Kundalini Splendor

Things to be Emptied

Now at last

I have become

Buddha.

That is to say,

When I bow

And close my eyes

Before my tongka,

I see myself sitting

As he does,

Lotus pose,

Eyes shut,

Hands arranged

In delicate mudra.

I move a bit,

Feel soft energies

stir within.

Soon it will be time

To turn

To doing—

Things to be emptied,

Things to be filled,

Walks outside

To greet the new fallen snow

Weighting the boughs

With their heavy love.

Dorothy Walters

October 26, 2011

(Note: After many weeks of feeling "nothing," the sweet energies returned today. I had assumed (as I have many times before) that the process was finished at last, forgetting that I was not allowing time for it to happen.

But this morning all was restored--the sweet, soft, blissful energies opening th cellular body from root to ears, each gentle movement stirring the feelings ever more. Again, I felt the "energy body"by moving my hands a few inches away from my arms. Again, I could move the energies here and there by rotating my eyes.

Why did this happen? Last night I was in the company of a very advanced soul, someone who dedicates his life to the Mother, with little compensation or scant recognition. His presence was quiet, soothing. Before dinner, I had not felt quite well (stomach ache, eyestrain.) When I got home, everything was healed. And this morning the healing was further expressed as gentle bliss in the body.

I mention all this partly because I wish to keep a record of my own progress and partly because I am convinced that this is the path that the majority of the race will follow as evolution occurs. Human evolution is not merely a mental process. It will-must--include the body, which will open to ever higher levels of delight as it is infused with what we call "light"--divine energies descending to transform our "earth bodies" into true "light beings."

WHEN DEATH COMES

(by Jeannine Goode-Allen, inspired by Mary Oliver)

When Death comes

opening the door into Eternity,

when Death comes

letting me fall into the Beloved,

when Death comes

I do not know when or how,

I will hold it's tender hand

full of trust and awe.

Every soul I meet on this earthly path

will pass through this door,

I do not know when or how.

And I think of each life as a flower,

each one vibrant, each one growing,

with a song in its heart,

with a rhythm in its swaying,

and I feel each one's courage.

It is not a journey for wimps.

When it is over I want to say

all my life I have found

the strength to breath deeply,

the strength to look around the next corner,

the strength to continue to climb,

no matter how great the pain,

no matter how much the wind is howling.

When it is over I want to say

all my life I have looked for and expressed beauty,

I have heard and responded to the cries for love,

and I have found the Peace that surpasses all understanding

no matter how deep it is hidden

no matter how long I have had to sing.

Role Models , or How I Became a Lesbian

Every day in the summer I was ten

I ran the four blocks

to the library of the teachers’ college

where they had a magic corner

called “the children’s collection” and let

you check out books.

Two was the limit at one time

So as soon as I got my quota I rushed

Back home to read as fast as I could,

Then dashed back for two more.

That way I got to read almost

All the books in the children’s collection

That summer,

And also found my role models

For life:

Jo in a window seat,

bent over her book as she

munched an apple,

Her mane of chestnut hair

Cascading down her back.

And then there was Heidi,

Always sledding down

The mountain,

Or toasting cheese

over her open fire.

I had never seen an “open” fire

But faithfully held my Velveeta slice

Over the blue orange flame

Of the front burner

Of our gas stove

Each day

And prayed it didn’t melt

off the fork,

But usually it did.

I also had never seen a mountain,

For I lived on a prairie,

which was flat,

but planned to visit Switzerland

as soon as possible

when I grew up,

and there I would dance

among the wild flowers

in spring

and ride a sled down to

the valley during winter

and then go home

and get warm

in front of the great open fire

and eat more cheese.

In fifth grade,

I met a real life role model—

Miss Johnson, our teacher, whose hair

was quite short and who later served

in the WAACS during the war.

She had a booming voice

And sparkly brown eyes and

lived with her female partner--

something about her

seemed familiar,

as if Jo and Heidi

had gotten melted

into a single person

and I knew I wanted

to be just like her

when I grew up,

cut my hair short

and have another girl

for my roommate

and indeed,

that is pretty much

what happened.

I still read books

and eat cheese

and think of Miss Johnson

often

and wonder

where she is now,

whether she ever

reads in a window seat somewhere,

while nibbling

on pieces of apple

and toasted cheese.

Dorothy Walters

Oct. 14, 2011

I am printing the following information because it so happens that Kashmiri Shaivism is the tradition I feel the closest alliance with. I was never formally initiated into this tradition, but when I discovered it, I realized that I had an important link to this lineage. It is basically a Tantric tradition, which some approach from a sexual perspective. For me, it is the delight of feeling the inner energies flow from simple arm and hand movements in a non-prescribed (intuitive) fashion. This practice is called a "Tandeva" dance (the dance of Shiva) in the Shaivite tradition. I discovered that I had been doing it for years before I found out it had a name and was a regular practice for some.

Nathalie received her transmission from Daniel Odier, who writes sometimes about sexual tantra, sometimes not. She currently lives in Berkeley, so it is a real treat to have her come to Boulder. After the evening described below, she will be giving a two day workshop at another location in Boulder--you can get more info by calling or e-mailing Yuko as listed below.

October 28, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM | Public Talk

Nathalie is considered one of the masters of Shaivism of Kashmir, and particularly its Pratyabhina lineage, a non-dual authentic tradition. She embodies perfectly the ideal of Pratyabhijna, which...

resorts to no ritual, no form, no stratagem, but proposes a direct dive into the source of the Self. Please join us!!!

Category: Awakening

Location Charlie & Lyra's home

1340 King Ave.Boulder, CO, 80502

map

Date(s) October 28, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Fee At the door $20.00

Contact Yuko Hashimoto, 303-443-3237

yukofreedom@gmail.com

The Faces at Braga

David Whyte

The Faces at Braga

In monastery darkness

by the light of one flashlight

the old shrine room waits in silence

While above the door

we see the terrible figure,

fierce eyes demanding, "Will you step through?"

And the old monk leads us,

bent back nudging blackness

prayer beads in the hand that beckons.

We light the butter lamps

and bow, eyes blinking in the

pungent smoke, look up without a word,

see faces in meditation,

a hundred faces carved above,

eye lines wrinkled in the hand held light.

Such love in solid wood!

Taken from the hillsides and carved in silence

they have the vibrant stillness of those who made them.

Engulfed by the past

they have been neglected, but through

smoke and darkness they are like the flowers

we have seen growing

through the dust of eroded slopes,

then slowly opening faces turned toward the mountain.

Carved in devotion

their eyes have softened through age

and their mouths curve through delight of the carvers hand.

If only our own faces

would allow the invisible carver's hand

to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.

If only we knew

as the carver knew, how the flaws

in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,

we would smile, too

and not need faces immobilized

by fear and the weight of things undone.

When we fight with our failing

we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself

and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.

And as we fight

our eyes are hooded with grief

and our mouths are dry with pain.

If only we could give ourselves

to the blows of the carvers hands,

the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers

feeding the sea

where voices meet, praising the features

of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.

Our faces would fall away

until we, growing younger toward death

every day, would gather all our flaws in celebration

to merge with them perfectly,

impossibly, wedded to our essence,

full of silence from the carver's hands.

- David Whyte

David Whyte will be giving a workshop in Boulder October 22 (Friday).

Bookmobile

by Joyce Sutphen

I spend part of my childhood waiting

for the Sterns County Bookmobile.

When it comes to town, it makes a

U-turn in front of the grade school and

glides into its place under the elms.

It is a natural wonder of late

afternoon. I try to imagine Dante,

William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson

traveling down a double lane highway

together, country-western on the radio.

Even when it arrives, I have to wait.

The librarian is busy, getting out

the inky pad and the lined cards.

I pace back and forth in the line,

hungry for the fresh bread of the page,

because I need something that will tell me

what I am; I want to catch a book,

clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris,

to London, to anywhere.

The first stage of the path to God in the Sufi tradition is the stage of longing. Even when we are children, we often yearn for "something more," something larger, more stimulating, some kind of escape from the tedium of the everyday life. Many of us, like the author of this poem, sought such expansion of soul and insight as children through reading. Books opened a door into another world, perhaps magical realms where miracles occurred.

I think that that such longing in childhood can lead us into the "longing for the divine" that drives many into the arms of God as adults. We are seeking a different world, a "higher" version of reality than that found in the shrunken landscape about us. We are not willing to settle for "it is what it is," but seek ceaselessly for the truth beneath the surface, the hidden connection that points us toward the treasure within.

And for many, Kundalini is the key, the secret implement that unlocks the door, reveals the enchanted landscape we have unknowingly prepared for all of our lives.

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches

of other lives --

tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey,

hanging

from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning,

feel like?

Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?

Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides

with perfect courtesy, to let you in!

Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!

Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over

the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint

that something is missing from your life!

Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?

Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot

in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself

continually?

Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed

with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left --

fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away

from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is

the mystery, which is death as well as life, and

not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome

with amazement!

To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine

god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,

nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the

present hour,

to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,

to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened

in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult

than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said

to the wild roses:

deny me not,

but suffer my devotion.

Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe

I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,

hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,

caution and prudence?

Fall in! Fall in!

A woman standing in the weeds.

A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next

is coming with its own heave and grace.

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,

upon the immutable.

What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daises,

and I would bow down

to think about it.

That was then, which hasn't ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,

I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.

I climb, I backtrack.

I float.

I ramble my way home.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems)

Ego

by Peter Baumann and Michael W. Taft (found on SoundsTrue website)

The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity

Albert Einstein wrote of the human condition:

Trapped in a complex web of emotion and thought, we understand ourselves as a cluster of identifications with race, nationality, religion, political beliefs, age, gender, and profession. Alone, these concepts would be ephemeral, but they are underpinned by knee-jerk emotional reactions, intense pleasure-and-pain conditioning in our bodies that resists any change or insight. Cobbled together, these concepts lock us in a sense of permanence and isolation, disconnected from the visceral common sense that would tell us at every moment just how wrong we are in our daily apprehension of reality.

Evolution acting through the mechanism of natural selection created the emotions that motivate and direct our behavior, as well as the imagination we use to model possible outcomes for that behavior. Over millions of years, these developed in our animal and proto-human ancestors into an extremely potent combination. As a system, our thoughts and feelings have ratcheted our species up the escalator from harsh, brutal survival in the dirt to the comfort, cleanliness, and convenience of sipping tea on a transcontinental flight.

And yet, like any technology—our body/brain system represents a highly advanced biological technology—there is almost as much of a downside as there is an upside. The same imagination that allows us to build jet airliners can dream up a plan to crash them into skyscrapers full of people. Our religious feelings motivate us to feed and clothe the needy, or to kill nonbelievers. The same empathic emotions that allow us to care for our families and children can motivate us to annihilate anyone we think threatens our loved ones. This downside doesn’t just drive international terrorists or even the murderer down the block. It drives the anxiety, depression, and alienation that plague us today.

Given that our bodies and brains, and therefore our thoughts and feelings, are the result of evolution, it is likely that evolution will also adapt in us a trait or capacity that provides a way out. Our genetic makeup is not written in stone, and is constantly changing. And although Einstein talks about taking individual responsibility to free ourselves from this prison—he was, after all, writing this quote in a letter to a rabbi—it may turn out not to be a personal matter at all. Perhaps it is more an issue of humanity, as a species, slowly marching toward an escape hatch.

The evolution of our species has not come to an end. Human beings are not a finished product, but instead a perpetually unfinished process, a moving target, and our current state, the human condition, is not the final word on the subject. Humanity is in motion as the wave of evolution continues to push us forward. The expansion of awareness that originally allowed us to become conscious of our thoughts and feelings is still under way. The rise in brainpower has not only created an explosion of skills—inventing tools, language, medicine, technology, civilization—it has at many times during the last two thousand years allowed some random outliers to glimpse something shocking: that who we think we are—our mental self- concept, or ego—is not actually what we are. Our self-concept is a symbol, an idea like any other. As evolution stumbles forward in its blind march of accidental brilliance, this radical insight that was once the province of a special few will slowly become the normal viewpoint: nothing special. The unfolding of the physical universe, the laws of nature, and evolution of life are generating the expanded perspective that will allow humanity to make the biggest prison break of all time—escaping the prison of ourselves.