Messy Guru

Take This Broken Wing

This is my first experience of witnessing any human being including my mother transition from this life to the next.  

There were moments during the night that every impending breath appeared to be her last.  Her body would tremble and shake as she would gather the strength for the next breath.  

It was agonizing to witness. 

I was horrified and frightened and transfixed.  

Witnessing it appeared to be the least comforting thing to do as a son.

I somehow decided that I wanted to move closer, so I knelt down near her and began to slowly caress her head and hold her hand.  It was something that I had not intended to do.  It seemed out of my experience in the realms of physical intimacy.  I immediately felt like  my entire spiritual journey was made for this decisive moment and something bigger than myself appeared to move me there.

This one act of movement from a perceived helpless witness to an active participant of intimacy immediately began to transform my experience.

I was no longer horrified and frightened.

Or bewildered by this entire process of transition.

I gave her what I had imagined in that moment I would want and I put my best intentions and emotions into a moving physical tribute.  I could feel myself no longer doubt that I am a loving son.  A human being.   One who could take his emotions and make them move into reality and touch another human being.

Physically.

Spiritually.

One.

I began to sense that my own words had less meaning and that it was a loving caresses that seemed to be my love language.  All the awkward moments of what I imagined this process to be melted into the experience of Love itself.

I put all the love and prayers into the energy of my moving hands.

I gave to her what I needed most in that most intimate moment of Life and she seemed to relax and stop trembling.  It felt complete and whole and my mind fell into this beautiful space of awareness with no other thoughts than the connection with her.  

 My broken wing had been transformed into a instrument of love and gratitude towards another human being.

My dear Mother.

I came here with the intention of "being there" for my mother and siblings, and instead it transformed me into a loving human being who no longer doubted that I can express love and be loved in return.

Hey, Soul Sister

I am in contact with 5 of my sisters.

They are a joyous group of people who seem to found the soul connection to each other and God itself.

A healing circle.

A sacred circle.

A joyous circle of sisterhood.

I am witnessing it again over the past few days as we join together to participate with my mother in the dying cycle of life.  Us brothers are in awe of their connection to each other, towards us, and with our mother.  

They seem to be joined by an invisible thread of a higher understanding in the silent rules of the Holy Spirit, and with a tangible sacred connection to the visible world that leaves me awestruck.

They have been meeting together every year in a chosen place to join together, in laughter, tears, and with the joyous intention of hope and renewal with each other and life itself.

You can probably safely argue the merits  and purpose of this group of  women.  I know I did.  It seemed unlikely they could help heal each other, and others through a biological connection with each other.  

Unless.

You are there to personally witness the miracle of it all.  In action, In Reality and in real time.  I remember one of the more intuitive sisters explaining  to me that they have joined together as a circle of women and mothers, to help facilitate my mothers own healing from the absence of  a biological parent.

One sister appears to carry the missing link to Kindness.

One sister appears to carry the missing link to Compassion.

One sister appears to carry the missing link of the intimacy of Touch.

One sister appears to carry the missing link to the Soul.

One sister appears to carry the missing link to the Holy Spirit.

Their links of love are joined together to comprise the soul of an absent mother.  

And I am just grateful to be alive and to witness a small part of their wondrous world of miracles and of love itself.

 

Tender Mercies

I am witnessing the final days of my mothers life.

A full circle moment for me and a place I never thought I'd be part of considering the history of her and I,  and our family of origin.  I'm here with most of my siblings and we are all part of the dying process with her as well.  

We are taking our cues from her and its an organic process that's both astounding and filled with moments of clarity and unscripted bursts of acceptance of what is.

It can be best described as a "living" wake of a loved one that is actively participating in ones own celebration of life.

I can only hope my end days are this full of awareness and clarity.

We are all taking the time to be with her one on one and choosing the time to ponder and reflect on whatever communication we would like to discuss, ponder and share.

For me, its bits and pieces of my time of my recent trip to India, and funny moments we shared while traveling the world together.  A surprising shout of laughter, a bold exclamation of acceptance about her impending demise, and my wide open heart of not wanting to miss any part of it.

There is a graceful state of peace that comes with witnessing a person who is ready to leave this world if you're open to receive it.

There is no bitterness or the empty nostalgia of what might have been.  I've long since processed my thoughts and feeling with her about the past and my experience of it.

I am not suggestion now that the circumstances, events and disappointments of our past has never happened or have been "forgiven and forgotten."  

What I can honesty say now is that there is complete acceptance of what is, and what has been.  Acceptance does not mean I need to isolate and defend.  Or pontificate what Reality is for every one of my family members.  

It's a hard won acceptance of the past that cannot be different than it was. 

So, this is where our family is at this moment.

It's beautiful and kind.  There is no animosity between us or justified resentments.

And that's a beautiful thing.

 

India is Home

 

I recently took a taxi to Almora, India from my home in Rishikesh.  I was on a mission to look at different areas in Northern India for a potential new site to build a home for us.

I had actually found this area a few weeks earlier while visiting Neem Karoli's Babas ashram.  Good Hanuman energy there and amazing mountain villages with kind people.

This site in particular has stunning views of the Himalayas and a clear view of them.  The plan is to build a modern 2 story structure with all rooms having a full view of the mountains.  3 masters and open kitchen living room.

We should be closing in April and have 2 years to complete the project.

Never in my wildest dream would I have ever imagined the life I am living now.  God can dream a bigger dream for you than one can ever imagine!

I am a man who is no longer suffering.  I am free.

Ma Ganga

Today is Ganga Snan.

 

"Devotees will perform Kartik Snan on November 27, 2023. Taking a holy dip in the Ganga river on this day is believed to cleanse the mind, body, and soul and relieve people from their bad Karmas and sufferings."

 

I was wondering why so many people were bathing on this cold day and performing puja's.

 

Being here in India has been the pinnacle of my entire spiritual journey.   I will be here till April.

 

🙏🙏🙏

Interview The Little Boy in the Red Sweater

Spinning Circles

I recently completed a 10 day meditation course serving students here in Dallas.  Its the sixth course of its kind that I have attended at this center.  I spent most of my time cooking meals that were vegetarian and worked with 12 other older students and also meditated 4 hours a day.  It was an unexpected break that left me feeling empowered and empty of thoughts.

I had moments during the course that felt like it was a purging of thoughts, emotions and physical symptoms that were deeply embedded into my being.  The acid test of sorts that indicates the Vipassana meditation technique is truly working as it is intended to.  

On day 9 of our course, I was waiting for the night discourse to be finished and was returning from my room to the meditation hall.  I was coming down a set of stairs and I heard this awful sound coming from a man in the men's dormitory.  The sounds he uttered was chilling and urgent.  A primordial call of sorts from the base of his being.  The sound you would imagine of man being tortured.  He was making repeated sounds of distress and getting to him seemed paramount.

I could feel my body moving toward the sound and my footsteps quickening.

I had reached the spot where the sound was coming from and saw a younger man on his back on the floor, spinning in circles, propelled by moving of his feet.  It was a heart quickening moment and I quickly knelt down near him and quietly starting talking in a calm manner.

My words seem to resonate with him and after awhile he stopped moving and just stared at me.  I asked him if he would get up and sit on a nearby chair and he slowly got up from the floor.  When he was seated I kept repeating for him to breathe through his nose and that he would be ok.  He slowly got up without saying a word.  He had walked away to his room and I returned to the meditation hall.

I wondered the rest of the night whether the man would make it through this demanding course.

The next morning I happened to see him in the men's dinning hall.  His eyes were clear and his energy bright.  A complete transformation from the night before.  I asked him if he was indeed ok and he said yes.  He mentioned that he was ashamed and that his mind could not take it anymore with nothing to do.  I responded with my own experience on my first and subsequent courses and told him that I had admired his courage to face his own mind out of control.

We both soon had stopped talking and tears poured from both our eyes and I could no longer speak.

"I am glad you were there." he softly said.

I am too, I had thought, and bowed to him in respect and walked away.

I spent the last few days ruminating that entire experience.  Perhaps this was the perfect setup for me to see the growth of my own existence and to help somebody along the way.  I remembered the entire sequence of events and how my body moved towards the pain and it knew intuitively what to do and say.  

This is what the heart would do I thought.  It moves without judgement or self protection and is naturally spontaneous.

"The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it."  Nisargadatta  

 

 

Love can Build a Bridge

 

I had recently attended a funeral for my niece in my hometown. 

It would have been unlikely I would have attended this funeral a few months ago with all my "justified resentments" I had towards my family of origin.

I kept the past in my present and was bound and determined to keep myself in a safe place in my head and in my space of my Being.

I was right.  They were wrong.

About everything.

And anything.

I had to hold them accountable to my story of them no matter what.

What I had realized in the past few months is that it is impossible for my past stories to appear in this moment. 

This moment is all that there is.

When I heard the news of the death of my niece, I had an immediate intuitive reaction to attend the funeral.  I thought to myself:

"If not now, when?"

I dropped the stories of my past and thought of my dear younger sister and the loss of her daughter.  Everything inside me seemed to flow from a natural place of love. 

Love has no story or reasons.  It flows naturally and in all circumstances.

It is who I am when I am in reality and out of my head.

I trust myself in this space.

Meeting my sister that first moment was sad and joyous all at the same time.  Years of life fell away between us and we were once again together.  The tears flowed and I could feel my heart opening up for her and me. 

The funeral itself was of course heartbreaking.

After the funeral I had the opportunity to speak with my sister while eating food right next to each other.  A moment of light opened up a space for us to be alone in the midst of the people attending the luncheon.

She had the grace and space to tell me what it meant to her that I had come up here for their funeral.  The words spoken there are private.  But they fell deep into my soul.  I had not expected to find love, grace and freedom from such a tragic life circumstance.

But my sister did.

Love can build a bridge I thought, and it comes with love and simple kindness for another human being.

Regardless of the stories from my past.

 

 

 

Mirror in the Sunlight

 

Yesterday I had arrived a bit early to an empty yoga studio.  I placed my mat up near the front and close to the large studio mirrors and looked at my body in the sunlight.  My stomach has 5 scars on it in various stages of healing and I have gained considerable weight.  The kind of body an old ancient warrior would have been proud of.  

I immediately thought of a story Martha Beck had written in one her books, "Following Your Own North Star" when she was a college art student and they had a model to sketch that was less than ideal:

"She looked well over sixty, with a deeply lined face and body that was probably fifty pounds heavier than her doctors would have liked.  She'd had a few doctors, too, judging from her scars.  Shining purple welts from a cesarean section and knee surgery cut deep rifts in the rippled adipose fat of her lower body.  Another scar ran across one side of her chest, where her left breast had once been.  When she first limped onto the dais to pose, I felt so much pity and unease that I physically flinched.  But we there to draw her, so I picked up a pencil.

"The thing about drawing is that you can't do it well with your social self.  You have to bring out your essential self, which doesn't know anything about social stereotypes.  And so, as I began to draw this maimed old woman, the most amazing thing happened.  Within five minutes, she became a person of absolutely wondrous beauty.  She didn't look like a supermodel; she didn't have to.  Her body, in and of itself, was as beautiful as a piece of polished driftwood, or a wind carved rock, or a waterfall.  My essential self didn't know that I was supposed to compare the woman to various movie stars, any more than it would have evaluated the Andes Mountains by judging how much they looked like an Iowa cornfield.  It simply saw her as she was:  an exquisite sculptural form.

"When this perceptual shift happened, I was so surprised that I stopped drawing and simply stared.  The model seemed to notice this, and without turning her head, looked straight into my eyes.  Then I saw the ghost of a smile flicker across her face, and I realized something else:  She knew she was beautiful.  She knew it, and she knew that I had seen it.  Maybe that's why she had consented to pose nude in the first place.  Knowing that a roomful of artists couldn't draw her without seeing her--I mean really seeing her--she may have decided to give us gentle education about our perceptions."

I stood there watching myself carefully while smiling as I remembered her beautiful story.   My "essential self" didn't seem to mind either of my supposed liabilities.  I glanced up and down my body while allowing the sun to look in without having any judgements.  The surgery cuts were miraculously healing without me reminding it to do so.  The belly hung there in confidence like a snow drift that had been blown upon for a bit too long.  It seemed perfectly content and happy.  Healthy enough to take on a 90 minute yoga class in 105 degree temperature.  

I watched my body move in and out of the postures as the class started and I marveled at the way my belly and scars moved with me.  I caught glimpses of myself as Martha did with the older model.  Shiny skin would appear and disappear into the mind and the mirror held out for me a new way of looking at myself.

It is strong and healthy.  

Full of wisdom and wonder.

This is what the woman model must have seen in herself too. 

 

Justified Resentments

 

I tend to hold all my fears, resentments and anxieties in my stomach area.

I have had a couple of surgeries recently also in the corresponding area.  I also asked my therapist for a session involving this issue and we worked on it with the EMDR technique.  I looked up the spiritual definition according to Louise Hay:

"Stomach: Holds nourishment. Digests ideas. Dread. Fear of the new. Inability to assimilate the new."

I also remembered Wayne Dyer saying he saw a sign in an AA meeting once that read, "There are no justified resentments" and I remained puzzled by that.  I looked that word up:

"Resentment, or the strong and painful bitterness you feel when someone does something wrong to you, doesn’t have actual physical weight, but it feels very heavy and can last a long time. Forgiveness is one way to get rid of resentment.

While I "knew" this on many levels and could articulate that pretty well, I still seemed unconsciously stuck and the appearance of it showing up physically was a good indication that I had some inner work to do.

Over that past few months I've also heard from Dr. David Hawkins speaking "...We need to apply our spiritual principles to EVERYBODY."  That quickly caught my attention of people that I knew where it was easy to do and also the ones that have been buried in the past.

I looked at this principle with 2 caveats:

1.  Who would you be without your story?  A book by Byron Katie with the same name.
2. You have no need to defend any of your current or past behavior. 

This idea came to me as I was sorting out who I wanted to meet with and how I would let whatever was to unfold without a story.  It seemed fraught with the possibilities of me ending up in a pile of trash at the end of it.   I also wanted to know if I was as able to "apply" this spiritual principle with my 2 reference points.  It would also test me if I could remain balanced and in the present moment without quickly jumping to a defensive posture or lassoing a story from the past.

I met with my mother and sister both individually and separately on 2 occasions.

We sat and talked for hours and I was surprised how much I could hear when I was not in a resentment or defensive posture.  It did not erase my past history and put me in a happy place of denial.  I simply sat and listened and shared my experiences of the past 9 or so years. I did not attempt to change their minds or hold them accountable for my justified resentments.  I did not need to.  It's not my job to do that.  Perhaps it is for others.

It did relieve a lot of space in my stomach area and I walked away feeling heard.  

This was for me and my journey.  It may not be for others.  I also am not advocating we meet with our abusers face to face to find peace or ask them for forgiveness.  I respect any boundary that anyone feels is necessary for their own journey. 

I believe that a space opens up when you can be in the present moment and stay centered without jumping into the past where Byron Katie says:

"“As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise." 

When I gave up defending my past story it relieved me of the burden of holding others responsible for it.