Wisdom of the Guru

Life is the Practice

   
   
I was just having a conversation with my daughter on the phone. We were talking about spiritual practice. She was telling me how she needs to start back to church. I shared with her my own feelings about this subject. A spiritual teacher that I follow, Shambhavi Saraswati, a Tantrika in the Kashmiri Shaivism tradition, gave a wonderful satsang on how everything in life is a spiritual practice, from doing dishes to sitting in meditation. We tend to forget that everything we do is devotion to God, to our true Self. The key is remembering. Being present in every moment. When my heart is open I see the synchronicity in many things. Nothing is coincidental. Even the most mundane activities can teach us if we are aware. Life is so simple, we complicate it. We cause so much of our own suffering.

Letting go of always striving for something is the key to real inner piece. I am learning to be more gentle with myself and letting go of guilt is like unloading an elephant from off my back. It is healthy to have regret, it is unhealthy to harbor guilt. Shambhavi says that simple consistent ritual in life has such lasting results. On the spiritual path, it is best to take baby steps and we will find in time our steps will get bigger and bigger. Remember, life is the practice. Approach everything you engage in with reverence. From washing dishes to performing japa.

Jai Maa,
Nirvani

I'm back:)

From the beginning of my life

I have been looking for your face

but today I have seen it

Today I have seen

the charm, the beauty,

the unfathomable grace

of the face

that I was looking for

Today I have found you

and those who laughed

and scorned me yesterday

are sorry that they were not looking

as I did

I am bewildered by the magnificence

of your beauty

and wish to see you

with a hundred eyes

My heart has burned with passion

and has searched forever

for this wondrous beauty

that I now behold

I am ashamed

to call this love human

and afraid of God

to call it divine

Your fragrant breath

like the morning breeze

has come to the stillness of the garden

You have breathed new life into me

I have become your sunshine

and also your shadow

My soul is screaming in ecstasy

Every fiber of my being

is in love with you

Your effulgence

has lit a fire in my heart

for me

the earth and sky

My arrow of love

has arrived at the target

I am in the house of mercy

and my heart

is a place of prayer

~Rumi

     Hello my dear friends! I have been off the internet for nearly a month and a half and I am finally coming back. It has been marvelous! I quite literally walked away from almost everything in the technical world. I even quit watching television for a good deal of the time I was on my Solitude Sabbatical. My sadhana up to this point has been very deep and revealing for me. I cannot say that I am even close to where I want to be on a spiritual level, but I am at least a few steps closer:) I fight a great deal with myself. I was telling my husband just today that I am my own worst enemy. It is a fierce inner battle for me to reconcile my outer life with my inner most regions. Yes, at the age of 43 I am still trying to find myself. I can attest to all of you young people out there, the older you get the harder it is to create positive change in your life and rid yourself of old habits. They can plague you and just when you think you have finally won the war they rear their ugly little heads once again. This is reminiscent of Sri Krishna's words to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita:

When you let your mind heed the Siren call of

the senses, they will carry away your better judgment

as storms drive a boat off its safe-charted course to

certain doom.

Use all your power to set the senses free from

attachment and aversion alike, and live in the full

wisdom of the Self.

    It is a curious thing to find one's self continuing on in some bad habit and finding no will to resist. I have come to the conclusion that it is virtually impossible to resist the senses without the help of some higher power, and I don't mean up there somewhere in the sky. I refer to that 'inner power' of the higher Self. So how to draw it out and draw upon it? For me it is quite literally turning heart and soul in devotion to my ishta devata...she being the Divine Mother of the Universe...Maa.

      It is an interesting thing to see mysticism working in one's life. I use the word mysticism because, well to be frank, there just is no other way to explain the many little events that happen in a single day, week, or month that are unexplainable miracles. Each day I implore the Mother to manifest in my daily life. That I may see her work evident in me and all around me, and every time I witness some little synchronicity I just smile and say to myself, 'Maa is teaching me again'. It is only through the Divine Feminine that we are able to achieve anything. We cannot succeed in life without the Goddess's grand play of shakti. Even if we do not acknowledge it, it still exists. 

       I know that there are many types of sadhana for many different personalities, for me japa mantra is the most powerful. I sometimes think I could chant all day:) There are times when I have been chanting for a while and I close my eyes and I can feel the sacred sanskrit words penetrating my very being....vibrating through me. At those times I feel so alive and at one with everything around me. I have been working with a mantra over the last two weeks that is quite powerful. It is called the Maha Ganapathi Step Mantra. I chose this mantra because I just adore Lord Ganesha and know he is the great remover of obstacles...and with the obstacles I am trying to overcome I knew I needed a real doozy of a mantra...hehehe.

Om Swaha

Om Shreem Swaha

Om Shreem Hreem Swaha

Om Shreem Hreem Kleem Swaha

Om Shreem Hreem Kleem Glaum Swaha

Om Shreem Hreem Kleem Glaum Gam Swaha

Om Shreem Hreem Kleem Glaum Gam Ganapatayei Swaha

Om Shreem Hreem Kleem Glaum Gam Ganapatayei Vara Varada Swaha

Om Shreem Hreem Kleem Glaum Gam Ganapatayei Vara Varada 

      Sarva Janam Me Vasham Swaha

(Each line is repeated from 3 to 108 repetitions counted out on the mala beads...when repeating each line 108 times it takes roughly 90 minutes) 

      Japa mantra is an incredible mystical form of worship that can bring about amazing results in one's life. I can attest to its great power. It is always wise to seek counsel when engaging in sanskrit mantra. There are many mantras that are quite popular and are considered tried and true such as the Gayatri Mantra, which is my favorite of all mantras. I chant it daily during devotions and through out the day. You can find many great books about mantra. Two of my favorite authors, who happen to be adepts in the field of mantra are Swami Vamadeva Shastri (Dr. David Frawley) and Namadeva (Thomas Ashley-Farrand). They are both very respected voices throughout the mystic community. It is my dream to attend a retreat sponsered by Vamadeva Shastri and his wife Shambhavi Lorain Chopra, who happens to be a mystic yogini herself.

        I will continue my mantra practice for at least 40 days if not more and feel quite confident that it will reap great results in my life. I am truly grateful to my beloved Maa for guiding me on my life's journey. I would implore anyone to find your own personal mantra and repeat it daily, for strength to overcome and as a reminder that you are a Divine Being having a human experience, that you are not your body or your mind. Do not let your outer self convince you that it is what you truly are, you are your 'inner Self, the Soul and it is the soul's purpose to find its way back to the Source. 

Tat Tvam Asi and Jai Mata Di!

Nirvani

     

Turning Inward Tuesday...

  Each morning I try to devote a measure of time to my spiritual practice of meditation and japa...It is not an easy discipline for me as I have a terrible habit of procrastination and most often just plain laziness:) This is something I am working on though and when I am unable to formally practice I frequently keep my mind on Spirit. I love to read the words of the great Masters and Acharyas of the past and present...I have grown to deeply love and appreciate the Beloved Paramhansa Yogananda...I love to read his prayers and they resonate so deeply within me a feeling of devotion and love for this vast Universe and all that is in it...I am in awe of Creation and how I am literally part of it...That we are all One...
   Each morning after performing japa and meditating I like to read a prayer from Yogananda's book called 'Whispers from Eternity'...This morning's prayer struck me most profoundly that I felt a need to share it here on my blog...I hope that you will appreciate His words as deeply as I have.

   ~I tell my prayers on the beads of love, strung with my devotion. I direct them beyond all names-God, Spirit, Brahma, Christ, Shankara, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed-for all names are Thine. And I shun no name, for I know Thou dwellest in all forms.

   In Thy cosmic dramas on the stage of time, and in Thy myriad acting roles, Thou hast assumed innumerable names. Behind them all, too, I know Thy one, changeless name: Eternal, Conscious, Self-existent Bliss.

   Many times have I played with Thee. Many songs of Thine have I sung. On the ocean-bosom of Thy eternal life I've been nurtured by Thee as a tiny drop of life. I remember Thy warm touch through the centuries whenever, feeling the chill of separation, I turned homeward to Thee. Again, in this daylight of remembrance, let me play with Thee. Let me sing Thy songs.~

Om Shanti,

Nirvani