Category: India

Vision without action is merely a dream.
Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action changes the world .
Joel Arthur Barker

Dear Source Sangha,
Thanks to all of you for your kind and loving support for my recent journey.
I was so grateful to be able to share my blog with you and have each of you participate in the experience.

Because of limited access I have just today been able to read all of your replies. You have all touched my heart and enriched my journey so much with your thoughts and words. What great yogis you are!

My transition home has been physically very challenging. I’m hoping to be well enough to be back to teaching next week but still need much rest and recuperation at present time.

I look forward to sharing pictures, stories and practices with you soon.

Namaste
Jude

About life I learned on my spiritual journey to India.

Truth: Satya
Panditgi says truth is so simple yet sooooo difficult and almost impossible to truly embrace in one’s life. He gets a big Amen from me on that one.

Swami Kripalu use to always say if you want to start practicing Satya or truth begin by just saying a little less untruth. He also understood the magnitude of the practice.

We have so much ego to protect and defend and so many fears and concerns about how others see us to be able to honestly reveal our true self. What if no one loves the real me? What if I’m not as nice or kind or loving as I seem? What if I have some secret aspect of myself and can’t let anyone see or don’t even see myself?

Probably the closest we come to being our true selves is with our best friends and/or our lovers and this is precisely WHY we love them so much. They accept us as we are, even the not so pretty self. They know us without our masks. Truth can be humiliating and frightening but can also be quietly comforting and free our hearts in untold ways. Find someone you trust and who really loves you to practice satya with and never accept anything as truth from someone who doesn’t really love you.

Simplicity: I bow down before you.
I’m absolutely amazed at how little it takes to be really happy. We have been living in almost austerity like conditions here and yet our joy grows more and more each day.

Sometime I think we Americans just don’t get this one any more. We create complexity in order to fill space in our life. We try to fill the emptiness inside with something outside. When you fully appreciate the night sky, the moon and stars in its breathtaking detail, isn’t that complex enough? Couldn’t we just stop long enough to see what’s in front of us now without going to get something more?

Our minds are trained from birth to believe, if only we had this or that thing then we would be happy. We are sold a complex life that says you’re not good enough- without whatever their selling. We women, especially buy into this be beautiful line of goods for sale. Beauty is simple. Its available to all. One can possess it but never buy it. It only comes from within.

A truly simple life is richly complex and rewarding. It’s full of zest and vigor. It’s creative and challenging. It’s not driven by owning things but by owning ones Self. If you’re looking for a way to start simplifying your life, clear out some closets. Give it to Goodwill, someone else may really need it. Downsize the mania, the to do lists, the overtime. Read more, dance more, love more, and do less things you think you should.

Love: ahimsa
It’s the BIG happy. We are born from love we spend our lives immersed in love and in the end, we return to love.
It’s our immortal spirit and our true nature. We all have it, we possess it intrinsically. Sometimes it hidden under layers of guilt, shame, pain, sorrow, and oppression by others. But the light is always within. There is no wind strong enough to blow it out, no waters than can wash it away, no darkness it cannot shine through.

Real love is a choice, a way of being and living from the heart, not something rare we find outside ourselves. The Bahkti sutra says love someone or something larger than yourself wildly, be completed devoted. Immerse yourself in that river of love that flows from your own heart and from there, let your love flow into the great ocean of love that contains all things.

I’ll share the great Sufi prayer:

May the love we share here spread it wings and fly across the earth to sing it song to every soul that is alive.
May the blessing of it’s grace and love be felt by everyone
And may we all see the light within within within.

Signin off from India.
OMW home.
Namaste

The word tantra means web or woof the thread which is interwoven and cannot be separate from. It recognizes there are many paths to the ONE who is in everything.

Panditgia says if you want to love the Devine then love all of creation that manifests from that source. To love the many is to love the ONE, deeply. He encourages us to start at home and make our families a nest of love to fly from.

Our Communal life here at camp takes lots of communication, cooperation and compassion. It’s an excellent medium to practice in as extended family.

To have ANY sister is a great blessing but to have Tantra Sisters is an amazing heart opening experience. I wake to the sounds of their laughter in the morning. It is the sweetest song I know. We giggle and play like six year old’s, we talk about men and making love as if we were teenagers, we pray together like women with wisdom and grace. We are radiant in our hearts and it shows in our faces. A truly awakened women is a great joy.

She owns her shakti and embodies the sacred feminine essence that gives life and nurtures all. She offers herself openly to the one through loving the many unconditionally.

My life has been blessed with many such sisters. How about yours?

Om Shanti Jude
Jai Ma to all my Missouri sisters!

Just so you know its not ALWAYS blissful on the journey. Now it’s not only raining and wet, but dark and cold. You simply can’t let that kind of consciousness creep up on you. It takes hold so easily and won’t let go. One thing is certain we haven’t come this far to sit here and shiver in the dark. Although, outer forces may seem oppressive we have conscious control of our inner awareness .

As I’m contemplating this fact, I’m inspired with vision by the Goddess of Fun and Light herself, my good friend Claudette on the other side of the world. I knew immediately what she would do in my situation. So Claude, the Kumba Mela Rain Dance is for you.

I hit the play button and Every Breath You Take comes alive from the iPod. I start to dance. Leia joins me and soon we are all on our feet dancing and singing. Next thing you know our flashlights start appearing and our dark bamboo ceiling in the jungle is transformed into the greatest disco light show In India.

We are on a groove now and move on to Born this Way, Walking on Broken Glass, and others. I’m saving the best song for last, like any good DJ and for our grand finale, the Beatles take us out with My Sweet Lord. By the time we make it to the chorus we are burning down the hut with the inner fire of Hare Krishna.

Life is what you make it. You are never a victim of your circumstances unless you choose to be. So If things seem a little gloomy where you are put on some music and get up and dance. You may just light your own inner fire of transformation.

Hare Krishna
Jude

p.s. My Sweet Lord, thanks again for the rain. As it blows against may face, I cannot tell it from these tears of joy

Nothing to do but offer it up. Global climate change comes to India and we live in heavy rains the past two days. Even my mind feels soggy. No dry clothes or sleeping bag. Panditgi keeps our spirits up and says this is just Gods way of laughing at us for making plans.

So we cancel the temple exploration for the day and practice manifestation of form from formlessness. Thank you for the rain God.

Today’s practice was such a gift! There is no hatha yoga taught here only philosophy and practices from Vedas, Upanishads and Yoga Sutras .

I’m aware of how important it is to balance deep spiritual work with much laughter and great humility. Panditgis stories ask us to laugh at all of life and the absurdity of the mind. We are comical by nature but laugh better at others sometimes than self. He tells us many stories about his travels and students and we howl with laughter. It’s almost like he’s this profound philosopher pundit and closet comedian wanna be at the same time. Just when your mind can’t quite comprehend the philosophy any more he cracks you up with some great cosmic joke.

A Pundit by the way is quite different from a Guru. A Pundit is usually a scholar, which Panditgia certainly is, of Sanskrit and Vedic knowledge and he is also a direct student and lineage holder of Swami Ramas.

A Guru usually has devotees and their devotion and great love of the Guru is transferred and transformed into love of the Devine which the Guru embodies.

Both paths are valid if your teacher is authentic. Again, how you tell this, is from the fruits of their practice. They speak and teach from a place of understanding and direct experience.

So, today if you’re working deep in your practice remember the Pundits philosophy. Laughter IS the best medicine. It is a healing salve for the wounds of the world.

The Gita tells us that yoga is the process of tolerating the consequences of being oneself. In other words, Arjuna is saying, get over it, learn to tolerate yourself. We all have our own karma we have to live with in this life. Maybe try not to take yourself so seriously.

You could check out a Laughter Yoga class online or watch a funny movie. Remember happiness is the secret elixir of life so LOL.

Namaste from India where we are knee deep in the muddy waters of life,

I wake up at the foot of the mountains deep in the jungle. We traveled all day and came in after dark to arrive in Khajuraho. The silence is profound here. After sharing space with millions, now we are one hundred souls in the silence except for the hyenas howl. I miss the drum and the hum and all those other souls. It’s amazing how attached I got to our little camp within a week! Letting go is just part of practice.

We begin to find our way all over again in very different territory. The sky is incredible. The main temple here is made from marble and granite and laid out according to Vedic architecture. The Shakti energy is palpable. I sleep very little, eat very little but have strong energy.

I’ve become the “camp nurse”. It’s just my calling, one of my gifts. Many are ill with some sort of virus. I treat blisters, bug bites, runny noses. Sun burns and sore throats. Good thing we have no broken hearts here. I can honestly say I never learned the remedy for that. But mostly I try to just give Metta or loving kindness and reassuring words to all.

They just want to hear that everything is ok. Maybe we all do. Thank you Steve for initiating me into the “everything is ok” practice. To me it means I accept all of life as it is, pain as well as pleasure, sorrows as well as happiness, shadow the same as light.

I push nothing away and release all my resistance. It’s easy to see your Self in the beauty of the morning sunrise. But sometimes not so easy to turn that same eye of reflection on the piles of cow dung. Let they both burn hot, give light, and warm our hearts.

I’m so high up on the roof top of the temple this morning I feel as if I could lean over and kiss the face of God. But then that would be impossible because you can’t kiss the one face. We need another for that. Maybe that’s why we have the many in the one and the one in the many.

Love and light from the journey within. FYI everything is ok here.

Back on the bus. It’s such a trip traveling by bus through India. It requires lots of patience and prayers. Everything happens in its own good time and there is simply no getting from here to there quickly. One simply has to sit back and enjoy the journey.

Of course the real journey we are all on is the inner journey. The exploration of Self. We make this outer pilgrimage with our feet and the inner one with our hearts. Either way it’s never easy. Constantly you are bring challenged to find new and creative ways to simplify and let go of things along the way. You begin to clearly discern between needs and wants and desires gradually fade until you are stripped down to bare essentials. At least the pack is lighter.

Mentally and physically you offer up everything you can. Om Nama Shivia. I have been living in “down sizing” mode for several years now and I’m quite used to separating wheat from chafe.

I came prepared to leave everything in my pack behind as I leave here and maybe lots of other stuff I know longer need, such as self criticism, never feeling quite “good enough”, doubting my own gifts, and not being able to fully stand in my own light without projecting that onto others.

But right now I’m stuck in traffic on this bus and i have to go. We decided the only way to get ourselves moving again is by chanting to Ganesh to please remove this obstacle before us.

How do you remove obstacles on your path?

Jai Ganesh from the Bhakti Bus deep in the heart of India
Jude

Lots of choices of things to do and places to see for our group. We disperse out every afternoon in different directions and re group every evening.

Today I’m choosing to focus on my inner landscape and my meditation practice. Just like the outer landscape there are so many choices, thoughts, things to do lists, and so on that go on inside. We disperse our consciousness out every where and scatter it all over the place. We try to sit still and quiet our mind but it decides to take a hike to see what else it can find more interesting than breathing. We try to bring it back and make it sit on the mat. It laughs out loud at us. So much for willful practice.

So we try softer, surrender our will and allow things to be just as they are. We let go of tension and striving and arriving and seeking and just start seeing or witnessing. We begin to rest the mind in the heart or in the mantra. As we collect our awareness into just this we realize we are going nowhere because we already ARE there. We just breathe, relax, feel, watch and allow the practice to unfold itself.

It’s a balance of effort and surrender like all yoga. It’s a beautiful day here in India, eighty degrees, blue skies, perfect weather to take a hike. But today I’m choosing to sit and go nowhere. How about you?

White paper, empty slate,
Blank pages mind erased

Namaste Jude