Monday, April 22, 2019

I'm almost there...

So, I know I've been whining a lot about being broke, about wanting to teach and needing a place to do so. About how everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Until last night where a new low was hit. Or was it?

I am sleeping on two small pads that for some reason they call mattresses here, they are not mattresses compared to what the western mind things of them as, they are just pads, maybe an inch thick, hence why I sleep on two, and filled with stuffing and have a flannel look to them. I cover them with a sheet and cover me with another sheet. I'm not complaining about this just iterating for the western readers, this is not a bed as you all will think of it. It is however how many, many Indians sleep. I'm fine with it and sleep fairly well.

So, I'm sleeping on the floor. Lying in bed watching a video I downloaded and then all of a sudden feel water on the marble floor under my fingers, then listened and realised I heard water pouring from somewhere. So I looked up, nothing, building here are pretty water tight. It was pouring in from under my door and at the foot of my bed there stood about 3 inches of water in the whole corner. I guess that's a lower corner because it wasn't at the head of my bed or to the left of me at all.

I open the door to find that one guy who lives upstairs was squeegeeing the water as it was running down the stairs further down the stairs to the lower level and then into the drain. So I borrowed it and did the same from my room, only to find that about 5 of my books had soaked up a lot of water and some pages of mantra I'm using for a sadhana, my floor mats, my bed, sheets, etc, had all soaked up a lot of water.

Anyhow, we worked, got the water out, dried up the rest with a towel, changed out my sleeping pads, or one of them anyway, for a drier one, although the stored ones had gotten a bit wet as well, and pulled out a couple lungis to cover up with and slept. Yes, this all happened at 10pm when I'm usually asleep already, was heading there which is why I was in bed watching the video.

This morning I hung the stuff out in the sun and air to dry and moved on with my day. But I awoke to a message from a friend saying something about the astrology of what is going on, and it was in response to my desperate why can't anything go right in my life type message. He mentioned that what is going on with the planets right now is a time to dig in deep and look for the spiritual side of each thing, not to jump into your old pattern, which is exactly what I did.

Now, after 19 years of serious spiritual practice and 20 years of half assed practice of some sort before that, you'd think I wouldn't automatically fall back into my old patterns by now, but here I am, woe is me, I'm a victim, blah, blah, blah...

But today I feel better and am looking at the spiritual side of it, is there any other side? All is spirit in my viewpoint anyway, so how can it be?

And if, as they believe in Shakta circles as in Kamakhya culture, all is she, all is a manifestation of the goddess, then there is no separation. This morning after seeing my friends message and realizing my need to stay out of my old patterns I felt better, did some yoga, ate breakfast, then drove up Chamundi Hill to visit the goddess.

There was no traffic, there was no line even to wait to get inside. It was earlier than I'm usually there. It was nice. It was meant to happen and now I feel a nice energy that is more balanced than I was last night. So I need to stop being so hard on myself and falling into the old victim mode, no I know better and can be more aware and catch myself more quickly before I go there. And if I go there I can be more available for forgiveness and allowing myself to have been where I was and be okay with it, and move forward.

Forward is the motion we want, it can be slow, and even delayed, but slowly allowing the stream to take us along. An older analogy Abraham used to use was the stream. Nothing we want is upstream, so we have to take our oars out of the water trying to go upstream so hard, it never works. Take them out and allow, slowly, the movement of the water to turn your boat around an take you with it downstream.

All the work you've done on yourself, all the stuff you've put out to the universe that you want, all the energy expended to create the reality you want, are downstream, not upstream. And don't get aggressive and turn the boat around with the oars and paddle your way down, it's got to happen when your energy is lined up for it, not before. So just allow the water to flow you in the direction it's going. Nice thought huh? The work has been done already, just let yourself move towards it...

No comments: