My Rejected Soul

Self-Immolation

Many walks in life (namely many of the world religions) have views on why things happen. Why do bad things happen? Why do good things happen? Why do some people have easier lives than others? This could easily fall into a rant about karma, getting what you give, and all that jazz. I don’t want this post to go that direction really, although karma is an underlying factor in all of this. I do, however, want to discuss giving (I think). Karma deals primarily with getting what you have given. I want to focus on giving what you have gotten (I think), and the most disgusting hypocrisy I think I’ve ever known.

Back story: I’ve written about the best and how we have our adventures and how much these adventures mean to me. Well, my best occasionally has adventures that are entirely his own. Some of those adventures are best not had at all and unfortunately because my best choses to be just about the slowest learner EVER, some of those adventures are repeated. It’s because of this irresponsibility and his history of making really dumb decisions that my best is (for) now a felon. A few years ago he landed his self in the klink. It was tragic, truly. He didn’t know my number and so from jail he had to contact his ex who lived along the United States eastern shore – who in turn contacted my beloved through Facebook, who then told me the news. That year, I spent my entire Christmas budget meant for family and friends all on him just to bail is brilliant butt out. Not quite a week ago about the same thing happened, only this time he was able to call me directly – and this time the bail was 40% higher. Now he’s considered a repeat offender and our fear is that he’ll do hard time. That much remains to be seen. Without going into all the details, many of which can probably be assumed, his life will be very different going forward and so will mine and my beloved’s.

Something I find particularly disturbing in all this, though, is the reaction a mutual friend of ours has had toward my best’s predicament.

A little back story on her: She’s a recovering alcoholic, 12-steppin’ her way to a more wholesome life. This has been an on-going journey of hers for a few years already and she often speaks about responsibility and facing the consequences of one’s actions – doctrine she’s surely picked up from her 12-Step studies. She a wonderful person – one of my favorites, in fact. She’s been life-long Christian, and if I can be honest, of all the Christians I have known in my life (and living in the Midwest I’ve known too many!) she’s one of a very small group who doesn’t consistently make me cringe with her behavior. That is, until recently.

Whether it makes sense to you or not, the crux of Christianity is forgiveness. You pray to Jesus asking him for forgiveness of your sins (and the sins of your fathers, which you inherited at birth) and in that prayerful process of “getting saved” and becoming a born-again believer you promise that you’ll do your best to do your best as you move forward in life as a Christian. This is the starting point for Christian believers, and everything grows from there. I find the whole bit to be a rather large pill to swallow because it goes against most forms of reason (which faith shouldn’t necessarily do) as well as natural laws, but since it doesn’t actually apply to me I’m not terribly concerned. To be clear, I’m not writing this post to disparage Christianity. There’s somewhere in the range of 900 million reasons for why I could, but that’s not my goal.

What has been in my head since last Monday / Tuesday is what I intend to really focus on here and now. You see, if you have spent your entire life adhering to a belief system that has a core of, “Just tell Jesus you’re sorry and that he’s your savior and then live the best you can and you’ll avoid Hell” (aka almost ALL of Christianity), then you’re in no position to add to the grief of someone who’s fucked his own life up big-time and is now trying to work through it to a better life condition. Your entire life has been spent hoping to avoid a supposedly eternal punishment that you, by your own standards, “deserve” because of your own actions as well as the consequences you supposedly inherited from your forefathers’ sins – all by simply telling Jesus “I’m sorry.”

I’m here to tell you that if you can avoid eternal hellfire by doing little more than saying you’re sorry, then surely someone else who’s actively trying to make up for shortcomings has a chance at redemption, too. Get over yourself.

Aside from most of Christianity not making any real sense to me, something else baffles me: Apparently, I’m one of the best Christians I know. This is particularly interesting to me since I haven’t considered myself a Christian since my teens and early adult life. Fancy that!

When the best was briefly jailed I posted his bail. Shortly, I’ll be giving my entire temple room and main bathroom in my home to him as his new living quarters. The beloved and I will quite possibly purchase a moped for him, too, because it’s likely he’ll never be allowed to drive again. And because of things like this I’m accused of enabling – of helping him shirk the consequences of his actions.

Let me tell you something about enabling. A true enabler is someone who allows the person with a problem to continue in the path of the problem and to avoid any repercussions associated with walking that path. An enabler could be considered an eliminator because, for all their own misguided reasons, they do their best to eliminate the pain of the one they’re enabling.

That’s not what I’m doing.

I can bail him out of jail. I can open my home to him. I can buy him scooters to help keep him mobile. I can do all those things and so much more and none of it matters as much as haters say. All the power and generosity I can throw at this situation will still not allow him to escape the consequences of his actions. He will still have a miserable police record that will likely affect many aspects of his life for years and years to come. He will still be sentenced to some degree by the courts. He will still have to pay exorbitant legal fees. And he will still be forced into bankruptcy. Someone, please tell me – aside from cold weather exactly what hell am I sheltering him from? I’ll tell you what I definitely am doing. I’m loving him as I love myself.

Of all the rules in the Christian Bible that are followed so strictly, the TWO that Jesus actually says people should do (and which are echoed throughout the Bible starting with the books of Jewish law) are ignored! I can cite places in three of the Gospels where Jesus tells believers that they should 1) Love God with everything they have and 2) Love their neighbor as their own self. I promise these supreme imperatives, these maha-commandments, given by the Jagadguru of the Christians are entirely lost on them. I’m not enabling. I’m giving to him, in his hour of need, what I would hope to receive in mine. I’m not helping him avoid consequences. I’m just showing him the love I would want to be shown. I’m literally loving him as I love my Self – interestingly this is a point where Hinduism succeeds in combining the two because we know God to be the same as our Self. When I love my God with everything I have the natural result is to love my neighbor as my Self because my Self and My God are nondifferent.

Self-Immolation

I hate to say it, but at this point I’m about sick of this hypocrisy. Lazy Christian devotees, remaining as rigid as ever within their hearts, clearly are asleep behind the wheel. This religion very rarely encourages self-realization, and I guess because of that these believers are bound to have little understanding of what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Perhaps if my Christian brothers, sisters, and dear friends would invest the effort to know even a taste of the Self at their own core and subsequently realize that the very same is sitting as the core essence of others, then this vomit-inducing hypocrisy would lessen in our world and we would all do a little better in this life.

I reposted something to Facebook today that was actually about rape, but the sentiment is applicable here no less. The repost said, “My strength is not for hurting.” I’m given so very much in this life. And I hope to receive about as much, also – at least when I’m in need. And I have tasted the Self within me enough to know clearly that my neighbor is indeed my Self. Miserably, I’m about the best Christian I know.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

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The Elephant in the Room

20131107 was a Thursday. I don’t write about these things very often, but I had an experience during that evening’s puja and when I shared tidbits about it with a friend, I received encouragement that this end up bloggered. So here you have it… To be clear, my daily pujas are REALLY simple. Short and sweet. I think the most the whole ordeal only ever really takes is something around 15-20 minutes. On particularly “holy” days, I do a bit more in terms of worship.

Last night was only different from any normal week night puja in that my home mandir has been newly decorated with some white Xmas lights. I’ve done this before and really enjoy the warm, glowing effect it has on the entire temple room. But that’s not entirely true about last night’s puja only being different because of Xmas lights. Last night was also different because “something” happened. When I mentioned this to my friend, I think I put it in terms of a “visitation” but the closer reality is likely that it was more of a “clarification.”

My home mandir currently

I’m sitting before the mandir like always, doing the ritual like always. I recall a certain point in the process when I almost suddenly felt like I wasn’t alone. My immediate perception was that Shri Ganesh-ji had “arrived” and was in the room with me. Mind you, the beginning of every puja involves an invocation, so technically He’s always present during puja. I call to Him. He arrives. And I worship. This time however, the air in the room felt like it was more occupied than usual.

Toward the end of the puja I spend time in contemplation, dhyana, japa. It was at this time that I felt particularly aware of the room and everything happening in it. The glow from the mandir was pleasant. The asana I had wrapped myself in was hugging. The incense, a recent Diwali gift from my bahin in Atlanta, smelled great. For a very short time I seemed to feel the vibrations from the shlokas and other things intoned during the puja – as if they were reverberating throughout the room still. Then suddenly, and very sweetly, I realized that I wasn’t alone in the room. My first thought was something like, “Whoa-shit! Ganesha’s here big time!” The only form of Ganesha that I actually saw was the Vira-Ganesh murti in my mandir, but I really felt another, far-fuller, Presence.

Some readers are likely entertaining thoughts like, “This kind of stuff is all in his head.” And, I believe, that is the truth. Now, before anyone gets all huffy and puffy on me, let me say that I’m not implying that Ganesh is imaginary. What I intend to say instead is that Ganesh and I are essentially non-different and what I really, truly, and actually felt then was my Self.

I recall Shri Eckhart Tolle telling of a time when he was at his lowest and had grown suicidal. One of the last thoughts he recalls from the moments before he planned to go through with the act was “I cannot live with myself.” Strangely, right then, it dawned on him that there were two entities in that thought. There was first the “myself” that couldn’t be lived with and then there was also the “I” that seemed to be speaking and could no longer tolerate an existence with the “myself.” He questioned right then who was the “I” that couldn’t live with his “myself.” It was then that he realized that there is a component of who he is that isn’t touched by the misery of the “myself” and had grown weary of experiencing that misery.

Some would maybe say that this sounds a little like a schizophrenic break, but the reality is: We are not our mind.

The mind is an immensely powerful thing. And the ego, necessary for functioning in this life, maintains an incredibly close relationship with the mind. One of the results of this relationship is that we begin identifying with our thoughts and consequently believe that we are our mind – or that our thoughts reflect our truest selves. It’s not true.

There’s a saying, which this post is titled after, that mentions “the elephant in the room” and references something not spoken about, but potentially quite obvious. The elephant felt to be in the room with me during the final moments of last night’s puja is That. This elephant could well be called Ganesha. It would just as well be called my Self – the timeless spark of God that lives in each of us. The “I” that lives with “myself.” It’s very much like “the elephant in the room” because it’s not spoken of hardly ever, yet it’s all that there really is. I suppose within the Advaita Hindu view of things, this elephant is in the room and pervades the room, and IS the room. I often am able to separate my mind/ego from who I am – even to the point that I can watch the mind/ego function, and as Tolle says, it’s madness. But it was a blessing and true surprise last night when my Self became the Ganesha my worship was directed at – and that the connection was so complete that “I” filled the room and even surprised my own mind.

The friend who encouraged me to publish a post about the experience, when I initially refused, encouraged me to write – not so much to say, “Look how awesome this was” as to say, “Look what’s out there.” Reader, please know You are what’s out there. You are what’s worshipable. And You are far more awesome than even yourself realizes.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

तांडव

Shiva

20131130. This is the date of the last day I’ll be doing hair, professionally. I’ve been a licensed cosmetologist for most of my adult life. I started hair school only a few weeks before my beloved and I met. I still remember the early days of that education, receiving text messages from him, and smiling. I thought I had been smiling to myself, but it was outwardly obvious enough that it made the gals in my class speculate that I’d met someone new and interrogate me thusly.

Since those days, I have had an interesting career in hair and I find myself smiling more at the mental images of my beloved than at his texts. There were times in my hair career when I made hardly enough income for gas money, let alone student loans, groceries, car payment, phone bill, etc… There were also times when I made enough to do all those necessary things and have had money left over for frivolous things for myself AND spending > $400/month on personal training for my beloved. I encountered people who couldn’t have been pleased had I turned their hairs into spun gold and people who became so loyal to my hairdressing talents that they remained with me virtually my entire career. There have been plenty who made me want to hang my shears up right then and there, and many who have made me feel so honored and valued that the thought of not servicing them – or anyone else – seems painful for me.

But, things change. They must eventually, otherwise they must eventually face death. That will seem peculiar to some, but the truth is: Change is not synonymous with destruction.

I’m far from old, but I’m definitely not as young as I used to be. Heading into my mid-30s, I can already notice an enormous difference between the me I was and the me I am and am becoming. I also recently took a position at work that pays more, but requires more of me. And then there’s school, which not only seems endless but also as I progress in my degree the work is becoming more demanding. The short of it all, is that there simply isn’t enough of me for two jobs, full-time school, and other activities like entertaining the best for game nights and temple stuff.

This has led me to retire from the hair industry entirely. For many years I worked full time hours. Then I entered school, found a different job, and cut my hair hours more than a little. Some time later, I cut my hours even further. Now – well, as of the 30th of this month – I’ll be cutting them entirely. And it’s scary.

It’s scary because I’ll miss it. It’s been a wonderful and creative outlet for me for a number of years and when you work for a technology company and a cancer treatment center you need that kind of outlet. It’s also been a good way for me to hone my people-reading skills. I dare say I’m an expert at it by now – you can’t possibly be someone’s priest, bartender, and psychologist rolled into one body and not walk away without having developed some pretty great and intuitive skills. Having this job has also allowed for spending money and a nearly free gym membership for me and the beloved for the better part of a decade. That will be missed (for now we’re retaining the membership, but it’s no longer free and will cost us more than $100 / month). And those things, all intuitive advancement aside, are mostly superficial. I have known so many interesting and wonderful and horrible people – none of which I’d really ever trade for anything. I’m a different person because of them.

Here’s the real kicker: Holding onto ANY of it, ruins all of it. None of it is mine to keep – whether I step away from the industry or not. None of it. It’s served an immense value in my existence, and hopefully that of many other people. On many levels that value is spent for now. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But whether I love it or not, its not mine to keep. Even my beloved isn’t mine to keep, as painful as that seems to even consider. My household is in for significant change after the end of this month – financially, among other aspects. This is a source of aprehension, but it’s no reason to fear. Nothing about the now is mine to retain, and in fact the beginning of an attempt to retain automatically means suffering and decay. What lessons we can learn from staying present and relinquishing our attachments – which are only ever founded in fear! Be sure of it.

Shiva, Lord of Yogis

There are so many things from this career adventure that I have benefitted from. I can only hope that those I’ve serviced for the last 9+ years have received as much from me as I have from them. If I may, I’d give one last thingto my clients: Any grace that is mine to give, I gladly forward on to you. My very best to you!

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

Good Company

Naga Sadhu

I recently went to my favorite book store, Half Price Books. I have made a promise to myself that I’d frequent the place less because I need clothes currently more than I need books and since I’m not as likely to shop for clothes, this will hopefully help balance me a little as well as eliminate some bills I have, which will in turn contribute to another goal. None of that is actually very relevant right now, though. I went and bought a book ( more than just one actually ) and I wanted to share a bit from it with you.

The title is “In the Company of a Siddha,” and pretty much the whole thing is a series of documented interviews with Swami Muktananda. This lineage, I believe, comes from Kashmir Shaivism and his sect focuses a bit more on the practice of devotees receiving shaktipat from the lineage leaders – gurus who are qualified to bestow that kind of thing. There’s part of an interview between Muktananda and several interviewers from a German (Munich) newspaper called Esslinger Zeitung that I found interesting. I’ll have to double check the book, which isn’t in front of me currently, but I think the interview I’m pointing to took place not much prior to the Baba’s mahasamadhi. Knowing this, I get goose bumps – most people simply never know when someone else’s last moments as they currently are might arrive.

This dance in life is quite literally unstoppable. It is what allows for physical existence. It’s the very process of maturation. And it also serves as the means to transcend our material bonds, allowing for escape from the wheel of death and rebirth. It is supreme and all will have to bow to it at some time or another.

The impermanence of the human lifespan isn’t what I intend to focus on for this post, though. Rather, I want to discuss a little about the impermanence of religion. I think Baba Muktananda’s words in the interview I’ve mentioned do well at expressing what I believe in my heart of hearts. The words are shared immediately below.

EZ: You know the condition of people here in the West. What do you think are the reasons for it? Is religion wrong? Is the church wrong? Is society wrong? What is the cause of it?

BABA: It is hard to say where the fault lies. You cannot say that the fault lies in religion because if it is a true religion it cannot be wrong. If a religion is founded by a great being, it cannot be false. Maybe the followers are at fault. Westerners take a lot of interest in outer pleasures and think there is truth in them. They take very little interest in the inner Self. That is why misery has increased.

EZ: People here who begin to take interest in the inner Self, don’t go back to their old religions. They take interest in the religion and philosophy of the East. What is the reason for this?

BABA: After people take interest in the inner Self, for them orthodox religion is dry. You should understand what religion is. In Sanskrit the word for religion is adhva, which means “a path.” One who has become absorbed in the bliss of the Self no longer takes interest in the path.

EZ: A path is just a means to reach the goal.

BABA: Yes. When you are thirsty, you look for water. After you quench your thirst, you no longer need it. A saint once said, “When my mind has become soaked in the holy river of the heart, why should I take a dip in the Ganges?” In the same way, one who has become immersed in God’s love takes no interest in formal religion.”

Image taken from Google Image search

The dance of life, Shiva’s Tandava Nrtya, that’s mentioned above applies to everything everywhere – including humans and how they rely on religion. From the human perspective this dance is a fine one, indeed! On one hand, humans are encouraged to find within religion and spiritual practices the structure necessary for growth. That growth though, is meant to enable the transcendance of religion, which was itself only ever meant to be a tool. When a tool has served its purpose, it should be placed aside. I think many humans find problems – indeed create additional problems – by remaining ignorant of a tool they possess, possessing improper understanding of that tool’s usage to begin with, and inadequately understanding when to set that tool aside – although the last issue is less of a burden because for some this happens somewhat naturally, depending on what path their maturation has taken.

It’s important for someone to do the homework necessary to remove this kind of ignorance. Hinduism, being an experiential religion, mandates that you can’t simply know or feel. You can’t just read about Truth. Singing and dancing ecstatically will only get you so far. You must make yourself transcend. You must make your path. You can get far on knowing and feeling, but without experience you’ll be missing a big part of the picture.

I would encourage you, dear reader, to exercise your “knowing” and your “feeling” and use that experience to realize Shiva-ji’s Nrtya, His Tandava. Without fear, actively dance in this life. Dance through it. And then, when maturation and karmas coincide, dance beyond it.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti