goblinbox

In which yesterday was guru purnima. (I celebrated with a lalita sahasranama and some midnight meditation under the full moon.)

The great Adi Shankara (the first Shankaracharya) of the 8th century summarized the entirety of Advaita Vedanta (non-dualistic philosophy) in six stanzas. When a young boy of eight, wandering in the Himalayas seeking to find his guru, he encountered a sage who asked him, “Who are you?” The boy answered with these stanzas, which are known as “Nirvana Shatakam” or “Atma Shatakam.” Nirvana is complete equanimity, peace, tranquility, freedom and joy. Atma is the True Self. The sage the boy was talking to was Swami Govindapada Acharya, who was, indeed, the teacher he was looking for.

(There’s supposed to be a video embedded here, but it’s not working in some browsers so the direct link is here.)

NIRVANASHTAKAM

Mano-budhy-ahankara cittani naham
na ca srotra-jihve na ca ghrana netre
Na ca vyoma bhumim na tejo na vayuh
Cidananda rupah sivoham sivoham

I am neither the mind, nor the intellect, nor the ego, nor the mind stuff. I am neither the body, nor the changes of the body. I am neither the senses of hearing, taste, smell or sight. Nor am I either the earth, the fire, the air. I am existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute. I am He, I am He.

Na ca prana samnjo na vai pancavayur
na va sapta-dhatur na va panca-kosah
Na vak-pani-padam na copastha-payu
Cidananda rupah sivoham sivoham

I am neither the Prana, nor the five vital airs. I am neither the materials of the body, nor the five sheaths. Neither am I the organs of action nor objects of the senses. I am existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute. I am He, I am He.

Na me dvesa ragau na me lobha mohau
mado naiva me naiva matsaryabhavah
Na dharmo na cartho na kamo na moksah
Cidananda rupah sivoham sivoham

I have neither aversion nor attachment, neither greed nor delusion, neither egotism nor envy. Neither Dharma nor Moksha. I have neither desire nor object of desire. I am existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute. I am He, I am He.

Na punyam na papam na saukhyam na dukham
na mantro na tirtham na veda na yajna
Aham bhojanam naiva bhojyam na bhokta
Cidananda rupah sivoham sivoham

I am neither sin nor virtue, neither pleasure nor pain, nor temple, nor worship, nor pilgrimage, nor scriptures. And I am neither the act of enjoying, the enjoyable nor the enjoyer. I am existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute. I am He, I am He.

Na mrtyur na sanka na me jati bhedah
pita naiva me naiva mata na janma
Na bandhur na mitram gurur naiva sisya
Cidananda rupah sivoham sivoham

I have neither death, nor fear of death, nor caste. Nor was I ever born, nor had I parents, friends and relations. I have neither Guru nor disciple. I am existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute. I am He, I am He.

Aham nirvikalpo nirakara rupo
vibhutvacca sarvatra sarvendriyanam
Na ca sangatam naiva muktir na meya
Cidananda rupah sivoham sivoham

I am untouched by the senses. I am neither Mukti nor knowable, I am without form, without limit, beyond space, beyond time. I am in everything, I am the basis of the universe, everywhere am I. I am existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute. I am He, I am He.

JAI GURU DEVA

In which I share the story of my 2010 pilgrimage to Mother’s feet.

Guru brahma gurur visnuh
gurudevo mahesvarah
guru saksat parambrahma
tasmai srigurave namah

(I prostrate to that Sri Guru who is Brahma, Vishnu, and God Maheshwara, and who is verily the Supreme Absolute Itself.)

At the very front of the archana book, there is a 3-and-a-half page manasa puja. I read through it once several years ago.

I don’t remember having any particular response to it other than perhaps the vague opinion that it was a simple or childish form of worship.

Now it elucidates my longing so much that I wish I’d written it myself.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
The Seattle programs are awkward. There’s a public program, then a paid retreat, then a public program. The only way to get to both public programs is to be in Seattle for three days; if you’re going to be there anyway you might as well sign up for the retreat. And, if you can’t afford the retreat, well, only one public program for you then.

I couldn’t afford the retreat. Hell, I couldn’t even afford transportation to Seattle. The only reason I was able to see Mother at all this year is because a friend, Toni, saw my sad complaint on Facebook and offered to drive me across the state.

When I asked her why she wanted to do that, she said she’d “felt compelled” to take me to Amma. When I sent her a link to amma.org, she cried looking at an image of Mother.

“It happens,” I told her. “If Mother wants to meet you, She’ll meet you.” How lucky am I, that Mother found me a ride?

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
After getting a ride, I got the very last room in the “Amma Tour” room block at the Hyatt, but it was $109 per night. I later found a motel through Priceline for $65. It was five miles away from the program, but at least I could afford it.

So my friend Toni picked me up at 8:45 on Monday morning and drove me across the state in her little red late model car so that I could see my beloved Sat-guru, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
At the motel I loaned Toni a green punjabi, and dressed myself in a white skirt-and-top set I bought at a Chicago program a dozen years ago.

We looked at the map in the phone book for awhile, then we left to find the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. Toni navigates almost entirely by vibe; when I admitted I hadn’t seen the Hyatt where I’d expected it to be (I was looking at the wrong side of the street) she laughed and flipped a U-turn and drove us straight to it.

Parking, miraculously, was free. (We’d already filled the tank. Between the two of us, we had maybe forty dollars.) We went into the Hyatt and got in line with hundreds of devotees. I saw the clothes and the hair and the jewelry and the tattoos and wondered vaguely why humans like to adorn themselves as tribes… I felt some relief: I feel weird about the way I dress because I’m basically the only member of my tribe where I live.

The line started to move. We got to the hall and were handed darshan tokens. Then we followed the directions across the hall and sat for the puja. Toni has bad knees from a car accident she was in, but magically we were seated on the right side of the stage next to the wall so she could stand up when needed without bothering too many people. There were over a thousand people in the hall. Most of the people around us were wearing retreat bracelets.

I sat and relaxed into the vibe. These people had all spent two days with Mother; was that what felt so wonderful? Or was it my own expectation of seeing Mother? Or was Mother thinking about us? If God is everywhere and we’re all capable of producing this ourselves, why don’t we? What made this different than any other gathering of people in any other room?

Amma arrived. Toni said she had a clear view of the pada puja even though it was all the way across the hall. (I don’t think I even knew about pada puja for several years. Everyone’s experience around Amma is so different.)

After the holy water was distributed, something about the shape of the ceiling magnified the sound of thousands of lids being snapped onto thousands of little cups into this wonderful groovy clicky-popping sound. “I LOVE that sound!” I whispered. “I want to sample it RIGHT NOW!” The guy next to me and I started giggling and couldn’t stop.

“It’s like a crooked Zen koan!” he replied. “Like, ‘What is the sound of many lids that don’t fit?’”

Each time one of us stopped giggling, the other would start again. Silly, non-ironic, joyful, childlike laughter. It felt WONDERFUL.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
Mother gave satsang. I took notes on my iThing. This is what they say:

Dispassion, three types: temporary, gradual, intense.
The body is like a rented house
Awareness – like a bird on a dry twig (at any time it could snap)
When we develop intense dispassion we get peace of mind.
What is the point of blaming others for our sorrow?

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
When Swamiji began the Ma-Om meditation, Toni, who had had to stand up during the satsang, came and sat back down. Meditating in Amma’s presence was, as always, a lot like stepping

calmly

off the edge of the world

into an eternal abyss.

The rest of the puja completed, Mother went into the temple to change and they closed the curtains. Toni and I went for a walk because she’s not used to sitting on the floor so much and her knees were killing her.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
Dinner was pretty good (especially the mattar paneer).

I would have had Indian snacks instead, but there aren’t any at the Seattle programs; I guess there aren’t really any Indian devotees in the area to make them. I can’t even tell you how much I was hoping for idli and sambar and pakora. OMG what I would give for some samosas! Srsly.

Our tokens were numbered O-3. I told Toni we wouldn’t be getting darshan until three or four o’clock in the morning. We hit the bookstore. I bought a rudraksha japa mala and a new bottle of Marikolundu.

I got some chai. Eventually Toni went and found a couch and napped.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
I went up to the stage and stared at Amma for a couple of hours.

Well, when I could see Her at all I stared. The devotees doing their various sevas on stage insisted on standing directly in front of me, and I kept crying to Her in my head: “Let me see You! I can’t see You! This is my only time with You all year and this guy has to stand there!” I was feeling extremely sorry for myself that I didn’t get my usual three days with Mother and instead had only a few hours with Her and that guy! Why couldn’t he freakin’ kneel when he wasn’t actively doing his freakin’ seva?! I paced like a caged cat up and down the side of the stage, looking for a glimpse of my beloved Mother. Eventually I perched sideways behind a chair and I could see Her, but it took a toll on my neck and meditating was out of the question.

I went and sat down in front of the stage in a place left empty because the corner of the temple blocked any view of Amma, and meditated for about forty minutes. I’m not sure, but I think I may have fallen asleep. I didn’t nod off or start to fall over – usually a good indication that one has passed out – because I had very carefully arranged my body so that it took no effort to keep it upright, but there was a definite lack of conscious continuity.

Maybe I slept, maybe I had a very deep meditation. I don’t know. The issue caused me to wonder what the difference between “awareness” and “consciousness” might be. Do I have to be one to be the other?

I guess that I possess “consciousness,” because popular opinion and scripture alike say I do, but honestly I don’t know how to define it. I think I’m here and that I’m me, but I can’t tell you why I think that. Am I still conscious when I’m asleep? Can I be conscious without being aware? Can I be aware without being conscious? Most importantly, how do I know I’m me? I don’t have an unbroken recollection of my life; I have chunks of memory bordered by periods of sleep: each iteration of myself as the doer is utterly discrete, and yet I insist that these memories are all beads on the same string. Why do I think that? And how, if indeed at all, does this small-s-self relate to any capital-S-Self I might be trying to become?

I don’t meditate regularly because, honestly, the ever-changing world is more charming than whatever I find inside myself. I understand that the space within is infinitely vast (I can fit a model of the entire universe in there with room to spare), but it doesn’t draw me like the manifest world does. At best, meditation – even in the presence of my Satguru – is no better than just really pleasant, thank you very much.

So it follows that either I’m Doing It Wrong or that I’m missing the point. What is the point? When we see images of saints deep in samadhi, it sure looks like there’s a point. What are they doing in there? And why after twenty years of meditation don’t I know the answer to that question?

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
After a yummy masala latte, I went back to the right side of the stage and found myself a place sitting on the floor directly behind the stairs. From that position, I could see Mother’s face more often than not. (I wanted to be much closer to Her, but everyone was being invited to sit after darshan and between them and the prasad people I figured I’d get booted in a couple of minutes anyway.)

I leaned against the metal banister and rested my chin on the floor of the temple and wondered, as I always do, why She bothers to do this. Why come into the world and do this incredible, endless job of work? Each year She comes, and each year she bootstraps us out of our mess, and we go back into the world full of love and compassion and ready to serve… and slowly, we forget. The next year, She does it again, and so do we. Rinse and repeat. She could just be sitting somewhere in samadhi. Why pour this little bottle of milk into the vast ocean?

“I’m a waste of Your time,” I thought. “These others probably utilize Your grace much better than I. I’m lucky I get even one darshan this year. I deserve less than even this, to sit where I can see You.” I briefly considered leaving without darshan, but even at the time I saw it was some sort of self-pitying ego dance. The mind really is a terrible thing.

“All I care about is You. All I want to do is be around you. Everything else is a waste of time.” I wondered if I wasn’t being a passive Westerner: I have ONLY A FEW HOURS IN HER PRESENCE and am I really just going to sit here? She’s right there! I thought about begging myself onto the prasad list: “I used to be one of the Iowa seva coordinators, but three years ago I moved and now I don’t have a local satsang and I’ve done no seva all year and this is the one and only chance I have to see Mother. How about it, can you get me up there?”

I cried because She’s so perfect and so beautiful. It seems that I had, compacted into my eight hours in Her presence, the same journey I would have had in three days if I’d been on the retreat.

Eventually, the sign said O-1. I went to find Toni. We got into the darshan line. It moved much too fast for me. I was on stage before I knew it, and in the lap almost instantly. I’d been in line between two first-timers, and had harbored a fantasy about sitting right next to Mother for a couple of minutes. Or maybe I’d get to be in the lap while She did mantras… but suddenly, moments after I got into the temple, She hugged me. I thought, “I love You so much, Ma, and all I want is You,” and started to cry, and then my darshan was over. She smiled at me as She handed me my prasad. She knew me – I quit wondering if She recognized me years ago – but there was no super special darshan for me this year, even though I’d been feeling so sorry for myself about only getting the one.

I got the impression I had been officially weaned off of Her form a few years ago (the first time I had had the “I really need to look within and see what’s in there” revelation) and that She knew I knew that. I mean, I remember it. This child doesn’t get long silly darshans; this one is supposed to be doing seva or meditating.

The sevite near the stairs motioned me to sit on the side of the stage. Toni sat behind me after her darshan. The monitor was making the front row get up and leave every 60 seconds. After scootching forward twice I was behind the assistant prasad person and finally close enough to Mother… a minute later I was asked to leave so the people behind me could get their turns too.

I most emphatically DID NOT WANT to leave, now that I’d gotten where I wanted to be.

I left the stage anyway, because I was supposed to.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
I considered staying until the end of the program; I could maybe catch a cab back to the motel, or Toni could come back get me… After walking to the car and sitting for a few minutes, I decided it would be selfish not to leave. Yes, I was wasting the four to six more hours I could spend in Amma’s presence, but I didn’t have cab fare and it was clearly unfair to steal sleep from Toni, who had so graciously driven me to Seattle in the first place.

It was four o’clock in the morning. We’d been awake for over 22 hours and had driven for over five of them.

We left.

I imagined Mother behind me, giving darshan endlessly, and sniffled a little. The sky was lightening in the east and birds were beginning to sing.

We set an alarm for 10:30 and crashed for six hours. I slept wrapped around my Amma doll.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
After brunch at a Red Robin in Bellevue, we drove back to Walla Walla. It was overcast nearly the entire way. I plugged in my iPod and we rocked Amma bhajans the whole time.

I did a lot of japa. I got a mocha in Cle Elum. We stopped at a fruit stand-slash-antique store outside of Yakima and browsed for an hour.

I was starving by the time Toni dropped me off. I nuked a bowl of rice and beans immediately. I tried to stay up until a decent hour but I was so tired I failed. I went to bed around six and slept for a very, very, VERY long time.

. .. … .. . .. … .. .
Today I found the manasa puja in the front of my archana book and recognized in it literally all of my current feelings. “Oh Mother,” it says. “You are pure love. I am too impure to deserve Your Grace. I know that my egoism and selfishness must be repelling to You. Still, bear with me. Mother, please be with me. You are the holiest river. I am a stagnant, filthy pond. You flow to me and purify me, overlooking my shortcomings and forgiving my mistakes.” I miss Her so much, and doubt entirely my ability to do anything at all of use outside of Her influence.

Something wonderful must be going on in there, because why else travel the globe merely to hug creatures like me? If enlightenment is loving all of creation as Self, well, it must be more wonderful than it sounds.

In which I share with you some of my prized possessions.

Part Two: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali

This is a pocket-sized copy of Patanjali’s sutras:

I bought it at Powell’s Books a long, long time ago.

Sutra means suture or stitch.

I’ve kept this book while letting go of hundreds of others because it represented a fork in the road. I bought it because I wanted to be the kind of person who would read such dense philosophy – read and grok such dense philosophy – but I wasn’t. I just knew that I wanted to be. I carried it around with me long before I was ready to read it, because I thought it made me look deep.

To identify consciousness in that which merely reflects consciousness – this is egoism. – 2:6

Since the desire to exist has always been present, our tendencies cannot have had any beginning. – 4:10

The mind is not self-luminous, since it is an object of perception. – 4:19

Now it’s twenty years later. I can now say I’ve read these sutras many times. (And the Gita, and the mind-blowing Concise Yoga Vashishta, and maybe a quarter of the Mahabarat. And several of the Upanishads. And most of Mother’s teachings. And the New Testament. And a bunch of other stuff.) But I still haven’t read the commentary in this particular edition, because now I know it’s not deep and insightful and authoritative: it’s just long-winded.

I even got the sidhis, when I lived in Iowa. (The TM Sidhis Program, that is. Here’s a the Wikipedia article on the subject, obviously written by some Movement PR lackey.) It turned out that they – the sidhis – were simply the mental repetition, after meditation, of a series of the aphorisms in this book! (I still can’t believe what I paid for that.)

I did my TM sidhis regularly for… well, I never did them regularly. I quit doing them pretty much immediately after getting off my flying block, because it seemed useless and time consuming. Actually, after having gotten them, I thought the sidhis were a bunch of crap sold to Westerners to make them feel deep when in fact they were just rich children from a culture devoid of significant history or depth.

I never thought the TM sidhis were bad for anyone; they seemed to be beneficial for those who loved them. I just thought we’d all paid too much for information that is available for free, and I never was happy with where the money went. But that’s a Movement rant, and not the point of this post! The point of this post is that I’ve had this little book ? For a really long time.

(Read terse and commentary-free sutras here!)

—
In the early 90′s, I deserted my life in Oregon and went to Iowa “for a year.” I left the vast majority of my stuff with my roommate, including but not limited to an antique dining room set and all of my vinyl. But because I stayed in Iowa for five years, I never got any of that stuff back: I went from having a home full of stuff to pretty much being able to carry all my worldly possessions.

There are a few items I’ve kept through several downsizing phases, and I’ve decided, since I’m unemployed and have the time, to share them with you.

In which I do go on about vacation and Amma and work.

I will go on vacation in nine days. NINE DAYS. I can’t remember the last time I needed a vacation so very badly.

I can’t wait to zip up my rolly case and go to the airport. I can’t wait to get on the plane and turn off my electronic devices. I can’t wait for my Salt Lake City layover.

I can’t wait to check in to the Hyatt Regency at DFW and check out the hotel room and the hotel bed and the hotel shower. I can’t wait to wake up in another town with four days of vacation ahead of me, and get dressed in my whites and brush my teeth in the shiny hotel sink and take the elevator down to the program hall.

I can’t wait see Mother. I can’t wait to meditate near Her. I can’t wait to get darshan. I can’t wait to eat Indian snacks like pakoras and idli & sambar. I can’t wait for Devi Bhava.

I can’t wait to eat genuine Tex-Mex like a total freakin’ tourist.

In short, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of town for a few days.

…
This afternoon my employer began the installation of a web cam in the office. It will hang from the ceiling, and is a model that can be swiveled remotely to view all areas. It has audio pickups.

There was a cam here when I started. It’s been moved into another room, and as far as I know has never been online during my employment.

I have no idea why a camera should need to be installed at all, since the office can already be remotely observed a variety of ways. Nonetheless, there it is, a camera which really can’t have any purpose other than to allow members of management to observe employees.

When I worked at LISCO there were web cams there, but they existed so that people could look at equipment, not the other way around. Why on earth would you want to look at people sitting at desks staring at monitors?

The whole thing’s just creepy.

…
The day before yesterday I clocked a very satisfying 6.25 hours on the phone, but my average phone time lately is hovering around four hours per day.

To fill up the unused time I’ve been given busy-work: something loosely identified as “market research” (involving visiting phone book web pages and counting the number of hotels in particular towns), and a list of roughly 250 dial-up customers I have to call and switch to different access numbers.

Why, yes, thank you for asking: I actually did have a real job once, with root on many servers, where I had to understand subnetting and do network troubleshooting and hang out in data centers and go to customer prems and often had plug ends and jumpers and screws and cool stuff in my pockets.

But now? Now I’m calling dial-up customers to wheedle them into letting me walk them through changing to a new access number.

…
Have I mentioned that I’m really looking forward to the renewal of my upcoming vacation?

Update: The webcam is mounted on a wall pointing at nothing, and it’s made by the same company that makes the rest of the inventory so it’s probably just a test model. Surveillance fail!

In which Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is in Europe right now.

Mother is finishing up Her European tour and is currently in Finland:

After Europe, She’ll be back in the States for the fall North American tour. (There’s a program and retreat in Michigan that starts on the 30th, but I think it’s probably too late for me to arrange to go.) (Although if on payday I can book a room and a flight, I might just try to. I haven’t seen Mother in November for years.)

Ma ma ma! Jai Ma!

In which I’m at the retreat in Puyallup.

Amped! is the coolest chick EVAR. She came to my motel all on her own volition, she chose a kick ass restaurant in Kent for brunch, she has the cutest baby, and she drove me (and Leela) to our Puyallup motel. I *heart* her, and it was way cool finally meeting her in person after knowing her online for four years. Plus the bitch can knit, let me tell you what. And make beer! And wine! And donuts! And cute children!

The Puyallup motel, on the other hand, leaves things to be desired. First of all, it’s a single – I wanted a double – and, of course, there’s this. Second of all, it’s farther from the program location than I’d wanted, and getting back and forth has been a bit of a hassle.

Yesterday afternoon I took a cab to the retreat because it was raining. (Seven bucks for 1.82 miles. Not bad. Dry, at least.) Arrived at the fairgrounds, followed the signs, registered for the retreat, bought a water bottle – apparently as an American I’m hardwired to respond instinctively to cross merchandising – and stuck it in my bag, then went to the snack shop for chai.

I sat in the hall for awhile and watched the local satsang and the tour staff set up. All that industry, and nothing for me to do. Next event on the retreat schedule? Three and a half hours away.

There’s no smoking inside the fairgrounds. Had to go stand on the corner outside the entrance and watch the traffic roar by. There was a wedding reception in one of the other buildings inside the grounds, and people were coming and going for that. I enjoyed watching Amma devotees in whites and hawt Mexican dudes in boots and tight pants self-sort at the gate.

I went back inside the fairgrounds. Wandered around. Found the food and the bookstore and the bathrooms and learned the general layout. Eventually, I joined the queue. I didn’t really make a decision to do so, I just didn’t have anything else to do.

An hour later I ended up with a good conversation under my belt – I was standing in line next to two first-timers who thanked me for what I’d had to say about Amma and said I should do stand-up comedy for a living – and the lowest darshan token number I’ve ever had in my life: B4. I went inside, put my bag next to the stage, went and ate dinner, hit the bathroom, and was in place half an hour before Mother arrived.

Made it all the way through satsang but had to get up halfway through bhajans and move around a little. I love sitting so close to Mother, but it kinda fries my circuits and I don’t think I’ve ever made it entirely through to arati without at least getting up and moving to the wall. Some years I’ve felt compelled to leave the hall altogether, so I’m getting better.

When darshan started, I went outside for a bit, then had a seven-layer brownie at the snackshop. (I love that coconut/chocolate shit. So teh yum!) When I re-entered the hall She was already at C2, so I packed all my crap into my bag, hid it under the side of the stage, and got in line for darshan. The line was on express and the next thing I knew I was next. I wiped my face to make sure I wouldn’t get oil all over Amma’s clothes, and the woman doing Lap Assist absently stroked the side of my forehead while the couple in front of me finished getting their hugs. There was a space in front of me, the devotee on Lap patted at the floor, I moved my knees, looked up, and my beloved Amma was reaching for me, smiling. I melted into the lap, so ineffably glad to be there after a year of being apart from Her. She murmured “My daughter, my daughter, my daughter” into my ear and my heart tried to break: a crack and a rush like bones breaking, and your chest sore and bright and aching, and you know She’s changed you again. When I sat back and She put my prasad into my hand and smiled at me again, I said, “Oh, Ma!” with my dry voice and She reached for me and hugged me again.

I went to sit to the left of Her chair. Within minutes of leaving the lap, I was stone cold exhausted. It took an hour to get a ride organized and I sat, deeply fatigued, mind utterly silent, watching Mother give hug after hug, being grateful that such beings even bother to remain enough in the world to do such great works.

It’s estimated that Mother has given over 30 million hugs.

This year is not so much about bhakti. I’m meditating a lot, and there’s no work for me to do because this isn’t the Iowa programs and I’m a guest, not a host: it’s all profound depth and silence and a sense almost of isolation, and maybe this is the year I learn to truly love to meditate. I don’t know, but this morning I didn’t even bother to go to the morning program. Leela got up at 5:30 to catch a ride to the yoga class with the chick from Dublin, and I’ve just been hanging out here by myself. I was tired, and The Curse is coming, and it just seemed perfectly fine to be here (I miss at least one entire program every year. It’s how I roll.) even though I’ve wasted utterly precious time I could have spent in the presence of Mother’s body.

I spoke with K for an hour after woke up around eleven, and naturally there was more mind-blowing synchronicity between us. I’m just gonna admit that I’m totally in love (and that if he’s full of shit, I swear I will dismember him and feed his remains to small, vicious fishes) and that he’s adorable and earnest and cute I wish he was here.

After I finish writing I’ll shower and dress and meditate, and keep watch out the window for a ride back to the program hall. I’ve had nothing today but coffee and I need some real food, and, of course, Mother’s going to be there. Plus it’s Q&A tonight!

In which I take the longest bus ride EVAR.

Woke up at K’s this morning. He may have tried to let me sleep in, but he tends to look at me while I’m sleeping [the utter weirdo] and the attention wakes me up. (At least he has the grace to make the coffee.) We lounged around, talked, took showers, dressed, got in the car.

I walked into the airport just as they were announcing my flight. We kissed, he left, I went through security. (This time, they did not go through MY ENTIRE SUITCASE: yay.)

Sat at the gate for awhile. Boarded at 10:50, flew to Seattle. Arrived on time, went downstairs, called my devotee roommate Leela (we met on the Travel Exchange, not IRL). I was at baggage claim 16. She was at baggage claim 1 – of course. So I hoofed halfway across the airport to meet her. Thank God for rolley cases!

After several phone calls we finally found one another and met properly. I pulled out the stuff I’d printed off the ‘net and we discovered we were only fifty yards from the Gray Line bus counter. We got in line to buy tickets, but when we got to the desk a big Russian dude came and said, “If you pay cash, I help you. Come. You pay cash.” We followed him. He took our luggage and walked us to the bus. (Turns out the counter dude hadn’t had a break in six hours and really needed to pee.) The Russian bus driver stowed our luggage and escorted us on board.

Forty minutes later, the bus was full and Leela and I had met another Amma devotee who lives in Mother’s ashram and we were all three having a lovely chat.

Not only does the Gray Line stop constantly, but it doesn’t even go to the Travelodge. We had to catch a commuter to go the rest of the way, and much hilarity ensued as the driver stowed a metric ton of luggage in the ass end of that little short bus. (A woman next to me let out an involuntary groan watching the driver stow suitcases. When I raised an eyebrow at her, she shrugged and said, “There’s three bottles of booze in that suitcase at the bottom.” LOL!) The short bus was fun because everyone chatted and laughed, but fast it was not: we didn’t check into our motel until 3:11.

After check-in, we walked over to Whole Paycheck and ate, and I bought some green plasti-shoes. (I *heart* them. They’re very springy!) We walked over to Seattle Center and found the program hall, but no one was setting up yet. We laid in the grass because the weather is drop-dead gorgeous today. Leela gave a beggar some change; I gave him a cigarette.

We idled back to our motel. I got all comfy on the bed with my laptop. Leela went back out. I chatted with K on the phone because we’re über-dorks who can’t go eight hours without speaking to each other.

The program doesn’t start until 10 tomorrow morning, so I’ve got quite a bit of time on my hands. Am wondering if I care enough to find a pub within walking distance… we seem to be in gaytown (everyone, from the motel desk clerk to the Whole Foods checker to the barrista at Starbucks, not to mention half the boys on the street in this neighborhood, is utterly flaming), so it might be worth going out to find a drink.

Stoked to be in Seattle! Super stoked to see Mother tomorrow!

Oh, and the Flickr set is here.

In which my plans are quite suddenly changed.

Saturday night my entire band had a long practice. After, Curtis and I went out and Becca showed up. We met a wine writer from Seattle and hung out with her all night, even dragged her to after hours for a bit. I got drunk. Around three in the morning, Curtis and I finished up the curry and rice I had stashed in the fridge and he crashed in the front bedroom.

Sunday, the weather was GLORIOUS! Clear and breezy, and had to be at least seventy degrees out! We went to brunch at 26 brix (and let me tell you, the bloody mary was awesome) and then wandered aimlessly around town until Curtis had to go record with RB. We even stopped at the miniature airport and watched the enthusiasts fly their little planes around for awhile.

Monday, I did – among other tedious but necessary online things – my taxes. I’m getting a refund! (I was so poor last year that I actually qualified for EIC. Go me.) Apparently I’ll be getting $300 for my rebate, too, which is exiting because I’ll TOTALLY need it to see Amma this summer.

I was going to try to see Her in New York in July, but not only has the ticket for the dates I wanted doubled in price in the past 6 days, but it turns out that one of the other techs at work has already gotten those dates off for vacation – so there’s no way I’ll get them off, too.

Now I’m scrambling madly to get organized to see Mother in Seattle, since people are taking vacation days during all the other tour stops I’d like to go to (not only New York, but Fairfield and Chicago too). The Seattle programs are complex because there’s a day of public programs followed by a two-day retreat and then a public Devi Bhava. If I’m going at all, I either register for the retreat or I only see Mother for one day. Since it costs just about $200 to fly to Seattle I’d rather go for more than a single day… so now I need to sign up for a retreat with no on-site housing in a town where I know no Amma devotees. Gah!

(You know, I should have known this would happen. I contacted the Seattle satsang by email and am doing seva remotely – placing notices on various online boards about Mother’s visit – but of course it’s going to work out that I have to go meet the Seattle satsang properly, and probably work like crazy at the programs and the retreat too.)

In other news, Bindu’s going to the vet for blood work tomorrow. She’s gotten fat since we’ve been here (because grandmas are indulgent and feed dogs table scraps, and give them milk and lunch meat every single night before bed) and now she drinks and pees so much that I’m worried about diabetes. She’s exhibiting some other behavioral changes too, which is why I’m actually worried: she can’t walk the 12 blocks to work with me on Saturdays without a rest at the halfway point, and she seems sleepy and cuddly more than tired or overheated.

Send the good blue dog your non-diabetic thoughts, if you would, and I’ll let you know what we learn when the results come back.

In which I finally get around to it. Sort of.

Last summer I started writing a post about seeing Amma, my guru, and I promised to finish it and publish it. I never did. I think I still have a draft saved, but it’s one of those things that must be written immediately – before the feeling’s gone.

Embedded below is the trailer for a movie about Amma’s 50th birthday celebration, which was celebrated by two million devotees in southern India a few years ago. (Mother hugged nearly fifty thousand people in a marathon 21-hour sitting.) I suppose the trailer says well enough what I would have said in that never-finished post, things about love, compassion, stillness of mind, and the existence of suffering.

I bring Mother up because She will be back in the States in just four days, stopping first at Her ashram in Cali and then going to Michigan; it’s Her usual North American winter tour. I’ve had the grace to see Her in Michigan in November once or twice, but generally I only manage to see Her once a year.

I wish that I could see Her next week, but of course I haven’t got the money to travel, take time off from work. I’ll have to wait until the summer tour, wait until I can see Her in Seattle next year. I suppose the longing is good for me.

I met Her for the first time in Seattle, actually. She’ll probably raise Her eyebrows at me and grin, when I show up for darshan in Seattle instead of Iowa or Chicago. Last summer, She pulled me back into Her lap a couple of times and kissed me. I love Her so.

Someday I’ll have to get down to San Ramon. Even when I lived in nearby San Francisco, I never did make it to the ashram. If they allowed dogs I’d probably live there right now, and then I’d be getting to see my Mother next week!

om amriteswaryenamaha

In which I talk about seeing Amma this year.

One of the swamis said in an evening satsang that various scriptures describe and define the state of being experienced by people such as Amma. A phrase used often, he said, was that these incarnations or avatars are ‘drunk on the Self.’

I tried to imagine what that feels like. Drunk on the Self. Like being in love, only without the duality of needing an external object to be in love with? What do I have inside that I find more engaging than the world outside?

Not meditation, certainly. I enjoy it, but not above the relative. Not even in Amma’s presence (where meditation is extraordinarily easy and deep) do I not want to come out. I sometimes feel extraordinarily content within myself, but it isn’t more intoxicatingly interesting than the world outside me, and it certainly isn’t permanent.

Later, when Amma was singing bhajans, I thought, “She’s singing to Devi, which is an iconic representation of the qualities within Her own Self. She’s singing to herself.” As I was sitting so close to the stage I had my elbow propped up on it, I was very close to Mother. As I thought these thoughts, She turned her gaze to me for a moment.

Read the rest of this entry »

In which it’s good to be home.

(First of all, let me just get it out of the way: I love my blue dog soooo much! K thx.)

Saying “I had such a good time at Amma!” is so silly I’m not even going to say it. I didn’t have ‘a good time,’ I was led back to myself – as I am every year when I go to see Her – and I feel several orders of magnitude better than I have in a long while. (And yes, I’ve started the Amma post but it isn’t finished yet.)

When NLW dropped me off yesterday, Truck was on the porch. He told me he was going to have a few people over later; I said that would be fine ’cause I didn’t think anything short of a full-on rave in my room was gonna keep me up past seven or eight because I’d slept from 5 to 11 that morning and was a wee bit behind on my sleep.

All sorts of groovy folk showed up, and I had a BBQed veggie burger and some lovely carbonized carrots and sweet onions, too. I played with kids a lot ’cause they were sort of right there and couldn’t be ignored.

Then I went to bed and slept for 12 hours. Yay!

This afternoon I called The Ex and he said I could swing out to the house tomorrow evening. I’m going to take some boxes out and try to organize my shit; I also want to grab some summer clothes (IT IS SO FUCKING HOT IN JULY OMGWTFBBQ) and some books and my altar and crap like that.

In other news, I may have an interview this week in Cedar Rapids, IA for a support job of some kind. I don’t even really know what the job description is yet, but if it turns out to sound way cool I’ll want your good vibes.

I quite possibly should be getting off my arse here soon, and using my life for something more profound than trying to do as much sleeping and avoidance of stress as I can. There’s a lot to be said for a nice decompression period, but part of the battle I fought in my marriage was about being trapped too far away from the things I wanted for myself. Now I’m nearing the one-year mark (I left The Ex last August) and I think I’m about to rejoin the land of the living. The booze and drugs and laziness and sleep-a-thons were great, but hardly the best use of my life. Or if I’m going to continue to live like that, I should at least do it in sexier shoes, which means I need to make some money.

I’ve been considering and shelving a variety of ideas about what I want to do now – I hadn’t moved out of Fairfield before because it seemed impossibly hard while I was recovering from depression – but now it seems like something I could actually manage. I am rather a city girl at heart, and I enjoy things like being able to eat at restaurants on Sundays, public transportation, culture, and fewer flying insects. Maybe I’ll live in Iowa City for awhile; who knows.

Today I ate leftover broccoli and potatoes from brunch and have spent much of the rest of the day in my room. Truck’s started making electric guitar noise in a different key than the song I’m listening to, though, so it might be time to turn off the iTunes and head outside for a bit.

In which I say hi. (“Hi!”)

Greetings from Oak Brook, Illinois, where I live in a hotel room at a Marriott with NLW, who came down with a sinus infection and hasn’t left the room in 30 hours! I watched fireworks from the parking lot on the 4th and it was good. I have eaten enough Indian food for all of us. I’m in love with Amma. I’ve got the “I should totally go to India now that I’m single but what will I do with my dog?” bug in the worst way.

I’ll write a post about the deeper aspects of seeing Amma soon, but it’ll be passworded (so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to). The password will be amma, once I write the post that is.

The coolest thing about NLW’s illness is that it causes her to keep the room at 68 degrees, which I love. I’m wearing a sweater and socks up in here!

Note that Meebo is way cool if you want to find your IM friends on a machine that isn’t yours. I’m trying to install it into eyeOS, even.

Um… I’ve been updating Twitter and Flickr so you can find out about the trip there. (I think I’ll be designing a ‘travel layout’ I can switch to that displays only stuff I can update by phone – Flickr, Twitter, Jott – for when I’m too busy to get on the Intartubez.)

I miss you all, my e-babies. When I get home I shall spend an entire day catching up on yer blogz and leaving terribly clever comments! I promise!