Welcome or welcome back.
This year we are mixing it up a little. Mixing audio only videos, some visual, I suppose (me on camera), some written.
I have written endlessly about tantra and have passed teachings on to others in person and online for years but this year I just felt like starting this series and the Shamanic independent of eachother and in somewhat different ways. I like expansion. So off to expansion we go.
Grab your coffee, tea, herb, chai or just your mind and lets spend some time together,
When Rumi speaks of focusing all our thoughts on the beloved, on the divine goddess, or Brahma, or Shiva, it often prompts the question: "Isn't that too much of a sacrifice?" But true understanding dawns only when we find ourselves in the lush green expanses of life's journey, particularly along the path of Tantra.
Here, life teems with energy, vibrant and abundant, untethered from the burdens of ego. It's a verdant expanse where life thrives, unhampered by the weight of fear or egoic constraints. Yet, the prospect of directing our thoughts solely towards the divine can be daunting. Fear whispers that it might consume too much time, breed judgment, or simply be beyond our reach.
Honoring the divine in every thought and action may seem reserved for saints or ascetics dwelling in holy sanctuaries. But imagine honoring your highest self in every action and thought. What a profound practice! It's a transformative journey that leads to uncharted territories of the mind and soul, yielding insights beyond imagination.
But what does it mean to honor oneself? It begins with simple yet profound acts of self-care. It means refusing to ingest the poison of self-doubt, envy, or guilt. It means cleansing the vessel of the body, nourishing it with wholesome thoughts and actions.
Yet, honoring oneself doesn't entail prioritizing the self over others. It's not about egoic self-preservation but about genuine self-care rooted in humility. It's about acknowledging our interconnectedness with all beings, recognizing that by honoring ourselves, we honor the divine spark within each soul.
But what does it truly mean to honor oneself? It's a concept that transcends mere intellectual understanding, delving into the realm of reverence and humility. Honoring oneself entails pausing, redirecting our attention inward, and acknowledging the divine essence within. It's a spiritual practice that defies societal norms, reclaiming our power over programmed minds and egoic constructs.
It's not an easy journey. It requires time, patience, and a willingness to confront our innermost fears and insecurities. But the rewards are immeasurable. By honoring ourselves, we cultivate a deep sense of self-respect and compassion, paving the way for profound healing and transformation.
So, take a moment to observe yourself, to witness the thoughts and actions that shape your reality. Embrace the practice of self-honoring with an open heart and a sense of curiosity. And remember, it's a journey, not a destination. Every step taken in reverence to the self is a step towards wholeness and self-realization.
At times when passing on teachings in person or online, we record, for future writings or for the person receiving the teachings to have for future contemplation.
This part is one of those, pardon if you will the more conversational tone.
"What is honoring?" Asked my friend.
Indeed, what can we dive deeper with?
A concept that might seem vague and dogmatic for our individualistic minds. Honoring means acknowledging, paying attention to. When we do that, we send energy to that which we are noticing with our awareness: “energy flows, where attention goes”. But it’s also more than that. Honoring meaning to look upon with reverence. That is the part that gets trickier for our minds. Although we can understand this concept intellectually, reverence is something that we practice and feel as oppose to say or think. How does one feel a sense of reverence? This isn’t a given. It is an experience that happens to us as an overwhelming sense of admiration and awe. This experience ultimately makes us feel more humble. Honoring and reverence is about humility.
Humility,
One needs to feel humble in this moment.
Again, this isn’t something that we can force ourselves into.
However, we can practice honoring others, honoring our food, honoring the water, nature. It does take time. Time is actually key here.
☆ To honor something or someone, we need to pause. Our Ego mind fights this process.
One, because the humility is directly working against the Ego (unless one shows off a false sense of honoring, in this case, check yourself and do it when you are alone and do not tell anyone in order to cultivate this practice for yourself). Two, because our culture has built much judgment about people who worship and do woo-woo things with their food. The mainstream scientism sees it as cultish and weak, something that only the ones who are easily manipulated do. Well, the truth is that we are always manipulated or influenced. Whether it is by the movies that we watch, the advertisement, our friends’ opinion, etc. When someone decides to take on the devotional path and starts to consciously worship and honor something (not from membership to a cult or a religion but because it comes naturally to them), this person is going against the social norm and is reclaiming their social programming to engage in an activity that they feel is right for them. Honoring is, therefore, going against the norms, reclaiming power over our programmed mind and working to lessen our Ego self. It is spiritual social activism and personal empowerment.
Let's say, someone simply doesn't want to take the time and just jumps and says~
"Well, no, I absolutely don't honor myself. I don't need to do this practice because I know that I don't honor myself."
That is weakness and avoidance and fear and a deep self rejection going on there.
So the person can simply,
start from there.
For example:
Just write down what you know then. At that very moment.
Its ok.
Now the next day just observe yourself for one day. When you remember to do it throughout the day.
If you forgot during some parts of the day, that's fine.
Life happens and you, will ~get~ distracted.
That's ok. When you remember, begin from there,
From where you are.
From that very moment.
Meet yourself there.
You see, you can not say that you tantrically honor another as a goddess, a true goddess, not a beautiful body, or an awesome body and great bed manners,
if you can not even dedicate your energy to go to yourself.
If you can not even sit in observance of the self, not even give yourself your own energy, (where your attention goes so does your energy~right?), if you can not do that then please do not lie to yourself.
It is not something you can read, understand and move on, shaking the head, saying "yeah, yeah".
It is something not planed, it is something you do. No one can do it for you. Yes they can analyze you through whatever lenses they are looking out of, but that is not what this is about.
At all.
And a person reading this or hearing something like this may not be ready. The seed is planted, and that's ok.
Everything is OK.
It is what it is, till it was what it was.
It just is.
But if called to do this for yourself, it is a most beautiful tool as well as an expansive practice.
What you might~
literarily know, scholarly memorize, comfortably conceptualize and simplify,
And what you might~
think about, how you genuinely feel towards yourself and how you care for yourself with honor or lack thereof are different things.
No comparison, actually.
Perhaps this is just a reminder for others,
Good.
We don't have to get into goddesses and Shiva and Shakti, if not there.
Doing it for yourself is good,
You may find out a lot about yourself,
You may end up taking spirals and find yourself honoring your suffering.
That is exquisite.
Honor your own suffering whatever it may be, do not compare it to the suffering of anyone else,
Suffering is suffering.
Then once we deeply honor our own suffering, we see far more clearly that which is heavy upon us, that which we fear.
It can happen the other way around too.
That once we see that which we fear, we can deeply honor our suffering. It just may pour out, and.....that's ok.
That is beautiful. Truly.
Once we honor our suffering completely, all we are guided, compelled to do is honor the suffering of another.
That does not mean, anything more than just exactly that.
It is in honoring yourself that you can truly honor another.
It is in honoring any part of yourself that you can truly honor any part of another.
It is very easy to say
"my king" "my queen"
but the key thing question is ~ do you really feel it?
Especially towards yourself.
This is truth, this is energy, there is no fake it till you make it.
Now what about that Goddess, that Beloved or Brahma, Shiva or Devi?
Well, it takes it deeper.
I like the word deeper, though one can say higher, for it is higher in vibration.
In Tantra we focus on a yantra or symbol, or on a lotus flower or on the visualization of the diety, or Goddess, Higher energy and it is very interesting. It assists in an incredible way. By focusing on these things or beings, our steps are different.
I honor the Goddess, the beloved, in writing this, I do this in her honor, and so the action changes. If I truly honor, it is done in reverence, there is no rush, no stress, nothing forced, no agenda - for that,
would not be honoring.
This action becomes sacred.
When one eats, if one eats in honor of the Goddess or Brahma for example or in a Native way if the person honors the Great Spirit, then that food, and that act of eating becomes sacred.
If one honors the highest self and all that, that food is: nourishment, the work of another, a gift from the earth etc,
One eats in reverence, in a state of Love, humility, in grace, receiving all that is good,
When ones actions are done in honor of the goddess, honoring the mystical and spiritual realm
and worshiping the Goddess within everyone and everything; in the form of a deity, nature or a person or everyone and everything, in becoming more connected to our bodies and our nature as human beings we experience a different understanding of Tantra and all that is.
Tantra, like Yoga, means union and weaving of the lower self (the Ego) with the Higher Self (the Divine). It includes both aspect of our nature, the divine and the profane, and aims to see at the human experience in a whole and undivided way. Why make such strong distinction between the Feminine and the Masculine when both are needed and one does not exist without the other? I believe that this process of distinguishing and clarifying between the Feminine and Masculine is needed now in our consciousness. Think of it as Alchemy: you discern what is what, you distill what is needed from what isn’t and you obtain seemingly separate substance before combining them together again, in a conscious way, in order to obtain a form that is greater in value from what it was in the beginning. This is where we are now. The gender rhetoric has blurred our understanding of the Feminine and the Masculine qualities. Everyone and everything is suffering from the imbalance between both energies on the planet and we are, almost all of us, reproducing and, therefore, perpetuating this imbalance in our behaviors, thoughts and speech. The one way to start restoring the imbalance is to become aware of it and then, start cultivating these rebellious practices to help restore the balance -- honoring the Feminine is one of them. Tantra doesn’t focus on the Feminine. Tantra is a wave of consciousness that shines light wherever the shadow is. Right now, the shadow is upon the Feminine. Its expression is lacking while the Masculine is also in its shadow from being in excess. To restore the balance, the Feminine needs to come into power first because it will help to direct and re-balance the Masculine force. The Masculine is meant to protect and serve the Feminine force. By pointing to the ways that the Feminine is repressed and left unexpressed in ourselves and in our cultures, our Masculine qualities that allow us to take actions and flight for what we hold dear will be awakened again to follow this transformation, the lead of the Feminine. Truthfully, we won’t have the choice to do so. Masculine and Feminine work in tandem, therefore, one cannot change without the other changing and becoming a vibrational match to the other.
It is a very precious and sacred thing that leads each person to many special places, the honoring of self, of the goddess, the honoring of it all.
In my experience the alignment with the Goddess or Brahma or Shiva sped things up I suppose.
I had done years of inner work/play (as I say), and some may say that it simply progressed accordingly, the fact is that many, for centuries have experienced this. Many have noticed that the dedicating their thoughts to Goddess or Shiva, to these forces that they felt as higher in vibration began to appear more fully in their lives.
Doing things in honor of,
Thinking Thoughts that honored the Goddess, caused the action to be slower gentler, yet more precise, more efficient, blessed and sacred.
Even the touching of the self,
I touch myself in honor of the Goddess of the All. In honor of life itself.
The action changes.
I serve you in honor of that which is All, seen and unseen, in honor of the life that I am,
The action changes.
The touch Feels different, and the more and more we live in reverence, the more we receive.
That honoring, that acknowledging, acknowledgement, *that though we are great beautiful beings, there is more and even in honoring our sacred breath and the life force energy that flows through us~
our thoughts change,
our actions take on a different beat. The dirty becomes sacred, the unholy becomes holy, the simple becomes divine.
The more and more we practice these beautiful things, the more and more the lens clears, the ego stops being this loud chattering box and becomes a sacred tool.
We'll pause there or here 🙃🙂
I'll leave you with two more things to savor in this ✨️Feed your head entré
A little Rumi
“Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Even if you have broken your vows a thousand times, it doesn’t matter.
Come , come yet again, come!”
“ I have thrown duality away like an old dishrag
I see and know all times and all worlds as one, one, always one
So what do I have to do to get you to admit who is speaking to you?
Admit it and change everything.
This is your own voice echoing off the walls of God”
So pleads Rumi, having given his life with searing, passionate intensity to the “Life of life” and reached through the veils to Divine Gnosis. Out of outrageous freedom, in urgent compassion, he calls all, who like thirsty fish swimming in an ocean of water, are suffering the pain, the pangs, of separation.
“Oh lovers, lovers, it is time
To set out from the world…
Beneath this water-wheel of stars
Your sleep has been heavy.
Observe that heaviness and beware
For life is fragile and quick.
Heart, aim yourself at Love!
Friend, discover the Friend!
Watchman, Wake up! You weren’t put here to sleep!”
☆☆☆☆☆☆
The whole of my life
Summed up in these words
I used to be raw
Then I was cooked
Now… on fire.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
The quotation above the entrance to Rumi’s shrine reminds us: We come not because we are already formed, cooked, or mature, but because we aspire to become so.
Another metaphor Rumi was so fond of is ripening. We are all like unripe fruit, green. In the light of the sun we ripen, sweeten. To eat an unripe fruit causes stomachache. How lovely to bite into a sun-ripened peach with the juices running down your cheeks, your fingers. This, for Rumi, is a metaphor for what it is like for each of us to have an interaction with “unripe” fellow human beings, those who bring us headache and heartache. But how lovely to have juicy, sweet, ripe human beings next to us.
How beautifully he reminds us that any tree laden with ripe fruit has its branches hanging closer to the ground. The most spiritually sweet and ripened souls are also the most humble, the closest to the ground, the earthiest.
Upon entering the shrine, we see poems that are now associated with Rumi, though they came from a bit earlier (from an earlier sage, Abu Sa’di Abi ‘l-Khayr):
“Come, come again!
Whoever you are, come again!
Even if you are an unbeliever
a Magian… an idol worshipper,
come again!
Our court is no place
to be hopeless.
Even if you have broken your vows
a hundred times,
come, come again!”
Rumi wrote how through love all things become better. Doing kindness is the game of the good, who seek to alleviate suffering in the world. Wherever there is a pain, a remedy awaits.
Some golden nuggets about honoring
There is none other to meditate upon, to pray to, to worship for the attainment of liberation. Need there is none to trouble, to fast, to torture one’s body, to follow rules and customs, to make large offerings; need there is none to be heedful as to time nor as to Nyasa or Mudra, wherefore, O Kuleshani! who will strive to seek shelter elsewhere than with Him?
From Chapter 3 of Mahanirvana Tantra
Tantra of the Great Liberation
SHRI DEVI said:
O Deva of the Devas, great Deva, Guru of Brihaspati himself, Thou Who discourseth of all Scriptures, Mantra, Sadhana, and hast spoken of the Supreme Brahman by the adoration of Whom mortals attain happiness and liberation, do Thou, O Lord! deign to instruct us in the way of service of the Supreme Soul and of the observances, Mantra, and meditation in His worship. It is my desire, O Lord! to hear the essential substance of all these from Thee.
Shri Sadashiva said:
Listen, then, O Beloved of My life! to the most secret and supreme Truth, the mystery whereof has nowhere yet been revealed.
Because of My affection for Thee I shall speak to Thee of that Supreme Brahman, Who is ever Existent, Intelligent, and Who is dearer to Me than life itself. O Maheshvari! the eternal, intelligent, infinite Brahman may be known in Its real Self or by Its external signs. That Which is changeless, existent only, and beyond both mind and speech, Which shines as the Truth amidst the illusion of the three worlds, is the Brahman according to Its real nature. That Brahman is known in samadhi-yoga by those who look upon all things alike, who are above all contraries, devoid of doubt, free of all illusion regarding body and soul. That same Brahman is known from His external signs, from Whom the whole universe has sprung, in Whom when so sprung It exists, and into Whom all things return. That which is known by intuition may also be perceived from these external signs. For those who would know Brahman through these external signs, for them sadhana is enjoined.
Attend to me, Thou, O dearest One! while I speak to Thee of such sadhana. And firstly, O Adye! I tell Thee of the Mantroddhara of the Supreme Brahman p. Utter first the Pranava, then the words "existence" and "intelligence," and after the word "One" say "Brahman."
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Lastly an honoring of the goddess and in our next session we'll get into another deep dive, then more techniques to aid in deep tantric meditation.
☆And yes, we beome better lovers, needless lovers in fact because we are full and overflowing, in more ways than one.
Blessed be your path.
A deep very much felt and experienced Namaste
Gratitude for this moment had in honor of that which is All and nothing, thah which came before the question, in honor of you and I, the collective and the~
MOTHER OF THE WHOLE UNIVERSE
(SARVAVIŚVAJANANĪ)
FROM THE DEVĪBHĀGAVATA 1
I call to mind the Mother of the whole universe,
Who has created this world, both real and unreal,
And who, by Her own power with its three guṇas,
Protects it, and having destroyed it, She then plays,
Commonly is it said that Brahmā creates the universe,
Yet the learned in Veda and Purāṇā
Speak of His birth from the navel lotus of Murāri,
Although it is said He creates, yet He is Himself dependent therein.
Even Murāri in the blossom of whose navel lotus, Brahmā was born--
Deeply sleeps upon his serpent bed at the time of dissolution.
Therefore Ananta with his thousand hoods is His support.
How can He who is Himself supported
Be called a leader in the creation of the world?
Even the water of Ocean
which is a liquid substance
Cannot exist without a container; therefore
I take refuge with Her, the Mother of all beings,
Who exists in all things in the form of Power.
Brahmā in the lotus,
Seeing that the eyes of Viṣṇu were closed in deep slumber,
Prayed to that Devī with whom I take shelter.
Much love everyone
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