Journeys into the Unknown

I would like to show you the books that I am currently reading. The first book Heart of the World is a gripping page turner for me; I was wandering around the library and thought it looks adventurous enough so I took it. Upon reading it I just couldn’t put it down, I had to read what was going to happen next. The fact that it is a real account of exploration and that it involves the most inaccessible place on earth together with my boyhood infatuation of Tibet; couldn’t help but keep on reading. The Tsangpo gorge hides a waterfall in the worlds most deepest canyon .Tibetans call sacred places Beyul and they associate these places as having meaning more so to the yogi who will experience sattvic or pure states of meditation in such wild places. The particular Beyul in this book is Pemako located in a remote Himalayan valley. The plants there are said to give powers for one to heal and to gain siddhis (ability to have extra sensory magic), being a holy place it also involves kora which is walking clockwise around such a place. The same as pradakshina, kora can involve walking for days or weeks around a mountain such as Kailash. It also gives historical accounts of the first explorers there and how they encountered indigenous people who at first didn’t like white explorers coming to their quiet jungle villages. Usually those people experienced poisonous arrows and death. The groups of explorers we are following through Pemako are walking through Forrest thick in leeches and snakes and swamps and huge fallen trees which take a grunt or two to slide over. Sometimes they almost die falling into the coldest rivers but manage through it all to shiver into the camp and snuggle into a sleeping bag without a word. A humorous Tulku monk is walking with them too or should I say they are walking with him. He seems to be very equanimous in the difficult journey and helps them indirectly, he is looking for healing plants. Heart of the World is still to be finished as I’m on page 283 and another 150 or so to go.

I first read Spirit walker couple of months ago and had to read the sequel to this fascinating story (Medicinemaker). About a man who discovers he can travel in his dreaming state into the future; he also encounters the spirits on the other side a tall black shadow. Similar to the ancient cave paintings drawn by man long time ago. Shows that they were also experiencing such encounters with spirits in their dreaming. Actually this is not exactly dreaming, because he was paralyzed in his sleep so that he was alert when this shift happens in sleep. It is somewhat of a half way state, as he becomes the eyes of a man walking through the jungles and this is the start of a relationship he has with this man who is on a journey through unknown lands. The lands are the American mainland 3000 years into the future, so this second book is a continuation from Spirit walker and it shows how the Shaman works. I like it and find it also keeps one engaged in the continuing storyline. It also informs about visionary states in dreaming and about signs that you may already be having yourself before entering into such states. It is said that indigenous tribes used to stay awake in order to invoke such visionary experiences before sleeping. A nice read if you are interested in the magic of healing and the unknown .

Karma

Music for musics sake, I play and let the sound come from where the ocean of Self resounds . Listening without any expectation I rest in the sound of notes that arise effortlessly and timelessly. The musician disappears and only the music remains .

Doing nothing more than making sure everyone is comfortable .

doing some healing work where it's due .

Watering the Basilico , I watch and let it grow for pesto so everyone can eat . Notice the abundance of grapes that flourish .

Sitting on the red bench looking over the green hedge the blue expanse .
The rest is Prasad, a gift from That which cannot be spoken of !

Sea and Sky

I thought I would start this blog again after my long intermissions away from the keyboard I have been told to write Haiku’s but it looks like I’m saying more than a few sentences here. A lot of my time here, (I always have an ocean view to return to after some time indoors, or to look out as I cook an omelet) is spent just attending to the duties of the house and driving down to see Russell (a drink invokes communion) and looking for work at the job agency, but lately I find them hopeless. I have also ventured down to the swimming pool to slide into the spa and sweat in the sauna after a good swim .I have discovered that the sauna, like sweat lodges have ways to bring healing and recently I experienced insights into my past history which just bubbled up while I sweated .This lead me to a story about what happened to me as a schoolboy surrounded by overzealous Christian brothers . I started to look at this vasana (habit tendency) and last week while talking with Russell about it, I realized that I had nothing at all to do with the victim that came out of that story, for I was NEVER a victim. I knew that I am love to myself after all and that there is nothing wrong .It was the problem of the teachers and not the student. We all love ourselves even though we might not see it this way. After all we would do the utmost good for our own heart.


"I would love to kiss you,
The price of kissing is your Life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting.
What a bargain, let's buy it.
- Rumi

The lagoon is one place I often drive past either on the way to the shops or just to see conditions for swimming .On hot days it can be a gem of a place to look at and better to swim in because hardly anyone is here during the week days and it is so inviting. Nowadays with Christmas coming more people may find their way up. I found it very soothing place to float in the water after I contracted Dengue Fever in India , two weeks later I was here in the lagoon , just floating on my back in the shallows. I came here everyday for sometime and just spent my time in the cool current. Dengue fever really knocks you out it just sucks all your strength and then you are weak. So slowly I regained my strength for months, it felt as if the body’s constitution had changed. Anyway I have been living here by the sea and traveling to India, usually arriving in Tiruvannamalai which I call the ‘filthy dusty temple town’ when shocking any puritans who are in my vicinity. Then I always come back to Perth full of space and clear skies. I remember a story about a prince from Hyderabad who came to live here in West Australia, when he saw hardly anyone on the streets he thought there was a curfew! So it can be a very open place physically to come and also to get used to after being in the milling crowds of bustling cities like Bangalore or celebrations like Deepam. Instead you can find yourself in a mob of roos! They are quietly resting and scratching their bellies while masticating on grass, the excitement of some youthful males becomes a dance fight right before my eyes.

One day I wandered out and took these photos of the nature that is here. The golden light of the sun setting blazing off blue pink clouds caught my eyes and I got trigger happy with the camera. I stood on the tracks around the lake and listened quietly as the cockatoos gathered and made a racket. Their insistent cawing and calling were punctuated by the silence of the surrounding trees and burnt charcoal stumps which stood out like visitors from another world. I also spent a lot of time here walking around this lake (used by Nyungah indigenous people) usually in a clockwise direction as if in Pradakshina of Arunachala. So in walking meditation I became the vastness that surrounded my walking. The volume of space that was unseen became the point in silence. Around the lake nature and the vastness of Self are meeting as if an inner power were grounding in a formidable outer stability , where there is no difference. I always found myself pausing just to inquire a bit more to see the depth of clarity , it was a little effort that made it too much and I always found myself relaxing more as I continued along the track .


Every day I am always looking at the sea from my vantage point at home one way or another the blue water is meeting the blue sky and meditation and inquiry is always naturally present. Sitting on the red bench overlooking the green hedge to the horizon blue, silence quietly reveals all that is . There is always a pointing back to a place that is closer than the closest and nearer than the nearest. When I am with a friend we both find ourselves looking at the sameness of ourselves and see the clarity of our nature. When I am talking to others in the coffee shop it is not as profound because we are talking and chit chatting. I don’t have a desire to meet here in this space because we are not open to it here yet there is an acceptance and if it happens then that is good if not, okay too. Like the true meaning of karma yoga which is to not expect anything from the fruit of our actions ,the results being Prasad or a gift from source . It is ALWAYS open to us even while chatting; it is only that we are attentive to the listening of words and their content. Always quietly in the background no matter what is being said is the heart of everything, my own Self. The discussion is about cryptic words for cryptic crosswords and the cryptic silence beholds our discussing and figuring out descriptive cryptic words! As I finish a long black and chat I find myself like a bouncing ball walking back to my van. And then back to Russell’s for another drink.

Babajan

Babajan

I was in Poona , and my Russian friend Laxman told me about a holy site , a Samadhi (tomb) , of a woman saint called Babajan . She is said to have given Meher Baba some powerful initiation , or awakening by kissing him on the forehead . The following is some info I collected about her; "She grew up in Afghanistan , as a young girl was called Gulrukh which means ‘Rose face’. When her family wanted her to get married she refused and as an eighteen year old she left her family and travelled around north India which was not an easy undertaking .After some time she met a Hindu saint who initiated her , and she performed penance in a cave for seventeen months .At thirty seven years she had full awakening with a Muslim saint , a mazjoob (immersed in divinity) who ended her spiritual struggle with God realisation .She then travelled extensively through out the north and “It was at this time that she happened to utter in a moment of ecstasy words connoting her divine state. This was treated as blasphemy by orthodoxy, which, with the connivance of the church, got her buried alive. Gulrukh miraculously, survived this ordeal, and finding the country unsafe for her she bade good bye to the Punjab and Northern India forever. She travelled south to Bombay took up her abode in a locality know as Chuna Bhatti near Byculla. Bombay however, was not to be graced by her presence for long and the enviable honour of manifesting Gulrukh's spiritual greatness goes to Poona, that the sepoys of the Baluchi Regiment, which had only recently arrived from the North and who knew that Gulrukh was buried and dead, had a surprise of their life to find her all alive and seated underneath a neem (margosa) tree at a place called Malcolm Tank within Cantonment limits. The Baluchi sepoys looked upon this as a great miracle, and thus feeling convinced of her spiritual greatness, gave Gulrukh an ovation, by bowing to her reverently. After this incident her saintly fame spread far and wide, and she came to be universally known as Hazrat Babajan."

The next day we planed to visit the shrine and we rode of into the busy Pune traffic to reach the tomb . I could not go back into the ashram at this time as there was some regulation about visa’s , It had already been extended and they had a requirement that you had to leave the country to come back into the ashram . So I could'nt continue the ashram life, but had a need to be in a sattvic place such as Babajan's . Her samadhi , is tucked right next to a busy street of cars , bicycles , scooters buzzing by left and right and there at the end of this tee junction was this small marbled building with a keeper sitting on its entrance . The women come covered in there veils , some one is begging at the door . It is a very small space , but has enough room for you to sit on the very ground where she is rested. A large square rectangular marble tomb is intricately carved with sculptures of leaves . Garlands of flowers lay on

top of a sheet in dark green , a colour seen adorning many Muslim shrines. A picture is mounted on the wall as you come in through the left entrance , she is sitting on the ground sideways to the photographer , one leg

is raised to rest her forearm upon that knee and her hand is touching her chin and she is looking as if to be studying you . She has notable thick fuzzy white hair and looks gracefully old .She was said to be very old maybe 120 ,she used to sit here everyday under a neem tree . You can still see the stump that was there , someone cut it down ! This is where she greeted Meher Baba . The remains of this tree is painted gold and it presents an intimate corner for one to sit hiding from the noisy traffic that’s whizzing past just a few meters away . After all the distraction of people and noise I sat , in Her presence and it became richly infused with a feeling of HER ,and she spoke to me through a full dynamic Shakti (power) that slowly surrounded the tomb with an atmosphere of unspoken silence. Sitting in stillness the full power of her love comes through . Meanwhile I opened my eyes , and saw some women kneeling respecting the image of her picture as shown above , men also come in and pray with the Quran . Here is an unmistakeable divine power , if subtle , so beautiful to imbue .

After a while , I felt a feathery wishing brush against my head and a rude rough thump along my back as the keeper blessed me with a bunch of peacock feathers that lie on her tomb . I gave a donation and left with an amazing sense of elation , on the back of a scooter whizzing away from MG road looking up to the stars I cry and shout to the stars , feeling immersed in a state of mystical flavour tasting some exotic God intoxication , tears are flowing! I keep getting the strong impression of Sufi devotion flowing into me . Laxman’s friend is having a birthday and I wanted to buy flowers to drape around the pictures of Papaji in Laxman’s house . We stopped at the Pushpa wallah , a busy place with the workings of many people coming and going , I walk through the crowd to a chaputra (platform) to buy some flower garlands. Then in front of me gazed a benevolent old lady ,her daughter standing by her side ,and I could see pass her through the doorway people working (looked like her family) . But there was a lustrous attraction to her smiling gesture, brimming shinning eyes !! As I spoke in my little Hindi "Kitne kai hai ? "..... she smiles, I point and say ,"tin mala gulabh hai " her smile radiates into a glow . As she passes me the malas ,I smile back and slightly bow my head and pranam with folded hands in thanks.I turn and walk back through the hasty bustle and swing onto the bike , we race off. Her look brought me to an acute sense that this is someone who knows where I have just been and who knows who I am buying the flowers for with unspoken knowing , blessed me with a loving smile as I walked away with the flowers she had just given to me . She was sitting just like the photo in the Samadhi . Was it Babajan? she certainly had kind of bushy white hair !Later I thought about her and wondered if I have come across another mystic , or surely it was Babajan ! They say there is no difference , no separation , how could it have not been Babajan .

Haro Hara

Theerthananda

Well this is my first entry since leaving Perth for Tiruvannamalai unfortunately I did'nt bring a digital with me but have taken a few photos with ye old camera from the first week when I went up to the cave on the other side of the mountain and had a bath in one of the pools left there by the rains , when you float in the pool all the little tadpoles come and nibble and have a meal of your skin ,and did I laugh when they all had a go at me .

Yesterday was Deepam which is a huge event here attracting many people and I had the good fortune to witness a beauty on top of mount Arunachala . A light is blazing on the mount and tonight with the weather clearing out we will have more of the fire to see against the night sky .To walk around the mountain with the people is so strong , boys running in groups shouting "Haro Hara !!!! " which is the chant when the fire is lit and other groups of men walking fast and chanting out to Shiva, women holding hands sing 'Arunachala Shiva' continuosly . . Sadhus smiling ,Sadhus begging , Sadhus with pierced tounges ,deformed people lying on the road with a rag for people to drop rupees in , old men and women walk the distance and of course there is the famous chai stop . A good rest makes you realise how strong this Pradakshina is , it is so strong, it is like being inebriated . Literaly as if the road is starting to disappear under your feet and suddenly you are walking in space . A good rest to the phenomenon you are experincing is just to have a chai !

Chaibas

Then you pick yourself up and enter the stream of bodies venerating a mountain in the form of Shiva . When we completed the walk muscles where sore but the rest I had was good .
People say "why worship a mountain? You don't have to go to India for that" . They say this with the viewpoint that You yourself are more important than searching and wandering India . but this (travelling) is still in the play of conciousness and to be in a place of your inner most self is a blessing; Arunachala invokes this in you! It is a living power of Shiva and Shakti that stirs up all the devils and brings them into light so they may be freed . So where else does such a place exist for just this ?

Baul

Here is a picture of a Baul ; I have seen them ocassionally in India , singing and dancing .Rabindranath Tagore had said of the Bauls: " One day I chanced to hear a song of a Baul beggar of Bengal. It spoke of an intense yearning for the divine which is in man and not in the temple scriptures, in images or symbols. Since then I have often sought to understand these people whose songs are their only form of worship... I have fitted the tunes of the Bauls to many of my songs."

Direct Seeing

When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them, but should inquire: ‘To whom do they arise?’ It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, “To whom has this thought arisen?”. The answer that would emerge would be “To me”. Thereupon if one inquires “Who am I?”, the mind will go back to its source; and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source. When the mind that is subtle goes out through the brain and the senseorgans, the gross names and forms appear; when it stays in the heart, the names and forms disappear. Not letting the mind go out, but retaining it in the Heart is what is called “inwardness” (antarmukha). Letting the mind go out of the Heart is known as “externalisation” (bahir-mukha). Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the ‘I’ which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity “I”. If one acts in that way, all will appear as of the nature of Siva (God).

Ramana Maharshi.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

sage

“Turn your vision inward and the whole world will be full of supreme

spirit.”

Ramana Maharshi

Tiruvannamalai

Soon I leave for the dusty temple town , where Shiva is celebrated upon the dry and rocky soil of Tiuvannamalai .Where people come to walk reverentially around a holy place such as Arunachala . The mountain is said to be Shiva , and sign of his manifestation . The sacred story goes that A subtle light ,a pillar that stretches into infinity reaches from this place and aligns with the constellation of the Paladies (karthik) in December ,which will be directly above it when throngs of people (up to 2.5 million ) will gather to light a flame of large proportion to blaze for ten to thirteen days during which there is celebrations of processions dancing and singing . To walk around the mountain is said to be wish fullfilling and granting ones desire to be liberated Eternally.

A place of Tapas, (Ganapati Sastri (also called Ganapati Muni) had visited many sacred places in India, and had learned to repeat mantras and to perform tapas (asceticism). He was not satisfied, and so he asked Ramana what tapas was. Ramana replied that if one observes the source where the notion ‘I’ arises, and the source where the mantra is produced, and if the mind is absorbed into that source, that is tapas) it can be a catalyst for burning up latent tendencies that may arise.

To sit on the mountain is good , it is a quiet and solitary place to spend some peaceful solitute before returning to the town and traffic which winds it's way around the mountain . I like to walk up to Skandashram which is a 45 minute walk up steps to a cave where Ramana Maharshi sat for a number of years . Here it is like a shade of oasis and silence , and definitely a place conducive for meditation . I find it much easier to slip into deep states of absorbtion in these places , if one can rest then the rest can be profoundly deep . Below it is another cave said to have been inhabited by the Sage Virupaksha whose remains are there within the lingam made by Ramana himself .A place that is potent with silence it is also a sauna to sit in and sweat .

In the town itself is the main temple of Arunachalaeshwara and is where the Fire lingam is presented to devotees . Tiruvannamalai has the lingam for the fire element , and so you see why it can be experienced as a place where latent tendencies can be burnt!The other places of the remaining elements are : Kalahasti - Vayu or Wind element said to be the father of Hanuman , Kanchipuram - Earth lingam said to be the place where Bodhidharma came from .Sresialam - Water lingam .There is also a lingam for Space in Chidambaram of course there is no lingam because it is full of space .

During the festival once I was in the town for the celebrations and followed the procession of the gods who were being paraded by the many people out of the main temple, caught up in the excitement of the crowds we ran down a lane way barefoot and climbed up these steps, as this is where they mounted the deity onto the giant raths or chariots which they pull around the entire temple complex . There were so many coconut husk on the ground from the offerings that I was literally walking over one vast coconut mat . This small place on the left is were I climbed to watch the procession to mount the gods into the raths .

Kingdom Within

This is it ! Is it not amazing that you can think such a thing ? That you ever feel that you are somebody walking around doing things ? Well have'nt you been on this planet long enough to look at yourself ?

'Yes!' you tell me . 'I have studied this and that , I have finished education, I am now helping people in society and I am practicing meditation . I am getting somewhere , I am endevouring to become enlightened' or 'I'm not getting anywhere, what's this? a load of crap?'

Have you looked closer than the actions you undertake everyday to inform others about yourself , or that you give to yourself ? Wandering from building to building ,talking about this and that ,dodging traffic, swearing at the driver in front of you , Yes please take a deep breath while you frenzy the day ! Do you ever consider to look within ?

What does that mean ?

Have you taken the time to see who you really are ? Really ?


Poke yourself ! Yes,...... just do that ! lift your finger and look at it . Then poke yourself . Where did you feel your fingertip ? Did it stab you somewhere in the chest area? Most people do , a very wise and gentle man in India, pointed this out sometime in the 40's . That when we point to ourselves we point to the chest area . Why? Because we take ourselves to be the shape and form of the physical body that seemingly shows the world who we are , we point to the heart area because we are the heart itself . By heart I do not mean physical but something far greater which has the capacity to see everything and hold every sight which we see , and evey feeling which we are able to perceive .Is this capacity different or separate from us ? Christ says the "Kingdom of Heaven is within! " . A great pointer and yet we take ourselves to be the mansions or the walls that form the image of who we are , we take the senses as ourselves because it is so real ! 'How can you doubt such a thing ?' You may say.

Now wait a minute .
Do you really believe that you are just made up of flesh bones and the full sensory capacity of the human body ?
No wonder scientist say you are only using 10% of your brain . What if there is some thing more than this body and mind that you take yourself to be .

The question must arise 'Who am I ?' or 'What am I ?' or even 'Where did I come from ?' And now arises the oportunity to inquire , and this is how every moment has the value of a treasure house.

Now without further ado , take this very moment to investigate and see YOURSELF as you really are .

What do I do ?

Well you have the greatest gift to begin with ,and that is YOU .Start penetrating yourself! Just as you are , seeing these words , just as you are looking at this screen . Investigate this feeling of being............ by resting with the feeling of being, just as you are, right now and with this in a very relaxed and gentle way................. see and penetrate into this feeling of being.Continue and avail yourself of the ocean which is with in you .

Jesus said, "I will give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart."

See where does this feeling of existing come from . Does it begin or end ?does it have a shape ? Is it vegetarian ? Is this separate and intimate to you ? Or is it intimate and closer than your very breath? does it come and go ? Is it changing?

The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us, how will our end come?"
Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is.
Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."


For this has been written and talked about from ancient times , in the Vedas and Upanishands before the scriptures of the Christian Bible and Apocrypha were ever written and in times of great peace and harmony and it has lasted because it has the capacity of everlasting life . And these ancient lovers of truth say it is no other than Yourself . Unlimited, unbound , untouched and unutterable . No wind can destroy , no fire can burn , no flood can drown , no earth can move , no space can contain You!

Now where are your comments?

Zen Mondo?

He then said "Where is Zen Mondo?"

Mattress Baba Christananda

How can there be distinctions in a supreme reality , which is by nature one?Who has noticed any distinctions in the pure joy of deep sleep ?
-Vivekachudamani-

One day we found the rare Jivanmukta, Baba Christananda in deep samadhi .This is the only photo taken of him so far . Feeling the oneness of all things we silently smiled in bliss as a great Shakti bathed the room and many people came to sit in His divine prescence. Baba returns to the holy mountain Arunachala, where he meets all in bliss and joy!