Kundalini Splendor

As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse

I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table
to represent the sun.
Then down at the other end
a blue and white marble
becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.

I get a glass from a cabinet,
open a bottle of wine,
then I sit in a ladder-back chair,
a benevolent god presiding
over a miniature creation myth,

and I begin to sing
a homemade canticle of thanks
for this perfect little arrangement,
for not making the earth too hot or cold
not making it spin too fast or slow

so that the grove of orange trees
and the owl become possible,
not to mention the rolling wave,
the play of clouds, geese in flight,
and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.

Then I fill my glass again
and give thanks for the trout,
the oak, and the yellow feather,

singing the room full of shadows,
as sun and earth and moon
circle one another in their impeccable orbits
and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.

~ Billy Collins ~

(Nine Horses)

The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end.  In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves.  We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes.  Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here.  And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear.  What we need is here.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(image from internet)

Ghost Road Song

for my father, 11/19/1927 – 6/27/2009

I need a song.
I need a song like a river, cool and dark and wet,
like a battered old oak; gnarled bark,
bitter acorns,
a song like a dragonfly:
shimmer - hover - swerve -
like embers, too hot to touch.

I need a song like my father’s hands:
scarred, callused, blunt,
a song like a wheel,
like June rain, seep of solstice,
tang of waking earth.

I need a song like a seed:
a hard and shiny promise,
a song like ashes:
gritty, fine, scattered;
a song like abalone, tough as stone,
smooth as a ripple at the edge of the bay.

I need a song so soft, it won’t sting my wounds,
so true, no anger can blunt it,
so deep, no one can mine it.

I need a song with a heart wrapped in barbed wire.

I need a song that sheds no tears,
I need a song that sobs.
I need a song that skates along the edge of black ice,
howls with coyotes,
a song with a good set of lungs,
a song that won’t give out, give up,
give in, give way:
I need a song with guts.

I need a song like lightning, just one blaze of insight.

I need a song like a hurricane,
spiraled winds of chaos,
a snake-charming song,
a bullshit-busting song,
a shut-up-and-listen-to-the-Creator song.
I need a song that rears its head up like a granite peak
and greets the eastern sky.

I need a song small enough to fit in my pocket,
big enough to wrap around
the wide shoulders of my grief,
a song with a melody like thunder,
chords that won’t get lost,
rhythm that can’t steal away.
I need a song that forgives me my lack of voice.

I need a song that forgives my lack of forgiveness.

I need a song so right
that the first note splinters me like crystal,
spits the shards out into the universe
like sleek seedlings of stars; yes,
that’s the song
I need,

the song to accompany you
on your first steps
along the Milky Way,
that song with ragged edges,
a worn-out sun;
the song that lets a burnt red rim
slip away into the Pacific,
leaves my throat
healed at last.

- Deborah Miranda

____

What Perfection!

The second you stepped into this world of existence
A ladder was placed before you to help you escape it.
First, you were mineral; then you transformed into a plant;
Then you became an animal. (How could you not know this?)
Then you changed yet again, and became a human being
Endowed with divine consciousness, reason, faith.
Look at your body, made from dust: what perfection it has!

- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
(Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)

This poem is often cited to show that Rumi believed in evolution.  And indeed he did, if
we take into account that what he is talking about is the evolution of the atoms and molecules that eventually comprise our own bodies, which are gifted with "divine consciousness, reason, and faith."

(Image from internet)

October 25, 2013

 Anam Cara Meditation Foundation
 Perennial Wisdom For The Soul's Journey
by Lawrence Edwards, Ph. D.

Dear Friend

The great quest, the archetypal journey that infuses our lives with meaning and soul-fullness, gives us a context within which we can discern the deep meaning and purpose of life. It has been written about for countless ages and depicted in cave paintings before written language even existed.

Without an understanding of these great mythic journeys, the quest of Christ, Buddha, Mary, Inanna, Moses, Mohammed, Mirabai, Rumi, Kwan Yin, and on and on, we fall prey to the prevailing cultural and family myths of life's meaning and purpose, along with all the limitations that come with them which imprison the heart and mind in such tragic ways.

Anne Baring, a senior Jungian analyst in Great Britain, has written one of the wisest, most inspiring and insightful books on the soul's journey that I have ever read, titled: The Dream Of The Cosmos: A Quest For The Soul.

Anne truly fits the archetype of the wise old woman, compassionate, brilliant and clear, a deep scholar whose breadth of learning, contemplations and meditative knowledge she makes available to us through this work. It is the pure distillation of a rich life lived with profound commitment to knowing directly the ways of the Divine, especially the Feminine ways of the Divine, and serving others by selflessly passing on her wisdom jewels to us all.

This work is especially important and timely because it calls attention to the life-threatening global problems that have evolved from distortions and limitations of the solar, masculine myths, while pointing to the ways of the Divine Feminine, whether related to as Holy Spirit, Shekinah, Great Mother, Tara or Goddess Sophia, that can save humanity from this course of destruction. The world is matter, mater, Mother. Destroy Her and we destroy everything.

Whatever your path may be, even a pathless path, reading this book will illumine your way.

Open to any page and you will find wisdom. Here is one excerpt.

 The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest For The Soul
 Anne Baring

The Shekinah is named as the Divine Spouse, the indwelling Holy Spirit and divine guide and immanent presence who delivers the world from bondage to beliefs that separate it from the source, restoring it ultimately to union with the divine ground....

I was amazed to discover that the Shekinah was called "The Precious Stone" and "The Stone of Exile", which at once connects her with the image of the Grail, described as both vessel - source of boundless nourishment - and stone. She was called the "Pear", and "The Burning Coal". To the opening eyes of my imagination, she appeared as the glowing gold of the hidden treasure at the heart of life, the jeweled rainbow of light thrown between the divine and human worlds, the seamless robe which unites the manifest and unmanifest dimensions of life. Here, at last, was the crucial missing piece of the puzzle that I had sought for over fifty years.

Anne Baring
pp 50-51

No post today--vision problems.  Hope to be back soon!  Beautiful weather, and that helps!

As T. S. Eliot put it, "Ours is in the trying. The rest is not our business." The bodhisattva's job is to do the best one can, without knowing what the consequences will be. Have we already passed ecological tipping-points and human civilization is doomed? We don't know. Yet, rather than being intimidated, the bodhisattva embraces "don't know mind," because Buddhist practice opens us up to the awesome mystery of an impermanent world where everything is changing, whether or not we notice it. I grew up in a world defined by a "cold war" between the USA and the Soviet Union we all took for granted -- until communism suddenly collapsed. The same thing occurred with South African apartheid. If we don't really know what's happening, how do we really know what's possible, until we try? -David Loy

The message contained in the above quote is very important.  It tells us that when we strive for the good, we should not worry about outcomes--whether we "win" or not, whether
our goals are achieved or not.  Instead, we must work toward the desired outcome without concern for final results.
And, as David Loy notes, many things that once seemed impossible do take place, in spite of what we thought could be attained.
Think of all the unexpected changes in your own lifetime.  For me, I have witnessed
the place of AfroAmericans in our society change radically from a time when it was taken for
granted that there were two ranks of citizens--the one privileged, the other rejected.
And of course, gay rights have come a remarkably long way in the last 20-30 years.
Earlier generations looked on gays as being somehow psychological misfits, to be shunned and even hated by the larger social body.  No one would have predicted that the
primary issue of debate today would not be equality of jobs or housing rights, but gay marriage itself, which is now gaining wider and wider acceptance.
As for me, I continue to believe that radical spiritual transformation spreading throughout
the entire globe is a real possibility.  I always go back to the swift awakening of kundalini that occurred to me when conditions made it seem impossible that something like that could happen to someone as apparently ill prepared as I was.  Yet, awakening did occur, and left me with the conviction that if this is possible, then anything is possible.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection:
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action —
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

~ Rabindranath Tagore ~

(Gitanjali)

 Fire and Water
Rumi  (tr. Andrew Harvey)

You need fire and water for the fruit to ripen:
How can that occur without lightning and clouds?
Before the heart has shattered into lightning
and before rains of tears have fallen from your eyes,
how can the fire and menace of God's anger be appeased?
How could the green of the desire for Union grow?
How could the springs of limpid water start to flow?
How could the rosebuds whisper their secret to the garden?

- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
(Tr. Andrew Harvey)

(image from internet)

Our lives are filled with discoveries--things unknown unearthed at last, things once
known and forgotten or devalued which now must be reconsidered.  Such discoveries change our lives in the present,
even though these occurrences happened in the past.  We have to re-evaluate, reintegrate
new information, especially as it a affects our held image of people or events from
our past.

Recently I found out that someone I had known and respected highly in my youth, had
been the victim of sexual molestation when she was a child.  To my knowledge, she
never revealed this information to any but her closest friends, and certainly not to me.
My heart was deeply moved by this information, and I was saddened that she lived in
a time when such incidents were not shared with any--there were no support groups, no books or other
sources of information.  One was simply the lonely and unsupported victim of indefensible assault, and social restrictions required that one maintain total silence on
the offense.

Recently, I learned something of a different nature.  I discovered that Howard Starks, one of my close friends in graduate school, had written a poem in his later years which became the inspiration for a play of the same name:  "August: Osage County." This play (by Tracy Letts) won the Pulitzer prize for 2008 as well as a Tony Award for Best Play the same year.  Unfortunately, Howard did not live to see Letts receive this national and
international recognition.

from "Wikipedia":

After his retirement in 1995 he had completed his first book of poetry, "Family Album , A Collection of Poetry", for Running Board Press. It was a finalist in the 1997 Oklahoma Book Awards.[2]

The collection contained fifteen poems, but one poem from the book, "August: Osage County," has achieved both national and international prominence because of Tracy Letts' play of the same name. Letts' drama won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for best play of 2008.

Here is what Letts said about Howard:
"I could never come up with a title as brilliant as 'August: Osage County.' Mr. Howard Starks, gentleman, teacher, poet, genius, mentor, friend, created that title for an extraordinary poem that is one of the inspirations for my play. I steal the title with deference, yet without apology — Howard, I'm sure, would have it no other way — and I dedicate this play to his memory."

(from me):  Kundalini, of course, is the greatest discovery
of all.  When it arrives it is "the moment that changes everything." (Kathryn
Anne Porter's phrase about something else.)  You now must alter everything
you thought you knew before--who you are, what the world is made of,
what is possible, the inner connection to the divine.  All of this is beyond
prediction.  It is beyond our control (as to when it happens and how it unfolds).  It is both the biggest agent of transformation and the greatest blessing one can receive.

Becoming Who We Are
“All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves.” – David Whyte

During the catastrophic flooding here in Colorado last month, we discovered a tiny sparrow lurking in our patio garden. We could see something was wrong, but could not discern exactly what. It hopped out from under the safety of a bush along the wall to peck at seeds knocked unceremoniously off the bird feeder hanging overhead in our little tree.

Other birds came and went. Chikadees. Nut hatches. Mourning doves. Woodpeckers. Squirrels scampered up and down the trunk, helping themselves to the seeds as well. Sometimes the ground was crowded with creatures, a regular cafeteria.

Every day the rains came down, we looked for the wounded sparrow, hoping it would survive to fly again. If indeed it had ever flown before. After all, that’s what birds do. Just as squirrels hang upside down on bird feeders, and try to get inside. Just as woodpeckers bang their heads like jack hammers on the branches. It’s what they do.

“All the birds and creatures of the world,” says David Whyte, “are unutterably themselves” (“Everything is Waiting for You,” River Flow, 2007).

We don’t look for squirrels to come inside the house and curl up like puppies in our laps. We don’t expect injured sparrows to check themselves into a veterinary clinic. We expect them to live and die according to their nature. If woodpeckers carried hammers on their belts, if beavers used chain saws to build their lodges, if snarling bunnies chased big dogs down the street, we’d be alarmed.

Why, then, are we not alarmed when we ourselves go on for years, for decades, for entire lives in some cases, acting as if we are not who and what we are?

Every other living thing is just what it is. Only humans are not. Only we can violate our own nature. Only we can falsify ourselves, and become literally something or someone we are not.

Poets, mystics and philosophers remind us, indict us, and call us back to our true nature.

“None of us live our lives,” writes Rilke. “Disguised since childhood, / haphazardly assembled / from voices and fears and little pleasures, / we come of age as masks. / Our true face never speaks.” He likens our unlived lives to old clothes, hanging on a peg in a forgotten storehouse. Limp and empty.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else,” asserts Ralph Waldo Emerson, “is the greatest achievement.” Psychologist Erich Fromm agrees. “Our main task in life,” he says, “is to give birth to ourselves, to become what we potentially are.”

In her poem, “Now I Become Myself” (Collected Poems, 1993), May Sarton catches a glimpse of this birthing, this becoming, this almost mystical awakening:

“Now I become myself. It’s taken / Time, many years and places; / I’ve been dissolved and shaken, / Worn other people’s faces . . .  Now to stand still, be here, / Feel my own weight and density! . . . All fuses now, falls into place . . . my work, my love, my time, my face . . . Oh, in this single hour I live / All of myself and do not move . . .”

In the vast expanse of space and time, each one of us is utterly unique.

We come equipped with a singular blend of genetic dispositions, quirks of personality, life experiences, education, ideas, limitations, longings, dreams and callings—unlike any other being. We are “called” by our unique nature to give birth to who and what we are, to germinate our innate potential, like seeds, to offer our gifts to the world and, ultimately, by doing so, to find our place in what Mary Oliver calls “the family of things.”

There is something we are “meant” to do, I believe, just because of how we’re made. Something that our souls need us to do, to become fully who we are, to become unutterably ourselves. Like all the birds and creatures of the world.

If we’ve been wounded, like the sparrow in the garden, we care for ourselves. We don’t give up. We hide, while we must, in the dark. We come out, when it’s time, into the light. And when the storms abate, one day, hopefully, if it is our nature, we take flight.

When the skies cleared at last, the tiny bird was gone. We can’t be certain, but we hope it did what birds are meant to do. It did not belong forever under a bush. Just as you and I do not belong forever in certain places, doing certain things that fail to honor our very reason for being.

Something else is calling. Something living and life-giving.

Somewhere deep inside each of us is an unlived life, yearning to be born; waiting, as Rilke says elsewhere, like an unplayed melody in a flute. Isn’t it time to pick up the flute and play the song we’re meant to play? If not now, when?

—Jay E. Valusek

It is truly dangerous when those in leadership positions operate not from
reason or logic or right interest for all, but from irrational positions, keying
off private emotional or psychological needs, and self-dedication.
The world has known many of this sort in recent times:
Adolph Hitler was the most notorious example unless it was
Joseph Stalin, who slaughtered millions
Then there was the "cultural revolution" in China which consigned many
innocent city dwellers and "intellectuals" to harsh manual labor in the country-
side.  Many of these folks still bear the scars of these cruel assignments.
And there was Pearl Harbor, engineered by a group of Japanese "warlords"
lusting for power and conquest.
And we should not forget what happened in Cambodia, when the Kymer Rouge
came into power and slew millions of innocent citizens.
And of course there was also Napoleon, a prime example of ego gone amuck.
In the last century in America, we went through the McCarthy era, when
people thought there was a communist under every bush--and many careers
were destroyed.
Recent political events in our country have also demonstrated that irrational
behavior is still among us, as small ideological groups attempt to dominate
the national agenda, not in the overall interest of the country but to serve their
own obsessive interests.  They seem willing to sacrifice democracy for
rule of a fanatical few, and are apparently unable to see the disastrous results
of such illogical behavior.  Their tactics are embarrassing to themselves and their party as America is made to look ridiculous in the eyes of the rest of the world.
 Their antics might be laughed off as the comic behavior of the less evolved, but then
we must remember that Hitler was also considered a joke before he came to power.

Here is information about a conference coming up in Sedona in early November.   Be sure to check it out at the website listed below.  I will not be attending, but I am truly
impressed by the topics to be addressed in these workshops--you can read more about these at the website at the bottom of the page.  These were areas almost unknown a few years ago, and now this once "secret" information is readily available.

Here is updated information about the Ascension Rising Conference. The Hilton will extend the Early Bird Rate of $149.00 + tax for the one bedroom suites with fireplaces and mini kitchens to the 20th of Oct.  Hilton will also honor the early bird ticket prices of 20% off until the 20th to keep it easy for people to register.  The link to register is www.galacticu.com/live.html

There will be a GalacticU Costume Ball on Friday night, Nov 1st, from 7 to 10pm which is open to the public.  People are asked to dress like their favorite Galactic Being (costume not required to be present at the ball). There will be door prizes and costume prizes for best dressed and funniest. For tickets please go to: www.galacticu.com/costumeball.html

There will be a screening of the Director's Cut of the movie "FEMME- Women Healing the World" on Saturday Nov 2nd from 7pm- 9pm followed by a Q&A with Celeste Yarnall who appears in the film. This is also open to the public. Here is the link for tickets: www.galacticu.com/femme.html

There are still Vending and Advertisement opportunities available - the link to find out more about vending is: www.galacticu.com/live.html at the bottom of the page.

For workshop information and to purchase tickets go here:
http://galacticu.com/workshops.html


FOR MORE INFO OR QUESTIONS, GO TO:
Sierra Neblina, founder of GalacticU
www.galacticu.com
GalacticU Radio Tuesday Nights 9pm EST:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sierra-neblina

Earth Dweller

It was all the clods at once become
precious; it was the barn, and the shed,
and the windmill, my hands, the crack
Arlie made in the ax handle: oh, let me stay
here humbly, forgotten, to rejoice in it all;
let the sun casually rise and set.
If I have not found the right place,
teach me; for, somewhere inside, the clods are
vaulted mansions, lines through the barn sing
for the saints forever, the shed and windmill
rear so glorious the sun shudders like a gong.

Now I know why people worship, carry around
magic emblems, wake up talking dreams
they teach to their children: the world speaks.
The world speaks everything to us.
It is our only friend.

   - William Stafford

from Wikipedia:

Falun Gong or Falun Dafa (literally means "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 through public lectures by its founder, Li Hongzhi. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with a moral philosophy. Falun Gong emphasizes morality and the cultivation of virtue in its central tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance (Chinese: 真、善、忍), and identifies as a qigong practice of the Buddhist school, though its teachings also incorporate elements drawn from Taoist traditions. Through moral rectitude and the practice of meditation, practitioners of Falun Gong aspire to better health and, ultimately, spiritual enlightenment....


On 20 July 1999, the Communist Party leadership initiated a nationwide crackdown and multifaceted propaganda campaign intended to eradicate the practice. In October 1999 it declared Falun Gong a "heretical organization" that threatened social stability, and blocked Internet access to websites that mention Falun Gong. Human rights groups report that Falun Gong practitioners in China are subject to a wide range of human rights abuses; hundreds of thousands are believed to have been imprisoned extrajudicially, and practitioners in detention are subject to forced labor, psychiatric abuse, torture, and other coercive methods of thought reform at the hands of Chinese authorities. In the years since the suppression campaign began, Falun Gong adherents have emerged as a prominent voice in the Chinese dissident community, advocating for greater human rights and an end to Communist Party rule.


DIABOLIC
by Jay Ramsay
pictures at an exhibition—for Tili


White stone Buddha stands statuesque,

against a gold curtain of light: one palm raised

heart-aligned, the other, releasing down…

Divine balance: a human raised to an angel

standing liberated on a cloud—

a stream of immortals walking on water

buddhas seated in spirit above the speaker,

a woman in meditation with her curious child

doubled then tripled above, in her Higher Self

set against the stars. We as we are.



Two children reading, an old woman sewing…

But what is that child doing behind bars

with blood on his little shirt, chained legs behind him ?

What are the Chinese police doing

crashing in on a woman’s family evening ?

And that man in prison pyjamas tied to a chair

leaning back towards the only shaft of light there is

penetrating his cell all day ?



A doctor lifting out the bloodied pumping heart,

the patient’s throat craned back in agony ?

Numb, she holds her parents’ ashes in a pathetic box.

Pieta cradles the lifeless body of her son.

A woman stands arms stretched back up behind her,

five bricks hanging on a chain around her neck.



What is their crime, exactly ? Terrorism ? Anarchy ?

Spiritual practice. Can you believe it ?

This is the gulag of Falun Gong.



Once they thronged the streets, squares, parks

peacefully greeting the morning or evening

too potent for their paranoid government.

Thou shalt not believe in cultivation

if it threatens our fascist state.



Diabolical intervention: first, the crackdowns

then arrest, detainment, torture, incarceration

secret transport by train…Nazi Germany again,

only worse. Concentration camps become hospitals

‘where live prisoners are quarried for their body parts’

sold on the internet medical market…

You need a fresh heart, or matching kidney, maybe ?

Today, tomorrow ? No problem—

this star-crossed Falun Jew will do nicely.



Public trance. Police trance. Media trance.

What does it take to awaken

to the rule of Satan ? Backwards mastering…



Illuminati aliens calling themselves communists

crucifying their own people because

they hate the light. They hate the spirit

because it’s greater than they are

or can ever be. They hate God, they have no progeny

but the obedient machine…that makes them serene.



These are the fallen, who have forgotten everything

but how to fill the void with themselves.

This is the race that wants to rule the world.

And they stamp on parade, they creep like ice

indifferent to the tide, glacial as chemicals,

these are the ghouls that feast on us, feeling nothing

this is the planet of No Heart our children will inherit,

until we break the trance.



St. John, burn them in your Revelation

raise their cries like labour pains of love;

where the guards scream and scatter sideways

she levitates in her unbroken dream, above.

Jay Ramsay

As many of you may know, a "death poem" is not always written at the actual moment of
dying.  Once popular in the East, and still practiced in Japan, it can refer to a certain
summing up or reminiscence as one ponders the many events of one's life in order to see the overall themes and meanings in preparation for a final leave taking.  (Or at least that is how I am thinking of it here.)


Death Poems, I
(inspired by Wendell Berry)

Now, more than ever,
you are remembering who
you really are.

Like the roots of a tree
that burrows deep
to touch the place where
its seed first grew.

Or a drop of ocean water
that returns to the heavens
to rejoin the very cloud
where it began.

Nothing you do now
can change or reshape
those happenings that arrived,
and gave you your special name.

Nothing—not the days among the aspen,
groves golden and glittering
as Shiva dancing the world alive,
nor the nights of love or weeping
for the lost presence,
can ever be erased.

Nor the moment
you escaped time
and entered, briefly,
that other realm
and were transfixed
before the inscrutable.

Now is the time
to make of yourself
a final offering
and open completely,
even before
that ultimate disclosure.

Dorothy  Walters
October 8, 2013 

Andrew Harvey reads and discusses Rumi tomorrow on free webcast from Shift Network:

So you are warmly welcomed to join us at 5:00 Pacific time for an Evening of Rumi with Andrew by using the following call-ins:

Connect to the webcast at http://attendthisevent.com/?eventid=46885953
Or dial 206-402-0100 (find your local number here) and enter the PIN 498523#
Andrew will also address any lingering questions you have about the Rumi and the Way of Passion course, which started last night with more than 200 global participants. It's a profound course for spiritual growth, mining the gold not only from Rumi but more than a dozen other mystics who are helping us to reclaim the Way of Passion as a central pillar of our spiritual life. 

Dear Friends,
I am not very familiar with the work of Francis Lucille, but he comes highly
recommended from friends whom I respect:

The Advaita Channel
Free spots for the webcasts of the upcoming dialogues with Francis Lucille Sat. & Sun Oct. 12 & 13
Posted: 08 Oct 2013 11:00 AM PDT

Free spots for the webcasts of the upcoming dialogues with Francis Lucille Sat. & Sun Oct. 12 & 13 live from Temecula, CA are still available. We appreciate your sharing this post with your friends.

Just RSVP for the event of your choice at http://www.meetup.com/Advaita/.

Take the whole kit
with the caboodle
Experience life
don't deplore it
Shake hands with time
don't kill it
Open a lookout
Dance on a brink
Run with your wildfire
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut

~ James Broughton ~


(Little Sermons of the Big Joy)

As I mentioned earlier, my friend Helen is reading from "The Tibetan Book of Living
and Dying" to help her partner Steve in his transition from life to death.  This book is a somewhat condensed version of the longer "Tibetan Book of the Dead," a work which prescribes the stages which the dying one will pass through as he/she approaches actual death.The ceremony described in this book instructs that at the very moment of death, the vision of Amitabha (Buddha of infinite light) should be held at the crown.
Yesterday, I  posted a note including the Abitabha mantra as follows:  "The Sanskrit form of the mantra of Amitābha is ॐ अमिताभ ह्रीः(Devanagari: oṃ amitābha hrīḥ), which is pronounced in its Tibetan version as Om ami dewa hri (Sanskrit: oṃ amideva hrīḥ)."
My friend Steve asked what the translation of this mantra was, and my friend Aditi, a scholar of Eastern spiritual practice, supplied this answer:

Poem by Bokonon

life is a garden,
not a road

we enter and exit
through the same gate

wandering,
where we go matters less
than what we notice

~ Bokonon ~

(The Lost Book)

(Dear friends, the partner of my dear friend Helen Purdum is now in the final
stages of dying.  He is only 58 years old and his illness has developed swiftly.
I am asking that all who feel comfortable in doing so, to send prayers (and/or good
 thoughts)and to  recite this mantra for him, asking for an easy passage to the spiritual realms.  Amitabha is the Buddha of infinite light and, according to the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, should be visualized at the crown at the moment of death.)



Amitābha is the center of a number of mantras in Buddhist Vajrayanapractices. The Sanskrit form of the mantra of Amitābha is ॐ अमिताभ ह्रीः(Devanagari: oṃ amitābha hrīḥ), which is pronounced in its Tibetan version as Om ami dewa hri (Sanskrit: oṃ amideva hrīḥ).

Poem by Hafiz

Start seeing everything as God
But keep it a secret
Become like a man who is awestruck
and nourished, listening to a golden nightingale
sing in a beautiful foreign language
while God nests invisibly upon its tongue.
Hafiz, who can you tell in this world
That when a dog runs up to you
wagging its ecstatic tail,
you bend down and whisper in its ear
"Beloved, I am so glad that you are happy to see me,
Beloved, I am so glad, so very glad, that you have come."

- Hafiz

(image from unknown source)
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Here is a piece that someone who survived the great flood of recent days sent to me.
I do not have the name of the author.



Two weeks ago tonight I celebrated my 46th birthday at home with my family. At 2 am that night we were woken up by the 500 year flood roaring through our valley. The past two weeks have put every hardship I have ever faced to shame. And yet ... they have been magical and powerful and full of wonder and awe in the most unexpected of ways.

Just some of the lessons I am learning:

1) hard times don't have to be bad times;
2) big boys do cry, and it helps;
3) helplessness, vulnerability, and impotence are prerequisites for grace;
4) we absolutely, positively have no idea where the grace will come from;
5) we - humanity - are hard wired to take care of one another;
6) destruction can clear the way for something better;
7) angels are real;  if you have community you will have more than you need;
9) we need less than we think;
10) that neighbor you've never really known cares about you - and you care about them.
11) Lyons Colorado is a poster child of America at its best.
--
"Kindness in thought leads to wisdom.
 Kindness in speech leads to eloquence.
 Kindness in action leads to love."

 Lao-Tzu