Ram Dass Now

Thank you all. For this project. To be with me at this time in my life. I’m honored to have been a part of your lives as well!

After writing last week’s entry I found this feeling and I wrote it in my journal:

“I can only trust. There is no alternative.. I have to be available to be hurt and to feel pain. Pain sucks. But being available to experience that pain rather than recoil from the thought of it, is likewise being available to experience life’s joy. Open and permeable. When my patterns try to control a situation away from the threat of that most painful pain, there is an equal and opposite contraction and resistance to the very sweetness and lightness that life offers. Can I be hurt and have an open heart? Can I be softly vulnerable and yet resolute in my honesty and purpose? To hurt and keep my chin up and shoulders back, so the tears that cleanse and purify have no place to pool. “

- bt

I have been up all night handling some issues. Yes I’ll keep it vague. It has to do with my now and future. I am so tired. I did sneak in a 2 hour nap though. Anyways, I have an important lesson to learn. And right now, no matter which way the fish flops, it looks like it’s going to hurt. Do I hold on, trust in very real feeling? See something through? Be confronted with a LOT of my gritty ‘stuff’ and often. Sort of paddling against the flow to an inviting campsite some indeterminate distance back upstream. Or listen to those voices that tell me to let go completely and watch a fantasy painfully crumble? That is to say, in essence, to forget about resting at that campsite and ending up …well… who knows where. Which is about the last thing I want to do of course because that will hurt the most and involve confusion and uncertainty. Big blows to my ego. I’m not opposed to a challenge of working on myself. I have done a lot of inner work already around this issue. (Yes, still vague…. I am protecting something).

I actually don’t know what to do. Which is a big statement for me. I realized recently that I have always had to take a stance. Always have a decision and an opinion. And right now, I am at a point where I am actually to the point of giving up on having ‘my take’ on it. Because. I don’t f*cking know what to do!

This has happened to me before. A lot of my big decisions in life come down to this juncture. Face you deepest work through friction. Or face your fears through letting go.. Grad school in Boone, NC was like that for me. When I finally stopped fighting what – just – wouldn’t – be, I threw my hands up and allowed the river to take me down the mountain and gracefully into yoga teacher training,my radio show, my house, my dog, my girlfriend and my wonderful life here in Carrboro.

Why is this trip so hard? I know I can’t opt out. I have tasted that peace which doesn’t come from another. I have already taken my dose. I’ve got to take the trip. And yet I am so scared of doing it alone. I want to stand on that timeless bridge and watch Blake surrender and go by, knowing he has let go and freed his troubled mind. But I keep passing under these bridges where I am supposed to be standing, ever-fighting the current. I forget everything in my frenzied paddling. And every time, I hear that familiar foreboding banjo tune, warning me of further meddling and resisting. I know where I am again. I see that I am fighting the river. To what end? The only way I ever end up seeing clearly, is to recognize that I don’t even know what I am searching and fighting for. Realizing I don’t know where I stand. No opinions. No stance. And simply pray for grace. And pray for that merciful deliverance.

Ah yes. To pray. I hadn’t thought of that in a while. I think I may have just found what’s needed right now. Thanks for bearing witness.

Blake

_____

I don’t know what else to say. I am signing this in as my last post. I think Zach says we have one more, but I only have 6 or so pages left in the way I have read. This has been an incredible project. I am greatly honored to have used this blog as a sounding board for some pretty intimate thoughts. And I am deeply gracious for those of you who have read my posts and responded to me and showed love to me. And I am grateful to have done this with 6 wonderful collabortors and the staff at HarperOne.

I am a bit under the weather and I severely don’t feel like writing this morning, but I have a few happy thoughts for my second to last blog post (::sniff::).

It inspires me to hear that the next message fo our journey is always here for us. Our readiness to hear it is the single factor that we can be concerned with–not where and from whom and when the message will be. That’s what I really dig about the spiritual perspective that most of us reading this blog share. If it’s all one; if ALL is right here and right now, then our next message and indeed the ultimate message is available in the present moment. That is to say, God(dess) is. Love is. We is. I and I is.

Also hearing RD describe how once the seed of awakening has been planted, there’s no turning back. Moth and the flame again. Which feels right in my life. Ypu know, sometimes I get the feeling that I HAVE to become be enlightened or awake in this lifetime. I can’t see it not happening. With all the purification and stripping away of layers. And gnashing of teeth I have done. It doesn’t feel like I’ll ever be satisfied if I don’t.  Which by definition is true of course. But also therein lies a juicy paradox. If I am truly satisfied I am enlightened. If I strive for satisfaction I am seeking ego gratification. But what the hell. The seed has been planted, right? It’s all happening lawfully and in it’s time, which reminds me of the greatest bumper sticker that I saw on the back of a Toyota Tacoma at Yogaville this past weekend.

“Everything in the universe is subject to change. And everything is on schedule.”

If someone clings too much to me in a relationship, I start to feel my freedom compromised, and I begin to distance myself emotionally. It’s happened before. And I am usually aware of it and feel guilty about it. This is why it’s understandable that my girlfriend has been doing the same with me recently. I have been very attracted tothe idea of being with her as much as possible and not sensing her needs to be herself apart from me. And I have been aware of it but can’t stop it or control it… with my mind.

I have found myself in this wonderful new relationship with a person that could only have come my way out of grace. I find her more beautiful physically than anyone on the planet. All her parts, sync up with all the pleasure centers of my brain. I have more activities in common with her than I have ever had with anybody (friend, girlfriend or relative). She loves me. We both want to be with each other for a long time. However, without my realizing it, I became very attached to the prospect of keeping these pleasure centers constantly clicking, so that I could make that “long time” a reality. So as my daily focus came to her for inspiration, assurance, and validation, the other aspects of my life started to fall away. Teaching yoga became a chore. So did my radio show. So did my volunteer work. I didn’t think it was related to how much mental energy I was giving to my attachment.

She started to distance herself consciously and unconsciously, even sadly developing an slight unexplainable depression. She wasn’t getting the space and freedom she needed. And I was blinded by my own neediness. I broke down in tears the moment I revealed to myself and her that I don’t trust in intimacy. Because at moment, though I had never emotionally pieced it together, my parents’ divorce at age 1 flashed into my mind. I’ve never felt solid towards an intimate relationship. I have never trusted a relationship, I guess. I couldn’t trust being apart. (I’m also having the hardest time allowing my new dog Veda offleash…no trust…but she’s also a dog).

That gave me some distance from it thankfully. And allowed me to feel a root, a reason behind my unconscious behavior. I never understood relationships. I am learning how to trust now. It’s only just begun. Can we be apart and feel grounded and in trust and in love? Sure it’s totally possible. Carin, I don’t know how it works across the world, but I’m wishing you strength and inner-love.

And then I sat for my first meditation in a while. After 30 minutes of fighting against thinking about my relationship and eventually letting myself THINK about it, it came to me. I am exactly where I am supposed to be, feeling exactly how I am supposed to feel. Being guided. Unfolding lawfully. And then I realized, it was the first time I connected to God and guru deeply for the past two months. You can probably smell the apathy in some of my previous posts.

The desire had brought me to believe I was the creator of my own plentiful or abject destiny. That I was in control. And it was such a seductive thought. So seductive that it brought me out of the work I had been doing for a while. So seductive that it made me less of “me” and more aligned with my desire than anything else. I love the person I am with dearly. She makes my heart light when I’m not coming from a desperate place. She is an angel to me and I am learning how to love and be loved, and it is completely different than I thought it should be. Trust.

Pages 79-87 is my second favorite section of this book. If you read my post last week, where I was frustrated about worldly/spiritual and sacred/profane, you will totally understand how these pages resolve much of my difficulty. I am trying to think of things to write about these wonderful pages, but honestly I can’t. I like what is written on these pages much better than any serious restatement I could make or digestion I could render. So naturally, I thought I’d write a silly poem.

Be Here Now: the poem.

Don’t have a cow. Remember BE HERE NOW.
Or have a cow if a cow you’ll allow.
But make a vow to steer your bow
to this moment, this presence, to the now.
You ask all these questions,
saying how? how? how?
Don’t you see, you are she and she is thou?
All there is is here and now.

Believe oh believe that you are well-endowed
As human, a mind, a cat, a meow.
But the mind makes bombs go POW! CRAUOW! BLAOW!
Well, we do the best we can when we’re here now.
But the newsman shouts “Housing is down, and so is the Dow!”
And there is nothing to do. So BE HERE NOW.

Don’t get attached. Sure, say “Wow!”
And don’t go so far as to tell world “Ciao”
The Tao is the way and the way is the Tao.
So, like, here we are. Like, sooo here and now.
Dig your roots or learn to plow
But always remember, BE HERE NOW.
Read this poem, f-f-f-f-furl your brow?
Knock knock. Who’s there? NowNowNowNaNaNaNowNow.

- bt

_________________

PS
I just can’t help but hear The Grateful Dead’s “The Wheel” when I read this section of BHN:
The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down,
You can’t let go and you can’t hold on,
You can’t go back and you can’t stand still,
If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will.

Won’t you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more?
Won’t you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more?

Round, round robin run round, got to get back to where you belong,
Little bit harder, just a little bit more,
A little bit further than you gone before.

Small wheel turn by the fire and rod,
Big wheel turn by the grace of God,
Every time that wheel turn ’round,
Bound to cover just a little more ground.

I am finding myself frustrated with the reading this week. That’s possibly because I have found myself a little inconvenienced and frustrated recently since the technological parts of my life came to a frizzing halt. Basically all the music for my internationally popular radio show and podcast got corrupted, digitally. New world troubles, you know. So what I am going to share annoys me, yes. Which should immediately tell you, I have some work to do around it. Whatever. I do and I don’t. It is. Annoyance is an emotion that needs to be shared in this space. It’s not all ethereal and spacious.

Here it is, Jack. It’s that on this spiritual trip, teachers like Ram Dass (who I love dearly) and plenmty of others give me lines like this:

“You see that everything you’re going to experience through your senses and everything you’re going to know through your thinking mind is not going to be enough. And worldly things begin to appear dross instead of gold.” (76)

Bullshit. I am tired of hearing of sacred (spiritual) versus profane (worldly) as an absolute. Sacred and profane exist only in the mind and collective mind. I love ritual and symbols and puja and darshan and reverence, but that is because I know that they are just tools to work with my mind. I partition parts of my reality (i.e. my mind) into righteous/worthy/legitimate and worldly/subordinate/bad and it helps me remember that it’s all one and it’s all perfect and there’s nothing to do–no rituals or practices. This is just a mind tool working within the mind,  In reality it’s all sacred or it’s not. It’s all special or it isn’t. There are only a few numbers which we must be concerned with in this life. 0, 1, or (2*). It’s either nothing and it’s infinite or it’s all one and it’s infinite. (2*= Maybe we are just bound to be separate. I don’t really even count this one),And besides. Of course you can go through the sensuous and “achieve” enlightenment. Getting down to our bare senses is getting closer to what is. Even though our senses are limited tools that couldn’t possibly plumb into the depths of the universe, sinking down into the spice and muck of the sensuous world is necessarily getting out of our mind. When we are not a thinking about what we are experiencing and just experiencing. That is it, and that is enough (though staying there/here seems to be an issue for most).

On the very next page is a blatant contradiction to the previous page. And yes I am owning up to the fact that this could be just a paradox that my thinking mind can’t grasp. In fact any frustration or resistance is just the mind dissecting and labelling the sensuous world. Right? It goes:

“Where there is faith, there is the presence of THE GURU. He is all your impurities. He is all your corruption.” (77)

What’s the point in talking of worldly work versus VAIRAGYA (the falling away of the worldly), if it’s all the guru? He is the sacred. He is the profane. Stop worrying, because further down the page we learn, “[WE} ARE ENLIGHTENED”and everyone and everything is the guru (78). What’s all this hype about then? Yoga practices, meditation, books, teachings, gurus, semen retention etc. I think to me, every rock, computer screen, toothbrush, hoagie, possum, and pair of boxer shorts are all equally imbued with spirit or life force or energy or pranashakti or god. Everything is happening lawfully, unfolding. Can’t we just relax into all of it and see it all as sacred? And stop trying to figure it out? And stop going anywhere and everywhere?

Or maybe I just need to relax. That’s definitely true, regardless.

Anyone got a perspective on my thoughts here. I feel good about what I wrote above, but I am also witnessing some tuneel-vision feelings

- bt

____+**^ fulllotuskirtan.com ^**+____

___________________________________________________

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to respond to the comments on my last post or read any of the posts since I last posted. My computer is in the shop and I am at the radio station right now, very thankful I have a computer to work with at all. I will catch up when I gets it back.

I have been finding feathers recently. Serendipitously. It’s usually just a flash from the corner of my eye. Like intuition. Something says “Look this way” or my dog pulls strangely off the trail and stops, then I see it. It is very exciting. I have never found feathers before. I take a daily walk in the woods. First I found my totem animal’s (crow) feather, then a red-tailed hawk’s (which my dog ate), an owl’s, and a small bird’s. Each one has synced up with events or moments in my recent life where the feather seems to be an obvious omen or token of guidance.

Now each day when I walk with my sweetdog, I am noticing that I am scanning the ground for feathers. Because I want to collect them, and I want so earnestly to feel guided. I have never found a feather this way, and I know I just have to trust and not expect anything and then they appear when they need to appear. It’s so romantic(!) and significant(!!!) to find feathers all the time. So it’s almost automatic that my eyes just scrutinize the forest floor for the form of a feather. It’s exhausting for my eyes because there are thousands of repeating forms and I am looking for just a few.

So every day, I scuffle through the fall leaves and pine straw, I remind myself “Don’t look for feathers”, which just makes me think about feathers. “Don’t think of a pink elephant”. It keeps me a thought away from that bright intuition, which is easy and effortless. I am attached to looking and finding. Making something happen, when I know it just happens. It’s all unfolding. Trust. Trust. Trust.

Before it was feathers, it was “a guru, any guru”. Who is my guru? Where can I go to find him/her? Is it her? Can’t be him. Constantly looking and searching and shuffling through forms in exasperation–desperation. It didn’t matter how many times I read that “the guru is within” or “God=Guru=Self”. It’s always: “Yeh but….”.

When I am quiet, that voice that speaks to me inside and says “look over there…. ahh a feather”…. that’s the guru. My intuition, is the voice of the guru–the voice of God. They are the same. And that voice is not Indian. That voice is not a little man in a blanket or a woman who gives hugs. In fact the form of Maharaj-ji and Amma are not it at all. It’s that spirit that is moving around inside of them. And I think my work is not finding them, not putting up pictures of them and talking to them (which are useful reminders), but trying to identify with my intuition. Identifying with that part within me that is just like what is within them. That part of us which is in the flow without resistence.

Love to hear your thoughts. That feels right to me at the moment so I goes wif it.

- bt

fulllotuskirtan.com

I often get caught up in thinking…. I was going to say more to that sentence, adding an “about ….”. But I’ll leave it at that. Anyways, I think about Maharaj-ji and me a lot. A lot of that thinking comes down to this…. Is he really a being who is communicating with me at a different level of consciousness? Is he a ghastly spirit that slips through etheric realms to end up everywhere? Watching. Guiding. My thinking mind always figures whatever everyone is saying he’s doing… can’t be.

Then I have these moments when I feel really connected to him. Close. Guided. I only know about him through Ram Dass and through various books. And some personal experience. I, like Zack, was born after his physical self could have any direct influence on me.

I still ask and question and doubt (because I have to until I am done with doubt) about Maharaj-ji and if he’s “my guru” and if he’s guiding me. I always come to some conclusion about the matter…

My friend Jon “Bharat” Seskevich once told me “Blake, it seems Maharaj-ji’s boys are after you. There’s nothing you can do about it.” He was refering to the fact that, I am so deeply drawn to Ram Dass’ teachings. I have listened to Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, and David Newman so much that I had to start a kirtan radio show (fulllotuskirtan.com). Had to. And for some reason I love the greatest of all monkeys, Hanuman, And then I met and started a sweet friendship with Jon himself (a Baba devotee). Maharaj-ji’s boys were/are indeed after me.

My take on this is that it makes no difference if Maharaj-ji is reaching me through the ether and guiding my actions. Simply, his time on this earth plane touched and changed people who are now changing my life. His hands are reaching through time, space, personalities, music, lectures, voices, and eyes to alter the course of my life. To me in this moment, the guru is not somewhere out there or in any picture or place, his influence is in everyone I meet because he was, and everything is unfloding from his be-ing…. all quite lawfully and simply. However, I’ll admit feeling guided and tethered is quite an awesome trip and I want it. But I’m accepting the journey as it is right now.

Blake

fulllotuskirtan.com

“All I can do ALL the time is to COOL MYSELF OUT.”

This phrase jumped out at me. it helped me “RE MEMBER” something that always gets covered over. My main Big Y Yoga teacher gave me the meditation technique of “….sssshhhhhh….” It’s one of the best teachings for me. I so easily get caught up in juggling methods and techniques around that I have gone through 4 or 5 in a 30 minute meditation. I am thankful I know of many techniques. But what good is a technique, if I can’t stay with it? The most profound ‘technique’ at my still-beginner stage of meditating is just to cool down. Become quiet. Stillness. ….ssssshhhhhh…..

And really that’s my technique all the time like RD is talking about on page 44. Everything becomes sadhana. To become quiet. To develop that calm center. Constantly working on myself. But I have one thought that I toss around here…. If I am constantly working on myself and trying to take care of my spiritual evolution, it seems to me that there is a lack of trust in the unfolding of it all naturally. Do we have to do this sadhana? I can fork out a couple of answers here, but what do you think.

I guess not getting bent out of shape about my sadhana is important, regardless. Also, I think there is a fine line between “ahh sadhana…” and “whoa… I need to do this practice to feel better about myself…. to have done something productive.” For neurotics like myself and Dr. Richard Alpert (and … well… you, too…), sadhana can be trap of the ego. Dharmic sadhana is a different thing. It’s easy. There’s very little effort. But when the ego is involved as it tends to be, any sadhana can become just another method of grasping at a fantasy future. Enlightenment or what have you.

The other side of this is that. Of course you must use the ego to “work on yourself”. Only then can you get to a place where the ego can fall away. Using the thorn to remove the thorn. But then again. What we read a few weeks ago…. it’s determined through karma. So I really don’t have to make decisions about my sadhana, right? “Will I do it? When do I do it? Shouldn’t I do it? I should have done it better.” Because: the moment we are going to wake up is totally determined. We’ll do the amount of sadhana appropriate to our readiness to receive it’s effect–everytime. The thing that frustrates me about a lot of this is of course that it doesn’t make sense to my thinking mind. So I have to trust that it makes sense on another level. Do I do or not do? I think at some level, there’s not even decisions being made. And there’s not paradox. And conflict. And frustration. That’s when you have to let Meher Baba or Whoever-ji help.

Regardless…. …..sssshhhhhh…..

With you on the Autumnal Equinox… reading to begin new things and turn inward and quiet down. Fall is my lucid and quiet season. ahhhhhhhh.

- bt