"Everywhere looking, God is seeing..."

Sharath talked about a lot of things this morning in conference, I'm not the one to take notes, I'm the one to listen until I hear something that dings and then start processing.

Last conference he talked about God, but decided we shouldn't use the word God because it has so many connotations to it in peoples minds, so he started calling it energy. Again this morning he started talking about God, mentioned calling it supreme energy and such but kept slipping back into the use of the word God.

Personally I use the word God a lot because I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian environment and so that was the word we used. As I got older, studied other religions, other spiritual paths, and eventually studying yoga and the movement of energy through the body I still continued and continue to use the word God. To me God is everything, not an old man with a long beard sitting in the clouds.

Sharath talked, near the end of conference, about how this energy is you, is me, is everything and so it resonated with me. I'm also reading Dancing with Siva, a book written by the head of a group of Hindu monks who's monastery is on the island of Maui, they also produce the magazine Hinduism Today and I've read their stuff for years, but never bought the three big books that their teacher wrote introducing the Western mind to Hinduism (he himself was a Western dancer in his teens who was drawn to the Hindu and more specifically Saivite path at a young age and converted over) so when I saw the book at Sapna bookstore here I took it that it was meant for me to purchase it, it was time to get into their stuff. In this book, he mentions the four types of Hindus, Saivite, Vaishnavites, followers of Shakti and Smartas, but went on to talk about how it doesn't matter which "god" you follow, they are all one, the underlying idea behind Hinduism is Sanatana Dharma, belief that all gods are just aspects of the same energy force, and Sharath as well talked about this when asked about mudras, the three fingers pointing down in jnana mudra represent Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara and shouldn't be separated, but together since those three are really just one energy, so it's symbolic, and the index finger and thumb together represent atma and paramatma, the individual soul and the oversoul, or God, and they are connected because they are also one. All of these things is one, one, one.

Sure we are individuated, but underlying it all, we are the same spirit. Sounds confusing to a lot of folks but when I saw the movie I <3 Huckabees and Dustin Hoffman's character expounded upon the blanket theory, I got it. He held out a blanket (this scene used to be on YouTube and I was going to attach it but it's not there anymore) and at one end he poked up into the blanket creating a bump and said, "this is the Eiffel Tower", then another place poked through and said, "this is you", then another, "this is me", then another, "this is a hot dog", "this is a car", etc. etc. etc.

Get it? It's all different things but it's all one blanket, God is the blanket. So to me it's like a corner of the blanket is poked into each of us and into each thing on the planet, but all are made of the same thing. This would also resonate with the teachings of Abraham that I follow and is why I think those teachings and the ones of Ashtanga Yoga I'm learning from Sharath and have learned from Guruji in the past are all the same. Guruji used to say "looking at wall, thinking God. Everywhere looking, God is seeing."

Yes? If you get this, even a tiny bit, then you get me and there's a reason you're in my life. So if you're reading this, thank you, you are a mirror of an aspect of myself and I am the same for you, because we are both just different corners of the same blanket.

Help me to remember that please when you find me pissed off at you, or remember it yourself when you find me pissing you off. Let's be in this together, it's a great path, one I love and don't plan on leaving anytime soon, hope to see you there!