Mudra of Great Joy

Surrender all of your limitations to the Mother.

It is only her play.

Give her all of your shame, fear, worry, anxiety, depression, contraction, inadequacy, doubt, tiredness, lack, guilt, mistakes, limitation.

It is only her play.

Shame is a dream. Fear is a dream. Worry is a dream. Anxiety is a dream. Depression is a dream. Contraction is a dream. Inadequacy is a dream. Doubt is a dream. Tiredness is a dream. Lack is a dream. Guilt is a dream. Mistakes are a dream. Limitation is a dream.

It is all only her play.

Step into Space. Let go into the River. Trust.

You are worthy. Inherit your birthright.

She will carry you.

You are expanding, all expansive. Brih.

Clarity and Space, ever expanding, all expansive. Brih.

The crow, dark as Kali and Krishna,

carries you into that infinite sky of space

on wings of Openness and Acceptance,

shouting its cry of Joy,

"Kha! Kha! Kha!"

(composed spontaneously in the sky of space, waiting at the drive-through of Real Food Nation for breakfast burritos on the glorious morning of August 27, 2011)

Mudra

Of late I have been exploring much more in depth the realm of mudra. I am not talking so much of the common hand mudras or even the outer expressions of mudra which are seen as the traditional hatha mudras but the innermost aspect of mudra which gives rise to the previous.

It is unfortunate in some ways that so much emphasis is given to the outer aspects of mudra as the inner meaning can be very difficult to locate from here.

Mudra is the deepest tool within the traditional techniques of yoga to connect us all the way through the continuum of our being. And every mudra works slightly differently to emphasize a different aspect of our opening into fullness.

Shambhavi mudra begins like the stem and then opens into the flower of clarity.

Many of the mudras like the traditional bandhas, the Vajroli, and the Yoni mudra also work with the central nadi and act like a river leading to the opening of the mouth of the ocean.

The Pasa mudra, extremely powerful and simultaneously tricky, works with the desire and expands into bliss.

These mudras work in some way first with contraction or narrowing that expands later into vastness.

Other mudras like Khecari expand us directly into space.

Each mudra works with an aspect of our limitation and reveal the deeper face of what that limitation actually is.

Many in the beginning feel confused by these subtle techniques. It is important to know where to enter. The space of transition is very powerful as it is here that a deeper window opens up to us. This is why the traditional pranayama and khumbhaka (retention) have been given first in the texts, to teach us to enter these transitions. The bandhas are a good place to start. The simple transitions in our life are also powerful.

Mudra occurs itself as a transition. A transition from the objective rational world to the instrumental world of the sensory. The transition may also affect us in such a radical way that it drops us directly down to the subjective level or even below that to the radiance of our natural state. The instrumental and subjective layers of our being are vast continuums themselves and the mudra can help us cross this large landscape in a powerful mode of exploration.

When you begin to really explore this level of mudra it is like entering a river and trusting it to take you. You start to learn how to feel it out and it speaks to you, calling you, correcting you. It is dialing into the deepest core of your being and as you follow this river, many things around and in you change or transform. It is very organic.

There are other mudras, many, some of which I am only beginning to see. This world is vast. The instrumental layer of our being is vast. It is a landscape of great beauty. Navigating this landscape feels like swimming in a deep full ocean of incredible wonders.

The Nadis, Part 2

What is it that creates limitation and contraction of our receptive and expressive flows? The word used in sanskrit is dukha. Dukha I think has come to be much mis-understood in contemporary spiritual culture and I believe even among many of the ancients.

Dukha literally means "contracted space". Some traditions hold that dukha is a fundamental quality of existence. I don't subscribe to this view. Anyone with any sensitivity who has spent any amount of time in nature understands this on a deep level. One definition used for dukha oftentimes is "suffering". Is suffering a quality of existence itself? I think it is important to look deeper. If you really look, existence contains within it hardship. Some have it easier than others. But is this the same as suffering? Is this the same as contracted space? No. Hardship and suffering are different. We have all seen in our life how sometimes one has the most intense hardships and yet hardly suffers, while others living in the lap of luxury suffer the worst hells of their own imaginings. Hardship may be a quality of existence but suffering is not. Our natural world is filled with space, openness.

Dukha is a product of our own mind. Illusions take place there, for bad or good. The natural world is as it is, natural, open, spacious, vast. To enter this world we have to let go of that which contracts us. This is true Khecari, that powerful mudra which means "to go or to move in space".

Working with the nadis, we see where we are contracted, where we cling. What does it mean to let go into space? Does it mean we let go through external action, relinquishing our physical world? No. The relinquishment takes place on a deep mental, deep bodily level. We actually let go into the truth that is staring right at us. We are living and breathing right now in that space.

The world of sukha or "open space" is a vast one. Infinite potential. Bliss of our truth. And what is that truth? That everything is as it is. Things as they are are wondrous, beautiful, and reflect constantly to us the Light of who we are. Matter IS Spirit. Spirit IS Matter. There is no split. There is no contraction. Dukha is only like a dream.

The Nadis, part 1

We have done much work of late with the nadis here in Santa Fe.

I will spend some time discussing the basics.

We only have so much energy in this limited frame and in this mortal life. We have to be careful how we spend it. There are many channels that this energy can run through.

Our energy can either go towards the world or towards Self. The deeper method is to realize how to do both simultaneously. This is the secret of Tantra.

With this recognition, everything in our life becomes an adornment of Self and we can utilize everything that presents itself as an offering to Self.

If our energy only goes out, we become depleted. If it only goes in, we lose touch with relative reality and can actually increase the suffering of the world.

If we have the profound method of understanding, we live in the world but not bound to it. We act with love and compassion and can truly help others as we are always anchored in the real.

In this way, the Kundalini both ascends and descends. The goddess goes home to be with the Lord and the Lord returns to the world with Her to play in the world. It is a beautiful dance, a thing of wonder.

With this understanding we can begin to look at how energy works in our life, where is it taken, where does it ride? This is the starting point.

To see. To see clearly how we are living. Where does our energy go? Does it go in a conscious or unconscious way? Do we realize the forces that have control over us or are we always in control? As the upanishads say, the senses with the help of mind can be like the unruly horses which carry us in a haphazard way through the world. Do we truly have control? What does that mean?

The true choice that we have is either to live in harmony with universal flow or to resist it. Do we get in the river or continue to try paddling upstream? The true river is the Susumna, what is called by one name in the Hathapradipika as Shambhavi. Shambhavi means that which leads to Shambu, who is Siva or Self.

Shambhavi nadi (nadi means river) or Susumna nadi is our central axis, our central pathway, our central river or arroyo (for those not from NM, arroyos are dry river beds). Most of the time our peripheral tributaries, our knowledge and action organ pathways are only feeding the world. The Susumna runs dry. But when we free the tributaries of their blocks, free them of their one sided tendencies to only run outwardly, they begin to flow back in their natural course, they begin to feed the main river, the royal pathway to Shambu, to Self.

Energy becomes freed, liberated, the vasanas whither, conditioning is broken, large sections of who we thought we were drop away.

In that central river we meet our true Self.

More later, Happy Guru Purnima everyone.

May you all be blessed with a million petals of true Joy.

Guru Purnima

I offer a thousand salutations to the remover of dark, he who opens the doors to the Light of lights.

May his lotus feet forever adorn my crown and may the nectar of immortality continue to rain.

May I never forget such Bliss as the true radiance of Luminosity Itself.

Mythic Consciousness and the Cultural Contamination of Realism

In line with my previous post of view I wanted to expand my thoughts on that and discuss what I call mythic consciousness.

Every one (well at least maybe some of us) remember what our minds were like as children. We were open in some ways, open to the realm of fairy, open to the realm of magic. The laws of the adult world didn't apply to us so much. Perhaps we even saw and talked to beings that our parents called "imaginary".

Everything was usually "ok", sometimes even quite expanded and great.

Of course some as children did not have this luxury, were thrust into the world of the rational much quicker. They might have a harder time understanding this discussion.

I have been contemplating these things more since visiting the Natural History museum in Albuquerque, looking up the legs of dinosaurs the size of a 3 or 4 story house that lived an unbelievably long time ago.

When you contemplate how long the humanoid ancestors of ours have been around, just a small fraction of that time at 3 to 4 million years and then contemplate that the time of our historical records of only maybe 6 thousand years at the most is just an even tinier fraction of this time, you wonder perhaps at how our minds functioned for most of this period.

I believe that with the coming of the written word, agriculture, the rise of cities, the spread of humanity across the planet, came the development of the rational consciousness, the pushing forward of our minds into more and more fixed constructs. Our view became more rational. We became more stuck in only that realm that we could see and touch. This greater "evolution" of humankind in a way parallels our "development" as human beings over the course of our lifespan.

I have contemplated in the past few years the return to "innocence" or what I would call mythic consciousness. Why mythic consciousness? Because it is here that our minds access the old myths, the stories that we were told as children, the deeper well of consciousness that accesses the much deeper vaster mental lands of our ancestors.

Have we really come so far with the development of "rational consciousness"? Do we truly even see or feel anymore?

I know personally for myself that when I spend time in this rational consciousness, I find myself subject to fear, depression, hopelessness. One only has to open the newspaper. Get too caught up in paying the bills, living the race, moving forward, working for a life that is an utter fabrication, one that is influenced by the vast cultural movement that is sweeping us all forward.

How do we visit the realm of our deep ancestors? How do we "go back to innocence". How do we see more clearly the realms that escape our ordinary eyes?

We have to first see the creation of what is in front of us. That we are responsible for its creation. Seeing it clearly we can then learn to relax this view. As the greater view of "rationalism" disappears, new vistas, much older vistas open before our eyes.

We discover for ourselves lands that have been long untapped. They are still here. Right in front of us. They have been all along. This landscape is even larger, with much more potency for transformation and change than the walls of the rational landscape.

It is here that we can learn many things, much of which is pre-mental. Pre-rational. Much of it is beyond even our vocabulary. If you read between the lines in the old stories you will find descriptions though.

And you have to be careful as it is easy to get lost here. It requires a balancing act. It is vast territory and as I explained in the previous post, vast view requires extra care.

But in my opinion it is vital if we are to move forward as a species. The wisdom to be found in this space predates even the wisdom of the Vedas, the Bible, the great texts and sages. It is a space that sustained us for vast millenia.

And if you look at the "progress" we've made in the last few thousand years you might agree that the "rational view" is perhaps even leading us to extinction.

Spend some time with the Shambhavi mudra. Learn to see. Learn to let go of constructed view. Take a visit to the land of your deep ancestors and see the broad horizons that they visited.

It is a wondrous land.

View

Hi Folks,

I just wanted to say a few words today about view. View is what I would term the construction of conceptual layers in an ordered (or chaotic) fashion keeping thought contained/constrained in particular ways. It is akin to the walls of a house, whether those walls are close (like a small shack) or elaborate and extensive (like a mansion). Lets say I have a wall on the north side of the room I am presently in. That means I am unable to move north because the wall acts like a barrier. If I am standing in a north/south corridor, I can only move north/south. My view, or the way that I see/interpret/experience this world is similar. There are many things that contribute to this view: upbringing, school, trainings, religion, "spiritual practices", the news, friends and family's influence, etc.

The word that Patanjali uses for this is vrtti. Vrtti in one sense can be cyclical thought, turnings of mind and also just "definitions/boundaries of the mind".

Patanjali says that vrtti (or in our case view) can be either klista or aklista, which means that it can be obstructing or non-obstructing. If we cannot get around or understand the walls of definition that create our view, we are obstructed. This can lead to suffering and contraction.

We have to be cautious especially when we get an "expanded view". We may misinterpret this as freedom, thinking because our view is more expanded perhaps than others or more expanded than it used to be that we have freedom. Our view in fact can be so large that we have trouble seeing the boundaries, and because we have vast freedom of movement we may fall into a sense of comfort or even worse expanded egotism. At this point it is difficult because our mind may be "too smart for its own good". It is very difficult to deal with a mind like this.

There is a concept in the Tibetan practices of Buddhism called Creation and Completion.

Creation involves actually creating a view. Sometimes very elaborate. At the end, the view is utterly relinquished, totally letting it go.

This is an important point to remember with all spiritual practice. Most of the realm of practice for us falls into the realm of creation. We may study or practice along certain ordered guidelines and actually "get somewhere" with these practices. But then what? What happens if we stay stuck in the view? What we've effectively done is to move from point A to point B. But if it is possible for us to then utterly drop the view, point A and point B disappear. There is no "us" that travels from point A to point B. There is no "practice".

Working in this way helps us to unite relative and absolute truths through our practice and discrimination.

I try to spend time with both.

Sometimes I work in a more ordered way, with a created view. Sometimes I let it all go, everything, the yoga/tantra/all the book knowledge/all the knowledge that has come before/everything the teacher says. And just BE.

I do think both are useful. For example if we drive wherever we want to, we run people over. View is good. For certain things. But can we step outside of it? At least once a day?

When we do this we come back with a totally fresh perspective.

We live more in spontaneity and the moment.

Life bubbles with more potential and the ability to create anew.

Enjoy life and wonder at the beauty of it all.