Shakta Bhakta Tantrik Ashtangi...???

So, it's been a while. I find I'm writing more on Facebook than anywhere else since I opened a new page more geared towards the devotional aspects of my yogic life. Many will say devotion? Yoga? What do the two have to do with one another. But to me they are both part and parcel of the same path, and must be.

I just read a great article about being a Shakta Bhakta, which means a person who generally has ecstatic devotion to a female deity, or Devi/Goddess, and it was centered in West Bengal which is mostly still an area where worshipping Kali is very common and they put her as the ultimate reality, but it was also about using yoga in that path. Again, many who understand the two concepts would say what? how? They don't even go together, but in the article they mentioned how in Bengal they are the same system, one tempers the other. And all of this is Tantra, which could mean technique, but also means the looming together of all things, the weaving of a thread, so it takes them all and puts them in one perspective. Or as my Guruji says "Tantra means everything!"

Many who have felt the Goddess presence in their life in whatever way, will take up yoga as a way to get the emotions under control and open up the energy channels to allow the flow of Her energy through them, but to not allow that energy to overwhelm them and drive them insane. Where for me the process was the opposite...

I started yoga during a time I was repressing myself to such a level that I often had headaches and was trying to escape my body via stories, movies or books and then using the fantasy they created within me to go further away and divorce myself from the feeling of repression in my body. The yoga got me so in touch with my body that it felt bad to keep drinking the way I was, although I fought that for years until I realized I had to surrender to the need to drink less, if at all. It also helped me know which foods were working for me and which were not, even to drink soda, or tea, or water, etc. It also brought me to reflect on the amount of sex I was having, the type of people I was comingling with and how damaning my attitude toward sex was reflective of my attitude towards leaving my body!

Once I started finally going to India and got involved with the deities there, Kali worked her way into my life, and now Prathyangira, a deeper form of Kali from another tradition. This led me to understand I'd always been a devoted sort of being. Always looked for the Gods to manifest within my person and was disappointing me when they/he/she, whomever I was worshipping at the time, did not jump into my body and give me an ecstatic experience with them possessing me if you will, or talkng to me in my mind, showing me the way in some aspects. Then it dawned on me they were, She was, through my instincts and urges to turn this way, drive that way, to go here, there, to climb this tree, to walk in that stream, etc. And then I realized that Tantra was working it's way into my life too, through the western version, outside in, where they focuses on the sexual pleasure of it.

When I finally met a teacher who taught me that Tantra really is about devotion to a deity and must include a deity to keep it within the self. So to focus on sex needs to slowly go deeper than the flesh and make it's way into your heart, through intention, through focus, through certain "rules and regulations" and then it's still Tantra. Where the form she was teaching me was to start within, creating the experience within the being through ritual, through chanting, through embodying the intention behind each name of Kali we were chanting, what it meant would be able to soak in and vibrate the body to a higher frequency, and then you could feel Her in your life, in your being, guiding you...

Now my Guruji has moved me into the knowledge that all of this is one path, all of it is Tantra. He tells of the Vedas and how they say you can be a yogi, or a bhogi. Bhoga being the path of enjoyment and pleasure, of the world. Yoga being the path of going within and finding that connection, that Yoking that yoga really is. Where the Tantrik shastras state both can be the same thing. If you are a Bhogi and are offering up your experiences, the pleasures and enjoyments of life, to your deity, to something deeper within you, and drawing your sense inward, then it is yoga too. '

Some will say that is the path for asceticism, but no, it's not. It's saying to have the pleasures, enjoy them, see God in them and use that energy to deeper your awareness within, enjoy it and find the pleasure in there and gain the ability to share it with others in your life too. BUT not to allow the pleasures to suck you in to where you only care about the pleasure of it, rather than using the energy for transformation. Transformation meaning to fully embody the holy, energetic, Godlike energy we are and have access too, bring it to the surface. Let you be it, and it be you. Live from this place and then you will be fully living, not half dead or fully dead as so many are while yet still "alive" in a body.

Ashtanga Yoga, as a Hatha Yoga system is a Tantrik practice. It is used to bring awareness to such a deep level, but also to open the body up so it's healthy, so the energy flows into every corner. And for me it opened me up to the possibility of being in my body, inhabiting it, and yet using that energy that was coming accessible for more. To create and amazing life for myself, to transform myself into the fullest being I can be, so that then I would be able to bring this to my students as I teach them the yoga practices. And as Guruji slowly teaches me more and more, or will once I'm finally able to get back to him (he does still teach me but in person the transmission is so much more complete) he wants me to keep teaching Ashtanga Yoga to everyone who wants to learn it, and then when a student comes to me and wants to learn more I can teach them what he is and will teach me.

It's an exciting prospect. I look forward to being there one day. I love teaching asana, but I also love the idea of teaching all the yogic disciplines in a way that it will be a Tantrik practice and help them in their whole life. So what am I? All those words I listed above? Yes, and more. And so are you...

Easter morning...

So I've started to write something several times and then just dropped it because it seemed like I was whining and there's really no need to add to that vibration in the world, but now I finally feel ready to put something down.

Just a month ago was the year anniversary of this new world we're all living in, not really new but for most of us a whole different way of being happened. Even though this has happened, and in the not too distant past, those alive right now mostly have not had to deal with this before. It also canceled my in person classes, launched many of us into online teaching and a lot of time alone with no more hugs and such...

Just Thursday I received the Johnson and Johnson one shot vaccine. I never intended to get a vaccine, never have in my adult life before, not that I'm against them. Then I discovered it would be easier to travel with proof of having had the vaccine so decided to go ahead and find this one shot instead of needing two. I've never loved needles or the sensation of them going into my skin or oozing whatever serum into my body, blecchhh, so one was my goal. I found it and usually once a week I borrow one of my students car so I did that and went to an open event at this pharmacy about 25 minutes away...

Waiting was the worst part, in line no less on concrete, but mostly because then I can take time to really get all fucked up in my head about the needle thing. The good part was I was the last one to receive it and they sent all those behind me home, which wasn't terribly fair to them but they were going to call and get them appointments to come in so worked out. The doctor was Indian and recognized my name as a Punjabi one so we had stuff to talk about, especially when he found out I spend a lot of time in Mysore then he wanted to talk about dosa. Even told me where to get the best one in Columbia, the town nearest here that has a large Indian population so I drive there sometimes for temples and dosa.

When I left I felt light headed but figure it was from all the self imposed anxiety I'd brought on myself but was otherwise functional. About 8-8:30pm is when I started feeling very woozy, so went to bed around 9. That's when it started. I woke up at midnight with chills so bad I thought I was freezing, achey joints, especially my back and the base of skull. 3am woke up again with fever, full body pain and a full blown headache. 5am woke up with all of those together, but with a bit less of each one if that makes sense. Then 7am woke up and just lie there feeling all of it, eventually watched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's new episode but I'll have to watch it again because I was out of it. All day long I mostly lie in bed, my head feeling like it weighed a ton, my hips and legs feeling they were detached and weighed a ton each, so going to the bathroom periodically I'd really have to hold onto the walls, bedposts, and would feel like I could barely make it back to the bed.

Then around 3pm I woke up, having fallen back asleeep around 1 and I thought I could get up, so took a shower, ate a cheese sandwich, sat in the recliner I've brought into the bedroom to read in, for about 2 hours, then I chanted, meditated, tried to create a higher vibration in which healing can happen and by then had to lie back down again. Not like go to sleep, I was not tired, but just on the bed and watched shows online til pretty late, then retired for the night.

Then I slept all night long, no waking up til 7 the next morning, I think I fell asleep around 11. This was yesterday morning, Saturday, and I felt energetic, not hugely but a bit, so did some slow Surya Namaskara A and B, then sat in padmasana and did pranayama. Felt good, showered, chanted, did my morning pooja, ate breakfast, then I felt worn out, so sat most of the day, talked on the phone a bit which was good, but didn't have a lot of physical energy all day long, yet again stayed up late, was not sleepy, was just tired physically and so lying around felt good. But by bed time I felt really good.

Which leads to this morning, I woke up felt energetic again, thought I'd try some yoga and see what happened with no judgment if I could only do a bit like the day before. Started did Surya As and Bs, then all of standing, slowly, but not too slowly, then moved through one posture at a time, one vinyasa at a time and ended up doing full primary series with all the vinyasas as it's taught these days, then a little pranayama, then my shower, pooja, meditation, breakfast and ordered a pizza and am now writing. I'm still not tired, I'm very high feeling, like air heady high lol, but am very happy to feel this way after two full days of feeling otherwise.

Now, here's the thing, I've not done full primary with all the vinyasas since this pandemic began. I think it was even since January last year, or the December before that. In Tucson I was having stuff go on with my body and I lost a lot of my practice so what I could mostly was half primary with no vinyasas in between sides and that was only sometimes. The last few months I was doing it more often, but still less vinyasas. So this morning was anomalous to me, and that I'm not sore and not feeling worn out is quite amazing. My friend Karen had joked about this being a super-soldier serum (my words from the Captain America movies and this series I mentioned earlier) and it would give me lots of energy and more strength, and I knew she was joking but it seems to have happened.

I did yesterday a two hour online course with Abraham, all pointing to the fact I needed to get inside my own mind and straighten things out and that was their solution to every problem, as it always is, but I got the message. I needed to get my state of mind in a better feeling place and then all of my seemingly external issues I have been having will take care of themselves, let alone this physical stuff going on from the vaccine, and so I worked last night to visualize and feel myself into a better place, and that seems to have worked.

I've done this Abraham work since 2006 and so I know this, but when you get so low you forget and you keep forgetting until you get a reminder, which I now have. So I'm embracing where I am, and what I'm doing now even though neither are ideal, they are great for right now and helping me get back to where I want to be, need to be, both mentally and physically. And it's working. I've already gotten two appointments for this next week in addition to the ones I already had and have had some great conversations with people that inspired me, so there you go. As the sutras says yoga is all about the mind, as many other texts state too, it's all happening in our mind and we can control that with the right tools, so I've utilized mine and will continue too. I'm not in the clear yet, so gotta keep the focus going, but I'm better than I was a week ago, and definitely better than a month ago!

Next location...

Well, I'm in my next location. Somewhere I've never been before, Myrtle Beach, SC. It's a quaint little town that is on the ocean and where I'll be staying is walking distance to the ocean, but for now I'm staying at my friends house.

In perusing her yoga books I found a book on Tantra by David Hawley, well known for his books on the sub-continent. But his wife, Shambavi Chopra, is who changed my life with her book Yogic Secrets of the Dark Goddess. I was afraid of Kali before that book, but during my reading of it slowly fell in love with her and invited her into my life. Not that you have a choice, once she shows up, she is in there whether you like it or not! And so it goes...

The book is a generic overall of the things I mostly know already, but put in a much simpler tone that even surprised me when it poked some things I thought I knew already. I'm just skimming through it and glancing at whatever jumps out at me and yet it's still having some profound aha moment effects!

I'm to the point of just about complete bottom, and this is apparently where I needed to be. My finances are completely gone, my students and teaching Ashtanga Yoga is completely gone. Amongst other things, it seems that she wasn't going to let me settly for any level of comfort, and so she slowly took it all away from me. All my preconcienved notions I have of who I am, or rather of identifying who I am with what I do and the external things that come from that are being smashed, even now as I look right at them. And I'm seeing that that is okay and with it I wouldn't be this clean slate I'm becoming. A clean slate is where we are meant to be, and yet why do some of us fight against that so hard on a daily basis?

I remember seeing two women arguing in Mysore on my first trip, looking almost like they'd come to blows, but did not. Then the next day holding hands as they walked down the street, completely seemingly oblivious of the previous days argument. Someone told me oh yes, they let go of things here on a deep level. The underlying thing was their love for one another and friendship, that couldn't be affected by their surface level argument, so they are letting the disagreeing about that subject go. That blew my mind and made me realize we in the US, probably in most places, have a lot to learn about attachment.

So, I still have a place to stay, a bed to sleep in, food to eat so far, and so I guess there are new levels for me to go to still but the ideas of myself, who I am, who I want to be, who I think others see me as, are being called to task, and so my work is to let them go. Not as easy as it may sound of course, but here I am.

I lie in bed thinking myself into a depression this morning, and lie there longer until I saw a bit of hope and remembering my Abraham and Seth teachings started to shift my mind about them, finding some things to appreciate and raise my vibration enough until I could finally get out of bed, do a bit of asana and pranayama, shower, do my pooja and visualizations, sit with them, then read a bit of that book and now write. So I'm okay, just feeling my way through this stage of existence. Also doing my best to try and not just be waiting for India to open up their borders and allow me back in so I can get to my guru and start my studies with him. I'm trying to be here now and work with what is there before me, not always an easy task when what you want seems so far off, but here it is in an okay place to be.

I fought hard to keep my connection to Tucson and Arizona, even staying there 3 weeks longer than I was supposed to and now seeing that I should have left when I was supposed to and move on from there, but I didn't do that and that is okay. Now I know, they no longer want what I have to offer, and I no longer feel an attachment to teaching there, the places there or the things I left behind. Maybe, at least mostly, there are a few things and friends there that I do miss, and will, but I'm not there anymore and likely never will be again, so move on man, move on!

Okay, enough ruminating, enough being where I am no longer. Time to be here, and move into whatever is coming into play in this east coast ocean town. I invite it all in and see how the flow works here, won't you join me?

Retreat...

Well, this past year has been a strange adventure. Most of the time I have not been happy with it and complained a lot but then I started to appreciate what I was getting out of it and it shifted, is still shifting and I'm waivering on my positivity like crazy but am doing my best.

I was supposed to leave Tucson in May to go visit family for a week, then to Budapest to teach for a month before heading back to India to do a little tour around to a few Shakti Peeths that I really wanted to see and feel the energy of, Kamakhya again of course, and Varanasi which I want to make peace with after a turbulent last time there and then back to live with my Guruji indefinitely. But of course that didn't happen.

So I found a place to stay and stayed in Tucson until the exact day that I had arrived the year before. On that day my sister and I took a long drive back to my moms house, where I stayed for about 5 weeks. Then I moved to Omaha and lived with my cousin, visited with my aunt for about another 5 weeks. Before heading back to Tucson to dog sit where I had been staying before I left, only to end up staying at my friends off the grid desert house for another 3 weeks about an hour and a half from Tucson.

Deciding I would make these three weeks a retreat of sorts, thinking I needed to re-kickstart my asana practice and dig deeper into my daily poojas. Only to find out after 20 years of asana I'm still pretty good with it and the poojas are good too. So started driving into the local little mountain town, Bisbee, and really found I loved it a lot. Met a few people around town there and a few in Sierra Vista, another local town. Discovered some spiritual sites, some great hiking spots, etc. If you're connected to me on Facebook or Instagram you can see pics of most of these things there.

But I am ready for the next phase of my journey. It's too cold here in the desert for my liking when there's not the ability to turn on the heat very often and I need to live in a place of my own, not feeling like I'm under someone's feet or living off of them.

The next stage is back to Tucson for a day then to Phoenix to fly out to Myrtle Beach, a place I've never been. But a long time student and friend of mine lives there and actually has been trying to get me there for a while and has a house for me to stay in until India finally reopens their borders to the likes of me, a tourist.

Somehow I'm still on a tourist visa in India, even though I feel like I belong there and have more connections there than here. I would even take citizenship if it were an option, but it's not yet. Unless I can find the right help to work on it with their way of doing things, lol. But I digress.

So I'm hoping to teach in Myrtle Beach, enjoy the area, maybe more, who knows. I've never been, but do know it's warmer, is on the ocean and I don't believe will get snow, which is anethama to me. That starts Saturday, it's Tuesday and the days seem very slow. But from being out here my mind is mostly very quiet and I'm feeling pretty peaceful. So, on with it...

Strange times...

I know this phrase is over used, and that is exaclty why I used it as the title of this article. These actually are very normal times, the planet creates a new virus every so often to cull the population that is slowly taking it over. I could have just said culling the herd, but that may not sit very well with anyone. And we're all fucking tired of it, so that's all I'll be saying about that. What I'm really tired of is being locked out of India, it is my home. No, not legally, I do know that, but in my heart. And yes I would like to make it legal and get citizenship there. Once I get back and to my guruji there will be some things to come up that can help that happen, universe? You listening? Good... Neither is this post to just bitch about things as they are right now. That's happening way too much these days methinks and I'm over it. It's time to appreciate things, to shift our focus and to make peace with the way things are and move through them. My "normal" life for the past 5 years was to live in India and travel to Europe to teach, make euros, then back to India to live, maybe travel around and experience new places, but mostly live in Mysore. So when I got this gig in Tucson I was excited because I would make decent money, but then when I returned to Mother India I could travel around to some Shakti Peeths before settling in with my Guruji and his family near Mysore. And was getting to teach in a new place, Budapest, before going back. I was very excited and happy for this phase of my life. But, of that didn't happen. All things changed last year. But that afforded me to go inside, and now staying at my friends place out here in the desert, off the grid, is the final chapter of that going within. And being mostly alone out here I'm really getting to see my crap when it comes up, but also I'm seeing those things that I thought were shot that are not. Seeing all the good stuff that is still there for me as well. I had been having a terribly hard time getting so early to practice the last few months, and here my goal was to restart my practice. To my surprise it's just been sitting there waiting for me, and is fine. Getting to sleep to a more decent hour and then do it at my own pace has proven to be quite the surprise. I figured I'd be struggling through it again, but no, it's just like hey, here we are and there you are, finally come back to us. Now let's do this together, again. That was nice to discover. And my poojas that I do daily, I've been doing them for a while, so they are set and good. I was just looking to find the juice in them again, and I have started to, which is also nice. The quiet here, that was surprising how nice that has been. I love it. And they have place where they light fires often so I'm treating it as my smashan and meditating as an Aghori would on a dead body, next to it, feeling my layers burn away. That is also nice, along with taking walks in the desert. Relearning how to focus and create my reality in the way that I want it, and accept it when it's not there yet. That has been the biggest reason for this retreat, and that I feel I'm achieving. Also to find that deep faith I once had, not just focusing on how to make enough money, or to be somewhere that I'm not, and be someone I'm not, yet. All thsoe things are falling away too, and I'm finding that okayness with them as they are. That feels nice too. So I guess everything is just nice right now. And I'll take it, nice is so much better than where I was. And is a good place to start working on where you are and where you're heading. Nice. Not a word I like or use very often, but for sure a word I'm happy to feel and be a part of these days. These strange days...