Kundalini Splendor

Hi Dorothy,

I am very happy to announce the public release of my new book: 'No Place But Home: Reflections on Meditation and the Spiritual Life'.


Each of the 30 short chapters in this book illuminates a different aspect of the life-altering miracle of meditation, and that miracle is the direct recognition that you can always be perfectly content even when your mind is not.

By following the guidance, you receive in these pages, you can liberate yourself from the hypnotic trance of fear, worry and self-concern, and learn to rest in the abiding peace of awakened consciousness.

As you read, you will be led to the awareness beyond awareness, where you are always already free, clear and awake. You will also discover that the freedom of mind you discover in meditation is only the beginning of the journey. Once your mind is free of its limiting assumptions, you will open to extraordinary realms beyond the familiar; energies and perceptions that lead into extraordinary realms of higher consciousness.

This book contains further guidance for recognizing and following the delicate sensibilities of higher wisdom. This is the essence of spiritual life.

You can also purchase a print copy of the book directly from Emergence Education.

Please enjoy the preview chapter I have included below.

Sincerely,
Jeff
Book Excerpt:
Chapter 9
The Immediacy Of Meditation

There is a magic to the practice of meditation that many practitioners never discover because we only find it when we eliminate time from the equation. You can call this the discovery of radical immediacy and it is the central insight of the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta that I was initiated into, and the Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.

The secret to this profound approach to practice is the realization that true meditation is not something that happens in time. It happens instantaneously, the moment you decide to let go. It doesn’t matter if you sit for twenty minutes or two hours, the meditation always occurs in the very first instant. Everything after that is just sitting as any Zen master will tell you.

When you sit in meditation you simply let go. You just drop all attempts to control, alter or manipulate your experience and let everything be exactly as it is. As the Sufi mystic Rumi put it, "close your eyes and surrender."

If in meditation you find yourself engaged in the activity of trying to let go, you are, in actuality, still holding on. Pick up a pen in your hand and then let it go. How long does it take? If you open your hand slowly, it could take an hour before the pen drops. That doesn’t mean that you were letting go for an hour. It means you were holding on, albeit less and less, for an hour before letting go.

We often, without realizing it, approach meditation the same way we approach everything else in life – as an accomplishment to be achieved.

At the start of meditation, we see ourselves as separate from some higher state of consciousness that we must work toward through the practice.

By imagining ourselves as somehow not there, we are inadvertently causing our own bondage. Spiritual freedom is not a goal that we attain in the future. It is the truth of our true nature now. Free is what we are. The only thing that keeps us from realizing it is our own insistence that we are not.

True meditation is not an activity designed to liberate you. It is the practice of freedom itself. The goal is freedom and the practice is to be free. No distance needs to be traveled and no time passes in this journey to where you already are.

This is the realization of radical immediacy. The magic begins as soon as we choose to be free by simply allowing everything to be exactly the way it already is.

Suddenly, we realize that we have slipped out of time. We have become liberated from the relentless march of passing moments.

It is impossible to describe in words, but it is as if you are nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. You still see every thought, every feeling, every sensation, but you are not inside them any longer.

As you continue to rest in this magical space beyond time, the passing show of arising experience becomes less and less captivating of your attention. Gradually, you become aware of the utterly invisible infinite space that all experience arises in.

I believe that this experience of trans-sensual perception is what inspires spiritual passages that speak to being blind but seeing everywhere.

Practicing meditation in this way initiates us into the mystery of being.

Once we taste the invisible infinitude that engulfs us, we realize that it is not just empty space. It is a living being – the ultimate source of wisdom and love in the universe. It is not dead. It is alive and it lives through us.

From this moment on, we feel compelled to become an ever more perfect channel for the manifestation of this universal heart and mind. We recognize in a way that can perhaps best be described in the words made famous in the West by the Indian sage Nisargadatta when he proclaimed, "I am that.

If we are so lucky that our identification with the small self yields to the recognition of who we really are, our spiritual orientation will flip on its head. We are no longer interested in trying to get anywhere, we only want to be more and more of who and what we already are.

~ End ~

 Purchase your copy here

e: jeff@jeffcarreira.com
w: mysteryschoolforanewparadigm.com
w: emergenceeducation.com

Sent to: dorothywalters72@gmail.com

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Emergence Education, P.O. Box 63767, Philadelphia, PA 19147, United States



Dorothy Walters


The Kundalini Poems: Reflections of Radiance and Joy
Some Kiss We Want: Poems Selected and New
Unmasking the Rose: A Record of a Kundalini Initiation
https://kundalinisplendor.blogspot.com
FB

" Trump is a fascist."  Barack Obama

Fascist (definition)––"often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
early instances of army fascism and brutality
— J. W. Aldridge

Note:  We have witnessed suppression of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other violations of the constitutions.  Those who disagree with "him" are fired or insulted or smeared.  All are marks of a fascist.

Jeff Richards––blog  entry

Jeff''s work is highly original in both content and form.  Using thread as his medium, he creates most unusual works, spinning the threat into geometric forms that demand your attention.  In addition. he is a bright and articulate artist, one who combines his art with insightful and often profound reflections on the artistic process and other matters.

Hi Friends,

Part 2 of "My Significant Other is the Kosmos - Darker Than Any Mystery" is published, subtitled "Emptiness Emptying".  You can see it by clicking here  http://hexagonart.blogspot.com/

I'm sending this announcement out to a limited number of people, but please if you know of others who might be interested pass it on.

Cheers!

Jeff

NDE MEETING––FEBRUARY 2

See you at A Valentine for YOUR Soul - - with Anne Salisbury,PHD and Greg Meyerhoff
Boulder Near Death & Other Mystical Experiences(IANDS)
Invite a friend
Simply forward this email to a friend to invite them along.

Sunday, February 2, 2020
at 2:00 PM

Boulder Public Library - Meadows Branch
4800 Baseline Rd (95th and Araphahoe)
Boulder, CO 80303

Your Words

Your words,
too beautiful
to be understood,
cling like shadows
to the corridors of my mind,
echoing through
the halls of my soul,
awakening my body in each secret place
as if this were
the last day of listening.

I looked everywhere for you
attic and basement
and all in between,
even in the garden
with its early blooms,
but always came up
with empty hands,

Once I was someone
who thought I knew what it was
I was seeking,
and then everything turned
and I became the thing
I was looking for.

Dorothy Walters
January 23, 2020

When Shiva Danced

I do not know how I chose my parents
or if or when.
In a way they were hard to miss,
for they looked just alike.

When I arrived I looked like
both of them put together
(black haired, blue eyed Irish)
and so it all made sense.

I was indeed their child,
one strong and determined,
the other yearning for
beauty in her life.

Life itself is not easy
for certain children,
those different from
all the rest.
She knew that she
was not like the others,
never part of the crowd
or the chosen ones.

She plodded ahead in her own way,
glasses and all,
the library her favorite place,
her sanctuary.

So when the Mother came,
she knew she was Her child.
She bowed often,
wrote verses for Her,
gave Her the gift
of herself.

And when Kundalini
 exploded, she recalled
her true beginnings,
Shiva Nataraja the dancer,
singing "I am eternal bliss,"
as rapture flooded her body.

Dorothy Walters
January 19, 2020

Who?
Joanna Moorhead

An illustration of a woman looking up at a huge lit lightbulb with the words 'I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my fate' written on it
 ‘There’s a certainty and stability about being able to conjure those words’. Illustration: Eva Bee
How can learning poetry by heart help us to be more grounded, happy, calm people? “Let me count the ways,” says Rachel Kelly, who has suffered from anxiety. Whenever she’s feeling wobbly, she finds reciting lines of poetry is grounding, validating and connects her to others who have felt as she is feeling in this moment. And it’s something we can all do: poetry we’ve learned to recite means we have another voice inside us that’s always there, a kind of on-board first responder in times of psychological need.


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There’s also a certainty and stability about being able to conjure those words: they’re a crutch, we can lean on them, they can even do the thinking for us. Kelly describes how two lines from Invictus by WE Henley can make all the difference to what happens to her next: “I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul.” When all she can hear in her head are negative voices, she can drown them out by repeating, over and over, positive lines from poetry: they’re substitutions, life-giving mantras rather than life-sapping ones.

Kelly was very unwell – at one point she was in a psychiatric hospital – when she had an inkling that poetry could offer enormous comfort. “I’d had a lot of drugs and I was in a terribly anxious state. I was clinging on to my husband, who was on one side of me, and my mother, who was on the other. And suddenly my mother started murmuring some lines from Corinthians: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is perfected in weakness’. And those words felt like the first stirring of hope. This seemed like a shard of something positive, something I could cling on to.”

 He held my hands across the century and said to me I’d be OK
When her mother realised the power of repeating words, mantra-like, she sought out more. “She would drip-feed me little lines of poetry – it was like chicken soup for the soul,” remembers Kelly. “One of her favourite poets was George Herbert from the 18th century, and there are some incredible lines: ‘Grief melts away/like snow in May/as if there were no such cold thing’, from a poem called The Flower. I kept repeating those lines, and they spelled out hope to me: they’re about renewal and rebirth, and I started to know that, as Herbert goes on to say, my shrivelled heart would recover its greenness.” What was so powerful, says Kelly, was that Herbert described desolation – but also recovery. “He held my hands across the century and said to me, ‘You are going to be OK,’” she says.

Today, Kelly is OK: and she’s keen to share the power of poetry. She’s written the foreword to a new book that features 52 poems – one a week, for a year – to learn by heart. They’ve been chosen by Georgina Rodgers, who says the first hurdle to overcome is that for too many people, poetry is scary.

“Perhaps it’s because it takes them back to their schooldays, or perhaps it’s because they think it’s impenetrable,” she explains. “But there are so many accessible poems, and those are the ones I’ve tried to choose for the book.”

Poetry, she points out, is experiencing “a bit of a renaissance” – and it does seem to have a particular appeal in our connected, short-form world. If you want to be pithy, if you want to be quick, if you want to say a lot in as few characters as possible, then it’s to poetry that you should turn. As the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy once said: “The poem is a form of texting… it’s a perfecting of a feeling in language… a way of saying more with less.” But conversely it’s also a means to getting off the frenetic, fast-moving rollercoaster of the digitised 21st century. “It’s a way of being mindful, of being in the moment,” says Rodgers. “We’re so used to looking for shortcuts, to skimming through things the whole time, but poetry makes us sit down and engage, it forces us to take something to a deeper level.”

 One of the most lasting cures has been here all along.

My own deadline is looming, and I know I should tear myself away from Rodgers’ book but suddenly, now I’ve chanced upon EE Cummings I know that the most vital thing in my life right now is to recite these lines: “I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”; and I can’t leave Nikita Gill without pondering on what she has to say (“Most people in your life/were only meant/for dreams/and summer laughter.”)

There are much-loved favourites within Rodgers’ book (No Man is an Island by John Donne; Leisure by WH Davies), as well as less popular pieces such as Thinking by Walter D Wintle (“If you think you are beaten, you are/If you think you dare not, you don’t); but Rodgers says she’s also looked for less well-known work by the big name poets (such as The Eagle by Tennyson; In the Forest by Oscar Wilde).

If there’s one poem that seems to sum up what the book is all about, it’s The Guest House by the 13th-century Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi. Not only does it speak to us across the centuries (Beyoncé and Jay-Z named their daughter after him, while Chris Martin says his poetry changed his life), but also it does that so-difficult task of turning disaster to blessing, guilt to goodness, and grief to joy: “The dark thought, the shame, the malice/Meet them at the door laughing/and invite them in.” All emotions, says Rumi, are valuable – and the uncertainty of life is its treasure, not its pain.

Rodgers and Kelly do not claim to be first with their wisdom on the links between verse and mental health. Bibliotherapy has a long and distinguished past, and the ancient pharaoh Rameses II had the inscription “Healing-place of the Soul” above the entrance to his library. Many centuries later, in 1671, John Milton wrote that “apt words have pow’r to swage/The tumours of a troubled mind’; and later still, in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill attributed his recovery from depression to reading William Wordsworth.

In a world in which we tend to look to what’s new, to cutting-edge science and to medical breakthroughs for hope in better health, there’s something marvellous in the realisation that one of the most beautiful and resonant and possibly longest-lasting cures has been here all along – on the internet, on our bookshelves, under our noses. Words – down the centuries, over the ether, across the miles – have the power to steady us, and to make us feel better.

A life in rhyme: other ways poetry can help
relit.org.uk is a website looking at ways in which poems, novels and other literature can help us to cope with emotional strain.

Writing your own poetry can be a way to access emotions and feelings that have not emerged via other means. Many organisations run therapeutic poetry-writing workshops. Google them in your area.

Grief and loss have long been assuaged by well-chosen poetry. Gerry McCann, father of then four-year-old Madeleine who disappeared during a family holiday on the Algarve in 2007, recently spoke movingly about how he connected with the Middle English poem Pearl, in which a father laments his daughter’s loss.

thereader.org.uk brings people together to read poems or a book aloud. Many of its members are going through a time of transition in their personal lives.

Encouraging the recitation of poetry learned in earlier decades can help elderly people, including those with dementia, to remain connected with their lives and loved ones. For more information, see alzheimers.org.uk



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Poetry–chaikhana.com

Brenda McMorrow is one of my most treasured friends.  She travels the world singing kirtan and her original compositions.  A free rendition of "Adi Shakti" (song from new album) is now available on the link below as well as Youtube. This song is truly sublime and offers full measure of  Kundalini shakti to those who listen with open heart . The album "Chidananda" is now available for purchase.  It speaks of the love for and from the Divine Mother, who nurtures each of us in our lives.

from Brenda:

I’m excited to share the first in a series of 8 lyric videos and visual meditation videos by Anila Shakya. You can also see it on Youtube at https://youtu.be/mdRypkB_3qs (comments, subscribes and likes there are much appreciated - helps the music be heard by more people!)
The amazing Primordial Spiral by Dan Schmidt that is featured on the cover of my new album “Chidananda” is the moving background to a lyric video for every song on the record. Mesmerizing. Here it is for the song “Adi Shakti”, a song to the primordial feminine energy.

from Lynn McTaggart

Intention of the week: Australia

Intention of the Week: Australia
Join us to help end the bushfires
Sunday, January 12, 2020
10:00 am Pacific US time

On one of our webinars last week, many members of my 2019 Power of Eight Intention Masterclass joined a special intention to quell the Australian bushfires.

There’s been a temporary reprieve with the rain, but the forecast is for the heat to build again and for gusty winds to accelerate in the West, spreading the fires further. For our Intention of the Week, let’s all come together for a special intention to help Australia:

Please hold the following intention on Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 10:00 am Pacific US time/1:00 pm Eastern US/6:00 pm UK/7:00 pm Europe:

‘Our intention is that the excessive heat in Australia immediately subside, and that the winds die down, so that the bushfires are completely and permanently contained with no further destruction or loss of life.’

Send in your Nomination for Intention of the Week

Do you have a loved one who needs our healing intention? If so, please send in his or her full name, age, location (town/country), photograph and the nature of his/her illness here: https://lynnemctaggart.com/intention-experiments/intention-of-the-week/


New Age Publishing Limited, Unit 9, Woodman Works 204 Durnsford Road, London, Greater London SW19 8DR, United Kingdom

You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.

MEDITATION AND CHANTING CD!


The mahamantra, the great mantra, Om Namah Shivaya, is a throb of your own divine Self. Om Namah Shivaya translates as Om, I bow to the Auspicious One, the Divine within everyone. You are the Auspicious One, Shiva.  Limitless is your power, love and ecstasy.  That is your true nature, your true home and refuge.  Kundalini Shakti gives you the sublime form of mantra, opening the way for you to abide once again in the truth of your radical freedom.

Through chanting and meditation, become absorbed in Om Namah Shivaya, watching as the power of the mantra transforms mind and body into perfect vehicles for the ecstatic One already residing within you as you.  The mantra will empower you to live with the boundless wisdom, love, and creativity that radiate from your true Self.

This album includes brief meditation instructions, meditative chants of Om Namah Shivaya, and silent tracks for timing your meditation.  The meditation ends with the ringing of a beautiful Tibetan gong (which can be used separately on any smartphone for a ringtone or alarm tone), followed by chanting Om Namah Shivaya to ease your consciousness back into the day. The Om Namah Shivaya chant on this album is the one that so many people attending Lawrence’s programs and retreats love for its power to ease the mind and plunge you into the depths of pure Consciousness.  In the stillness of meditation Lawrence first heard Om Namah Shivaya being chanted in this way as the mantra arose spontaneously within the spaciousness of Consciousness.  Shaktipat diksha is the ultimate gift that this mantra has to bestow on souls ripe for awakening.

After the meditation tracks is a chant of world mantras from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and discfinal2Judaism which invoke the unity of the one Source. These mantras are:

Om Namah Shivaya – “Om, I bow with reverence to the auspicious One” – Invokes the all-embracing, omnipresent One, the Divine within – Hindu.
Om Kali Durge Ma – “Om, Kali Durge Mother of all” – invokes the living presence of Great Goddess Kali, the mother of the universe from whom all forms emerge – Hindu.
Om Mani Padme Hum – “Om, Hail the jewel in the lotus” – Invokes the living presence of the Buddha within you as your true nature – Tibetan Buddhist.
Om Tare Tam Soha – “Om, Tara, mother of all Buddhas, resounding in the heart, so may it be” – Red Tara mantra invoking Tara, Mother of all Buddhas and her boundless compassion which brings to the seeker all that’s needed to overcome obstacles – Tibetan Buddhist.
La ilaha illallah – “There is no deity other than God” – Invokes the awareness of the universal One – Islam.
Ein Od Milvado – “There is none but Him” – Invokes the sublime non-dual awareness that all is God, everything is God – Jewish.
Kyrie Eléison – “Lord, have mercy” – Invokes the boundless compassion of the One – Christian.
Sancta Maria Mater Dei – “Holy Mary, Mother of God” – Invokes the living presence of the Divine feminine as Mary, Mother of God – Christian.
The last track on the album is an extended version of the slow Om Namah Shivaya chant that allows you to become more deeply absorbed in this vibration of the Divine within.

The deep power of mantra arises from beyond the mind, beyond thoughts, beyond words.  The ordinary mind mistakes mantra as just another thought form and thus doesn’t recognized its true potency.  The real power of mantra is the Consciousness of the Self, Kundalini Shakti, vibrating into form and manifesting the sound body of the Infinite which the mind can then perceive as mantra.  Take hold of the mantra and you take hold of the Divine.  Absorb the mind in mantra and you dissolve back into the One, the Source of all.  Know the true nature of mantra and you will know what it is to merge into the ocean of Love that is your Divine Self.

The word “mantra” means “that which protects.”  It protects one from the ignorance of one’s true nature and from continuously acting out of that ignorance, creating countless life-times of karma.  Become absorb in the mantra and know your radical freedom, your true nature as the Self of all.  You are what you seek.  The ancient Vedas proclaim: Tat twam asi!  Thou art That!

The translations of the mantras only hint at their true meaning and power.  The meaning of the words are the least important aspect of a mantra.  The Consciousness that is invoked and transmitted through the mantra is what truly initiates and sustains awakening to the One.  Fully enter into the vehicle of mantra and discover where it takes you.  You can learn more about the power of mantra and mantra practices in Lawrence’s books, Awakening Kundalini: The Path To Radical Freedom and The Soul’s Journey: Guidance From The Divine Within.

This album was created to support people in their meditative practices and the proceeds go to helping support the non-profit Anam Cara Meditation Foundation whose mission it is to make meditation available to everyone.  For more information please visit www.anamcarafoundation.org.  Lawrence Edwards is the founder and director of the Anam Cara Meditation Foundation.  The website has additional free resources.

Kali’s Bazaar
         Penned by Kalidas

You may laugh out loud, be moved to tears or pulled into deep contemplation by what you encounter in Kali’s Bazaar. Readers will return often to this accessible collection of poems to draw from its wellspring of devotion, revelation and celebration of the Divine present in every moment, every being and all of creation. Bring inspiration, clarity and practical instruction to your spiritual path or meditative practice through insightful and often ecstatic poetry from a devoted master meditation teacher who has more than 40 years of experience teaching and practicing the arts of meditation. Dr. Edwards has trained in Buddhist, yogic, Kundalini and other mystic traditions, in addition to his professional training in depth psychology, biofeedback and neurofeedback.

Kali’s Bazaar penned by Kalidas
Author: Lawrence Edwards
Illustrator: Molly Edwards
Publisher: TSJ Publications in conjunction with Muse House Press
ISBN: 978-1-935827-09-2
Trade Paperback, 202 p.
Publication date: 2/2012
Copyright 2011 Lawrence Edwards
All Rights Reserved


Superlative Reviews For Kali’s Bazaar:

Kali’s Bazaar is poetry in the ecstatic tradition of Hafiz, Rumi, and Kabir. This type of poem isn’t cultivated or tidy; it’s devotional and raw. The fundamental drive and message of Kalidas’s poems are eternally important—they speak of love, fearlessness, and joy, and they speak about all of these things in a large voice. The style of the poems departs from the more refined voice of traditional poetry, which might not appeal to every ear. But because of their driving intent to realize and “see through,” the poems in Kali’s Bazaar are worth a look for anyone trying to do the same.
Keith Belcher – Yoga International journal, Fall 2012

Extraordinary poetry — pure bhakti!
Roger Woolger, world-renowned Jungian analyst, past-life healer and author of several books including The Goddess Within.

This collection of devotional poems, a rarity in today’s world, will awaken the heart of love within any reader whatever their spiritual tradition. Lawrence Edwards, a long time devotee of the Devi (the archetypal feminine that exists within all), has had the blessings of some of the leading Masters of our time. As these ecstatic poems reveal, he provides a shining example of the spiritual life fully lived, able to embrace with eloquence all of life’s extremes from suffering to bliss. These poems are in the tradition of the great ecstatic poets such as Rumi, Kabir, Hafiz and others. They transport the reader beyond this world of duality into unconditioned Oneness, a rare gift indeed!
Most of the poems came to Kalidas during meditation by “the Divine’s power of Grace.” Others were born amidst the challenges of daily life. The sign of a wise teacher, he doesn’t separate the inner, devotional life from the world’s suffering, but rather weaves them together masterfully. These poems radiate a passionate, timeless, love-saturated intensity and will touch your heart in unimaginable ways.
Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, author, Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows: A Couple’s Journey Through Alzheimer’s. Excerpt included in an anthology of Best Buddhist Writers, 2009.

Here, gathered over many years of quest and deep experience, is a beautiful symposium of devotional poems to awaken the mind and rejoice the heart. The introduction is a powerful call to the incandescent reality of inner experience. Here are poems to savor, to guide, to bring tears and, above all, to dissolve the veil that lies between us and the Divine Presence who tells us that we live within Her Being and Her Love.
Anne Baring, British Jungian analyst and author of One Work: A Journey Toward The Self, and co-author with Andrew Harvey of The Mystic Vision and The Divine Feminine. www.annebaring.com

Those on a sacred path will recognize that Kalidas (Lawrence Edwards) has made an authentic life journey and, through his poetry, is sharing his piercing insights and exalted states. His relationship to the Mother allows us to hear her voice in every sound, to see her magnificence in every sight, to feel her fiercely loving caress in every touch, and to sense the rhythm of her beating heart in our soul. Reading these poems transports and transforms the reader through delight and deep satisfaction.
Martin Lowenthal, Psychologist, Tibetan Buddhist, Founder of the Dedicated Life Institute and author of several books, including Alchemy of the Soul and Buddha and the Art of Intimacy. www.dli.org

In this collection, Kalidas (servant of Kali) offers us the distillation of a lifetime of spiritual seeking and devotion. Each poem glows with the iridescent spark of that sacred essence left in the alchemist’s dish when all the dross has been sifted away. Yeats used the phrase “when naked to naked goes” to describe such moments, when the unadorned soul unites with the Beloved in shameless adoration. These poems allow us to observe at close hand this profound process by which the mundane substance of the material self is transmuted into the clarity of the refined being, the gold of pure spirit.
For years a monk in India, later an accomplished Jungian therapist, workshop leader, and meditation master, Kalidas (Lawrence Edwards, PhD) now devotes much of his time to helping others on the path, particularly those undergoing unexpected Kundalini awakening. This is the gift he returns to the world, precious goods recovered from a lifetime voyage into the authentic self.
Dorothy Walters, PhD, author of numerous works including Unmasking the Rose: A Record of a Kundalini Initiation; Marrow of Flame: Poems of the Spiritual Journey; www.kundalinisplendor.blogspot.com

The poignant imagery and keen spiritual insights I found in Kali’s Bazaar delighted me. But what moved me even more was that they revealed Lawrence – whose vast knowledge and rare understanding of Eastern traditions have long marked as a man of profound intellect – to be a man of even deeper heart….
Teri Degler, author several books, including The Divine Feminine Fire and The Fiery Muse: Creativity and the Spiritual Quest. She is an international workshop leader on the Divine Feminine. www.teridegler.com

With great humility (a sign of an authentic teacher) Lawrence Edwards reveals to us his spiritual inner life empowering us to accept our own inner experiences instead of thinking something might be terribly wrong.
As we read these devotional poems aloud to each other we discovered – not new landscapes but the same landscapes with new eyes. This beautiful writing reminded us that Spirit is in everything, including our relationships. Kali’s Bazaar is definitely a gift of grace for anyone, including couples to share.
Charles Whitfield, MD, author of Choosing God and Teachers of God
Barbara Harris Whitfield, author of Spiritual Awakenings and The Natural Soul. Barbara-Whitfield.blogspot.com

The book is magnificent, epic!! It, in brief lines of prose and deep inspiration, exposes the eternal truth and
perennial philosophy naked to the world. It is a book that can be read in an hour and must be studied for a
lifetime to reveal the astonishing truths hidden in its pages.
Kali’s Bazaar contains a distillation of the essence of all the world’s mystery and ecstatic traditions. Embrace
the light streaming from its pages!
Curtis Allen Paulson, author of Quantum Christ

 The Experience(s)––Phil Williams

Phil Williams, a fomer NFL consultant, lost his beloved daughter when she was in her late twenties, and was himself devastated by his loss.  After two years of deep depression, he experienced sudden awakening into divine love which he describes in the following entry.  I wish to thank him for allowing me to publish this account of his awakening experience here.  At the time this description was written, he was living in Çosta Rica.  Meg is his wife.

In the fall of 2018, something different was happening inside of me. For the first time in my life I could feel changes occurring within me, exciting new paradigms forming, ones that were unlike anything I had ever experienced as the old Phil. After learning several years earlier that the world was not as I had always thought it was, and having staggered through the most life-altering (shattering) event that a parent can, or maybe any person can, I had come to a place, I believe, where I was totally open, willing to free my mind to whatever God might reveal, regardless of what those who label themselves authorities deemed as the truth, or whatever authoritative literature, or the like, stated. I was all in, digging with all of my emotional and spiritual strength, in pursuit of whatever God might have in store for me. In pursuit of life.

Leading up to this time, as I have already explained, I had created stories from the depths of my grief and sorrow, you might say from the depths of my brain damage. Those stories had felt so real, so true, so painfully legitimate, that I had left a wake of destruction behind me. Or at least it felt (looked?) that way. Yes, I was beginning to see life differently than I ever had, bolstered by my new understanding of the spiritual realm, and was more excited than I had been in a while. More relaxed and excited.

Meg, on the other hand, was growing immensely in her own way, but edging away from me. I think she had been damaged by my stories...
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 As stated earlier, I had come to strongly believe that we all create stories born from illusions instigated by our egos seeking after security. It takes a lot for us to be able to look at the root causes of these stories, built like formidable fortresses, constructed to defend our egos and our fragile territories. Of course, they never do the job we assign to them, causing a myriad of problems along the way, so we usually just concoct more stories, and round and round we go. My personal stories of pain, with Meg at times as the main culprit, had taken on a life of their own during much of the proceeding few years, mainly during Hannah’s illness and death, and had left a swath of scars along the way, in both of our hearts.

Sometimes I talk too much. I’m an outward processor, throwing words and thoughts out into the public domain probably a little more than I should. I admit it. For example, in my conception that speaking your truth was of the utmost importance, with a heart that felt like it had been severely damaged, I would occasionally spew stuff out to Meg like this:
“I feel like my heart died. I will always love you, but my heart has just been too beaten up. I hope that my heart returns, and I truly believe it will. But it has died. I just can’t seem to feel it anymore. I want more than anything for us to love each other as we once did, even more so, and I believe it will come. But, like I said, I feel like my heart died.”

I’m not sure how many times I recited this motif, or something like it, but each time Meg would softly listen, I fear little by little losing her heart along the way, my story and my words dragging her along a ragged path. As I said, losing a child is brutal on relationships, sometimes even more so when one of the partners has a big mouth. As in...yours truly. Though both of us had fought hard to get back on our feet, and perhaps stretch further than before in our quest for
 reality, truth, and life, we still recognized that losing a child would almost certainly require a lifetime of healing.

Meg was reaching out for her own rock to cling to, her own needs for security. And I guess if I had been in her shoes I would have been concerned after listening to my heart dying quips. So she was doing what she needed to do, and that certainly meant that fully trusting me and my commitment to our relationship, was not part of it. At least for the time being.
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I could tell that Meg was not warm towards me, that she was pursuing her own agenda,
but I simply and naively assumed, like I always did, that things would just sort of work themselves out. Especially since I knew I was changing. In relationship, though, as I was soon to learn, watching the other person change is often fraught with challenges, certainly more so when there are so many questions afloat, some of which point to a pretty deep crack or two. Meg needed to be cautious with me. And maybe even more accurately, and acutely, her heart had been affected, too. I didn’t blame her. And yet I figured that the changes in me would be noticed, and eventually remedy all of our issues. At least I was hoping so.

In late October, Meg’s sister, Amy, flew down to Costa Rica for a week or so. I guess it was kind of later on during Amy’s visit that I began to notice that Meg was, like I said, edging away from me, enough so that I decided to address that very issue on a Saturday morning, just a few hours before both Meg and Amy were to hop on a bus for San Jose and then fly to the United States.
 “So what’s up?” I asked. “I can tell something’s on your mind, something different. You want to talk about it?”
She seemed a bit nonchalant. “Yeah. But it can wait.” She shuffled her feet and thought for about one second. “I guess we can talk about it now.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “when I get back from the states, I was thinking maybe in January after the holidays, that you could go somewhere for about six weeks, and then I could go somewhere for about six weeks. That would give us three months apart, time for me to better hear my voice.”
Meg and I had been around each other, day in and day out, probably more than anybody I had ever known, for over thirty-one years, so time apart actually sounded good on the one hand. But on the other...
“So you want a separation?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Just time alone. Time to think. Time to hear my voice.”
I’m thinking, yeah, a time of separation.
“Okay,” I said.

And that was pretty much it. I drove them to the bus stop in Puerto Viejo and hugged her
goodbye, both of us throwing out I love you’s, both sensing that we were diving into uncharted waters. Scary waters, perhaps. Sad waters. They left, and I drove home to ponder.
Over the next couple of weeks I continued to immerse myself into meditation, breathing, and A Course in Miracles. I also seemed to be receiving downloads from somewhere. Downloads? you ask. Yes, downloads, as if my mind had been pried open and a multitude of stories began to pour in. I had begun writing short stories, mainly about grief and healing and the mystical/spiritual, for a few weeks already, but now they were bursting into my mind like an angry ocean through the walls of a rickety dam. So I wrote. And wrote. And continue to do so.
A few days before Meg was due to arrive back from the states I had an extraordinary experience. Why did this happen? My best guess is that the modalities I was practicing - the meditations (guided and unguided) and breathing exercises - and the studying I was doing, were both beginning to affect me on a subconscious level. I awoke in the middle of the night and instantly a movie began to play in my mind. I was awake and I knew it, and yet, without warning, it was as if a DVD had been inserted into a slot in my brain and the video began to play. This was not thinking. It was watching.
I was transported back in time to revisit several events in my first seven or eight years.

First, I was plopped down into the nursery at my father’s church in Macon, Georgia - Hillcrest United Methodist Church. I was two or three years old. The thing is, I was sort of like old Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, invisible and simply observing the action. With one caveat - I could watch myself as a little boy while feeling the emotions of that little boy. I was terrified! My parents had dropped me off at the nursery and I had felt utter abandonment. I watched as that little boy - me - freaked out and began screaming in fear, once again, feeling it within my own being as I lay in my bed watching. The nursery workers had to go get my dad, the pastor, to come and calm me down.

Next I found myself jumping down off of my bicycle looking down into a large culvert, still in Macon, when I was probably six years old (yeah, we used to could ride about anywhere we wanted to back in the day, learning to ride bikes at a young age, and with parents who trusted us to somehow make it home everyday). At any rate, I had gone to the culvert to find my olderbrother, Steve, who was down next to the water with a friend. As I stood by my bicycle, he reached down, picked something up, cocked his arm, and launched whatever it was in my direction. I felt a sharp pain on my left shin and quickly looked down. Blood was spurting from my leg and a sharp piece of glass was laying on the ground beside my foot - the bottom part of an old coca-cola bottle. I looked down at my brother and he was laughing. I jumped on my bike and sped home, blood flying everywhere, stunned and upset that he could have been so mean. I still have the scar.

I could sense that I could shut the video down whenever I wanted to, but I let it keep rolling.
Next I was on a swing at elementary school in Dawson, Georgia, where we had moved after Macon. It was my first day of school in our new town, third grade, and I was scared to death. School was already let out for the day and I was waiting for my mom, my face dug into the chains that held up the swing, crying, terrified. I was somehow convinced, I think, that this new place and the new way they did school was going to be my downfall. I saw the tears erupt from my young eyes, and at the same time, felt the fear in my old heart, over five decades later.

Many more scenes began to rush through my mind, staccato style, with just enough of a visual from each one to remind me that I was a deeply wounded human being. Eventually I halted the projector.
I lay there in my bed, confused as to why the movie had begun to play. As I relaxed and processed it all, I had the sense that I knew why the movie had come to me. Though I couldn’t be sure, I believed that I was being given a significant glimpse into much of the reason that I behaved and felt as I did during many of life’s episodes. It was obvious to me, for example, that
 the mere possibility of abandonment could leave me in a state of panic, especially if it was of a foundational nature.

Ahhh, a state of panic. That proverbial corner was now directly in front of me, and though I was somewhat oblivious, seeing it but not recognizing its impact, I was just about ready to make that turn.
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Over the following two weeks I experienced a phenomenon that many others have also
been confronted with, but up until then I had somehow been spared from. For those who have suffered through panic attacks, for suffering it surely is, you know how frightening and debilitating they can be. Throughout my life, as far as I knew, I had never even come close, even during Hannah’s illness and death. Delirious, fragmented, sorrowful beyond words, agonizingly distraught, and so much more, and yet no panic attacks. But in late November of 2018, I would seemingly be confronted with the gates of hell, itself.

I would wake up in the middle of the night and feel sheer panic, with no warning, my mind frozen in a state of heightened anxiety and despair, as if my entire world had fallen apart and there was nothing I could do about it. I was destined for a life of utter loneliness, abandonment, and pain. Saturday night, November 24th, was the worst.

It also preceded the most amazing experience of my life.
Earlier in the day my favorite dog, a Rottweiler that I had become very attached to, died in my arms, and in a fashion that left my body humming and my emotions gyrating all over the place. His name was Tank, and I loved him dearly. He was so full of life and such a good boy.
 We had detected heart worms far too late, apparently; yet we kept hoping that he might get better, that the medications he was taking would somehow work. They did not, and I sat with him in my lap in the back of my truck outside of the veterinarian's office for maybe ten or fifteen minutes (it felt like hours) as he went through what was obviously the throes of death. I was borderline delirious, crying profusely, clearly stumbling through his last minutes while re-living, at least partially, the death of my daughter. With a high degree of certainty, I believe this trauma took me back into the memories of Hannah’s last moments, and I simply had not recovered by the time I fell asleep that night.
And so, for the third night since Meg had arrived back home from the states on the 20th, I awakened from a deep sleep with my body humming as if I had been plugged into a powerful electrical socket, accompanied by a deep sense of loneliness and loss, my mind frantic. It was so profound that I wondered how I could live this way, and then realized that I did not want to live this way, that I could not live this way. I did not feel suicidal, per se, (or perhaps I was?) but certainly felt that I could not continue this way. I was devoid of rationality, or so it seemed, nothing but fearful thoughts bouncing psychotically around within my mind. I kept trying to slow my mind down and find some relief.

I woke Meg up and told her my predicament. I lay back down on the bed, on my back, grabbed her hand, and placed it over my heart. I held it there. I then did the only thing I could think of, the only thing that had given me the slightest touch of relief during the other two panic attacks. I knew that I needed to be present, in the moment, in the now, where there is no future or past, where all of our problems exist. I began to breathe through my nose, to force my breathingto slow down. In - feel the breath in my nostrils; out - feel the breath through my nostrils. In - out. Focus on the breath. In - out - in - out - in...

What happened next is impossible to fully describe with words. Impossible to describe period. As I became present, the most profound and remarkable experience followed. Time was suspended. Honestly, to tell it right, I would have to say that time did not exist, and not only did it not exist, had not existed.
As I lay upon my bed, fresh off of an episode of Life Sucks, I Might Want to End This Thing, I found that I was swimming in a sea of the most unfathomable bliss imaginable. Meg lay beside me, half-asleep, believe it or not, as I drifted into a world of beauty indescribable. We are limited here by our need to use words and labels, so that’s what I’m going to keep throwing out, but maybe it’ll help a little if you’ll also sort of allow yourself to let go and believe that God is beyond our words and labels and beliefs and everything else we have been trained to believe in while here in our 3-D world. I had a few brief moments of what I am forced to try to label with certain words and descriptions, and as the words flow onto the screen they feel inadequate.

For starters, there was no start. As I have tried to explain, it just was. There simply was no start to my experience. I had been deposited into timelessness in such a way that it had simply always been that way (and I inherently knew that it would always be so). It was sort of like waking up from a dream and realizing that you have been dreaming, back into reality. In fact, it felt exactly like that, except that it was more real. In other words, my life on earth seemed a blurry nothing, almost, compared to the depth of reality that I was immersed in.

I knew that I needed nobody. To be clear, I was aware that I was accepted fully by all that mattered (God, Creator, Source) to such a degree that I recognized that our perceived need of
 some other person or persons (to complete us), or even thing or things, is an absolute, 100%, unquestionable illusion. Never have I felt so certain of anything in my life. The Creator of the universe accepted me with perfection and nothing could take it away. Nothing! This I knew, and still know, regardless of what anyone could throw at me from a religious or anti-religious standpoint. This realization eliminated my fear of abandonment, for I knew that it was impossible. Not impossible from a physical body standpoint, from that sticky emotional body thing we have going on while in our 3-D world, perhaps, but from an ultimate reality standpoint, which is, well...reality.
The peace that enveloped me was beyond what I had ever thought possible. A stunning sea of tranquility had embraced me within its life force of love, and pulsated all around me and within me. I was cocooned inside, and yet it was also within my being.

I lay there, still with Meg’s hand on my heart, floating in a sea of the most amazing combination of peace and love and acceptance that I could have ever even dreamed possible. And that would have been more than enough to make it the highlight of my life. But there was one more attribute to this experience that I have to share; in fact, the one attribute which coaxed out the only words that I spoke audibly during this time of absolute presence.

I’ve been around for a pretty good while on this earth, long enough to have raised four amazing children, remain married to a beautiful soul for more than three decades, as well as experience gazillions of things in life that make me grateful to be alive. All of them, every single one, lumped together and packaged, couldn’t begin to touch the beauty that I touched (or that dropped down and touched me). I began to speak audibly, into the ears of God, as it were, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you...” On and on I went, a heart overflowing
 with gratitude that exceeded what I thought gratitude could even elevate to, by a number that probably doesn’t exist. For the first time in my life, I truly understood what a thankful heart really was, what gratitude meant. I’m not sure how many times I spoke it, maybe ten or so, maybe fifty. But I wasn’t counting, and time wasn’t really happening anyway.

As I lay there after orally expressing my deep gratitude to my Creator I was certain that I would experience this bliss for as long as I remained awake. I somehow knew. I rested for a few minutes (though I’m not sure how long) in that spirit of love and peace and knowing, soaking it up, but I also instinctively knew that it would be gone once I fell back asleep, and would subsequently rise from my slumber. As I lay there I softly recalled a story that I had read of someone who had more than likely had the same thing happen to them, and that it had lasted for months afterward. I didn’t envy that person, but I knew that it would not be the same for me.

I figured that there was a significant purpose for me, a compelling reason that I had been immersed in such Love. I was humbled, not the slightest bit proud. Quite the opposite, in fact, marveling at the love of God that I could be allowed to receive such a taste of, what I have now come to believe is our eternal destiny. Why did I experience this? And why did it come seemingly attached to such a painful, humbling event - the panic attack? I can only speculate. But I believe that God was touching me, embracing me, enveloping me in love, because it is what I needed, and because this is happening with more regularity across the spectrum of humanity during these interesting days that we live in. And potentially because I was on such a desperate journey spurred on by my beautiful daughter. Or...well, I just don’t know why. But I do know that this experience has given me an anchor, an understanding that this world we see with our body’s eyes is illusionary and not to be trusted.

 I have tried to share the story of what happened that night with a few people, to encourage others, mainly to be met with a change of subject. I understand. It’s not normal, difficult to process for many and alien to others. I get it.

Before I leave this, I would like to say one more thing about it. I am as close to certain as I can be that this place of being, this experience of joy and peace and love and acceptance and gratitude and more, more, more, awaits all of the Creator’s children. All of us! I realize that many of our beliefs, religions and otherwise, suggest something different to many, but I personally believe differently at this point. This experience only confirmed for me what I was beginning to see as our destiny, that the creations of a loving Creator would share a timeless bliss with this very Creator.
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Oh, how the beautiful, the mystical, the real seems to slip through our (mental) fingers as
if it is a mist that dissipates when the sun’s rays become intense enough. When I woke the next morning, the tingle of excitement was still with me, it’s true, and the desire to shout it from the mountain top was also there, and yet the beautiful experience itself had departed (though I sensed a remnant lurking), a forever memory that I knew I would never forget, but I no longer felt the intensity of at that moment. In other words, I knew what had happened and that it could not be stolen from me, yet the consuming bliss had softly faded away.

In fact, I had one more panic attack, the very next night, even.
 Then, little by little, I began to settle back into what I will call a place of growth. Morning and evening meditations (guided and unguided), breathing modalities, and deeper into A Course in Miracles and other writings.

At this point in my journey, I had become certain of one thing - things are not as we see them. I had been allowed to peak behind the veil and steal a glimpse of what I now see as reality. Of the workings of the universe, as it were. This peek (peak?) alone opens the mind to a world far beyond the dream world of life on earth as most of us experience it, of the way that I have experienced it for almost all of my time here.

Undoubtedly, we have all asked those questions, haven’t we? The ones like why am I here? what is my purpose? is there really any meaning to all of this? and a million more. But because we are so busy, so educated, so propagandized, so saturated with beliefs that we have learned somewhere along the way and have honed to razor’s edge to protect our psyches, so fearful of losing our foundation, we trudge forward trying to squeeze as much pleasure as we can out of our years, and protect ourselves from the pains.

As I found out, no matter how hard you try, you simply do not have that type of control (in fact, I see the belief that we can control anything as an illusion). It is a forever losing game, one that we keep fighting in hopes that the tides will change, that fortune will smile on us with a life of at least some modicum of peace.

At least where it relates to this world we see with our body’s eyes.

Shiva is in all Things

The Lord of Appati
is both inside and outside,
form and no-form.
He is both the flood and the bank,
he is the broad-rayed sun.
Himself the highest mystery,
he is in all hidden thoughts.
He is thought and meaning,
and embraces all who embrace him.

(from Poems to Shiva :The Hymns of the Tamil Saints––Indira V. Peterson––Princeton Legacy Library)

This poem gives expression to a notion that appears in many traditions and under many
names: God is everywhere and is both seen and unseen, hidden and yet known, manifest and potential, immanent and transcendent, boundless and contained.

(image from internet)

My Mountain––poem by Dorothy

You were my mountain
and it was my task
to climb you.

And so I strove,
step by step
through drifts of snow
and mounds of rubble,
always forging ahead
sun and sleet,
desert and flood,
always climbing
to the unseen destination
above,
always wondering
why I came,
what I would be
once I reached the top,
how I looked,
how I would act,
together we climbed,
waiting to see
what I would become.

Dorothy Walters
December 28, 2019