Please come this way to the foreigner’s section.”

He led me to the front of the temple where the foreigners section was. The hall was divided into four seating areas: one for foreign men, one for foreign women, one for indian men and one for indian women. Since it was my first darshan I was given a front row seat in the foreign men’s section. I sat down and my heart leapt with joy. In mere minutes God herself would walk through that door to give her holy darshan.

Around me others were meditating or chanting softly to themselves. I didn’t know how they could do it. It was all I could do just to sit still. I was constantly looking at the clock as the last few minutes ticked by. At 6:59 a group of young men dressed in orange robes and with shaven heads entered and sat in formation in front of the pillared platform. I immediately recognized them as Sai Mama’s famous eunuch chanting choir. When the clock struck 7:00 they began to chant and just before it reached 7:01 the door swung open and there she was––all 350 glorious pounds of her.

Immediately the temple exploded into a chaotic chorus of Sai Mom’s and other utterances of adoration. Sai Mama kindly waddled forward and raised her arms before the crowd. Now I too found my voice and joined my Sai Mom’s in with the rest. My vision blurred as tears poured down my cheeks and my heart was filled with a love that seemed uncontainable.

With a finger to her lips Mama hushed the crowd. Then, with a speed that would rival Billy the Kid, Mama withdrew one of her gargantuan breasts of bliss. The hall exploded once again in Sai Mom’s as Mama waddled towards the indian men’s section of the temple. There all Sai Moming ceased as the indian men opened their mouths and tilted back their heads eagerly awaiting the Holy Milk.    Mama stopped a few feet in front of them and paused. Then seizing her breast with both hands she squeezed it sending a 50 foot long arching spray of the Holy Milk over the crowd. Slowly she turned her body from one side to the other a couple of times like a sprinkler showering the entire section. Then satisfied she turned and waddled towards the indian women’s section. The indian men, meanwhile, broke forth in praise and Sai Mom’s as they sucked at their wet clothes and licked the floor for every drop they could get of the Holy Milk.

Mama repeated the same process at the indian women’s section and the foreign women’s section. Sai Moming was going on all around me but I remained silent. Never had I felt such awe and reverence as the greatest sacrament the world has ever known was performed before my eyes.

Then, having finished with the foreign women, Sai Mama turned around and began waddling towards us. Once again I found my voice and was crying Sai Mom as she approached. When she halted in front of us I opened my mouth and tilted back my head. I closed my eyes as the first drops fell upon me. Some drops went into my waiting mouth and I sighed with happiness as I tasted the sweetness of it. It was heavenly, rich and creamy with a hint of vanilla. Bubbling with joy I waited for the shower to pass over me again. After a few seconds it came again and went. It came a third time and a fourth time and each time it was sweeter than the last, each time my love and joy reached a greater apex.

Then the heavenly rain ceased and I opened my eyes. Mama placed her breast back within her robe and waddled to the pillared platform. Around me the other foreign men were sucking at their clothes and licking the floor, but I only had eyes for Sai Mama. The man sitting next to me grabbed my scarf and was wringing droplets from it into his mouth, but I hardly noticed. My being had melted into a wave of pure adoration which swelled with every step she took.

When she reached the platform she turned and raised her hands one last time and the temple exploded once again in Sai Mom’s. The eunuchs began to chant once more and with a smile Sai Mama turned and walked out through the great carved door.

As the door swung shut I bowed down to the floor beside myself with joy and gratitude and singing praises for the great Sai Mama. I don’t know how long I lay there lost in devotion, but when I raised my head from the floor almost everyone had gone. As I rose to my feet I realized in the core of my being that I couldn’t live away from this ashram. There I remained for one glorious month after which I returned to Johannesburg and sold my men’s lingerie shop as well as all of my possessions. Then I returned to Puttaparthy and here I remain, fulfilled in felicity only to be near her. Everything I have, everything I am belongs to her now.

Praise and glory be sung for the great Sai Mama. May all beings find refuge at her lotus feet. Sai Mom!

The End

References
1.  Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga – Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library Vol. 22,  p. 410-411.

 

The Calling

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

KA

By Medhananda from his book The Way of Horus

One of the most powerful movements in man
is the will, the aspiration to overcome his limitations.

It appeared in a few carbon rings
as the power to reproduce themselves;
it appeared in a few unicellular beings
as the power to unite,
in a few fish to crawl on land,
in a few proto-hominids
to tame fire and invent instruments,
and in a few men to a walk on the moon.
It is not his cleverness that makes man man,
it is his will to surpass his limitations,
to go higher, wider, deeper than anyone has gone before,
as well in the inner as in the outer world.
Perhaps we should live more often and more consciously
in the company of this evolutionary power
the we experience as aspiration: our KA*.

                 If this neter* calls-
dddddddthe others answer back.

It is invincible, on one condition:
that it is exercised.
There are still amoebas in every drop of water.
But we are the amoeba who exercised.
Will we travel to the stars?

For more on Medhananda please visit http://www.medhananda.com/

Notes
* KA was the Egyptian word for aspiration and neter was the word for a god such as Osiris, Isis, KA etc.  Medhananda considered the gods to be parts of our psychological makeup and not something outside ourselves to be worshipped.

Image taken from http://www.joanannlansberry.com/journ…/pathmark/feed-ka.html