TN Tour 9: Coasting to Chidambaram

We made an early start from Kanchipuram to head to Chidrambaram. We were making a small detour to stop at two places en route – Pondy (to commune with the sea and have a spot of breakfast) and Pichavaram (a wonderfully serene foray into one of the largest mangroves on our coastline).

We arrived in Chidambaram and were fortunate to find a hotel a mere kilometre from the temple. 

We had just one day in Chidambaram, and we wanted first to pay our respects to Thillai Kali Amman, on the outskirts. She is here in two aspects – as the fiery Kali and the more serene, four-headed Brahma Chamundeswari. 

It was a special experience. Kali is a fierce roopa of the Divine Feminine and we were particularly conscious of this as we approached her. She was in head-tossy mood. We tried to light a deepam for her and struggled repeatedly to get the wick lit. Trust me when I say there was no heavy breeze that day but for this one spot. Devi! the plea went up. Thankfully, she was not angry, only teasing; and we were able to get it done and proffer the lamps at the altar. The archaka took two lemons that had been impaled on her trishulam and, to our joy, gave them to us.

Next, we hastened off to Nataraja Koil only to stand stock-still at the entrance. I don’t know what I expected but it was a jaw dropping experience simply to take in this huge intricate complex, to walk through the prakarmas into the innermost shrine. I cannot do justice, so I will not try. Without stopping at any ancillary shrines or deities, we walked rapidly through and found, a bit to our surprise, that we had come to the very heart – the golden-domed Chit Sabha, the Chamber of Chitta, the innermost core of the mind.
 

 

Shiva stands here as Nataraja, and here also is consecrated the element of Akasha or ether – a veiled space that contains the Secret of Chidambaram, accessible only those with extraordinary perception.

We had only a few hours in Chidambaram but we spent them all here, wandering around, prostrating at the Govindaraja Perumal temple, sitting for shoonya meditation in the outer mandapas, and returning to stand indefinitely in front of Nataraja. We spent nearly six hours inside the temple, and so habituated, it seemed familiar. We went back to the hotel at midnight, and returned briefly in the morning for leave-taking.

Chidambaram is enshrined in so many songs, there is so much lore about it… consecrated by the great Patanjali himself, it is so subtle but it is addictive. You simply want more of the good stuff. 

Patanjali in Dhyanalinga parikrama, Isha Yoga Center (Credit: Isha Foundation)

 What a profound land this is that can put up miracles like this.

Dhanya Ananda Dina

“There he is! Look! Oh my God, illé nintiddare! He’s standing right here!” Shweta and I nudged each other in quick whispers.

Our first ever in-person glimpse of our beloved Guru was of his back. We had entered the open grounds for the launch of five of Sadhguru’s books in Kannada, and he was standing at the back of the venue, facing away from us, speaking to a couple of people. I remembered his shawl, which had snakes going up. In my memory over the years, it had morphed into one large, highly striking snake but alas, the internet’s memory is as good as the elephants’. The video I found gives my remembered image the lie – they were a series of small snakes undulating upwards from the rich border.

Anyhow, there he was and there we were. The start of a love saga of unexpressable sweetness.

+++

In Isha, people are as fond of telling their own stories as they are anywhere else. But if there is one story that everyone will listen to with rapt attention (in fact will poke out of you, if you’re willing to share), it is of how you came to be with Sadhguru. Each story is unique: some are dramatic, some more matter-of-fact, but each is arrestingly interesting to us.

This is our story.

Our mother passed in 2009 and my sister and I dealt with it in different ways. Shweta took up a series of work assignments, I did nothing but stay home and stare at the walls. The sharp grief passed and at one point we looked at each other and wondered what the rest of this life was going to be like. Our spiritual bent was more keenly accented now, and I remember saying, “Rama-Krishna ankonDu iroNa.” Perhaps just turn consciously towards the divine. It would help find guidance in some next life, wouldn’t it?

We were not very learned but this message had rammed home – we needed a Guru. Not someone a little more accomplished, who knew a few more turns on the path, but a full Satguru, the Kaamil Murshid, the Ultimate Guide, the Perfect Master. We were particularly scared of half-baked guidance, having read horror stories of aspirants bogged down at some stage or led disastrously astray by their own accomplishments.  

In November 2010, still unsuspecting, I put up this blog post. 

Early 2011, we were tripping on the Cricket World Cup. And yet, we talked about how to go about this spirituality business. Having heard that world would have five Satgurus at any time, Shweta said somewhat wistfully, “Surely India would have at least one!”

“This person who writes in the Deccan Chronicle occasionally… he calls himself ‘Sadhguru’,” I said.

The problem with that however was that spirituality is no better than any other area when it comes to quacks and dilettantes. Anybody can stick a grand title to their name, and who can tell? Still… the word ‘Satguru’ is not a magniloquent word to be randomly affixed, it is a specific Office. This man didn’t seem dishonest or so stupid as to be unaware of the consequences of such a travesty. What if… he really was a True Master?

So with the excitement of the world cup playing alongside, we started to watch some videos on Youtube. In those days, Isha’s videos had a particular flute drift as their opening signature and that tune played out repeatedly in our home. By the 7^th or 8^th video, we knew we’d found him.

We must’ve watched 350-400 videos that month. One of the videos had an end slide announcing an Inner Engineering program with Sadhguru in Mysore in April. Our own people came from around Mysore, and it was Sadhguru’s hometown, moreover where he experienced his Liberation. We registered, booked our train tickets, bespoke a hotel room and landed there on 14^th April, a day before the program.

We saw him that very evening at the book launch, sat down and listened as he took questions, and as he left, we followed with folded hands as far as we were allowed. Our first acquaintance with a feeling that was to become very familiar over the years – the wrench that happens in the region of the heart when Sadhguru leaves a space.

15-17 April 2011 changed our lives. We were initiated on Chaitra Poornima. “We didn’t plan it,” Sadhguru chuckled. He never does, but auspiciousness always happens.

12 years (and some ¼-½) is one sun cycle. For sadhakas, this time frame is like a probationary period. Just do what you’re told and stay the course. What crossing it will mean, I have no idea. But it’s a milestone. 

 

Devis and other things

A new installment of the Tamil Nadu saga was ready but alas, my laptop (newish, just out of warranty period) is showing signs of distress by way of a damaged hinge. I could not take it with me to ashram when I was there for Mahashivratri and since my return to Hyderabad, I've been ill with one thing or the other. 

Since then, Sadhguru has consecrated the Devi Linga Bhairavi in Nepal, and she appears to be a magnificent entity, housed in a most exquisite temple. I am most excited about what her presence will do for that region.

Over the Navratri in 2022, a most wonderful thing happened. I was in Bodoland for most of Dussehra and on Saptami, I found myself in Guwahati, the land of the Goddess Kamakhya. It was a particularly crowded day but I was simply fortunate to be there. After almost 9 hours of waiting in queue, I was able to offer my homage to the lady. Now with Devi Linga Bhairavi (in a slightly altered variation) joining forces in the northeast of the subcontinent... it will be interesting. Nepal is lucky indeed.

***

Are the various overlays not interesting? From seeing this land as a political entity, with its rise and fall of kingdoms, I had moved to being interested in its physical nature – the lush fertile plains of the Ganga, the mountain ranges, the rivers that crisscross our Hindustan. Now it appears that the more subtle map of our spiritual hotspots is the thing to follow. 

Where are the radiating hubs? Why are they there? How do they tie together? How do they work together? Is it a boundary, or a network? Where are the holy men and women? How are they dotting the geography? Which shrines are still strong? Which took the brunt of invasions and lost their power and relevance? What idols are lying in wait, hidden in streams, farmers' fields, under rubble... just biding their time to emerge? Wouldn't it be wonderful to able to see these subtle connections? Till my perception sharpens, a lively imagination and conjecture will have to do.

TN Tour 7: Kamakshi and Ekambareshwara

Late afternoon turned to evening as we arrived at the temple of the Devi Kamakshi.

The story goes that Parvati heard from Shiva about the technical and ritualistic worship that forms the Agamic way. The Agama traditions include yoga, self-realisation, kundalini yoga and asceticism, and she wished to worship the lord in this way. At Kanchi, Shiva had taken abode at the root of a mango tree and that is where Parvati as Kamakshi made a linga from sand and began to woo him with tapas and yogic austerities. Playfully, and perhaps also as a test, Shiva took the form of the Kamba aka Vegavati river and the waters began to surge. Abandoning all her rituals, the Devi embraced the shivalingam to protect it from erosion, and unable to resist her Bhakti, he melted into her. 

Created by me with Dall-e 2

At Kanchi, the Goddess sits in padmasana. 

We snaked around the shrine in the darshan queue, made our offerings, took darshan. Because the queue wasn’t too bad, we managed to sneak in for another round, hehe. One of the guards was kind to us, and indicated a quiet place on a landing in front of the shrine, permitting us to sit for a while without either being in anyone’s way or our darshan being blocked. She is quite something, Kamakshi.

Adi Shankara is supposed to have installed the Sri Chakra mandala here, and there is a shrine to him to one side, with various sages and rishis depicted along the upper lintel of the structure. These were familiar names to us – the Guru Pooja we chant every day invokes a line of Gurus: Narayana, Padmabhava, Vasistha, Vyasa, Shuka, Goudapada… the Guru Pooja simply poured out of us as we stood there at the twilight hour, the sandhyakala.

We had made good time and bespoke an auto to take us to the Ekambareshwara Temple but what happened there, I wrote about in this earlier post.

***

We returned the next morning and this time, he was in residence. Hardly any people at all and we went right in. 

 

Now, Ekambareshwara is one of the Pancha Bhoota Stalas of southern India, and is the deity for the element of earth or Prithvi. With Save Soil, Sadhguru was specifically seeking the healing of the earth element. With the rampant use of chemicals, by stripping away verdure and leaving precious topsoil open to all manner of erosion, we have let soil health slide in every corner of the globe. A critical aspect of planetary health that has gone shockingly unnoticed and unaddressed – which is now slowly gaining world attention. Naturally, Ekambareshwara was a very important stop for us.

We went up to the sanctum, requesting an ‘archana’. 

"In whose name?" the priest asked us briskly. We looked at each other, a bit lost as to how to express ourselves. 

“For everyone… for the world…” we fumbled. 

“Ah, ok! Lokahitam?” he prompted. Beneficial to the whole world. 

We nodded rapidly, pleased with his quick grasp of what we needed. Barely pausing a beat, he launched into the most beautiful Sanskrit shloka I’ve heard… fresh air, he asked for, clean rivers that were neither too scarce nor too abundant, bounty for all creatures… prosperity and well-being for humans and mukti for each one at the appropriate time. We were close to tears by the end of it. It was most fitting. I have no idea which source that was from, I was too dazed to ask. We sat for a moment or two and were soon hustled out to make way for the next archana. “Go to the mango tree,” they told us kindly, “you can sit around there as long as you want.”

So we went to the ‘mango tree’ – a dignified arbour that marks the spot of Kamakshi’s penance. This is a beautiful enclosure and here also we prayed for the regeneration of the earth – its soil, its waters, a rise of empathy and consciousness, and for the safety of our Master who was risking life and limb in a brutal journey across continents.

This is a large temple, with long corridors, beautiful columns, high ceilings… we sat for a bit, pondering the massive effort and conviction that went into making these gems that are strewn in the Tamil land. 

Picking up the thread

It has been a month since I updated last - the gaps between posts that are supposed to be part of a travel series is much too wide. I had really hoped to write up the Tamil Nadu travelogue at a fast clip.

Work intervened, however, and I went on assignment to Bodoland, the beautiful Autonomous Territorial Region within Assam. 

The Wild Side of Bodoland
(Created by me with Dall-E)

Those stories had to be written and this blog series got pushed down the queue. Then Sadhguru consecrated a wonderful Naga shrine in our new, upcoming center at Bengaluru, which was an unbelievable experience. It rained through out the consecration and there were about 16,000 of us, sitting in the wet, beyond midnight, witnessing the descent of a celestial serpent being. 

 

After we attended that, I seized the chance to spend a fortnight at the ashram in Coimbatore. 

Long story short, we had left the story at Kanchipuram and will pick it up there again. If nothing, it gives me an excuse to pore over pictures and dwell on the trip.

TN Tour 3: The Auspicious One

The very first temple we halted at was significant to the purpose of our journey. Sadhguru was just setting off on a huge environmental movement, a push to make the whole planet more conscious, more sensitive to all life, all lives. On the Mahashivratri preceding this mammoth journey, Sadhguru had said, “Shiva is Pashupati, the lord of all creatures. Most earthly of all Divine entities and the master of Biodiversity.”

So, in this most auspicious of starts, we halted at the Pashupatiswarar koil in Karur. This is a shrine of great antiquity, one of the famed 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams*. So potent, the poet saints Sundarar and Sambandar are said to have composed thevaram pathigam here. 

 

Here, we bowed to the lord of all creatures. Our human-centric way of dominating the planet is too crude a way to live, the damage we are wreaking on the seas, on the forests, on the grasslands, on the soil is too horrendous. It is very clear we cannot go on this way. 

This temple is also the spot where the great siddha Karuvurar chose to leave. One of the 18 lofty siddhars of Tamil Nadu, this man’s achievements and accomplishments are so many, it is breathtaking. He was the yogi who prompted and guided the building of the stunning ‘periya kovil’ at Thanjavur by Raja Raja Chola I. (But more of that anon.)

Karuvurar’s shrine lies to a side behind the main temple and we sat for a while absorbing what we could. The universe is immense and the vessel we hold is paltry. But dissolution is possible. Peeling off a thin strip at a time will do the trick.

+++
*The Paadal Petra Sthalams, also known as Thevara Sthalam, are 275 temples that are revered in the verses of Saiva Nayanars in the 6th-9th century CE and are amongst the greatest Shiva temples of the continent.

TN Tour 1: The Obligatory Grand Tour

As I’d said many weeks ago, the ‘South Tour’ is pretty much an inevitable high school excursion in our parts and I don’t know how it came about that I missed the grand tour of Tamil Nadu’s temples.

But still, the desire came and the plan formed itself. I am glad to have waited. Not to have wasted the first breathtaking glimpse of all this grandeur on a callow, self-absorbed teen but instead to approach it in adulthood with at least a modicum of appreciation and a certain capacity for awe. And also a certain ripening of Bhakti.

Ours was not an overly devout upbringing. Certainly not the temple-hopping kind. Yes, there was a puja room in the house and a certain openness to the Divine, but I was as confused as the next person about religion and spirituality. I remember puzzling over Ganesha. Was I to take him literally? Or as a reference or pointer to something more subtle? Now, after being initiated on the spiritual path, I have evolved into an even grander canvas of confusion.  

So was this a pilgrimage? Yes. Adventure? Most certainly. A mission? Yes. We were setting off just as Sadhguru had left for the Caribbean for the Save Soil Movement. For the arduous, extremely demanding 100-day journey that he was embarking on, we were excited, concerned and eager to beseech the benediction of the gods. 

Once we decided that we were going to do this, Shweta and I sat down to planning in a hurry – we had to do all the biggies, we had to include the four pancha bhuta sthalas in TN, we had to visit the Devis, we had to go to Rameshwaram, we had to go to Palani. Tamil Nadu being Tamil Nadu, there are a host of samadhis too and Shweta had a parallel list of various places of high energy that we had to include. And then what about all the spectacular architecture… it was a mission! But we managed to simmer it down to a workable circuit.

And this, more or less is how we went about it.

***

“When God is your tour guide…” Shweta muttered once.

That’s how it felt.

It seemed like every step was charted out for us. Everything seemed to fall in place. The timing, where to be at what moment, where to go, where not to go. You will feel, as we did, that these are an extraordinary number of lucky coincidences for anyone to have. And yet, that’s how it was.

Bin Sataguru aapno nahi koi

This Guru Poornima, sharing this exquisitely imagined and executed song video from Sounds of Isha.

Kabir, singing again in the female voice of the seeker, says the comforts of the maternal home will no longer do. The maternal home, traditionally considered to be among the most secure and comfortable places to be... where you are well looked after, where you are pampered, allowed the freedom to simply be. But even this haven will not do.

There is a 'nagari'...  Saeein ki nagari, the Master's Realm, where none of these physical symbols apply - no sun, no moon, no elements that make up our physical world... she seeks that place.

 

Who would tell the beloved of my longing? Who would show my the way? Who would take me there? 

Presenting Naiharwa...

https://youtu.be/5h2566_fTDw

 

Rising through the Ranks

I was reading a few decades-old journal entries this morning. Writing as a twenty-something, these are notes about what I did, some work, some thoughts, some ideology, some record of events or movies I’d seen. I seem happy, hopeful, occasionally anxious… it brings back sharply how I used to be. There is a sense of… how shall I put it… smallness? It’s all very small. Puny. And pathetic.

Now, if you asked me how I feel about myself, I’d say Regal. Yes, I feel Lordly. Less work than before, certainly less income, fewer activities to do, a shrunk social circle, a diminished presence in the world, and I feel more potent.

Kabir says:
हाथ में खूंडी, बगल में सोटा,
चारो दिशा जागीरी में ॥

A begging bowl in my hand, a staff by my side,
And all the world at my feet

If you had told me when I was in my twenties that the spiritual process was about being less of yourself, I’d have told you that someone out there was trying to con you. When intellectual people hear that the spiritual process is about dismissing the mind, they become very threatened and extremely suspicious. Why do they want me to put my mind aside? What am I without my mind, my biggest treasure? If I did silence it, then wouldn’t that leave me vulnerable to whatever insidious plan you have?

Having been there, I sympathise. But it isn't like that. You are not required to become an idiot or lose your faculties. It just needs you to look beyond what you have labelled as yourself. And it needs you to accept help from those who have already done it. It requires trust, I understand that. Indeed, you must only trust someone who has earned your trust. Someone you have judged to have the highest integrity. Someone with very clean hands.

But the quest IS to find out who or what you are. The gnanis tell us repeatedly: “You are NOT the Body, You are NOT the Mind”. Then, the question occurs, “Who am I?” First indignantly, and then with greater and greater depth and genuine seeking. Yes, if you accept those two exclusions, then Who ARE You? It is a question worth pondering. The ONLY question worth asking.

Which is why, I suppose, the basic requisite for the process is a certain thirst. You must arrive at the question. Repeatedly.

Looking back, this has been a fairly ordinary life for me. Enjoyable but moderate in all ways – middle class, middle of the road. And then, I stumble upon my Guru, who tilts my head to the stars.
Shankara says of the Satguru’s padukas: “Nripatvadabhyam nata loka pankteh…” Surrendering to these padukas raises those who prostrate to the rank of sovereigns.

I’m rising through the nobility ranks and will settle at nothing less than Sovereignty.

Jaan phoolan tan laal ni

There, in the rubble, and among the drying, yellowing leaves,
a clearing of a rough sort.
A grey-white shroud lies there,
a tell-tale trickle of smoke winding upwards.
What lies beneath? Is the fire alive? Asphyxiated perhaps by a blanket of its own burning?
The evidence of the slow burn mounts on me. Till I no longer know if I’m the heart of the burning coal or just the ash.
Layers of ash.
Many layers of ash.
One breath-fan from you and the construct falls apart. Blown in the wind, strewn around like wisp, inconsequential, a pack of lies.
One life-breath and I burn red-hot again. A ruby-red chunk of live coal coming up for Grace.

 

 

___________

Title translates "Burns red-hot wherever He blows"
A line from Shah Hussain's kalaam Maaye ni main kinnu aakhan

For those who came before us

It is amazing how something can stay hidden in plain sight. How nothing exists perhaps till you turn towards it and shine the light of your attention on it. I have said before that I only first paid any heed to death rituals when my mother passed away. Since then, there has been a further deepening of awareness how meticulous this land, this Bharat has been in dealing with its dead.

The dead are dead, you may say; better to turn our energies towards the living, you may insist. You’re right, but there is no dichotomy. Catering to the dead also takes care of the living. You are both assisting the disembodied as well as giving your own life ample room to maneuver and express itself.

Yesterday was Mahalaya Amavasya – a phrase I have been hearing for most of my life without knowing the significance of. We have so many festivals and special days in our culture, it seemed just one of those things elders made a grand fuss about. Plus, a somewhat morbid concept – a fortnight to address the needs of pitrus… generations of dead ancestors who lived centuries ago. We don’t even remember their names – what then is the need to make such a shoo-sha about offering them balls of rice and sesame? Wasteful symbolisms! Doubtless this must’ve been the frame of mind that prevented me from even observing this rite with the consideration it deserved.

Sadhguru says, “Your body carries trillion times more memory than your conscious mind. Will you remember your great-great-great-grandfather? You don't, but his nose is sitting on your face because your body remembers. Your body remembers how your forefathers were a million years ago.” I now dimly understand that we are a continuum. The latest but not the last in a series of pop-up lives on this planet. Pitru Paksha is a way of paying homage to those who came before us, and it is also a way of distancing the influence of these pitrus over our lives – loosening, in a way, their genetic hold over ourselves, so that we may live free-er and fuller lives.

In recent years, Sadhguru has been paying inordinate attention to this aspect. His book on Death is an explosive one, a revealing treatise on a range of aspects that were hitherto veiled. Also, I have been thinking a lot about Kashi, the maha smashana, where death rituals are a way of life. [Of course, any excuse to remember Kashi will do. When can I go back there, I wonder?]

Yesterday, around midnight at the Isha Yoga Center, there was a rather magnificent ceremony – they’ve done it for years but the scale this year was a bit grander. This was in preparation perhaps for the Kala Bhairava deity that my Guru is in the process of consecrating.

Some pictures:

(Pics: LingaBhairavi.org)

Note to self

 

Imprint

I hailed one of our street vendors this morning to buy flowers for Krishna Janmashtami today. They were fresh and lovely and I splurged on a bit of everything - chamanti, sanna jaaji, malli, lilies, roses... 

It's been almost ten years since my mother passed away and still he said wistfully, "Amma achche se, chchaav se lete the!" I remember Leelamma specially on festival days too - she would sit in the tiny pooja room, and sing as she weaved garlands. Our neighbours across the back wall still remember pausing in their work to hear her sing. 

Wonderful, isn't it, to be remembered like that, a decade after you've left?

But then what of Krishna? That Glorious One who walked this earth more than 5,000 years ago? And still we talk of his beauty, his feats, his cuteness, his charm, his colour, his clothes, his lovers, his enemies, his wiles, his compassion. Even today, people dress up their young children in his image, tying up peacock feathers in their hair. Even today, songs are sung in longing for him.

Still to remain an intimate experience for millions of people, still tangible... you could close your eyes today, reach out for him, and manage to touch him. 

How truly wonderful to have lived like that! 

 

***

Edited to add:

#HappyJanmashtami pic.twitter.com/yvcxky4Kpg

— Sadhguru (@SadhguruJV) August 11, 2020

Tu ka Tu

A change in header was long overdue. The winter chill has given way to a rainy, moody summer.

But, of course, there are big things on our minds. The pandemic is going viral and we’ll be remembering this year for a very long time. What will change, how, which industries will stay, which will fall, who will win, who will lose, will humankind recover its conscience, or will this be a blip that only momentarily eclipsed our collective daily grind?


Time will tell, but in the meantime, a haiku by Paul Pfleuger, Jr.

Smiling
behind the death mask,
this is God, too

My Guru, ever compassionate, held our hands for 43 days, giving us darshans – a glimpse of him and room at his feet every single day. That makes a full mandala – a length of time approximately 40 days in which the human system completes one physiological cycle. When we take up something for one mandala, it gets written into our system like software and functions on a completely different level. Across these days, he spoke about a range of matters including this crisis facing us. How his constant presence has transformed us, I cannot even begin to guess.

During one session, someone asked him what Shiva thought of the virus.



His response reminded me of these verses by Kabir:

Inka bhed bata mere avadhu, acchi karni kar le tu
Dali phool jagat ke mahi, jahan dekhun va tu ka tu
 

Tell me the secret, Avadhoo, shower your compassion
In all of nature in this whole world, wherever I look, I see you

Hathi mein hathi ban baitho, chinti mein hai chhoto tu
Hoye mahavat upar baithe, hankan vala tu ka tu


Massive you are as an elephant, tiny when as an ant
Also as the mahout you sit, the one riding the elephant is also you

Choro ke sang chori karta, badmashon mein bhedo tu
Chori kar ke tu bhag jaave, pakdan vala tu ka tu
 
Among thieves you are a thief, you sit among scoundrels too
You are the robber who robs and runs, the one who catches him, also you

Jal thal jeev mein tu hi biraje, jahan dekhoon va tu ka tu
Kahe Kabir suno bhai sadho, guru milaye jyun ka tyun

In water, earth and all life you are present, wherever I look, only you!
Says Kabir, listen Seeker, the Guru shows you the unsullied You!


A version of the song by the awesome Prahlad Singh Tipaniya:

Status: Arrived

Listen:

You don’t have to put any kind of strenuous practices
upon yourself in order to realise the Self.
The Self is the most natural.
It is the mind itself that is both entertained by
and entangled in so-called spiritual practices for self-realisation.
Though some practices are good and necessary,
many are aimed only at the ego.
Left unnoticed, they will keep you in a limited state of mind,
perhaps a spiritual mind even,
whereby you believe you are merely a 'person'
on the road to becoming the Self.
Your true Self however, does not need to practice anything,
for it is unchangingly perfect and timelessly present.

~ Mooji

Blast from the Past

Every now and then, a disconcerting thing happens to you on the spiritual path.

For those who are not consciously on the road to liberation, I should perhaps explain that the idea is to become empty – of your likes and dislikes, of your identities, of your opinions, of your personality... a complex bundle of impressions received and kept, unquestioned and unexamined, which is collectively called karma. Dropping one’s karma is the attempt at this stage – and a range of tools, methodologies, approaches and schools are available to a spiritual seeker to help one do it. All forms of yoga serve to cleanse you, and each person picks whatever method or methods suit them best.

With the Master’s Grace, you become perceptibly lighter and paler, so to speak. The ultimate goal of this is to become so pale as to become utterly transparent. 'Vairagya' is the word used, and means ‘without colour’. Without any quality of your own.

Now we are progressing happily, complacent under the delusion that quite a lot has been dropped. Mukti and crystal-clear perception are a matter of time... if not tomorrow, then surely the day after that, enlightenment will happen.

And then, your karma bites you in the butt. Something crude, something very basic, something deep-seated will rear out of your accumulated personality and snarl. Leaving you shaken. And very much doubtful if you have advanced at all. What have you been doing? Is your sadhana achieving anything? Have you lost your way? How could this creep up on you unseen? How, in spite of your efforts to be conscious, did this old rubbish manifest? Shame, worry and disappointment.

Apparently, this is par for the course. Stuff will churn up – stuff you didn’t expect, stuff you thought was gone, stuff you’ll sneer at. There’s nothing to do. Be aware. Observe. Let go. Stuff comes and goes. Seek that which is permanent.

Meanwhile, a delicious haiku by George Dorsty:

am I holding
them correctly?
worry beads

The other way round

हम परदेसी पंछी रे साधु भाई
इनी देस रा नाइ! 
-Kabir

Now, you believe you are a material person dabbling with spirituality. But essentially, you are a spiritual being dabbling with the material world.
-Sadhguru

Wave after wave

My last header was a haiku that needed no elaboration. One of my own: 

Again

I hanker
for the simple life

And I replace it with a wonderfully multilayered one by Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy:

one more wave...
my toes curl tighter
around nothing

That’s how I experience it – that my Master comes at me in waves. As strong a wave as I can take at that moment. And each wave takes away the deposit of lifetimes, leaving me with less, clinging, curling my toes around nothing.