Growing Home

why use the word conquer?

because if one doesn’t conquer it, it has the power to conquer you- and the ignorance in assuming death is the ignorance of your very self.

In vedanta, mrtyun (death) does not mean physical death because there is nothing like death of the physical body, which never lived, while  atma (unnamable god) never dies.

“... inadvertence or indifference and forgetfulness towards the truth is the real death.”

Indifference is a product of ignorance, normally individuals live in a flow of worldly life (samsara-going after things of the world), identifying with the body this person travels fast towards death. One can reverse this flow of life going only unto those things that die in time and space and re-route the flow of life force (as the Ganges river changes direction at Mt. Kasi- making it a revered place)….towards a striving to know the true nature of the self.

When the student faces the lord, or form of the lord it is a symbolic turning from samsara to the striving for truth alone.

momentous it feels.

Truly like one is at the top of a mountain,

where the river has changed course,

in the brisk air of coming to terms,

with any adversity.

Cracking codes of being and diving into Daksinamurti stotram.

Consider these notes to the student on the basics of the vedas and the structuring of the love therein. (in my perception) But predominantly taken from Swami Tattvaidananda’s Shree Shree “>Dakshinaamurti Stotram of Shree Sankaraacaarya.

dharma: righteous activity (ACTION) and withdrawl from it (action) by KNOWLEDGE (of the self-as free from doership/enjoyership).

The vedas are a ‘repository’ of dharma, divided into 2 sections.

1) karma-kanda: which teaches activity based dharma (also called pravrtti dharma).

2)Atma-dharma or nivrtti dharma: withdrawl or renunciation of actions by knowledge that atma is not the agent of the action.

What happens when dharma (right-action) declines in a society who normally cares for the dharma, and adharma increases?

One viewpoint is that infinite intelligence, or Bhagavan comes forth to create balance. dharma can never be destroyed, it may disappear for periods, but returns in the form of avatars or saints and sages to resurge the dharma of a society and also atma-dharma-maintaing purity and clarity in the teaching traditions.

Seems we may be in the grip of an age of saints. And indeed we are. Every body, every being…rich with self and rich in dharma. It is a vision of the present. A vision of the ever-present atma.

What happens we we become concerned with that which appears in “outside” of ourselves?

Distraction from the potentiality of self-realization in this very moment. My god, what an infinite loss. Imagine the grace of turning that attention back into the reflection of our own minds, even to the sensations of our own bodies…to come to intimately know our given mind-body…that which is nearest to us…

To know the ways of the mind, to watch and let be all the variations of thought and remain un-affected…giving ourselves the space to watch our lives as the dreams that they simulate. Just watch, it’s all passing. The body is dying as we watch it’s perceived solidity. The trees are growing as we watch their perceived stability. The sun is burning as fast fiery gas as we see it constantly round. And yet we base our whole lives on what we see-as if it is reality.

We can see the accommodating grace of space instead. In that moment…and if that moment passed. Then this moment.

Each moment fresh, or we’ll never know the best that life has to offer.

The peace in silence…how sweet the sound.

sat beneath the open sky and watched the moon, remembering it is the light of the sun alone which illuminates its glory.

watched the clouds pass over it creating a rainbow of color, remembering that the wind is the elemental driving the clouds, that the clouds are the water and that I am laying on the earth and the sun is still shining, despite the darkness of the half moon night.

I rest here for the first time since arriving at the ashram. on the ground, where I seem to thrive.

when i am close to the earth and under the open sky- all that remains is a spaciousness that is so full with love and care that i finally let go.

we have begun to study, grazing the surface of the vedas and plunging deeper then I have been in months.

such honesty about the nature of my mind, my motives and the purity of my heart leave me speechless.

we always have so much growth ahead of us. Herein lies the origin of the name “growing-om”. I recall studying with swamiji in bali and that complete surrender to his will/gods will (as they are the same in a realized being) and resting without a doubt in the vision of myself as whole, as the witness of these seen-gone apparitions of this life.

the thought had previously been “growing home”. the idea that all we grow, all we aspire to is just an effort to return to a sense of being at home in ourselves.

as the teaching unfolded, the vision expounded and became “growing-om”. A community forum and connection where we come to acknowledge all that is needed for our growth in the way of sadhana and relating, while owning up the vision that we are that all pervasive intelligence that we call god…that we were previously setting outside of ourselves.

we are growing.
we are om. (at home in our full, beneficent realization of the self).

In this vision I need not look outside for happiness, or change, or love.

When my bhakti becomes a solitary form of bhakti…a love of union with god, oneness…this bhakti ushers in jnana- knowledge of the self. its transformative power burns through my other desires and quite honestly requires a tremendous amount of attention.

Attention is the quality I would most love to cultivate as an offering to myself, my teachers and our oneness as sentient beings.

om.

Words are inadequate and the commitments we make

ride our edges to freedom

just when we think a break from our discipline is needed…

we crash into our identity.

we see where we have yet to see

we begin to feel the immensity of all that we do not know.

ignorance comes to show itself in the strange luminescence of a six minute solar eclipse

i am struck by the thought of sacred sites across india and asia having been covered in darkness at 7:30 last night… as new breathers and I anxiously approached our breath session. I could feel the journey begin. I could feel each moment end.

fresh spring water sprining  is the truth. the rest is carried from the past. our suffering is highlighted. the places we wish to control are broken open and we swim through the identity we have once again become.

the truth is in and through us.

beloved earth, beloved sun, the trees, the birds and all the ones that I love. manfestatations of one…we are bound for glory we are…I send my love. you have my love. the mother of , the mother of all, you are the only one I am in truth related to.

I know i have hurt myself and so i have hurt you. but that is scence and gone.

I know I am the innocence in all. the purity we call…god. and when i allow abusive relating into my life, it is you I abuse and that is what devastates me most. the realization that I am not this body, but this body is god. and it is truly an altar and I had disconnected its sacredness to try and let myself be human…an identity that is just no longer me.

the space between love letters has been vast, but i am back.

I am that. Om nama Shivayah.

 

“Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thought, for thought and feeling dissipate energy. They are repetitive, producing mechanical activities which are a necessary part of existence. But they are only part, and thought and feeling cannot possibly enter into the immensity of life. Quite a different approach is necessary, not the path of habit, association and the known; there must be freedom from these. Meditation is the emptying of the mind of the known. It cannot be done by thought or by the hidden prompting of thought, nor by desire in the form of prayer, nor through the self-effacing hypnotism of words, images, hopes, and vanities. All these have to come to an end, easily, without effort and choice, in the flame of awareness.” *

*J.Krishnamurti

 

My intention for the next step of life is to complete what nuturance serves my soul. Let go. surrender myself to god and let go. Complete what must be completed to step into financial freedom. To live in integrity. to allow. to allow bessings to come and be giving. incredibly generous and loving. to have the courage to open my heart and facilitate. to allow into my life a partner or friends that can see me and help me to see myself, who are interested in my freedom and support me authentically from their hearts to pursue a path of knowledge and love.

My intention for the next cycle is complete healing, complete loving, complete devotion.

My intention for this cycle is clarity in speech, immpecability in action and courage to create and share my art.

My intention in its most refined form is to embody love, share my gifts freely and recieve all that I NEED. not all that i want, but all that I need to be free and be the buddha i am.

Aho! Om namah shivayah.

 

“Jenna Devi you are Laksmi here now!”

Just a remembering the absolute fullness of here and now. All that is needed, streaming in, supporting me to own up reality and be love. When I am connected to the subtle, delicacy that is humility and service the power of all flows through me. Letting go of all notions of wealth and replacing those with a clear understanding that I am money. I need not ask for what I already am! I choose to recieve the blessings. I choose to recieve the abundant grace of the universe. I am abundance itself, forging dharmic pathways through the rivers of humanity, of the blessing of all beings.

I saw greed and I felt ill and I chose to let go. Let go. Let go. I say what I want-not to say, what is uncomfortable to say and move on…into the total acceptance of myself as I am. Aware of the present gift of every moment, seeing my conditioning and letting it go. Not needing to drop into that old world view.

Imminent and transcendent is god. In every “gross” emotion, every aversion and signpost on the path. There is devi laksmi, sharing her wealth of Isvara, calling us home.

om.

i am money. i am money. i am money.

i am abundance. i am abundance. i am abundance.

3 things i have an abundance of…visions, seeds and vocal notes.

i am all that i am searching for.

i am already free, regardless of this apparent search for truth.

puncturing the veils of my own ignorance, offering non-resistence to my resistence I open and open and open like a flower. john says, i am a flower. and he is right and i am not afraid to see the beauty in me, the beauty in you.

the beauty we envibe when we are simply living, not for ourselves, but simply awake to the vibrant life prana that keeps us breathing in the first place!

yours truly,

laksmi prolific

You do not have to be good.

ou do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours,  and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the praries and deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

***As geese and swans symbolize the highest knowledge we read the medicine signs and see how we are embarking upon the last leg of our journey home, this season.

Unlocking  the sentience in being.

Feeling the waves crash within the body

ebbing and flowing, I stay and you are.

This Unconditional Love sews our pieces of the universe together

all that is un said, need not said, is the deepest most succulent relating.

and it truly is imminent and transcendent.

Such a suprise when my love intercepts and catches my desires.

I am left with a tingency of trying to order this life.

I watch that I do not disturb the eqilibrium of our dance,

as in truth it is not ours.

the peace in being near is far more dear then anything I might try to gain

from another.

Hearts are keys that open and encode the love in being.

And if this is the glory of relating,

 then let it be so beautiful,

moment to moment

each breath

fresh.

Heart Keys on sleeves when we move and shake the world.

watched raindrops on water

and saw the delicacy and assurance in their movement.

droped from a birthing cloud

dead upon arrival.

the play of birth and death continues.

she rises again to meet the molecules in space and

white clouds are.

quite delicate indeed.

Join us at an Off-Grid Sanctuary for Retreat.

 

This 4 day retreat in Kipahulu, Maui is fusing sadhanas of:

TRANSFORMATIONAL BREATHING

VIBRANT LIVING FOOD NUTRITION

ESTATIC DANCE

YOGA

MEDITATION & CHANT

For a truly integrated, yet simplistic way of walking the path that leads to self-realization.

We are drawing the thread of witness awareness through the entire retreat. Using Maunam, sacred silence, to assist in droping our false idenitfications of self we will come together to explore our fullness of being.

We will experience the power of being supported by community in letting go of false identity. All sadhanas are designed to help awaken cosmic memory of the origin and truth of the self. Our vision is to encourage and support a cognitive shift from separation to a non-dual reality of Oneness. The reason then for practicing such sadhanas as living food nutrition, dance and transformational breath are simply to help dislodge and release mental, emotional  and spiritual patterns that keep us in ignorance of the absolute fullness of the self.

We know that the power behind this clarity of purpose for engaging in retreat opens countless pathways for insight.

Please join us  if you feel called to collaborate in this movement for self-realization.

Let us come together in celebration, as we are already free!

Om shanti.

Visit www.JourneyingHeart.Com for details and registration

or contact Jenna McDonald @ 425-894-4355

she drinks the tao from my palms.

I had forgotten to step towards her eons of pain.

I wish to tell her even the buddha suffered tremendously before the lightness of being emancipated his heart.

But she can’t stay around long enough to listen. she can’t stay at all. I should have know she’d slip through my grip, as all things do.  lately it has been in slow motion. watching the scenes of life disappear into thin air. gone. all that was, gone. mothers just as transient as past lovers. 

absolutely, inevitably impermanent are all things. i know this to be true. why then do I chase after the memories of pleasure? 

I see a man in meditation, in reflection of the self , and I am brought to tears. bhakti shines as love without manipulation. love in its purest form. in devotion of what is present.

prayers to love. fully, honestly, deeply. unattached.

I envision you with flowers to your heart, unravelling the lifetimes of grasping. I see your pain and I am not scared. I am here now.

offering non-resistence to our resistence we grow.