Ram Dass Now

She fell into the deep space between the words and was met by the unopened hand of fate.

At times I have let go into the what-is-ness, the OM, the void …free falling, unfettered into now. Going nowhere and everywhere all at once.

Moments that moved form the “form into the formless ”  pg 93

Once when I was about 17-years-old I was riding on a bus. I’d been meditating lots and feeling really free. I was at the back of the bus enjoying the ride one moment and then… there was no time and I was feeling incredible, heart-bursting love for all of the faces around me. And  then… there was no me looking at that but just the LOVE. I was it and it was me…all of it.

Another time…standing outside the Dakota building on Central Park West just days after John Lennon died. Thousands of voices sung through the tears … “all we are saying, is give peace a chance”. My heart was broken open both by the deep grief I was feeling and the tsunami of love in the aftermath of the earth quaking news of his death. I felt all of us as one heart singing out from the same soul place.

Krishna Das chanting me into beyond the beyond with Hey Ma Durga or Bhagavan Das taking me to the edge and back with deep, rhythmic, trance-y , incantational Jai Kali Ma

All of it a journey to my heart.

Why this matters is because it opens my heart to a deep compassion for all of us and helps inform the way I live my life.

In all of these moments “something gets so esencey you feel you are touching God”. (Pg 92).And in that space there is nothing to do. It just IS. And we all are it.

Moving from Form to Formless…from Being Here Now to Being Love Now.

For me, the pure ideas…the essency part of what is manifest was the bridge. Those essency parts were accessed by going fully into and beyond the form. Complete presence. I only get there by surrendering to Grace…by getting out of my own way.

It’s like going in through the out door.

Sometimes it happens through joy…sometimes through pain.

Moment

IT HAS HAPPENED NOW.

NO MORE WONDERING ABOUT THE WHEN OR HOW OF SUCH MOMENTS.

ANOTHER STEP TOWARD LIFE’S FULL EXPRESION OF KARMIC MAYHEM.

NEVER WOULD I HAVE IMAGINED THE MAGNITUDE OF THE FORCE OF SUCH AN INVISIBLE WIND THAT WOULD BLOW FROM FATE’S OVALLED MOUTH

TO SEND ME SOARING..FEET LONG SINCE FORGETTING THE PRESS OF EARTH

LIFTED…I THOUGHT…AND CARRIED AS IF ON A WAVE OF WORDS AND DOINGS…LIFE AND DEATH…SO POWERFUL AS TO TSUNAMI THE ME OF NOW INTO OBLIVION

HOPING FOR THAT I SUPPOSE

AN ANNIHILATION OF THIS CURRENT CONFIGURATION OF ME

INSTEAD…HERE REMAINS ALL OF MY ME-NESS

NOW BATTERED, NAKED, DRIPPING WET AND SHIVERING AS THE WAVE RETREATS

ME- STANDING STRONGER SOMEHOW FOR HAVING BEEN TAKEN ON THAT RIDE

There and back again.  It is all grace.

This magical mystery tour of the life we all live keeps me in a constant state of wonder and awe. I’ve been thinking about the fragility of my human body and mind and the eternal nature of my soul and how moving into my heart  seems to bring it all together.

It is as if the heart bridges the gap between the temporal and the eternal…not only bridges the gap…it is it all.

Om Kali Om Kali Om Kali Om

I am sitting amidst the chaos of a house half-packed chanting with Bhagavan Das from his “Now” CD…

“Jai Kali Ma, Jai Kali Ma, take from me all that is not free…”

Anytime I’ve felt the need to accelerate the burn, dive in for the ‘crisp trip’…when the veils part enough and I see the show isn’t the whole story it is then I call out to Kali to bring it on.

This usually happens when disillusionment is brought on by the implosion of some expectation of how my life ‘should’ be happening.

She brings grace in the form of chaos. Sometimes I need that fierce grace.

The Mahanirvana Tantra says: “Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her.”

The energy that seduces and induces desires and then swallows them completely.

She is it all.

I love the magic and have have grown to respect the madness for all of the energy it carries.

Letting that shakti burn away  defenses and pretenses leaves me raw and vulnerable and open to receive.

She brings grace in the form of chaos and then is there to pick up the pieces.

The LOVE…ever present “Beyond the Beyond” it awaits.

Resting in that love feels good.

“The feel is real” as Bhagavan Das says.

Jai Ma Durga!

Chanting Hey Ma Durga in a room full of people with Krishna Das brings  me to tears every time because I feel us all…like one collective primal soul singing out to the universe from a place of tenderness and pain about the almost unbearable beauty of all that is.

I’m posting the following from the liner notes of his CD Breath of Heart because I think it is so beautiful and speaks to the message. (I hope this is ok with KD.)

Surround me with your loving arms…hold me in your heart.

Let me know that I am loved

and that I can love.

Show me that no matter where I go

That I come and go in You.

I am never out of your loving presence.

That you are the smile behind the smile,

the touch behind the touch

The kiss behind the kiss…

You are the constant presence that I forget until I remember

and when I remember my Self, I remember You.

I sing your Name. What else can I think of? You ARE Love.

And I AM You.

Thank you Krishna Das and Bhagavan Das for singing my heart open.

Love everything. Resist nothing. Stay open to feeling what is in every moment. The rest will take care of itself.

That is the message pages 22-28 brought to me.

Just stop trying to push away or  get out of now and instead move into it all more and feel every wave of that “sea of emotion” that Zach mentioned in his post…and not just feel every wave, but be in the waves without fighting the flow…and  even relax into the experience…enjoy the ride….be carried.

I can choose to be with the mystery of it all and admit there is no control of anything other than how I am choosing to be …open or closed…accepting or rejecting…embracing or pushing away.

If I can’t accept and be in what’ is’ in the moment then I have to “turn off all the vibrations of the scene” (pg 25). In that shut down, unfeeling place I am cut off from life. Choosing to love what is puts me in an expansive, receptive place… a place of faith and devotion.

I sit with my unease…my despair..my fear …my struggle of will…my battle with reality. I sit and notice …close to being swept away once again into the illusion of delusion.

“Love” ram Dass said. “Love, Love Love it all.”

As I breath into my heart I want to escape the feeling…feeling too much is frightening…overwhelming…almost painful..and beautiful.

I want to escape the feeling and yet it’s like a pain with imminent results…perhaps something is being birthed.

Choosing to love. Being love.

The truth is an energetic expression and that energy flows in when the channels are open.

When my heart is open to that flow of energy/love, it rushes in. It is always there. Like the sun.

Looking at my kids, watching the sunrise, returning to my yoga mat, sitting on my cushion, chanting with Krishna Das or Bhagavan Das or all of the other amazing conduits of that energy who make themselves available, reading this book…so many ways to get here.

So simple. So beautiful. “Bhaja Govindam” turn the mind toward God.

And the magic is that when I tap into that eternal source of  well being, I also become a conduit and the vibrations I send out resonate with others who shine it back to me.  Love is self perpetuating.

A few days ago, I found myself sitting in a hospital at the bedside of my dear, sweet, 92 year old uncle.

His heart is no longer pumping blood strongly enough to sustain his body.

I was feeling a mix of emotions…love, sadness at the thought of saying good-bye, gratitude for all we’ve shared and compassion for his suffering.

I was also in awe of the profound inevitableness of the moment .

There is so much in pages 8-14 that I could relate to, but it was the message about life being an inevitable, unfolding process that struck me the most.

It is inevitable that I walk the path I am on.

I am beginning to get that the inevitableness is because it is all there already, and I sometimes get the feeling that I  am flipping through the pages of the book of my life …a story that is complete…unfolding before my eyes. Amazing.

I truly want to be fully in the experience of living.

But I am IN it and at the same time longing to move out of the drama to the place where I can “stand back far enough and watch the whole process” (pg. 14) Is doing both at the same time even possible?

There’s a part of me that knows with certainty that on just the other side of every moment is eternity and indescribable love. And sometimes I feel so very close to moving into that place..beyond beyond…but if feels like if I do I would disappear. Like the moth in the flame. And yet the going there isn’t a choice. And also,there is nothing I want more.

Thus the moments of despair created by the longing.

I have been many times to that place of despair that I’ve heard Bhagavan Das describe so perfectly as ” being brought to the altar of  the sincere tear.”

My first reading of BHN was at a time when I couldn’t even begin to believe I’d find what I was looking for.

I was suffering.

I didn’t know what was missing, but I ached with a longing to know what I was supposed to be doing to find it.

I found myself at a workshop  standing in front of Ram Dass with tears rolling down my cheeks and pleading with him to tell me how to find peace and why it all is as it is. He smiled and actually laughed a bit and held out his arms to take me in. I felt that he was completely compassionate about my suffering in that moment , but that he was seeing it all from a perspective beyond the drama. He knew that there was nowhere to go and nothing to do.  I think he was  smiling because he knew that my despair was bringing me closer to surrender. He was showing me that there is a way through by just letting things be as they are. And all would be fine if I could get out of my own way so to speak. Let it be.                Ram Ram Ram Ram

As I am typing this now it is occurring to me that it has been quite sometime since I have felt that level of desperation. When the tears come rolling down my cheeks now they are more often than not tears of gratitude and utter amazement at the beauty of it all.  I don’t mean to suggest that I never feel frustration or the longing to have my life look different in some way. But I feel more at ease with the not knowing and not being able to control. I have faith that this moment is enough even when it doesn’t look the way I want it to. There’s more to the story than the page I am on.

I am carried by his Grace.