Someone once told me that simplicity was sacred. I took it as a proverb and put it away with all those quotes that you like because they sound nice and ideal and something you'd like to be or work on... When I first intensified my spiritual path... things were simple. I love God. He is everywhere... I see him as the beautiful Lord Krishna; he is my beloved brother and teacher, Lord Jesus. When I came to college...things got a bit complicated. I for the first time, save the internet, met real Hindus, who had grown up Hindu...and because of my extreme love for God as Krishna, I wanted to practice with people who loved Krishna always. However, to do this included adapting and understanding Indian cultural aspects that were entwined into Hinduism. So many symbols and readings and ideas and thoughts...and I absorbed them all. Because I thought that I should...but somewhere after my parents separation, the weight of school work and expectations laid heavy upon me...and my connection of love with the Lord was broken...I felt that love still and I thought of him still ...but the strength was weeken. It wasn't gone...for how can you lose something you had all your life? How can you lose something that was never lost? That is more dear to you than life itself? That is, as Muslims sometimes say, closer to you than you're own veins? But I felt that weekening and it pained me and I worked to get it back and I called to my Lord in every name I could think of ...but still...something was different. And so it continued. I went to field school in Japan this summer and I felt something so unexpected and different as compared to what i had been feeling for the last 4 years...and that was attachment...to my home, family, country, and a deep sorrow because I was separated, frustrated, I was in a place I didn't know...all these things that I had always loved and saw as adventure were sorrowing me and I didn't know why. I knew it had to stop. I knew I had to make it stop.Each night, when all had gone to sleep, I put myself at the Lord's feet and asked Him for this pain of attachment to go away....I had forgotten that feeling and I really hated having it and I just wanted it gone. A few weeks ago, I began to fall into the routine of nine nights of pujas for Navaratri (which for this reason, it is one of my favourite holidays)... and I was a nothing. And that was it. I fell into a terrible frustration with school and noticed things that were reminicint of the first time I had made a spiritual "leap of faith" (Ironically my third year of high school, and i am now in my third year of university). On the auspicious day of Dussera I made a vow to my Self and to the universe. I would not be like this anymore. I love God and I don't want to fall pray to joy and sorrow. I made a promise to myself that just as one prepares their hearts to recieve Lord Jesus at his birth....so I, on that day of Dussera, would prepare my heart and remove all of these limitations that I fell prey to over these last 4 years...and on Diwali, I would be there , ready, welcoming, and full of all the joy, love, respect, and bliss that I know I have deep within my heart, brought forefront for my Lord, to welcome him back as the main and only jewel of my existence, just as the people of Ayodhya welcomed Sri Rama back after his long exhile. A vow like this feels so right and potent...and I feel its presence and its working already... the other night I was waiting under a tree for Sanskrit class to start and I was listening to a Krishna Das kitan...just so simple "Sita Ram Sita Ram Sita Ram Sita Ram"...and I just started feeling this great freedom... this great love and awakening and I said to myself...you are so silly little girl...you had it from the get go, this is it...its so simple. You just love him and you sing His Name...and all these other things will come upon you... simple, easy, uncomplicated...lovingly singing.... not caring about who, when, why...just because you love His Name...and you love Him...and for you...that's all that matters...all these people...they don't matter...just you and Him...and your Oneness. My teacher, Swami Tyaganandaji, spoke last night about how it is just this outer bit that goes everywhere...but your true Self...you're already here...there's nowhere to go. That is my present understanding. My love for Him...its always been there...it is I that have covered it up...that have moved it around and projected it places where it didn't need to go. And he wasn't ever lost to me...but I was lost to where He was always. So, as I spend this day in thought of Him in preparation for a spirituality retreat with my close friends in my woman's interfaith group, I want to take the time to thank you my friends. For guiding me. For giving me your prayers and well wishes.... and for being great and wise teachers for me. I am, as you had met me, just a silly girl, who doesn't know much of anything... but this much I know... God is love. I love Him. Whatever way I can love Him best, that I want to do with my whole heart, soul, and life. I just got lost and couldn't see...that its all so simple. We just have to be simple and love.... and I think that that is just what it is. Just love. Instead of being lost in confusion, Oh Lord, let me only be lost in you! Swami Tyaganandaji, my wonderful, wise teacher, once wrote: "Krishna, come steal my heart. Look my door is open!"... please, if I could have such Grace.
Hare Krishna! From Nicole...... .......... I am, as you had met me, just a silly girl, who doesn't know much of anything... but this much I know... God is love. I love Him. Whatever way I can love Him best, that I want to do with my whole heart, soul, and life. I just got lost and couldn't see...that its all so simple. We just have to be simple and love.... and I think that that is just what it is. Just love. Instead of being lost in confusion, Oh Lord, let me only be lost in you! Swami Tyaganandaji, my wonderful, wise teacher, once wrote: "Krishna, come steal my heart. Look my door is open!"... please, if I could have such Grace. ....... Dear Nicole, I feel distressed. After reading your new thread it was only pain in the beginning and I was full of joy at the end. My dear girl, nothing and nobody on this earth can keep your Lord away from you. Your honesty, sincerity and simplicity have all become thick ropes to tie Him up forever. You have everything alright for Him, I always wondered about you. Please remember, when you believe in God, you must believe in His divine lila as well. What you faced for some time is experienced by all seekers... suddenly everything seems to vanish. But He never leaves you and waits to see how you react. As you say, it is love alone that He gives in to and He comes back forever. Whenever any depression occurs, please try to be with babies and little children as much as possible... it will do wonders for you. I feel sorry about the other parts of your post, in fact, I am not feeling well after reading some parts. I pray that soon you overcome all these transitory things and phases. We all love you, Kumar.
Hey, I have a good idea Listen to the song Si Ta Ra Ma by Don Cherry, I think its on his album Orient. I think you would love it. In fact the whole album is a masterpeice that truly has been lost and nearly forgotten.
Kumarji, Please to not worry for me. It is, as you say, all his Leela....and I think that I had to forget to remember (if that makes any sense). It is by His Divine Grace that I have been so blessed with such great teachers as you, Bhaskar, Jedi, BBB, CCP, and anyone else who has come through coorespondance with me in this forum. The reason I talked about how I did feel was so that I could share with you all the joy I feel now in my heart....that my Lord is most kind and loving with me... please do not worry for this silly girl. A friend of mine sent me the Ramayana TV serial and right before the final battle with Ravana, Lakshman says to Sri Ram how none of this would've happened if he didn't listen to Sita in the forest...and Ram says to him, "Beyond our joys and sorrows lies some scheme of Fate! But God knows. In all the sorrows given us...so much good for society and the world...and so, whatever happens happens for our good. Its in this spirit that we must take joy and sorrow. God gives us sorrow to make us learn and joy, to test our humanity"...and it struck me such. I do not know God's plan or his Leela or anything...but I do know that Love is always there. And if its the only thing this foolish little girl understands...then I have only God and my great teachers to thank for it. Please do not worry over me, Abbuji, I just wanted to share with my friends and teachers what I have learned and how I have learned it as they have done with me, guiding me, by God's Grace through this strange and interesting spiritual journey. Swami Tyaganandaji always talks about how Swami Vivekanadaji would say that the spiritual life is the hardest in the world...and if you don't struggle a little, you will never get to where you need to go. I appriciate everything. Thank you. Hari Om. Peace<3 Nicole
Thanks svg for sharing this with us. God is always love, and he is always there, we just have to turn to him. I especially like the message about having no obligations for us, we simply have to love him and perform our prescribed duties as loving service to Him- whether that is studying or working to the best of our abilities. Personally, I find your experience inspiring svg, thank you for sharing this, come to think of it, He is ignoring me too (Or maybe I am ignoring Him)... so please put in a good word for this Jedi as well .
"God" = 1. "Creation" = a division of that 1. Its all the same, ultimately, but from our human perspective (because we are a creation ourselves), there is a blind spot which removes our ability to see our connection to the source of what we are. This can be removed. The idea is to move toward the center of the godhead where all individuality merges into the one. What is more simple than 1? Your whole world is just a soap bubble, compared to what lays beyond those thin spherical walls of swirling opalescence you now call home. To desire none of it, is the key to to having all of it. x
Dear Nicole - I think you are right to want things simple. My experience leads me to believe that if one has complex and constructed views about the divine, it can often be a stumbling block to direct experience. It is all to easy to get lost in a sea of mental conceptions, complex practices and so on. Something occurs to me here as perhaps worth a mention. It is something drawn from the works of William Blake. Two of his early books of poems are 'songs of innocence' and 'songs of experience, as no doubt you are aware. This theme, innocence and experience is one which runs very deep indeed, and which I think may be connected to your experiences over the last few years. The state of innocence is like the state of a child. A child is told about God and doesn't really question or doubt. Everything is simple when we are children. We trust those around us, we just accept things as they are. However, we grow up, and as we experience more of the world we see more and more the imperfections and the way that we can be decieved by appearances. We begin to question everything, and it is easy to see why many people end up pretty cynical about life. However, there is it seems a third stage - although I can't off hand give it a name. A state where innocence is regained, but in a higher sense, and on a higher level. We begin to see that simplicity is of the essence. This can only come through experience though - it is better than the state of an innocent child whose innocence is sure to be disturbed and lost one day. It is as though the person had come full circle in some way - or moved up a level perhaps on the spiral. This same idea is present in the pack of tarot cards, in the un-numbered card 'the fool'. The fool can be placed at the beggining or at the end of the sequence of the cards - and he's the same fool, but a different fool as well, because he has assimilated the lessons of the way. He has been through loss, complexity, pain, anguish, doubt - all that and more, yet has kept faith with the spirit and is now free. Good piece on this here http://www.learntarot.com/journey.htm#fooljourney In the Christian cycle, Adam and Eve are innocents. For them, everything is certainly simple. But they loose it as we know. Later, those who are saved by Jesus re-gain the primordial innocence of Adam. In Zen Buddhism, there's a story of a monk who asks the master 'what is the true Buddha Dharma?' to which the master replies - 'I see you have eaten your rice. Now go and wash your bowl'.
I think you hit upon something bill, and i am very happy svg for you, that you have reached such a nice place to be.
Thank you for your kind replys. The other night, I was reading the biography of Swami Vivekananda and I saw how , even after he met Sri Ramakrishna, he had periods of doubt, and how at one point he even went so far is ask everyone if God even existed at all... but eventually...eventually it caught him and swept him away...and I think even that gives me hope...because its some one who I admire very much a great teacher... and I think BBB that you are right that the best place to be is that point w/ both innocence and experience... I find no joy or point in cynasicm... and I think that we must be both reasonable and completely unreasonable...perhaps just live a life of complete liminality until we are finally transformed fully and truly ... The best thing I've read lately though: "Enveloped in Tamas, however much you may be, know all that will clear away if you take refuge in Him by being sincere to the core of your heart"- Swami Vivekananda Thank you all. God bless you. Jai Sri Krishna.
