Month: February 2013

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The Saraswati Work: Dharma Talk & Chanting from Monday, February 11, 2013

Cubist Saraswati

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continue swimming in the waters of the deity field personified in the Indian tradition as the goddess Saraswati. Here’s my dharma talk from February 11th. It opens with a commentary/exposition on the Saraswti Bija Mantra and goes on to explore the dance between embrace, descent, and reclamation on the spiritual, creative, transformational journey…

 

Here’s a clip of chanting from this class: Saraswati Bija Mantra gliding into Om Namah Shivaya followed by a dharana on the luminosity of Saraswati:

 

Here’s text of the David White poems I read in my dharma talk:

THE STATUE OF SHIVA
–David Whyte
 
The statue of Shiva
entwined with his lover
– the way
we love to hold closely
what is ours.
 
Their speech
so plain to the attentive ear
bowing close to listen.
 
“The universe refuses the vows
of the celibate.
Preparing them instead with
songs for marriage.
Everything it knows
was born of the great embrace.”

THE HUSK OF YOUR VOICE
–David Whyte
 
The husk of your voice
is like a chrysalis
grown round something
hidden,
waiting to be born
and waiting for you
to stop.
 
What is inside
wants you to know itself fully
before it is born.
 
That’s why it refuses
to reveal itself,
sure as you are
that you need not slip down
that long branch of your body
to the very root
and in that earth
hear the damp echo
of everything
you have not touched
reflected
in your voice, and the air
suddenly quicken
as if innocent speech
could rise again
from that rich and
impossible soil
composed
of your neglected
past.
 
Like sap rising
in the steady tree
of your life.
 
Your voice opens
and shows
the strong outline
of that tree
against the sky,
 
where another
shadow
takes flight
startled by your
new cry,
 
the shadow
of something leaving
to find its own way
in the world.
 
Something you carried
as a black weight
for many years.
 
You watch it go
relieved
as if it might return
blessed by world
which
allows its going,
refusing to be held
and refusing to hold
you again,
free and finally
in its flight
to another’s mouth
untroubled by your breath.

 

And the last word goes to Kabir. This beloved poet-weaver of Varanasi is, in my opinion, one of the greatest channels for the insight-wisdom-luminosity-stream personified as the goddess Saraswati:

THE CLAY JUG
Kabir [version by Robert Bly]
 
Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine
mountains, and the maker of canyons and pine
mountains!
All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of
stars.
The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who judges
jewels.
And the music from the strings no one touches, and the
source of all water.
 
If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.

 

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Part I: “Naked and bowed low…”

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2.9.2013

I was ill for much of January, brought to my knees by the flu. Confined to bed and couch, the key word was surrender. Each time I tried to go vertical before horizontal was done with me, I found myself crashing back down.  Which had me thinking a lot about the Sumerian myth of Inanna’s Descent. In this story, Inanna, Queen of Heaven & Earth must descend to the Underworld realm of her sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dark Below.  If you know the story, you’ll remember Inanna must pass through seven gates, surrendering an article of clothing at each one. So she arrives in the Underworld, “naked and bowed low.” Inanna’s chief hindrance is pride. Within moments of coming into Ereshkigal’s presence, she insults her, and ends up hanging on a meat hook for three days. A rather drastic purification, but this is the Dark Below. No sugarcoating of Reality down here…

Which is pretty much how I felt during the worst days of the flu. Illness does this, stripping us down to bare essence.

Descents can be physically devastating and emotionally brutal. So we need to learn to honor our descent time, holding onto awareness as we make the journey down. Counter-intuitive though it sounds, the more we embrace descent, surrendering to the fertile darkness, the more we return from the journey, renewed, refreshed, and inspired. In Devi Yoga, we call this process The Kali Work.

Here’s a dharma talk, inspired by the notion of descent, from January 1.28.13. I was somewhere between the under and above worlds when I gave this talk. Feeling well enough to teach class, I was far from recovered. This is therefore not the most coherent talk I’ve ever given, but the points are worth making.  I’ll also include chanting clips and text from the excerpt I read from Stephen Mitchell’s excellent translation of Bhagavad Gita.

Here’s an audio clip of my dharma talk:

This class opened with chanting of the Navarna mantra. Regular visitors to this Blog will by now have discerned that this mantra is a regular part of our practice. Although the seed syllables are associated with other deity fields, the heart of the mantra, Chamunda, is an extremely potent aspect — perhaps the most potent aspect — of the deity field personified in the Indian tradition as Kali Ma. The Sumerians drew her as Ereshkigal. It really doesn’t matter how we name or image the archetype. And much as I love goddess theology, to reduce it to goddess form is like playing with dolls. This is the primal power of Truth, the internal force that pulsates around and through our authenticity. This is the power of consciousness that destroys the ties that bind us, demolishing thieves of the heart, and drawing us down, into the luminous vortex of Self. So we don’t want to contemplate Descent without paying homage to this radiant force…

Here’s text from Stephen Mitchell’s beautiful translation and commentary on Bhagavad Gita:

from Chapter 2: The Practice of Yoga

THE BLESSED LORD SPOKE

 

When a man gives up all desires

that emerge from the mind, and rests

contented in the Self by the Self,

he is called a man of firm wisdom.

 

He whose mind is untroubled

by any misfortune, whose craving

for pleasures has disappeared,

who is free from greed, fear, anger,

who is unattached to all things,

who neither grieves nor rejoices

if good or bad things happen —

that man is a man of firm wisdom.

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Part II: Naked & Bowed Low

2.9.2013

For reasons  beyond my comprehension, the WordPress program is not allowing me to include my brief commentary and clip of Om Namah Shivaya with the previous post. This should come at the end of the section on Navarna mantra:

So we don’t want to contemplate Descent without paying homage to this radiant force… A force that finds grounding, stillness, and completion in the subtle vibratory universe of the mantra Om Namah Shivaya.