I’m titling this post with a quote from the Thomas Merton poem I read at class on 10.22. “By ceasing to question the sun, I have become light…” For me, this line offers the essence of the path of heart. The mystery, the teaching, the practice. The poem itself is like a mantra. Radiant with shakti. Read it over ten thousand times. It will shape your inner being in its bliss…
O Sweet Irrational Worship -Thomas Merton
Wind and a bobwhite And the afternoon sun.
By ceasing to question the sun I have become light,
Bird and wind.
My leaves sing.
I am earth, earth
All these lighted things Grow from my heart.
A tall, spare pine Stands like the initial of my first Name when I had one.
When I had a spirit, When I was on fire When this valley was Made out of fresh air You spoke my name In naming Your silence: O sweet, irrational worship!
I am earth, earth
My heart’s love Bursts with hay and flowers. I am a lake of blue air In which my own appointed place Field and valley Stand reflected.
I am earth, earth
Out of my grass heart Rises the bobwhite.
Out of my nameless weeds His foolish worship.
Here’s a clip of my 10.22 dharma talk. It runs around twenty minutes, riffs on poetry from Denise Levertov and Dorothy Waters, and ends with Merton.
This audio clip of class chanting Om Namah Shivaya runs around 13 minutes and ends with a 2-minute dharana on the Merton poem.
Here are the Levertov and Waters poems:
The Secret -Denise Levertov
Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.
I who don’t know the secret wrote the line. They told me
(through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even
what line it was. No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret,
the line, the name of the poem. I love them for finding what I can’t find,
and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that
a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines
in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, for
assuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all.
Taken
-Dorothy Walters
First, you must let your heart be broken open in a way you have never felt before, cannot imagine.
You will not know if what you are feeling is anguish or joy, something predestined or merely old wounds flowing once more, reminders of all that is unfinished in your life.
Something will flood into your chest like air sweetened by desert honeysuckle, love that is too strong.
You will stand there, very still, not seeing what this is. Later, you will not remember any of this until the next time when you will say, yes, yes, I have known this before, it has come again, just as your eyes fold under once more.
I sit at my computer assembling the elements of this post and there is so much I want to say to you. My heart overflows with the longing. But listening to the talk, re-living the poems, anything more seems redundant. So I will leave off here, bidding you adieu until we meet again, from my heart to yours…
It’s been nearly three months since I’ve written here. Coming back this evening I discovered content that’s been sitting since October, waiting to be fleshed out and published.
This is a talk I gave on 10.15. While the Path of Heart was still my principal focus, I was beginning to weave the Kali Work back into the tapestry. For the last few years, I’ve moved away from metaphors of the Sacred Feminine. This talk on the fire of love marks a shift back into that perceptual framework and articulates where we find ourselves when Kali awakens on the Path of Heart…
Here’s the Mary Oliver poem I read as a dharana at the end of my talk:
Maybe -Mary Oliver Sweet Jesus, talking his melancholy madness, stood up in the boat and the sea lay down, silky and sorry. So everybody was saved that night. But you know how it is when something different crosses the threshold — the uncles mutter together, the women walk away, the young brother begins to sharpen his knife. Nobody knows what the soul is. It comes and goes like the wind over the water — sometimes, for days, you don’t think of it. Maybe, after the sermon, after the multitude was fed, one or two of them felt the soul slip forth like a tremor of pure sunlight before exhaustion, that wants to swallow everything, gripped their bones and left them miserable and sleepy, as they are now, forgetting how the wind tore at the sails before he rose and talked to it — tender and luminous and demanding as he always was — a thousand times more frightening than the killer storm.
Here are mantras [om namah shivaya and navarna] with a short dharana at the end of the clip:
And the last word goes to Mirabai/Bly. If you’re still wondering how to walk the Fire Path of Heart, here are operating instructions…
The Heat of Midnight Tears
-Mirabai English version by Robert Bly Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening, Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night. If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water, I would have asked to be born a fish in this life. If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts, Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb! If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves, Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us! If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way, I would have adored a granite mountain years ago. Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.
Although we had class on Monday, October 1, the recording quality was sub par, so no dharma talk or chanting posts for that week. Since turnout was small, we kind of had a re-do on 10/8. So this post covers both classes…
When I last left off on this blog, we were taking Monday Night inspiration from the Jewish High Holidays. Now that the “Days of Awe” have passed, leaving sweetness in their wake, we’re shifting focus to paths of love, devotion, the heart. Down the road we’ll probably spend time with classic yogic heart texts like the Bhakti Sutras and Pratyabhijna Hridayam. For now though, I’m not much interested in technique or philosophy. So these classes on the Heart will be mostly chanting, meditation, devotion-soaked poetry, and those handfuls of words that insist on coming through me as dharma talks…
These two classes opened with chanting of the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra. For those unfamiliar with this great mantra, here’s the text:
May we be freed from all the attachments that keep us bound….
The traditional claim is that this mantra bestows immortality. From my perspective, this is a bit of a stretch. It does however, facilitate a letting go. The kind of letting go we feel in that moment of Love before attachment enters the room. So it seems a perfect mantra to work with over this next cycle of classes.
Here’s a clip of the chanting:
This week’s dharma talk is a freewheeling riff on Love and the Heart… There’s an interesting anecdote about the Heart Cakra, along with references to Carlos Castaneda’s alter ego, Don Juan. Definitely worth a listen…
Finally, here’s a clip of Om Namah Shivaya with poems read at the end as dharanas before silent meditation…
Here’s a beautiful quote I did not bring to class but will add it for those brave souls on the path:
The Path of Love
is like a bridge of hair
across a chasm of fire.
-Irina Tweedie
And the last word goes to the poems:
The madness of love is a blessed fate; And if we understood this We would seek no other: It brings into unity What was divided, And this is the truth: Bitterness it makes sweet, It makes the stranger a neighbor, And what was lowly it raises on high. -HADEWIJCH OF ANTWERP
Anyone who has waded Through Love’s turbulent waters, Now feeling hunger and now satiety, is untouched by the season Of withering or blooing, For in the deepest and most dangerous waters, On the highest peaks, Love is always the same. -HADEWIJCH OF ANTWERP
So long as this breath fills your nostrils, Why seek out fragrant flowers? Peaceful, compassionate, patient, already your own master, Why do you need to cross your legs to Know? Once the entire world is yourself, What could a life of solitude add? O white Jasmine Lord- -AKKA MAHADEVI
I do not call it his sign, I do not call it becoming one with his sign. I do not call it union, I do not call it harmony with union. I do not say something has happened, I do not say nothing has happened. I will not name it You. I will not name it I. Now that the White Jasmine Lord is myself, What use for words at all? -AKKA MAHADEVI
On the Spirit of the Heart as Moon-Disk
Merely to know The Flawless Moon dwells pure In the human heart Is to find the Darkness of the night Vanished under clearing skies. -KOJIJU
Birth, old age, Sickness, and death: From the beginning, This is the way Things have always been. Any thought Of release from this life Will wrap you only more tightly In its snares. The sleeping person Looks for a Buddha, The troubled person Turns towards meditation. But the one who knows That there’s nothing to seek Knows too that there’s nothing to say. She keeps her mouth closed. -LY NGOC KIEU
I’m still reflecting on sweetness and light, and the longing to merge into this luminous honey of the heart. As yogis we want to swim, dare I say, drown there. So I thought we’d open class with the Krsna Govinda kirtan. Here’s a clip of that. The sound quality is not great. I’m including it here because everyone loves this chant. [I’m happy to report I’m getting closer to returning to the studio. I need a few more months for the non-stop drama of my last two years to resolve. Once that happens, I’m looking forward to drowning in this music of my heart.]
And here’s this week’s dharma talk, which runs around 17 minutes. I read from Kabir & Rumi, two drenched souls who knew a thing or two about drowning. All text is posted after the sound clip:
Here’s the Kabir:
The darkness of night is coming along fast, and the shadows of love close in the body and the mind. Open the window to the west, and disappear into the air inside you. Near your breastbone three is an open flower. Drink the honey that is all around that flower. Waves are coming in: there is so much magnificence near the ocean! Listen: Sound of bells! Sound of immense seashells! Kabir says, Friend, listen, this is what I have to say: the One I love is inside of me!
Yes, at the end of the day, it’s all about Love, and our longing, which is actually the connecting thread. Kabir says it far better than I:
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work. Look at me and you will see a slave of that intensity.
Here are the Rumi poems:
1. This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and attend them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meetr them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Welcome difficulty. Learn the alchemy True Human Beings know: the moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door opens.
Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade. Joke with torment brought by the Friend. Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, and then are taken off.
That undressing, and the beautiful naked body underneath is the sweetness that comes after grief.
2. One night a man was crying, “Allah! Allah! His lips grew sweet with the praising, until a cynic said, “So I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?” The man had no answer to that. He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls, in a thick green foliage. “Why did you stop praising?” “Because I’ve never heard anything back.” “This longing you express is the return message.” The grief you cry out from draws you toward union. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup. Listen to the moan of a dog for its master. The whining is the connection. There are love-dogs no one knows the names of.
Give your life to be one of them.
And here’s the quote from Lawrence Kushner’s, The River of Light:
There is a realm of being that comes before us and follows after us. Streaming through and uniting all creation. Knowing who we have been and will be. It contaminates our sleep with visions of higher reality and exalts our waking with stories. It is a river of light. “She is a tree of Life to those who hold onto her.” [Prov. 3:18]. Her branches and shoots are the nerves and vessels of this world coursing beneath our surfaces, pulsing through our veins. A blueprint underlying the cosmos. The primary process of being. The inner structure of consciousness. The way of the Tao. “And all her paths are peace.” [Prov. 3:17]. Just behind and beneath everything. If we could but stand it, everything would have meaning. Everything connected to everything else even as they all share a common Root.
This week’s recording of slow mantra had some technical glitches so I won’t post sound clips. Instead, I dug into my archive of not-yet-posted recordings and chose the first one that jumped out at me. Which was July 25, 2011. This was back in the days when Sri Dan was with us each week so we were singing much more kirtan. This class opened with Jaya Shiva Shankara. There were a lot of new people in the room that night so the recording begins with an introduction to this chant. You’ll hear Sri Dan on tabla. Sweet light. Enjoy.
I’m also including the dharma talk from that week. We were deep into Patanjali, swimming around in Book II. I was so struck by the threads between what we were talking about then and what we’re talking about now, I thought I’d leave the entire talk. Think of it as a bonus feature;) I don’t have time for a careful edit so this is one long 50 minute sound clip. Here’s a rough breakdown: Jaya Shiva Shankara, 0-26; dharma talk, 26-43; and there’s an interesting dharana on Om Namah Shivaya, 43-50. Once you click on the sound file, you’ll see the time and you can click around within the file:
This week’s class fell on Rosh Hashonah, the first day of the Jewish New Year. In Jewish tradition, the first ten days of the year are considered the High Holy Days, the Days of Awe. There’s a sense that over these first ten days we lay the blueprint for the rest of the year. So the suggestion is to spend this time in quiet contemplation, taking stock of how we’ve moved towards the light, and how we’ve moved away. Along with this intensive self-inquiry, it’s traditional to eat apples dipped in honey, a symbolic act for bringing sweetness into our lives.
So I thought it only right to offer this class to sweetness and light…
Hence, I added srim, the Laksmi bija mantra, to last week’s mix of Gayatri and Om Namah Shivaya — andbrought in a group of Hafiz/Landinsky poems and a reading from Lawrence Kushner’s kabbalistic musings, Honey From the Rock.
For visitors unfamiliar with the Laksmi bija mantra, let me say a few things about srim — which I can’t properly transliterate here — fyi, it’s pronounced “shreem.” Srim is a seed mantra meaning it contains the full potency of the deity field. In this case, Laksmi, aka the power of splendor, magnificence, expansiveness, abundance… you get the idea. So the teachings go that whatever Laksmi touches grows into its most magnificent form. And sweetness is one of the attributes of Laksmi. This is a perfect sweetness. Not so sweet as to be cloying or just plain too sweet. This is the perfection of sweetness. The sweetness that makes us feel, well, let me say it like it is, positively delicious. We might say we experience the sweetness of Laksmi as a kind of effervescent grace. When all is right with our lives and infinity is possible…
Before I go on, let me also say a few things about Monday Night Class. There is much I love about this class. Its longevity. The people who find their way there. The depth and power of the teachings and practice. The sense of welcome, safety, and community. Sometimes though, I think what I love best is the sweetness of the laughter. Here’s a clip from this week’s class:
Here’s this week’s dharma talk. Which begins with the below posted Hafiz. This small group of poems offers an excellent teaching on what gets in the way of our ability/intention to live in and of our sweetness and light [and delight!] I’ll post the Kushner quote which I also read in this talk, below Hafiz. Kushner is writing specifically about Light. The two together make an excellent counterpoint on the topic of sweetness and light. Add in the mantras and we have a fugue for the heart…
Here are the Hafiz poems, from Daniel Landinsky’s book, The Gift.
THE SAD GAME,
Blame Keeps the sad game going. It keeps stealing all your wealth – Giving it to an imbecile with No financial skills. Dear one, Wise Up.
TIRED OF SPEAKING SWEETLY
Love wants to reach out and manhandle us, Break all our teacup talk of God. If you had the courage and Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights, He would just drag you around the room By your hair, Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world That bring you no joy. Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly And wants to rip to shreds All your erroneous notions of truth. That make you fight within yourself, dear one, And with others, Causing the world to weep On too many fine days. God wants to manhandle us, Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself And practice His dropkick. The Beloved sometimes wants To do us a great favor: Hold us upside down And shake all the nonsense out. But when we hear He is in such a “playful drunken mood” Most everyone I know Quickly packs their bags and hightails it Out of town.
DROPPING KEYS
The small man Builds cages for everyone He Knows. While the sage, Who has to duck his head When the moon is low, Keeps dropping keys all night long For the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners.
FIND A BETTER JOB
Now That All your worry Has proved such an Unlucrative Business, Why Not Find a better Job.
I WISH I COULD SPEAK LIKE MUSIC
I wish I could speak like music. I wish I could put the swaying splendor of the fields into words so that you could hold Truth Against your body And dance. I am trying the best I can With this crude brush, the tongue, To cover you with light. I wish I could speak like divine music. I want to give you the sublime rhythms Of this earth and the sky’s limbs As they joyously spin and surrender, Surrender Against God’s luminous breath. Hafiz wants you to hold me Against your precious Body And dance, Dance.
Here’s the quote from Lawrence Kushner’s Honey from the Rock:
It is no accident that all the great creation tales begin with light. Of all the things that the Creator might have first formed – mountains, waterfalls, stars, flowers, fruited plains, lions and lambs, leviathans and whirlwinds, single-celled creatures and man – He made light. First of all the Holy One fashioned consciousness.
Let us retell the story of this light which is a metaphor for spiritual awareness: A light with which the Holy One began the creation. Let there be light and there was light. In the Zohar we read further of creation. Some kind of dark flame – blinding flash – issued forth from the innermost hiddenness – from the mystery of the Ayn-Sof, the Infinite One…. A light that was so dazzling that by it…man could gaze from one end of the universe to the other. A light so powerful that is shattered earthly vessels. A light that if it fell into the hands of the wicked could return creation itself back to primordial chaos. A light that therefore had to be hidden away. And God made a separation. A light that was set aside for the Tsadikim [the righteous ones]. Light is sown for the righteous… A light whose appearance initiates creation. But it is a creation only able to withstand a tiny bit of light. Therefore the light had to be concealed. And so it is that darkness and incompletion and separation are the price of this world. While light initiates existence, existence conceals light. For with the appearance of the light being began, But with the concealment of the light all manner of individuated existence was created… Just this is the mystery of the work of creation; And one who is able to understand will understand. A light imprisoned in the shards of this created world, waiting for us to free it. Returning itself and us to the Creator. A light so awesome that even a fraction of its splendor – just so much as a ray the thinness of a needle is all any of us need for unimaginable illumination.
Here’s a clip of this week’s chanting. I tried a different microphone placement, hoping to pick up less harmonium, more voices. Alas, I ended up with more harmonium. The call is quite clear, but I’m sorry to say the response is barely audible.
Finally, here’s a clip of the dharana I gave before gliding into silent meditation:
And when the topic is light, the last word goes to Devi, the Shining. This quote is found in the frontpiece of Ajit Mookerjee’s book, Kali, the Feminine Force. He cites Bhairava Yamala as the source text. I’ve never been able to find this text or any verse resembling the quote. A google search brings up nothing definitive. So I’m going to assume that Mookerjee had access to an unpublished text fragment and made this very beautiful translation. Wherever it comes from, whatever its source, it pulsates with sweetness, luminosity, and supreme bliss:
She is Light itself and transcendent.
Emanating from Her body are rays in thousands — two thousand, a hundred thousand, tens of millions, a hundred million — there is no counting their numbers. It is by and through Her that all things moving and motionless shine. It is by the light of this Devi that all things become manifest.
For the first class of the new fall season, it seemed only right to bask in the luminosity of Gayatri mantra. For readers of this blog who do not attend class, here is the mantra in transliterated Sanskrit:
As I wrote in the previous post, Gayatri mantra is considered the sound form of light. So Sanskrit, as a language of vibration, is offering us a sonic vessel of liquid light. Pour it into your bloodstream. Chant it with all your heart. Meaning is secondary, almost irrelevant. Still the mind loves something to dwell on, hence the beautiful imagery of the literal English translation:
Earth. Atmosphere. Heavens. We meditate on the sacred light of the effulgent source. Let that light infuse our entire being.
bhur earth bhuvah atmosphere svaha heavens tat that savitur of the source varenyam to be held sacred bhargo light devasya of the effulgent dhimahi we meditate on dhiyo thoughts, intentions, prayers yah which (source) nah our procadayat should direct, urge, inspire
Here’s a clip of the first round of chanting from this week’s class:
Here’s my dharma talk:
This last clip contains a short dharana to ease into final chanting of the evening: a second round of Gayatri [approximately 26 minutes], followed by Om Namah Shivaya.
And the final word goes to Rumi. Here’s the text I read at class, from Coleman Barks’ & Michael Green’s, The Illuminated Rumi:
In any gathering, in any chance meeting on the street, there is a shine, an elegance rising up
Today, I recognized that the jewel-like beauty is the presence.
Our loving confusion, the glow in which watery clay gets brighter than fire, the one we call the Friend.
I begged, “Is there a way into you, a ladder?” “Your head is the ladder, bring it down under your feet.”
The mind, this globe of awareness, is a starry universe that when you push off with your foot, a thousand new roads become clear, as you yourself do at dawn, sailing through the light.
We’re continuing our focus on Patanjali Book III, but adding Laksmi Work to the mix. Something about summer, the abundance of greenery, produce, heat and humidity has me contemplating the force of Laksmi in all its complexity, wonder, and power… Here are the sutras we read this evening:
III,6. Perfect discipline is mastered in stages.
III, 7. These three components – concentration, absorption, and integration – are more interiorized than the preceding five.
III, 8. Even these three are external to integration that bears no seeds.
III, 9. The transformation towards total stillness occurs as new latent impressions fostering cessation arise to prevent
the activation of distractive stored one, and moments of stillness begin to permeate consciousness.
III, 10. These latent impressions help consciousness flow from one tranquil moment to the next.
III, 11. Consciousness is transformed toward integration as distractions dwindle and focus arises.
III, 12. In other words, consciousness is transformed toward focus as continuity develops between arising and
subsiding perceptions.
Readers of this blog who attend class with some regularity, or are conversant with these teachings, will find the above sutras fairly straightforward. If, on the other hand, this language is less than familiar, it may seem undecipherable. So let me say that Patanjali is breaking the movement of mind and breath into carefully delineated categories. And in these sutras, he’s giving us a clue about how to live with an internal sense of freedom and ease. Otherwise known as mastery…
Which is how the Laksmi Work comes into my mind…
I’ll be weaving these two, Patanjali Book III and the Laksmi Work together over the next few weeks. For now I want to get this week’s dharma talk, readings, and chanting clips posted, so will keep this brief.
Here’s a clip of this week’s chanting the yoga sutras:
This is a clip of my dharma talk. It runs long, around 27 minutes. No big surprise as we read so many sutras this evening. I was particularly focused on III, 8, where Patanjali brings in the notion of seeds of karma. But along with that, this talk, while free-wheeling as my talks often are, begins to tie together threads of Patanjali Book III and the Laksmi Work:
Here are the poems, from Rumi and Mary Oliver, that I read at the close of my talk:
Two from Rumi:
There’s a hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness. We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music. If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire. The fog clears, and a new energy makes you run up the steps in front of you. Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry. Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen. When you’re full of food and drink, Satan sits where your spirit should, an ugly metal statue in place of the Kaaba. When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help. Fasting is Solomon’s ring. Don’t give it to some illusion and lose your power. But even if you’ve lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
*********
Submit to a daily practice. Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door. Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there.
This is a clip of chanting the mantra Om Namah Shivaya:
This week’s class focused on one sutra. I thought the dawning of wisdom deserved an evening unto itself.
III, 5
Once the perfect discipline of consciousness is mastered,
wisdom dawns.
Just to reiterate, Patanjali’s Book III concerns itself with the final three limbs of classical yoga: concentration (dharana), meditation/absorption (dhyana) and integration (samadhi). These three limbs form the perfect discipline of consciousness, aka samyama, referred to in the above sutra.
If you imagine the mind/body system as myriad layers of consciousness, some clear, some dense, some hard, some soft, some open, some closed, some sticky, some slippery — you get where I’m going with this — you can see why it’s so hard to get the whole mess integrated. All this to say the practice of samyama does not come easily. We have to work at it. The mind is a slippery instrument, more often attuned to the kleshas, than its innate wisdom. [Should you want to review the kleshas, go to the May 2011 archive]. Yet wisdom, like the sun, is always blazing. We may be oblivious to its light. That doesn’t mean it’s not here. Which is why taking a moment to turn within can evoke a profound sense of clarity, calm, insight, or wisdom. Of course, Patanjali’s technology for yoking the mind/body system is designed so those moments of clarity, calm, insight, and wisdom stretch into the norm.
This week’s dharma talk attempts to unpack some of the above:
For reasons that will become clear over the next few weeks, I’m feeling a connection between the teachings and practices I’ve come to call the Laksmi Work and our current immersion in Patanjali Book III. More on that as it unfolds. For now, suffice to say we opened class chanting the Laksmi-Murti-Mantra combined with the Dhumavati Bija. I’ll write these mantras out for those unfamiliar with them and also include a clip of the actual chanting:
Here are the mantras:
Here’s an audio clip of the chanting:
Contemplating wisdom inspired me to go down the rabbit hole of parallel teachings:
From the Laksmi Tantra:
I am recognized by the wise as the bliss and tranquility inherent in each state of being. Though that is my true nature, [the individual] does not experience me spontaneously. However, after receiving a mere particle of my anugrahashakti [grace], she discovers me instantaneously…Then after propitiating me by various means [i.e. samyama], the jiva [individual soul] washes away all the kleshas and blows away the dust of impressions; whereby the jiva that has already severed its fetters through meditation, fuses with true knowledge [aka wisdom] and attains me, who am Laksmi and whose nature is supreme bliss.
From the Jneshwari:
What is action? What is inaction? Thus, even the wise are confused in this matter. This action, I shall explain to you, having known which, you shall be released from evil [i.e. the lack of wisdom].
One must know the nature of action, the nature of wrong action, and also the nature of inaction. The way of action is profound.
He who perceives inaction in action, and action is inaction is wise among men; he is is a yogi and performs all actions.
Such a person seems like other people, but he is not affected by human nature like the sun which cannot be drowned in water.
He sees the world without seeing it, does everything without doing it, and enjoys all pleasures without being involved in them.
Though he is seated in one place, he travels everywhere, for even while in the body he has become the universe.
From the Ashtavakra Gita:
1. The wise man knows the Self, And he plays the game of life. But the fool lives in the world Like a beast of burden.
2. The true seeker feels no elation, Even in that exalted state Which Indra and all the gods Unhappily long for.
3. He understands the nature of things. His heart is not smudged By right or wrong, As the sky is not smudged by smoke.
4. He is pure of heart, He knows the whole world is only the Self…
5. Of the four kinds of being… Only the wise man is strong enough To give up desire and aversion.
From Lalleshwari , tr. by Coleman Barks
The soul, like the moon,
is new, and always new again.
And I have seen the ocean continuously creating.
Since I scoured my mind and my body, I too, Lalla, am new, each moment, new.
My teacher told me one thing,
Live in the soul.
When that was so, I began to go naked, and dance.
Trying to be Thoughtful in the First Brights of Dawn -Mary Oliver
I am thinking, or trying to think, about all the imponderables for which we have no answers, yet endless interest all the range of our lives, and it’s
good for the head no doubt to undertake such meditation; Mystery, after all, is God’s other name, and deserves our
considerations surely. But, but — excuse me now, please; it’s morning, heavenly bright, and my irrepressible heart begs me to hurry on into the next exquisite moment.
[w/ humble apologies to MO for this blog template’s refusal to format her poem as written…]
Here are notes from July 2, last week’s class. The sutra for the evening was:
III, 4
Concentration, absorption, and integration regarding a single object
compose the perfect discipline of consciousness.
For as long as Monday Night Class has gathered in Princeton, which is well over ten years now, we’ve chanted the mantra Om Namah Shivaya as a vehicle for meditation. In the spirit of this sutra however, I thought it would be interesting to work with the mantra, less as a vehicle, more as that single object Patanjali is referring to. For a group of chanting bhaktas, this is a more difficult practice. And in that way I think, very fruitful.
Here’s my dharma talk for this class:
And here are the parallel readings. The first is from Thomas Byrom’s gorgeous translation of the Ashtavakra Gita, a text that pulsates with the life force of samadhi:
Dissolving 1 You are pure. Nothing touches you. What is there to renounce? Let it all go, The body and the mind. Let yourself dissolve.
2 Like bubbles in the sea, All the worlds arise in you. Know you are the Self. Know you are one. Let yourself dissolve.
3 You see the world. But like the snake in the rope, It is not really there. You are pure. Let yourself dissolve.
4 You are one and the same In joy and sorrow, Hope and despair, Life and death. You are already fulfilled. Let yourself dissolve.
And as often happens, I give the final word to Mary Oliver, whose poetry pulsates with the life force of waking up:
The Poet is Told to Fill Up More Pages Mary Oliver
But, where are the words? Not in my pocket. Not in the refrigerator. Not in my savings account. So I sit, harassed, with my notebook. It’s a joke, really, and not a good one. For fun I try a few commands myself. I say to the rain, stop raining. I say to the sun, that isn’t anywhere nearby, Come back, and come fast.
Nothing happens. So this is all I can give you, not being the maker of what I do, but only the one that holds the pencil.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Make of it what you will.
I’ve been a fan of Buddhist artist Mayumi Oda for years and was delighted to discover the above painting. I suspect it’s at least partly inspired by the Hindu goddess Saraswati. And since I drew parallels between Patanjali III and Saraswati at class last week, I thought it fitting to include this image with today’s post. We’re staying with Patanjali III, 1-3, awhile longer. Here they are in phonetic Sanskrit with English translation. If you’d like a PDF of the class handout with correctly transliterated Sanskrit, please email me: suzingreen@gmail.com
1. Desha bandash cittasya dhaaranaa Concentration locks consciousness on a single area.
2. Tatra pratyaya ekataanataa dhyaanam In meditative absorption, the entire perceptual flow is aligned with that object.
3. Tadeva artha maatra nirbhaasam svaruupa shunyam iva samaadi When only the essential nature of the object shines forth, as if formless, integration has arisen.
Last week’s (6/18) talk runs 16 minutes.
I opened with this quote from Lawrence Durrell: “It is not meaning that we need but sight.” He could have been talking about III,3:
Tadeva artha maatra nirbhaasam svaruupa shunyam iva samaadi When only the essential nature of the object shines forth, as if formless, integration has arisen.
When only the essential nature of the object shines forth, then, sight becomes possible. The sight that moves us beyond meaning. Meaning can only take us so far. When we seek it as the goal, we’re attempting to order the Mystery. And that is never gonna happen. What we want is sight. Sight breaks everything open. And in that opening, we see.
I highly recommend chanting these three sutras. And while you’re chanting, use your focus to merge with the sound. Let meaning dissolve. And see what happens…
Here’s a clip of last week’s chanting:
And the poems: I’m reveling in Mary Oliver’s new collection, Swan. Some critique her work as simplistic. If one seeks meaning, perhaps it is. If it’s sight however, it’s shining forth, nirbhaasa, from every word.
1. I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not, how shall I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.
2. If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns are destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes, something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Finally, here’s an audio clip of the above poem and closing thoughts for the evening:
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