Eric Stoneberg

Dhumavati: The Widow Goddess

Thu, 26 May 2011 15:25:00 -0400

Let’s just say I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I had spent several concentrated days writing, in detail, about all of the moments in my life that have haunted me. Why on earth would anyone do this? Well, hopefully to map the patterns of thought, reaction and behavior that have created my life’s experience. I’ve been diving into this kind of reflective work alongside fellow seekers and yoga colleagues with The Handel Group for the past several months. And this is part of their process of “getting at the truth of one’s life.” The truth of one’s life is of course always subject to change. Just like the truth of college textbooks gets revised year after year. What I’m really investigating with Handel is the myth of my life. The story I’ve been telling that sometimes empowers and enriches me, and sometimes – often – leaves me feeling victimized by my choices.

In yoga speak, all of life is recursive. We humans do the same things over and over and over again. When these patterns are problematic, yoga traditions call that samsara. Traditionally samsara is described as a grand pattern of death and rebirth but really it’s anything you do over and over that’s not so good for you. Recently a student said to me, “I just broke up with another boyfriend. I keep dating the same guy. And he’s my father.” Yeah. Like that. One solution to samsara is anusara, that is to flow WITH the currents of life gracefully. And to do THAT, ya really gotta map it out. Know the ebbs and flows of your own life. See the recursive patterns objectively. Not always a fun inquiry.

With Handel, that process of mapping really stirs up some shit. But this goes hand in hand with walking the spiritual path. Seekers who long to stand in the company of the truth know that THE TRUTH (cue wah-wah horn!) does one of three things. It soothes you, it expands you, and/or it churns the living crap out of you. Many of my most potent hauntings occurred when I was about 7 years old. To recognize that 30 years later I still like to process a good deal of my life like a 7 year old was both an exhilarating and confounding recognition. Some seriously bad shit went down with me at 7. No wonder I was having such a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I picked up my son that day from his gymnastics class and boy he was so full of vitality and joy, the complete opposite of his gloomy papa. At the end of class he was gifted a bright orange helium balloon and as we walked toward the subway he regaled me with buoyant, bouncing chitter chater and tales of daring from the balance beam. As we walked along I gave myself an energetic bitch slap, “Snap out of your fuckin funk! There’s a delightful spirit holding your hand in fact who wants nothing more than your loving attention and praise.” And yet I continued to frown, vaguely voicing some “hmmms? and “uh-o’s!” as I plodded along next to my vivacious 4 year old.

Earlier that day, I had cultivated a relationship with Dhumavati as part of my morning meditation practice. Dhumavati is one of the 10 Great Wisdom Goddesses, or Dashamahavidya. She is the widow goddess, the smoke goddess, and is sometimes depicted sitting in a cart without a horse. The widow character in the Indian imagination is often a woman stuck with nowhere to go. She keeps the company of black crows. Crows, always a marker of the inauspicious, are also clever creatures who know how to feast on unviable leftovers. Leftover food in ancient (or even contemporary) India – yuck. Probably not digestible and best avoided. Her energy and power takes the inauspicious and turns it into something of sanctity. The leftover, inauspicious moments of our life can be made sacred by this Dhumavati. The resonance of those terrible things that happened to us as 7 year olds can harden us – or with Dhumavati’s help they can become transmuted as memory. Instead of calloused scars, the inauspicious can be made into a form like smoke – something that lingers on our clothing after a fire, there and not there. Dhumavati carries a winnowing basket. Not every memory is as valuable as every other one – and so she helps us winnow out those nuggets worth investigating and reflecting upon more deeply.

My meditation practice with Dhumavati that morning was entirely forgettable. I worked with her mantras a bit. I asked half-heartedly for some healing insight having to do with the churning memories I had unearthed. And is often the case with mantra, not much happened. Until later.

As we approached Central Park West a sudden apparition appeared from around the corner, literally like a puff of smoke. An ancient dweller of the Upper West Side, she was dressed in a tattered cherry red cloche and thick, well worn brocade coat dress. Her eyes bulged like Barbara Bush’s in the cold spring wind and she secured her footing with a carved ebony cane and very practical old lady shoes. Dhumavati! Jasper and I practically crashed into her. Upon seeing his orange balloon her ghastly visage softened into something like jubilation. And she began to talk to us like we were long lost close neighbors in need of a pot of tea. She was obviously confused and insisted that we lived a few doors down the block. (I wish! It was a block of grand old townhomes off the park.) When I explained that we were just walking to the subway she told me that New York City was the best place in the world to raise a family, that she had done just that with great success in the very townhouse we were perched in front of, and that I must not listen to anyone who says otherwise. Yeah, I kinda really needed to hear that at that exact moment.

We chatted a bit more as one might with an alzheimer’s patient, answering her uneven questions on a variety of topics like the weather and blossoming trees. Then as we were walking away she touched my arm and as I remember it said with great gusto, “You know, once I ran into a little boy in Central Park with a balloon and he and I talked for quite some time. When I walked away another young man ran up to me and insisted that I go out with him for a drink. I said, no absolutely not, I cannot go with a strange man to a bar in the middle of the afternoon. He said that he had just listened to my conversation with the boy with the balloon and that he very much liked the way I was with him and that he liked balloons too and that we must go out for a drink that very afternoon. Would you believe, that man turned out to be my husband and the absolute love of my life?”

As she spoke this last sentence we both wept a stream of silent tears as Jasper looked on in silence with his orange balloon bobbing in the wind. This widow goddess of West 77^th Street had cracked me out of my funk. She shared a story of daring connection. When we risk creating authentic connections with others, as she had all those years ago with the boy with the balloon, we create a circuitry that inspires more connection, more engagement - one that may even draw us toward the love of our life. In that moment of connection with this 77^th Street widow goddess I learned that so many of those hauntings I had written about from age 7 all had a similar theme – I felt wronged by some authority and then didn’t speak up about it. I isolated myself, disconnected from a greater conversation. My silence gave me permission to be a victim of circumstances beyond my control. And I’ve played out variations on that theme again and again and again. Dhumavati takes the inauspicious, the unwanted, and gives it a home. Even our most undesirable memories must find a home in us. The question of this wisdom goddess then becomes, are we going to calcify those unwanted haunts from the past or are we willing to burn them through the processes of reflection?

I’m so grateful for the investment I’ve made getting to know the gods I love and treasure over the past decade or so. They are not merely interesting pictures, they are powerful energies we can access for the sake of a richer and more artful life experience. Dhumavati provided me a simple lesson. Instead of silence, speak up. Connect. Be daring. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The gods of yoga give us powerful and evocative tools with which to reflect. And heal. Dhumavati is just one of an infinite set of these powerful energies that we can endeavor to draw into our minds and hearts. To know the gods of yoga is to sit in conversation with greatness. And truth. May we enter those currents with grace and gratitude and a longing to know ourselves as the divinity we already are. Their power has a potential to crack us out of ourselves in ways that surprise and delight us. May we emerge with a capacity to flow with grace. And get better at doing those things we do over and over again.

Chinnamasta: Self-Decapitating Goddess

Thu, 26 May 2011 15:23:00 -0400

written originally April 10, 2011, revised and posted April 28

This afternoon my home was filled with a brilliant constellation of yogis who came over for an Indian lunch and teachings drawn forth from my tantric lineage of Sri Vidya, or Auspicious Wisdom. My wife and I have come to celebrate this monthly ritual as a time to seriously tidy up the house - I get down and dirty with my toilet bowl for a deep, deep clean. We also prepare by immersing ourselves with extra dedication in the days prior to these Sundays in the contemplative practices of mantra we’ve come to love over many years of dedicated study. This weekend’s topic was Chinnamasta, the Self-Decapitating Goddess. Always a crazy, sexy, cool topic for yogic inquiry. I’ve been pretty obsessed with Chinnamasta of late.

I’ve written about her before here on this blog, but to summarize – she stands for the capacity to self-reflect so sharply, so profoundly, that she is no longer willing to listen to old, limiting beliefs. She has given herself permission to move beyond her ordinary thoughts and instead affirms the inherent power inside her so radically that she’s willing to cut off her own head to drink it up. Yum.

We spent a lot of time this afternoon digesting not only our lunches, but more than a little technical history of tantric thought as it’s evolved in time. Chinnamasta is an important character for the Shakta (Goddess) lineages of tantra because she proposes a vision of empowerment that happens from the inside out. Traditionally, Shaktipat is defined as the “descent of power” and a process of initiation by which a guru empowers a disciple’s spiritual practice. Chinnamasta radically subverts that traditional approach. Instead she embodies a process by which one relies not on an outsider or guru for such a gift, but rather, one’s own power of self-inquiry and self-reflection. The sword with which she removes her own head is that blade of inquiry. Chopping off her very own head is not a violent, injurious act; but rather an outcome of desire and self-permission. My teacher Douglas has said about her, “We all feel things profoundly and deeply and Chinnamasta is that presence in us – the desire and permission to experience the whole of ourselves. She is the longing we all have to imbibe the power of our own direct experience.”

The weapon she uses makes a horizontal cut. In this way the flow of her power swings laterally along the horizon. And so she is a powerful representation of flow and movement for the information age. I have come to reflect on my own life so much more clearly over the past few years because I’ve been reading blogs and other material written by a community of fellow seekers. To read about someone else’s insights is a lateral process of discovery. I don’t have to get privileged access to a singular being who has all the answers. The community itself is the power - and the process of reading and reflecting moves across a horizon of ever-expanding knowledge. That lateral swing then gives me access to my own power. And I get to imbibe the resonance of my own direct experience through someone else’s writing- often in the form of a silly or snarky quip that is a friend’s status update!

So what happens when a group of seekers come together in person to meditate on such an energy? In Shakta lineages, the “guru” is not a single solitary figure who dispenses spiritual power. Instead, the community of seekers itself is the guru. As I’ve already described it above, this is a great model for our time. Shaktipat is then not the thing we get, but the thing we come together to have - and share. Rather than going to a guru to get an initiation, we come together to have an experience, to share. I taught today’s group Chinnamasta’s bija mantra as it was passed to me. And then we sat and breathed and closed our eyes and took it to heart.

Lately I’ve been cueing my students to ask the particular form of deity we’re exploring in meditation, “What do I need to know from you today?” “What insight would be valuable for me at this moment?” In my own practice I’ve discovered that going into meditation, particularly deity meditation, becomes more fruitful with an open question such as this. The more we do not know, the more we can know. Ask and you shall receive. And so, having spent several minutes entering the Chinnamasta bandwidth so to speak, we asked this question, “Chinnamasta, what would you like to share with me today?” A few seconds later, a jazz saxophonist literally started to blow his horn right outside my house. It sounded like he made a home for his music on my front stoop. Now, I do live in Sugar Hill, Harlem, a neighborhood in which most of the most famous jazz musicians of NYC live or have lived. But the timing of his play was pretty uncanny and I can’t remember a time when a street musician took up residence directly on my stoop. (Or maybe it was a she? I always think of sax players as men, but soulful Lisa Simpson subverts that expectation nicely.) So this sax player moved through a wild riff of explosive notes - some pretty, some vulgar – and then culminated with a rendition of “Summertime.” Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

The cool thing about this message from Chinnamasta is that we all got to interpret it personally. And yet the experience was collective and communal. And likely would not have happened had we not come together for the purpose of exploring this Chinnamasta this afternoon. For me, the song represents hope. And play. In my wildest dreams I could never have predicted that Chinnamasta would reveal her message in this way. Mantra can be like that if you want it to be, a playful unfolding in which anything can happen for no reason. When I hear Summertime, I am instantly transported to a good feeling. That musician just played her horn with no concern for technique or perfection or getting it right. Her riff sounded, interestingly, like one who deeply wanted to imbibe the power of a direct experience. The riffs at times were a mess, squaky and uneven. But there was also an ecstatic rendition of an American standard. And perhaps a message foreshadowing events for a brilliant summer 2011? Yes, I should think so.

Summertime,

And the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’

And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich

And your mamma’s good lookin’

So hush little baby

Don’t you cry

One of these mornings

You’re going to rise up singing

Then you’ll spread your wings

And you’ll take to the sky

But till that morning

There’s a’nothing can harm you

With daddy and mamma standing by

Summertime,

And the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’

And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich

And your mamma’s good lookin’

So hush little baby

Don’t you cry

Join me in Sugar Hill for another Sunday of good company, tantric philosophy, mantra meditation and lunch. Mother’s Day, May 8. We’ll explore Lalita Tripura Sundari, the ultimate Mama. RSVP to easnyc@gmail.com

Bagalamukhi: The Paralyzer

Thu, 26 May 2011 15:18:31 -0400

Starting sometime last Fall, my friend and colleague (and bonus! close neighbor) Siri Peterson and I became pretty much obsessed with the ten great wisdom goddesses, or Dashamahavidya. We read as much as we could and poured through our notebooks on the subject, having spent considerable hours studying the ten great ones with both Douglas Brooks and Sally Kempton. And then we took a group of adventurous students with us to Nicaragua for a surfing and yoga retreat this past February and used this set of ten shaktis as a thematic point of departure from which to explore our week in Central America. I loved it all. And from Siri I learned how to invest in these energies profoundly in an experiential classroom setting. She didn’t just talk about these goddesses. She BECAME them. Her moonlight asana class on Kali (in which we sat dangling our legs off the edge of a 70 foot yoga deck in the dark) remains one of my favorite classes of all time. It’s fun to invest oneself in these energies, these powers – because that investment yields not only the feeling of an enhanced reflective capacity but also artful, evocative experiences. And that’s the whole point of yoga - to love your life - as art.

As I prepare for my next retreat to Peru this summer I’m particularly drawn to Bagalamukhi, the crane-headed goddess. She is thought to be one of the great healers among the set of Dashamahavidya. With the head of a crane she signals the long and narrow passageway of time that often passes between the head and the heart in the process of healing. While we may have reconciled the past in our minds (with whatever tools and coping techniques we had available to us at the time) there is often a long gap between those turnings of our mind and our heart’s healing. Bagalamukhi is the permission we can give ourselves to cultivate this healing through a narrow passage of thought and feeling.

Half bird, half human images also appear in the mythic consciousness of the Indian imagination in the form of the gandharvas. The gandharvas are a rabble of sexy characters closely associated with Lord Skanda, Shiva’s peacock riding son, who keeps their close company. Included among the crew of gandharvas are bird-headed men who are the physicians to the gods. Intriguing to me are the human/bird characters who are at the forefront of the indigenous healing traditions of Central and South America. There is some way in which ancient, shamanistic healing traditions assume some bridge between worlds in the process of deep healing - and these bird creatures are the intermediaries between the human and celestial realms.

Bagalamukhi is called “The Paralyzer.” This delicate, crane-headed character often wields a club, a hefty blunt weapon like a baseball bat somewhat incommensurate with a delicate bird. She uses her club to nail down the tongues of demons, thereby paralyzing them and basically forcing them to shut the F up. Lately I’ve been thinking that this energy may be a key ingredient to our personal healing, especially those wounds that haunt us in the form of the stories we continue to tell ourselves about our past.

Here’s an example. When I was in 3^rd grade, I started playing the violin in school. I don’t remember choosing the instrument – I think my parents inherited a violin from another relative; and thus I began a hand-me-down musical career. I HATED practicing and playing that damn thing. My violin teacher, let’s call her Ms K, was a morbidly obese, mad, screaming witch. She was the first adult I remember (who wasn’t my parent) to yell and scream at me at the top of her lungs - and I was terrified of her. But not so terrified that she scared me into actually practicing. Instead I channeled my creative practice into imagining all of the ways I might kill this woman. My favorite method was to pretend that by taping needles to the end of my bow I could pop and deflate her and she’d sink to the ground like the Wicked Witch of the West. I can’t even remember all of the other ways we must have tortured this woman, but I know that I was MEAN.

During the final concert of the year, the culmination of our tortuous year together, Ms K put me in the back row along with a few others and said to us, “Don’t play. Fake it.” What an awful, terrible woman! How dare she! I was devastated and embarrassed. Now I had a perfect story in my arsenal to prove what a wicked witch she was. And I got to play the role of the virtuous victim, forever degraded by a grown up who should’ve known better. From the raw ingredients of this moment I also got to have an excuse why I suck at music. “My teacher told me I sucke and put me in the back row and told me not to play.” The real truth is, I hated violin and I didn’t put in the work I would’ve needed to in order to play in that concert. Some further research into the subject of Ms K has revealed to me that she was literally jilted, left at the altar just a short time before she began attempting to teach me the violin. No wonder she yelled at us so much! She was in pain. And she had a bunch of little monsters constantly reminding her just how mean and cruel boys can be.

Just the other day, when I wanted to belt out the lyrics to the new Lady Gaga anthem that I had on top volume during a plyometric cardio workout I hesitated - even though I was all alone. “Don’t sing out loud, you’re a terrible musician, just listen.” Two seconds later I called forth the power of Bagalamukhi. “Shut the F up! Nail down that demon!” It’s been years and years that I’ve been telling myself that story, “You’re not good enough. Fake it in the back row. Don’t play.” Man! I’m done with that shit. In order to BE done though, I need to remember to get out the club every time I put myself in that back row. It’s a process to be sure. Every day I need to get out that darn club, sometimes in the area of music, but also every time I lie to myself “I’m not good enough.” It’s been 28 years of that same old story, a long time between the way my 3^rd grade mind processed a perceived abuse with Ms K, and my heart’s healing.

If anyone has ever told YOU not to play (and because you’re human I’m sure that someone has at some point, if not in music then in some other arena) do yourself a favor. Get out a club. Pin down that demon. Tell it to shut the F up. And then sing along with Gaga:

Whether life’s disabilities

Left you outcast, bullied or teased

Rejoice and love yourself today

‘Cause Baby you were born this way

PS – Would someone hook me up with Lady Gaga’s creative team so that I can teach her all about the wondrous tantric visions of the Divine Feminine? I’d love to see Bagalamukhi make an evocative appearance in Madison Square Garden. And I want a front row seat to sing along.

Thursday Moon : CHITRA NITYA

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:18:57 -0500

Chitra : “Multi - Colored” - Distinctive among the set with silken garments of diverse and variegated colors to remind us that the world is full of difference, but never seperate. The goal of our yoga is to revel in diversity. Chitra is another word for FICTION. Art deliberately distorts life. May you receive your life as ART. You are the artistic expression of the Divine, so express your humanity - your divinity - as art. Be the author of your own life. You’re always authoring, whether you know it or not. And so tell a grand tale. Keep good company. Wax and wane with your own reflective process. Express beauty in whatever diverse, multi-hued way you choose!

I leave tomorrow for Nicaragua with a brilliant crew of yogic seekers & adventurers. And so ends our Nitya cycle. May the rest of your February be super duper FANCY.

Wednesday Moon : Jvalamalini Nitya

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:44:00 -0500

Jvalamalini : “Garland of Flames” - This Goddess of dreaming repose is evoked on or near water, and carries among her treasures a turtle. The turtle, for a tantric yogi, stands for one’s capacity, desire and commitment to meditate. Not withdrawn from the world, the meditator draws in to the worlds within. The yoga for such a person then looks patient, forbearing and self-contained. The inward-turning yogi is protected by her or his practice, like the turtle who draws in to her shell. She is a garland of flames because her inward turning practices have given her, in time, a capacity to express herself authentically. Her heart’s expression is like a garland of flames. The purpose of meditation is not to get better at meditation, but to bring that reflective power into waking consciousness, to be a lucid dreamer of one’s waking life.

“Love the life.”

Tuesday Moon : SARVAMANGALA NITYA

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 13:47:24 -0500

SARVAMANGALA : “All - Auspicious” - Decked in rubies, the sun (Surya) sits to her left, the moon (Soma) to her right, and she is lit up from within as well as from the fire (Agni) that sits behind her. Her forgiving eyes are distinctive - one is like sun, the other, moon - and both are filled with compassion. She confers KECHERI, the feeling of moving freely in the vault of the sky. She is an expansive, unencumbered moment. Sitting up after loveplay, you see all the world auspiciously because everyone you meet belongs to some clan, some kula - perhaps even yours.

Valentine's Moon : VIJAYA NITYA

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 01:32:00 -0500

Vijaya : “Slice of Victory” - This slice of win is easy, breezy contentment. This Goddess of repose is traditionally seen seated on a big, satisfied, yawning lion. Repose is living IN the experience of contentment. To BE content with the life you have and choices you’ve made isn’t always easy. This is a much, much more complex practice than falling in love. Vijaya here is every small, successful encounter that more deeply invites us to revel in relationship. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Sunday Moon : NILAPATAKA NITYA

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:31:00 -0500

NILAPATAKA : “Falling into the Blue” - Bedecked in diamonds and blue sapphires, dripping with pearls, she is the moment immediately following ecstatic release. To see through her eyes is to experience your waking life like a lucid dream. And lucid dreamers get to experience the creative power of shaping their truth.

The TRUTH is more pliable in dreams (I can fly!) than we tend to experience in our waking life. And what is a truth in waking consciousness but a belief we repeat over and over to ourselves again and again? Are you telling yourself the same old, mundane story? Or are you authoring your life and creating its truth? (You’re always doing this actually, so you may as well do it on purpose, reflectively, with power - in the cool blue of repose.)

What if your waking life could be a lucid dream? To both have your experience and shape it at the same time, in every breath? To enjoy such a life would be to invest deeply in the yoga of Rasa, the engagement of the essential flows of human feeling. Nilapataka carries among her weapons a dart, or missle. Any mark you hit can be a focal point for exploration: you are free to bring your ecstacy into the world any place where you land that dart.

The Nitya Shoashi Tantra says that devotion to this Goddess brings to devotees “a capacity to see through walls and travel vast distances instantly!” Sounds like quite the Soverign Queen of the Information Age.

Saturday Moon : NITYA NITYA

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 10:23:24 -0500

NITYA : “Forever, Eternal” - This 10th night of the Moon Goddess sadhana brings us to a moment of climax - looking up you’ll see she’s well more than half way to full. The French call this moment “Le Petit Mort” - the little death. Orgasmic moments are forever, which is both ironic and true. This Goddess carries a trident and skull, instruments usually associated with Shiva. She’s become more powerful than him and controls all moving bodies while presiding in all parts of you. In death, you will return to the eternal source from whence you came - ecstatic, pulsating, blissful and true. The beauty of embodiment is savoring THAT experience IN a body. Tonight’s practice : orgasm. It’s Saturday night, so what are you waiting for?

Friday Moon : KULASUNDARI NITYA

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 01:15:00 -0500

KULASUNDARI : “Embedded” - The Moon Goddess this night carries among her instruments a golden pen, like a stylus. She records the moment by etching it in to a book of memories. She chronicles the beauty of being together.

A nice practice this night: take stock of the most important relationships in your life. What are some of the traits you value in your sweetheart, or other close company? Celebrate beauty by calling to mind what is affirming and good.

Thursday Moon : TVARITA NITYA

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 09:20:00 -0500

TVARITA : “With Quickness” - This goddess is surrounded by lions, tigers, bears and monkeys who growl and roar and scream. Be in he throes of your desire. Get real, get primal. Fearless and receptive, do what you love without faking it.

Wednesday Moon : Shivaduti Nitya

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 19:24:03 -0500

Shivaduti : “Shiva’s Messenger” - Surrounded by Rishis who sing her praises, she’s as bright as the midday sun in summer and has a message for you: “Everything you need to live a beautiful life is already present inside you.” She’s known to inspire smokers to quit by wielding a particular favorite instrument, the double sided axe: “This could hurt me as much as it hurts you.”

Tuesday Moon : Vajeshwari Nitya

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 01:36:00 -0500

Vajeshwari : “Lightning Bolt” - Wearing red ornaments, emanating red ruby color - her eyes are bloodshot and sway like red wine. She sits on a throne which is on a triangle on a hexagon on lotuses on a golden raft floating on an ocean of blood. (That’s quite an evocation of the female anatomy.) According to the Nitya Tantra, “When you’re with Vajeshwari all your troubles disappear.” She is lightning in a bottle and stands for the deepest engagement of play. Entering Vajeshwari is an act of fun, done for the sake of itself, because you can, because it feels good. Strike into the womb of LILA like lightning. Life is for play, not for attainment. You are here to love the life. You are the muse you seek. Let’s dance, baby.

Monday Moon : Vahnivasini Nitya

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 01:19:00 -0500

Vahnivasini : “Dwelling as Fire” - She shines with the beauty of eternal youth and is dressed in yellow silk. This Goddess, forever young, projects the energies of her desire - her power causes others to act. When you have the feeling that you’re ready to set the world on fire, you’re dwelling as Vahnivasini. If you can set the world on fire, please do.

Sunday Moon : Bherunda Nitya

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:16:00 -0500

Bherunda : “Molten Gold” - No longer just wet (see yesterday) now you’re HOT. Not a soft smile, but one that’s lit up - and golden. This goddess is always naked except for her gold jewelry. She is important among the medicine traditions of Ayurveda because she is also a dissolver of poisons - fear and shame are dissolved by her nakedness. Authenticity is exposure. And when we expose ourselves, we tend to think we’re more vulnerable. Not so, says Bherunda. In fact, among the Nityas, this one has marvelous extra weaponry. Among her many possessions is a shield made of song - she knows what to sing to herself to protect herself. She carries a discus, a spinning weapon for social networking; and a thunderbolt - throw your power playfully and see where it lands!

Saturday Moon : Klinna Nitya

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:00:00 -0500

Saturday Moon Goddess : Klinna - “Always Wet” - With beads of sweat glistening on her forehead like pearls, she stands for the intoxication we feel when inner states pour out from beneath the surface. She is every example of love that exudes, like when you see your Beloved, or your child - you exude. It’s been a wet and rainy day in New York City every time I’ve written about Klinna! And today is no exception.

At this third night of the seduction, the goddess becomes irresisible. When you achive Klinna in your own experience, YOU are irrisistible. Klinna is traditionally described as surrounded by hundreds of other shaktis. Even as I write this late on a Saturday evening, there are likely hundreds of girls in New York watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first or five hundredth time. Holly Golightly is THAT irresistible force of nature, always and forever surrounded by Shaktis who know that “there are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion.”

Friday Moon : Bhagamalani Nitya

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:16:00 -0500

Bhagamalini : “Flourishing Garland” - The midline between action and play is right now. Take advantage of that opening now, you’ll surely recognize that it was there, later. You’re never without a capacity to flourish, and that inherent gift is seductive - it draws goodness to you. And that goodness becomes like a daisy chain for more. If, that is, you choose to receive it and then wear it as your life experience.

This goddess carries among her possessions a blue lotus, and so blooms in moonlight. Hidden inside us all are moments of opening we often fail to recognize. You are the fertile opportunity you seek. Enter into a reflective process. You are not alone, you can choose to keep the company of greatness. And It can Happen in One Night.

New Moon : Kameshwari Nitya

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:52:00 -0500

Tonight is the New Moon. And because February is the shortest month of the year that often feels like the longest, I’ve decided to follow the moon cycle of 15 Nityas again. Following this particular cycle in the past has made me more reflective about where I am and where I would like to go in my life. Good contemplative roadmap for winter. This’ll also be an awesome build-up to the yoga retreat I’m hosting in Nicaragua later this month! And it will also make February more… Fancy. And February, for some folks I know, is literally known as “Fancy.” So here’s my fancy offering. And like all of the lists of Goddesses I’ve begun to elaborate here on Tumblr, this list is also a PROCESS of reflection. A map for generative receptivity. And one that literally follows the moon!

Let’s begin with tonight’s Goddess, Kameshwari:

Kameshwari Nitya : “Empowering Desire” - Her eyes are flirtatious and receptive. Rather than seizing upon her desire she is willing to receive it: not in a state of “getting” but rather allowing. Whatever you desire empowers you when that desire is who you become. Among her possessions is a cup of liquid gems, desires identified - but still moving and pliable. Her other hand is outstretched in a state that is both offering and receiving. The outstretched, empty palm is willing to receive more than what’s already been identified. She is a first taste of seduction. “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”

Chinnamasta, the Self-Decapitating Goddess

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:19:13 -0500

CHINNAMASTA, the self-decapitating Goddess, is wildly evocative - as you can see! She is likely one of THE most overtly outrageous forms of divinity conjured by the Indian mind. And she is very important to Shaktas of my lineage because she stands for the empowerment of radical affirmation. She, together with Akhilandeshwari, are important SHAKTIPAT Goddesses.

Ok, so what the heck is shaktipat? Georg Feuerstein nicely defines it in his essential book The Yoga Tradition : “descent of power” and the process of inititation, usually in Tantric contexts, by which a guru empowers the disciple’s spiritual practice.

A shaktipat experience can be just that, a gift from a guru. Or also any moment in which one feels cracked open by the power of the Universe. The birth of my son Jasper springs immediately to mind. His first cry pierced me to my core and unleashed a flood of tears and joy heretofore unknown. It was awesome. We’ve all had potent moments like this – a rush of good feeling that forever alters our molecular structure for the better. I spent a lot of time in my 20s looking for this kind of feeling with drugs. Then I discovered yoga and I realized that the only problem with drugs is that they don’t get us high enough! There are worlds of power and good feeling within us, we need only learn how to ask for and receive them.

I’m going to now briefly, broadly and flippantly divide tantric yoga into two general camps of thought, insight and practice. The first I’ll describe as a “male-encoded camp.” What does male-encoded yoga look like? Well, it might tend to have a one-pointed focus and goal. “Men only want one thing, and they’re all led by their fucking penis.” Or so said a girlfriend of mine long ago and far away. I have a penis. I love it. It craves satisfaction ALL the time. The deep engagement of my penile yoga moves in one direction. Up and up - and out. The dominant language of this yoga often describes goals of “reunion” and “ascent.” The engagement of a male-encoded yoga moves ever upward. What is the promise of most yoga workshop descriptions you read? Most of ‘em say, “Take it to the next level!” (If you’re familiar with the Tattvas think of their usual presentation. They tend to be described like a ladder of ever-heightened aspiration.) This is classic penis yoga. It’s very valuable stuff. May we all ascend in consciousness. These traditions tend to be dominant voices of tantric yoga in this country. I love them. But they’re just one half of the story.

Feurstein’s definition above describes shaktipat from this male-encoded perspective. It’s like this. “Hey honey, I have something big to show you. Let me stick it to you right now.” I’m sorry to be so vulgar. (Not really, it gets the point across quickly.) The classic definition of shaktipat above describes an EXTERNAL source who pierces the seeker’s consciousness so that s/he might achieve new levels of spiritual insight. The direction of power is from the OUTSIDE, IN. Please tell me you get it. It couldn’t be more obvious. Even if the guru is a woman, the direction of power flows outside, in. This is a “male encoded” process of penetration, ascent, reunion.

It is also one of the dominant modes of spiritual engagement across the board for The Piscean Age. The past few thousand years - the Age of Pisces - have been an era of spiritual exploration from the outside, in. This was the age of the Guru, of the Buddha, of Christ, of Mohammed, of burning bushes and various other intermediaries. The hallmark of the era describes singular beings come to save us from ourselves. Most New Agers agree : that era is over, or will be soon. It is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius! The age of the water-bearer promises a broader concept of spiritual growth on this planet, one that flows from the INSIDE, OUT.

The second camp of tantric adepts are the Shaktas. These are the Goddess lineages I’ve been reared in and so yes, I think they present a fantastic model for inquiry and engagement. They also describe a process of yoga very much aligned with the Aquarian Era, an INSIDE OUT yoga. The cool thing about the shaktas is that we INCLUDE all of the male encoded practices of ascent and aspiration that came before us - and we have MORE technology. Everything is held in the Goddess. In a very fundamental way it’s like this - women can give birth to men OR to women. And a man simply can’t give birth. The egg that made you was created when your own mother was growing in your maternal grandmother’s womb. And cutting edge research in embryology suggests that it’s not the winning-est sperm that penetrates the egg, but the polarity of the egg that draws the particular sperm it desires. The shaktas provide a yoga of generative receptivity that looks kinda like that. Nesting sets within sets of possibility emerge playfully.

Akhilandeshari is the first important shaktipat goddess to consider on the path of the Shakta. (See my previous post for more about Akhilanda.) She’s a mama crocodile who took some care and trouble to lay her eggs. (Mama crocs also determine the sex of their offspring based on how hot and cool the level is at which they bury those eggs!) Those baby crocs crack out of their eggs at the inspiration of their nestmates. One wee lil croc cries out and all start to cry out and crack out. Because Shakta tantrics tend to place less emphasis on singular gurus within their organizational structure, the community of nesting crocs in which one evolves is paramount to one’s growth. Often, the community of seekers IS the guru. The guru principle is shared in collectivity among shakta lineages, no one person has all the power. In this way, shaktipat is the call of the kula, of the community. When you see one person cracking out of their shell, becoming more themselves, you’re inspired to do that too. It’s so important to keep the company of great beings who are willing to be vulnerable, authentic and pliable. And then courageous enough to flow with the river of life and live in the jaws of their mama. (Baby crocs seek refuge in their mother’s mouths.)

Akhilanda is sometimes called the Goddess of 10,000 Realities. She is also described like a twirling clear crystal whose spin creates every color on the spectrum. She wears Sri Cakras as earrings. And so she wears her spiritual power as an ornament. Her outer power then manifests as a turn, as a whirl. A cakra is a whirling multidimensional subtle reality. Cakras, mandalas, yantras – these are way more complex models and maps of power than the singular lingas that mark some of the male-encoded tantric iconography.

Let’s talk about Chinnamasta. Wow. She stands for the most radical of radical affirmation. She affirms herself so deeply that she is no longer willing to listen to inner voices of doubt, fear or unworthiness. She no longer chooses to listen to ANY voice of limitation. “I can’t, I don’t know, I don’t care, I’m not ready, Someday when, If only…” Chinnamasta is done with such inner dialogue. She is no longer willing to play small. She longs to imbibe a direct experience of her own power. She is happy to cut off her own head because such a sensational act no longer frightens, instead it empowers her desire to experience the whole of herself. She grants herself permission to imbibe her own ecstatic essence. She is willing to look at herself with a sword of penetrating clarity. Her self-discernment leads her to a choice that others might refuse, but by going to that razor’s edge, she discovers within herself a taste of ecstacy beyond previous limits. This is why she’s dancing on copulating corpses! (Of all the embodied experiences one might have in one’s body, an orgasm is pretty much at the best of the best.) And those two are dead. She’s gone past THAT limit of good feeling! Chinnamasta says there’s something EVEN BETTER than what you think of as THE BEST human feeling! (Some say girl on top practices are the best of the best of the best!) Feeding on her own life force, she inspires others to sit nearby and have a taste. When we’re willing to remove our self-imposed limitations, and instead listen to the call of our ecstatic inner life force, others wanna stop by and have a taste. That abundance is so vast and so forthcoming - Chinnamasta shares it freely. She knows that her essential nature lacks nothing, and that there’s an endless supply of power inside. That well will never run dry.

Further, that spew of life that shoots up out of her decapitated body takes a turn. See how the blood flow makes a little loopty-loop? The power of our essence doesn’t move in linear patterns. It spirals, it turns. The flow of life is a subtle, serpentine reality. Our lives aren’t moving along a linear axis like an old-fashioned timeline in a history book. Instead, a playful flow of recursive patterns create our life experience. We are the sum of previous infinite sets of possibilities. And so our lives ARE the totality of ALL possibilities. The essence that embodied as us is more vast and powerful than we know – and it’s worth savoring. The question becomes – are we doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results? Chinnamasta reminds us that sometimes we have to cut off our own heads, and do the thing we are not doing, to get where we yearn to go. The sharp blade of self-reflection takes us there. She is the goddess of radical affirmation. She stands for a depth of orgasmic sensuality that says, “I’m worth it. I’m the one that I want. No one outside me can give me anything that I cannot give to myself. I refuse limits and so choose to listen to and drink from the source of my being.” She is a shaktipat goddess from the inside, out. She is the permission we must give ourselves to experience the whole of ourselves. Let’s do that, together!

One of the most fun things about studying the deities of the Indian tradition is to look out into the world and ask, who is like this? Who does this? That’s been one of my favorite parts of this blog so far – finding photos that evoke the incarnations I’ve described. I can think of a number of celebrities who are like this Chinnamasta, who embody a no holds barred attitude of sensual pleasure combined with authentic self-inquiry. I also know a Chinnamsata goddess who sits even closer nearby. Her name is Laura Juell and she’s been teaching with me at Virayoga in NYC since the studio opened. In Laura’s class I always feel deeply affirmed, and ferociously connected to the deep sensual core of my own creative power. If you want a little taste of Chinnamasta, check out her class the next time you’re at Virayoga in NYC!

www.virayoga.com

Akhilandeshwari, an Invitation to Srividyalaya

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:30:00 -0500

I met Douglas Brooks in 2001 when he first started teaching his lineage of Rajanaka Yoga to enquiring minds like mine. He used to come down to New York City practically every other month in those early years. Ah, the salad days! I had completed my first Anusara Yoga Teacher Training with Amy Ippoliti at Virayoga in early 2002, the culmination of which was teaching one single solitary pose! (This was obviously long before Anusara’s era of Immersions and extensive teacher training curriculum.) A few weeks after completing this original training I was invited to teach several classes a week at Virayoga by founder and friend Elena Brower. Elena, also a student of Douglas Brooks and others, offered me some sweet advice before my first class. As I remember it, she said that she’d hoped to create a studio in Manhattan where we might all discover our distinctive voices, as teachers and as students of life. She said it was an ever-evolving process that would lead me, and all of us, to places of insight and experience we had yet to imagine.

What a sweet reflection that conversation was for me when I watched Elena teach the Guinness Book of World’s Records LARGEST yoga asana event in the history of the world a few months ago. I participated in that event alongside her son, off stage right and protected from the elements – and the crowd - by the trees of the Central Park Pinetum. (You may have heard that the heavens poured down on us that evening.) Yoga has taken a deep hold in New York City, and I’m so proud to be part of the teaching community at Vira. The studio is the manifestation of Elena’s original wish, and more. She and I are both parents now, and our lives as parents and teachers of Anusara Yoga continue to unfold in ways I could never have imagined. We truly are the company we keep.

Douglas used to say that 90% of learning his lineage is simply showing up. I’ve been showing up as much as I can over the past decade. I even showed up to his home for a winter retreat just 5 weeks after my son was born. That was a pretty bold commitment if I do say so myself - we had barely left the house for weeks and then we’re on an epic upstate winter wonderland of a roadtrip. The very act of heading out of town at that particular moment reminds me of one of the hallmark catchphrases of Rajanaka Yoga: subvert your expectations! Expectations are always fixed and finite, whereas hope springs eternal. In fact, I might even call Rajanaka Yoga, itself, the yoga of hope.

To engage hope, as a process, is to invest in the very nature of the world as it playfully unfolds. By that I mean to say that the Universe itself is basically, well, singing a song that’s unfinished, without beginning or end. Or it’s like a cookie crumbling. I love that metaphor too: I love cookies! Contemporary physics describes the unfolding Universe as infinitely expanding in every direction. This is very good news indeed. If the Universe is unfinished, then so are you. The song of your life can evolve - and you can sing it in ways that enrich you. In an infinitely expanding Universe, the center is anywhere you choose.

So the question becomes, what’s enriching? What’s worth centering on? As yogins, we can learn to sing WITH this unfolding, AS the evolution. We can BECOME the cookie crumbling! That’s the process of hope as I define it: a promise of abundance and value that unfolds beyond our ordinary expectations. What we have to do in this yoga is learn how to listen. And ask. And since we’re also talking cookies here, it’s also about learning how to savor. Srividyalaya is the opportunity to ask and listen and evolve and learn and savor. I can’t wait til we start this together in February next year!

The other day, my son Jasper was playing with a flat puzzle of the world. You know the kind, big wooden pieces for toddlers. Australia is a singular piece that fits clearly and easily into the flat board holding it. Jasper tossed that part to one side and then mushed together the continents on the carpet. “Look papa, isn’t that so cool?” Looking down to discover South America wedged nicely against Africa I had to laugh. My 3 year old can also distinguish the difference between a parallelogram and a trapezium thanks to online games, some involving Elmo. See, consciousness is evolving and expanding infinitely! This kid can, and will if you ask him, tell you why a hexagonal bolt is a good idea for your plumbing needs. And how a tetrahedron is a specific type of polygon, whereas a polygon is any multi-sided shape. Internet learning is, fer sure, changing the landscape of what we know learning to be.

That same night as I was tucking him into bed and adjusting his nightlight, which is a fabulous lighted globe (the kind where the world’s oceans are black, not blue – and he prefers a specific view of Asia from his vantage point in bed and was providing me detailed instruction as to placement thank you very much Papa) he said to me, “The world is broken like my puzzle.” I responded, “Yes Jasper, in fact, it’s never not broken. Now sleep tight!” I always want to say, “…and don’t let the bed bugs bite” like my parents often did with me. But I dare not even whisper those words. I live in New York City! Here, the bed bugs DO bite; fortunately never in my own residence. But the stories one hears! Horrors.

As I shut his door I reconsidered what I had just said. Never not broken. For something to be never not broken would also be to say, it’s broken. Yep. Always broken. Never not. My toddler had once again helped me to recognize a hallmark of the goddess (or shakta) traditions of Hindu tantra. Shakta tantrism is a natural and intuitive process that, curiously, we need to learn. When I first started studying with Douglas I had the experience that I was hearing the yogic teachings I had always wanted to hear, and somehow knew to be true experientially, but just hadn’t yet been put into words. Many of my early yoga studies prior to meeting Douglas seemed distant from the context of, like, my actual life. The shaktas describe a yoga that works just like the world. (As above, so below.) The world that’s never not broken. And to that end, nature is PLAYING. The shakta lineages teach us how to play reflectively, to recognize and savor and hold the beauty of life as it is unfolding, breaking, becoming more.

Because we’re a goddess tradition, we have a goddess who is the EMPOWERMENT of this never not broken process. Isn’t that cool? He name is Akhilandeshwari. {AH-KEEL-AN-DESH-VA-REE.} Our lineage also calls her The Keeper of Secrets, or sometimes The Undivided One. (The world is one thing – and it’s always broken. See?) Her mythic ethos creates a context for our learning together. She is a little known devi, but to know something of her is to appreciate how the Rajanaka yogin approaches learning, and life. She first entered my consciousness on a track called Amba Parameshawari from Shantala’s album The Love Window, a track whose Sanskrit origins came to artists Heather and Benjy Wetheimer by way of my teacher, Douglas Brooks. I still like to use that ditty in classes for savasana.

This Akhiladeshwari rides on the back of a crocodile. Yes, that’s her picture above this text. One fun way of reading Hindu iconography is to recognize the various animals associated with a particular deity as an animistic form of that god or goddess. The contemporary author Philip Pullman did this so well in the His Dark Materials trilogy. All of the humans in his alternate world are gifted a Daemon, a power animal, who shapeshifts until its owner comes of age. Read the books, don’t see the movie. But I digress…

Anyway, in the Indian mind, crocs are river dwellers. Mama crocs take some time to build nests on the banks of rivers in which to lay their eggs. But then they leave, seemingly without concern as to the outcome of their effort. That’s kind of like what the Divine did for you, too. She took some care and trouble to bear you. You are the result of thousands of years of spinning DNA strands playfully crashing, dipping and diving into form after form. But then, at some point, you have to crack out of your egg. This is the moment when you are “born again” as a yogi! Like a croc, you’re gifted an extra piece of grace, a special tooth to help you in this process. Little baby crocs cry out as they emerge, and in this way we too are cajoled and inspired by our communities of fellow seekers, our kulas. Now, the way to the river is perilous and fraught with danger. Many don’t make it.

If you’ve read this far, I’m going to deign you one of the crocs who’s made it to the river. Welcome! Plenty of folks have probably stopped reading by now and frankly, this tradition is likely not for them. We are the yoga of MORE. Life is complex; it requires a sophisticated yoga.

Where was I? Oh yes, crocodiles. So now comes an interesting part of that reptile’s journey. When the babies make it to the river they discover that their mama has come back to protect them. And little baby crocodiles live in what looks like the most dangerous place on earth. INSIDE the mouths of their mothers. That’ll be YOU - if you dare to learn with Srividyalaya this winter. You’ll be protected and nurtured by those who’ve matured within this tradition. And you’ll learn to do what crocs do. That is, inhabit the river. Little baby crocs don’t get to the river so that they might cross to the other side. They come to the river to make it their HOME. That said, I’m so glad that Srividyalaya is my new virtual home.

The river, of course, that we learn to live in as tantric yogis is the river of RASA. Rasa, or taste, is a particularly beloved topic for tantrics of my lineage. Rasa theory describes those sublime and elemental flavors of human embodiment. From the peaceful to the ferocious, the gruesome to the compassionate, rasa theory is built from sets upon sets of teachings whose purpose is to celebrate and inhabit the diverse and flowing flavors beautifully and powerfully. As I said earlier, the croc doesn’t go to the river to cross to the other side, that’s for chickens! Instead, crocs live peacefully at home in the sublime flow.

Akhilanda is also sometimes described in our lineage like a spinning, multi-faceted prism. Imagine the Hope Diamond twirling in a bright, clear light. The light pouring through the beveled cuts of the diamond would create a whirling rainbow of color. The diamond is whole and complete and BECAUSE it’s fractured, it creates more diverse beauty. Its form is a spectrum of whirling color. Cool, right? Wanna be like THAT? I do. Her power derives from an innate capacity to twirl, to spin. Crocodiles have a similar power. If you’re ever captured by a croc it won’t be her biting teeth that kill you, it will be the fact that she takes you in those jaws and then drags you into the water, spinning you until you BREAK. Fun!

The earth itself, this marvelous blue pearl, is spinning asymmetrically on its axis, wobbling through space at over a thousand miles per hour at the equator. The fact that you don’t experience that whirling, spinning reality as your everyday, mundane experience is a gift of what tantrics like to call secrecy. Secrets aren’t merely withheld details (“Shh Jasper, don’t tell your mama we had Coca-Colas for lunch.”) They are the very way the Universe reveals itself. Layers of experience are hidden within other layers. A good image for this is nesting Russian dolls. To unpack those secrets is to delight in the world as it truly unfolds - playfully, intelligently and with abundance.

So, turning and spinning are actually some of the ways that nature truly plays. And in that intelligent spin, continents shift and our ocean’s currents flow. Every 24 hours the earth we inhabit makes this revolution. (And because it wobbles asymmetrically on its axis, it’s imperfectly perfect!) Many of the schemes of yoga as they’ve been presented to the West describe linear models of engagement. “Turns” (or vrittis) are the things we want to fix or purge or stop on our road to becoming Siddhas, or “perfected beings.”

Allow me to be so silly as to describe these usual models in overly simple terms, and in just a few sentences. Basically, a lot of Western yogas are models that tend to look like ladders. Let’s call them “vertical models.” Basically you start at the bottom and you work your way up. At the top of this ladder is a promise of nirvana, liberation, enlightenment, moksha, perfection – different traditions call it different things. The point is, climb the ladder. All yogic endeavors, therefore, are somehow designed to get to the apex of this experience. Ah, the old “yoga is the process by which we stop how the mind turns.” That’s one of Patanjali’s first yoga sutras in a nutshell.

Recently I received in my mailbox a coupon to redeem for “holistic, organic bedbug cleaning services.” (And you thought my earlier mention of this topic was a non-sequitor? Nah. Tantra is a loom and tantric yogis like to hold many threads. Sometimes we may forget to weave them back into the fabric of consciousness but so it goes.) Obviously I was targeted because I’m a yogi living in the bedbug capital of the USA. Duh. Sometimes (let’s say often) yoga in the West (vertical model yoga) is synonymous with processes of cleansing, purifying. “Life is a problem and yoga is the solution!” I get dozens of messages in my inbox every week inviting me to participate in yoga workshops with just this marketing message and I’m sure you do too.

But what if that underlying assertion weren’t so? Remember, we’re the yoga of subversion here. What if instead of thinking that life if suffering - or a problem to get by or get through - we instead turn that premise on its ear and say that life is, instead of a problem to solve, a GIFT to appreciate? And that the endeavor of yoga is to RECEIVE that gift and make it a blessing. Both for ourselves and others. Hell yeah, suffering – and indeed EVERY rasa of human experience is gonna come our way. This is not a yoga of denial. But it is a yoga of receptivity. That’s why it’s encoded Goddess. And that’s why she’s also a spinning spectrum of every color on the wheel. Akhilanda is an artist’s palate of every color, and whirling like her, you are the artist of your own life.

Two young women were next to me on the subway today with yoga mats. One of them was saying to the other, “God I’m like totally ready to move in with Brian. I’m ready to take this relationship to the next level. So, like, how did you know that you and Mike were ready to take it to the next level?” Their conversation went on like this for some time, with a lot of emphasis on “the next level.” I happened to pay attention to them because they were obviously just coming home from yoga class and I’m always curious about yogis - and partly because one of the great joys of New York City life is eavesdropping on worlds seemingly similar (and when really lucky, wildly different) from one’s own.

Their conversation is what got me thinking about “the next level.” I assume that after moving in, “the next level” for this woman might mean getting married, then having babies, then moving to Westchester or a Classic 8 on Central Park West, and so forth. We are cultured as Westerners, and Americans in particular I think, to work hard and achieve “the next level.” As long as that model looks like a ladder, interestingly, that LADDER dictates to you what the “next level” is going to be. While there can be great freedom and choice within this construct, ultimately it’s the CONSTRUCT that dictates the effort. The ladder tells you where you need to go.

What if one’s yogic effort were instead to whirl like Akhilandeshwari? After all, the things we do most often tend to be the things we do over and over again – and it’s safe to say these things tend to be worth really investing in and deriving more value from. Things like, say, eating breakfast, loving your cat, loving you family or talking to fellow human beings. THESE are the things we repeat over and over and over again. Often, yoga is presented in such a way that we’re told something like, here’s where you are now – and here’s where you’re supposed to be going – and by the way, when you get there it’s gonna look like this and feel like that – and by the way you won’t know it until you get there – and you might just get a little taste – and once you know what we know you’ll know, ya know? This process can make one quite busy. On a personal note, I decided awhile back, I’m already too busy without also creating busy-ness out of my spiritual adventure.

Contemporary life is already pretty consumptive. We want, we get, we want again. Desire itself isn’t the problem, heck, desire’s the force of nature that created us in the first place – it can’t be bad and wrong since it made you, right? Life’s a gift. Often enough though our relationship TO desire becomes the problem. Consumptive behavior holds captive our use of time because it’s like climbing an endless ladder. We live in a consumer society, so it’s no wonder no one has enough time.

What if time weren’t something we had to get more of, but something we could make? You made the time to read this, so clearly you have a capacity to make time for that which interests you. Srividyalaya is a deeply interesting endeavor. I’m honored to be a part of it and I hope that you will consider joining us this winter. I hope that it will be a new paradigm in yogic learning. And that together we’ll yearn to inhabit the river of rasa, and create hope for a life that continues to unfold with elegance and beauty. “The journey is the destination, the process is the goal.” I’ve heard Douglas say those words hundreds of times, and they continue to mean more to me as I continue to invest my heart in these teachings.

Akhilandeshwari is a goddess who prefers to do things not by way of the ladder of consumption but a revolving machine, a technology - a VIDYA. She does this by spinning. She spins tales. She spins yoga philosophy. She spins her life into ever more diverse flavors. She is the ancient crocodile goddess. (She even wears spinning shri yantras as earrings and so adorns herself with a pervasive power that’s never not spinning!) She is also the rotating Earth itself. She is, in this way too, our home. Always fractured and always whole, simultaneously. Never not broken. She’s an object of inherent beauty who fulfills a hopeful promise she makes to herself with expressions of abundance, beneficence and value. She is the invitation to step off the unyielding ladder of expectation and turn, instead, like a gem of hope. The things we do again and again are valuable. We needn’t stop those recursive cycles, let’s invest in them. I love my studies with Douglas and Rajanaka yoga more and more every year. I know I’m participating in a lineage that’s very much alive and evolving, just like this Earth. This wondrous blue pearl was spinning long before we arrived and will continue to spin long, long after we’re gone. So while we’re here, let’s- together- enter the river, take refuge in the jaws of the crocodile goddess and learn to live in and savor the flow of our lives powerfully, skillfully. This is the promise of Srividyalalya.