Kundalini Splendor

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