Ram Dass Now

Today is my birthday. Wow. How about that? Another rotation around the sun has taken place and I’ve been a witness to it. I’m never one for revelry on my birthday – it’s hard to take the self indulgence of that me-focussed love. Of course, like most of us, I do reflect about my life on the day. Everything I’ve ever done in the last 37 years has led me to this point…all that kind of stuff.

Also like most of us, my life has turned out exactly how I hadn’t imagined it! As Sri Sri John Lennon said “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

There was a time when I just saw the little old man in the blanket. Of course it’s all just perception – we see what we need to see. But it’s deeper than that too. I wasn’t ready to be seen, or to have my heart touched, or to surrender my intellect in favor of compassion. It was just a little old man in a blanket laying there throwing fruit at people. Charming.

As my journey continues through the days, months and years I find more important now than ever to just focus on the moments. I was reminded last night by a great teacher that perfection lies within each moment and that result is enlightenment. If you just string together a few moments of Gods love that is within you then you will be see it everywhere else.

I’m not sure when or what the moment was when I stopped seeing the little old man in the blanket and started to see boundless love and universal energy. I can’t say that there was ever one lightbulb moment. Everything that I’d been doing was just kind of hanging out in black and white – comfortable but very neutral. When I slowly started integrating high definition colors and sounds then the man in the blanket became a sea of perfection and being happy was just easier than being bummed out.

I was dancing and singing with my Hare Krishna brothers and sisters last night. Talk about HD color and sound – their tradition does have amazing potent bhav. I’m grateful to be willing and free enough to learn from all paths and traditions.

Sometimes the potent and concise eloquence in Be Here Now fools me into thinking the practice is easier than it actually is. I get why – its important to know that the gurus (gods) love is easily accessible and does not discriminate. But it takes work. There’s so much to let go of. The ego is very powerful in the west. Competition, success, achievements and potential are very hard to play a balancing act with. We’re taught to achieve more and more and more. Experiencing bliss in every of life’s moments takes intense sadhana, the guru can only do so much. I see Maharaji-ji’s little eyes that are barely open, I see them asking me “what sadhana have you done today? how about seva?” Could be a trap but I see these things.

On this birthday, yes I am “the desire to be enlightened.”

Last week I talked about everything being my sadhana. Everything. The next day I found out my Nana has cancer. A few days later, I got the stomach flew. So did my 2 boys.  I felt like fluid was coming out of every possible opening…throwing up…leaking breast milk everywhere…diarrhea…sweat. Let’s just say I did not look my best. I could not use my brain very well (which was probably a good thing), but I did have one thought:

Very funny Maharaj-ji.

He was putting me on. He heard my post, and came back with a “try and make THIS your sadhana!” After I allowed Maharaj-ji into this whole experience, I was able to let go a little bit. As I was bent over the toilet, wallowing in my own self-pity (ooohhhhhhhhhh, this is so haaaaaaaaaaarrrrrdddddd), I would just picture Maharaj-ji smiling at me. At one point, I was even able to become the witness, seeing this intense drama unfold before me. I decided that this was some sort of sick fire-work show that Maharaj-ji was putting on for me. With my 2 children and I throwing up, it was as though it was the finale the whole time.

A real life lesson. I can sit here and read every book made on making my life my sadhana, but the real learning comes when I must apply it. It is relaxing to sit and read and feel all high on life, but when the going gets tough is when the transformations are made.

That’s the problem with being a book addict. I am a spiritual book addict, always thinking that reading the next book is going to get me another step closer to God. I have been doing this with bhakti. Trying to read about it, and really get the method down. I never feel like I can grasp it fully though. I get these bits and pieces, and when I try to piece together how I think I should be doing it, it just feels off. Page 63 came to me at a beautiful time. Ram Dass explains bhakti in 10 words, and it all makes sense.

“You just love until you and the beloved become one”

I can put my books away now. I can slow down now. God isn’t in any of these books. God is in me. By reading as many books as possible, I am not going to get to God any faster. “You’ve got to go at the rate that you can go”. No rush. So lately, when I have a few moments to spare, while I would normally read, I just close my eyes. And I love. I love my husband, my children, my family, my friends, and all of you that I have not yet met on this plane, until we become one. In that, I find God.

Everything is my sadhana.

Everything.

I can use life as my sadhana. I have to use life as my sadhana. That is simply all there is to do. No more “once I get some quiet time to myself, I will do sadhana”. Just do it now. What’s that? You are too worked up to do sadhana? Well, that is the perfect time to do it.

As long as I am alive, I am doing sadhana. My daily life is my offering to God, to the One. When I can look at the world in this way, there is nowhere for negative actions to work their way in. No hiding. My life is an open book, its pages turning colors from the rays of the light within us all.

Well, according to page 56: ALL of my acts will be consecrated. Now this is a hard one for me to hold. I like the ring it has to it, but REALLY? How is this possible? As I read this, my mind does an insta-shift to all the actions I have taken that should be condemned, not consecrated. And just as quickly as the guilt starts to appear, all of a sudden I become bathed in a river of Love. I think of Maharaj-ji. He knew all of the thoughts that were going on in everyone’s mind, many of them not so pure, and loved them through it all. Just as my mind begins to question how anyone could love certain aspects of who I am, I remember that those things are not what they are loving, because they are not me.

My husband helps me to remember this all the time. I will get upset over some silly thing, and make a mess out of the afternoon over it. I will get cranky, and just be a completely icky person to be around. Snapping at my husband, snapping at my kids- nothing good happening within me. Then my husband will just walk up to me, put his loving arms around me, and give me a soft kiss. How could he possibly want to kiss me after the way I had been acting? Why is he not upset with me? Because he is my live-in Maharaj-ji. He is loving that which is beyond my personality. He knows that my actions are not who I am, and, with a kiss, is able to bring me back to that place of pure love.

Sometimes I push him away, pushing God away with him. Too closed to open up. Stuck in samsara. But as I begin to use his kiss to wake up, I feel something. A shift. His kiss is the kiss of the Divine, a tender reminder of who I am.

“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