Wednesday, July 30, 2008

I will not die an unlived Life (July 29 2008)

Life is Bliss. Ananda.

No matter how harsh I think my life conditions are, at times (which is not often, mind you).

Life is Change. Life is Sacred. Life is Love. Life is Evolution. Life is delicious dishes and exquisite wines. Life is traveling halfway across the world to visit a foreign city and feel at home there. Life is meeting someone, never to be the same again. Life is crying to overcome a broken heart. Life is the smell of freshly cut grass on your way to work. Life is the most tantalizing sunset that blesses your reunion with old and new friends in Malibu. Life is the gushing waves of the great ocean licking the rocky coastline of Catalunya. Life is sitting at the edge of the Grand Canyon and watching the magnificence of the Universe unfold as the Light changes again and again and again and again. Life is tears on my cheeks as the sun disappears in front of my eyes into the Great Ocean off the coast of Kerala for the last time this year.

And yet, are we honoring this Life? Are we living ecstatically or are we living just because we have to? Are we doing our utmost to conquer the most amazing experiences that are just waiting to be had in this Incarnation? Are we certain that we will be old before we die?

What are we waiting for to fully spend each breath, and bear no remorse?

How can I, how can we be aware of our existence, of the immense impact of each of our Lives and of our Collective potency as Humanity and yet, not be moved into action? We are all blessed with Sva Vimarsa, the Awareness of the Self, and with Sva Sva Vimarsa, the Self's sense of being aware of itself. And yet we allow ourselves to be frozen into inaction?

I am aware of the potency of my actions. I acknowledge the power that I can unleash in my practice on the mat, and the forces I can create in my universe off the mat. And that bears great responsibility. Damn it, a true sense of duty, I should say. How can we live a Life that is the mere shadow of what it could be, given the wealth, education, and safety we are all blessed with in our societies?

Every second, you and I have a choice to negate our instinctual nature and refuse to change the world. Or we can choose, with every breath, to take this Life, this AMAZING LIFE, which we have been gifted by God, the Universe, your parents or Mother Nature - whatever resonates with you - and turn it into a field in which we can plant seeds and harvest miracles. Gandhi used to say that 'we are the change we want to see in the world'. And we are.

Surely, our impact can be as radical or as subtle as we wish, from Da Vinci's transformative effect on civilization to that of any one of us adopting a single stray animal from the SCPA before it is killed. WE CAN CHOOSE, at every opportunity, to live this Life, TO LIVE THIS LIFE EXTENSIVELY, or to crawl through it. We are all born with so many gifts... Some can draw, some can act, some can sing, some can cook, some can love like there is no tomorrow, some can inspire, some can convince, some can dance, some can empathize, some can turn their back and leave... We all are blessed with a wealth of potentialities and possibilities. But do you wake up in the morning with the determination of the warrior, set to fight his battle? Do we use our gifts for the benefit of the Universe or do we let them go to waste?

That book that you have always wanted to write will only be manifested if you sit down today at your computer and start. You long-renounced dream of going to Cambodia and teach mathematics to children as an act of charity will only materialize if you identify and contact a suitable NGO today. These regrets, which you bear, of never telling your estranged sibling, who is gay, that you love him just as he is, will never dissolve until you have the courage to pick up your phone, dial the number and say the words. NOW.

On the day we were born, we have all been presented with the canvas and the brushes needed to paint a most beautiful, meaningful and inspired Life. But do we? Or are we wasting yet another incarnation by dwelling in our own unbearable confort?

I choose, this year, in two thousand and infinite, to live my Life to the fullest. To stretch my energy into all corners of my existence. To leave no gold nugget lying on the ground. I commit to loving, standing up for what I believe in, renouncing what depletes my energy and manifest my potential wherever I can. I will not die an unlived Life.

Because when we are dead, there is really not that much we can do anymore, kinda. ;-D

Read out loud with me:

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
Of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days
To allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
More accessible;
To loosen my heart
Until it becomes a wing,
A torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
To live so that which came to me as seed,
Goes to the next as blossom,
And that which came to me as blossom,
Goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova

WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE (July 25 2008)

6AM. Still pitch black and cool outside. Birds have not started commenting on the weather just yet. It's all so quiet. And so is my heart. The ripples of my (very!) early morning meditation on the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra are slowly dissolving into eternity, as I sit on the cold hard floors of my living room, gazing at the dark trees out the window.

NOW, my heart is full and ripe. My two beloved baby dogs are resting in a half gaze on the floor next to me. Outside, nature is holding itself up with beauty in branches and clouds for me to enjoy. A few miles away from here, my beloved soul mate is sleeping in peace and health and space, and though we no longer belong to one another, we are there for each other at this very instant. Further away, my pranic spouse is teaching a class in her yoga studio in the sharp mountains of Colorado. And from the cold floor of my living room, I close my eyes and embrace her. Further out, more friends and family members are going about their day or night, unconsciously holding space for me in their heart.
And so do I. So many little cells in my heart, in which I hold pure love and adoration for so many special people. NOW, I take the time, which I never do, to acknowledge these connections, these love arteries that take us back to Humanity's heart.

Right NOW, with no validation needed, I know that I love and that I am loved in return. At this very instant, while I could choose to see myself all alone on the floor of an aging condo in Singapore, I am a container of love, bliss and ecstasy.
NOW. No point in looking back at a past that was so fulfilling and rich. At a future that is heavily pregnant with many amazing moments that I will grasp when they are ripe. Bliss is right now, at this very second. And then at this new second. And this one. And this one…
It does not end. The mere presence of my adored babies next to me, the bond that I formed or strengthened with my friends last week in LA (including an unexpected Pranic marriage to the sweetest woman on Earth), the connection that I share - heart and soul - with teachers and students friends, these trees, swaying in the morning breeze as the sun finally breaks out of darkness, just for me.

Life is bliss. Right NOW. Whether you choose to uphold the teachings of Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) or Elvis Presley (It's now or never), bliss, enlightenment, and exquisite ecstasy, whatever you choose to call it, is NOW. In the center of the Heart. In your heart. In mine. And in the eyes of my dearest souls, into which my face remains.

There is nothing to wait for. No further challenge to go through. Bliss is not a gift handed at the end of your earthly existence in retribution for all the fun and joy you have chosen not to have. Bliss, incredible and shockingly intense happiness is in the resonance of the Love in your life, to friends, to your teachers, to your Ishta Devata, and to yourself.

I will let Rumi close this blurp for me, because he does it best.


'Hope for the Guest WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE,
Jump into experience WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE!
Think……. And Think ………. And think …….. WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time BEFORE death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten - that is all fantasy

WHAT IS FOUND NOW IS FOUND THEN!

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make Love with the divine NOW, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, believe in the Great Sound!

I say this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.

Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.'


Om Namah Shivaya

Cosmic Chaos (April 29 2008)

After Bali, I was in Japan for the week-end, assisting Shiva-ji for a Love-centered round of workshops in Yokohama and Tokyo. Yesterday, after an intense emotional burst of energy in Hridaya meditation, my very first teacher (bless her heart), who attended the workshop, described these last 12 to 18 months in her world as Cosmic Chaos. Incidentally, Patrick-dear, who was in Singapore last week to instill transformation in the Singapore community, was commenting on how many established relationships, heart- centered or else, were dissolved around him in the last year. I was making the very same comment to an old friend from school on my way to Bali 2 weeks ago, who was wondering how her marriage could collapse so unexpectedly after 12 years of bliss and 3 amazing children.

Look! It is all around us! As much love and commitment there is in all of us, we have been in a period of cosmic chaos in the last year and a half, where the destructive ('transformative') energy of Lord Shiva has been sweeping across this world: tensions flaring across the political circles of the Planet, the credit-crunch scandal and resulting collapse of the financial markets, the number of dead relationships that rest in peace in the love cemetery of 2008, food shortages and deaths around the world... And how many more examples could we draw from our own humble individual lives?


Meiji-dori, after banging the cosmic drums
I, as so many of us, am going through deep changes, and even (or especially?) when you think you are done with your sacrificial fire, and that you have nothing left to burn, your heart ignites and you are up for another round on the yogic merry-go-round of Change. To be painfully honest, if I go for any more round on this yogic roller-coaster this year, that will be the last anyone sees of me for a few good years!

What stays, however, is that Life is still beaming around us, whether we are on top of the world, on in the low lands of our days. Today can still bring you the most amazing treasure, and give your journey a completely new, exciting and unexpected turn. And awareness, our pranic weapon of mass creation, allows us to see the silver lining in all things. So delight in the taste of the sweet juicy mango when it's in your mouth, then take a deep and long bite in the lemon, knowing that the bitterness of this moment will make the next mango even more orgasmic!


Spinning the pois in Yokohama
I have much to share - OF COURSE - after 2 weeks with my sweet teacher friend, Shiva, and I will write more after I have made it safely back home. However, through the internal turmoil, pain and wonder of the last 2 weeks, with much Prana moving painfully upwards through my body, I have established one conviction: the Fire is the (only) way through. So let's prepare to self-combust together when we gather again on the mat for our sacred practices.

The time has come to turn your heart into a temple of fire. — Rumi

If you forget me (March 26 2008)

Some people have a way with words. This divine poem was brought back to my heart most unexpectedly yesterday by an old friend. Enjoy...


If You Forget Me

If you forget me,
I want you to know one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look at the crystal moon,
at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail toward those isles of yours
that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little
you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you
little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners that passes through my life,
and you decide to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember,
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

Coming and Going (March 11 2008)

Sweet and sour morning. I am at LAX, sitting in the departure lounge, waiting for my flight to board, listening to some really old (I mean A-HA old) tracks and gazing at the bright bright sun through the huge window pane. I am swimming in a totally creative stream these days, but my gaze is stuck on the bright sky draping the low-lying skyline of the city, framed to infinity by the Great Ocean and the Pacific Palisades hills. No words coming out just yet. LA is amazing and very plain at the same time. I always have that mixed feeling about lalaland: on the one hand, that city has the everlasting freshness and glow of a curious and (still) innocent 17 year old teenager, and the wrinkled vibe of a (kinky) old dame. Strangely enough, though, I love it either way.

Today, LA is young, crisp, cold, fresh and bright. I woke up to a bright sun washing the walls of the bedroom, and walked along the beach in the cooling breeze towards this simple and (thus?) comfy coffee house down Rose Ave. Reading the LA Times with a cup of coffee (yup, I am back to drinking the warm black water this week) and a bagel. I love LA when it is that straightforward, deliciously easy to love, like a big red ripe strawberry in the summer. Everything around you is just there to be enjoyed, with no second guess. And yet at the back of my heart, in that tiny little place at the center of my chest, deep inside, I have started to bleed. More like a crackle. I guess I did not see it coming. Or I did not feel it coming. Days have been long and intense during my trip to SoCal, and I had just enough space in the days to feel gratitude and love. I guess I was busy and focused enough to be completely immersed in the sea of joy I came here to experience.

I have been here for 2 weeks now, and have been closer than ever to my teacher, my friend, my doppelganger, Shiva. I have been so dedicated, with her and the other assistant teachers, to giving everything, every sparkle of Prana Shakti and dedication, to the amazing Souls that attended the teacher training here this fortnight. It has been somewhat draining physically, but the 12 hour-days we went through were a breeze, with our mind intent on transmitting the love, the passion for the art of Living Yoga, and the simplicity of Being Present. I have been on that love train since the morning practice of day 1, where the ameba (40 students roughly) turned into an integrated energetic Body, with its own rhythm and sense of purpose. I have been so pranically charged up, so grateful and so blissed out that I had forgotten that it had to end. Abruptly. Last night. All of a sudden, after the music stopped and the pois were put down, it was over. The Wave crashed. Alex, Urshi, Hollie, Stephanie, Anabelle, Cosetta, Christiana, Aletheia, Joyce, Elika... Gina.

For me, the experience was astonishing, incredibly formative, rewarding, cathartic. Not only did I get the opportunity to help train new teachers and align beautiful people with the Song of their lives, but I also got to deepen my connection with Shiva and create bridges with her and a couple of people that I know will be part of my Life for long. I will not go through the details of the incredible moments of devotion, sharing, meditating, learning and crossing massive bridges, but I am coming back to Singapore today a new person. We should always come back transformed from any trip and exploration, and I feel today that I have accomplished what I came here to do. I am observing that crack in my heart, and appreciate that this is the evidence of a wonderful journey in the last few days. Celebrating Shivaratri here with my guiding light, my Life's Love, my dear friend Gina, sweet Dimitri, Mimi Maria, Colette and other close friends, has also taught me (again!!!) that Transformation is neither easy nor beautiful, and that pain, suffering, conflicts, doubts, fear, contraction and tears are often part of the process, but that they all contribute to coming through a more Realized being. A more unified person.

I am starting to get mystical here, which is generally a clear sign that time to stop writing has come. But I would like to express thanks again to all of you out there, friends, students, guru, teachers, colleagues, family members, loved ones and strangers alike for the Journey, the support, the Love, but also for the the judgments and rejection. For creating the space for Transformation every day, for change, for movement. I can't wait to teach again, and then to leave again, to settle and then move on, to ride my raft on the river of my Dharma. I have missed our Collective, here in Singapore, and can't wait to Flow with you again.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Rumi

PS: Hot Fudge is still blasting on my iPod :D

Coming and Going (March 11 2008)

Back up

I am back.

A lot of juices are running through me as I approach a new juncture in my life, and the need to keep a record of the blogs I post elsewhere is too strong, so this will be a vault of my blurps for future use.

Many deserving people, and myself, need this river of creativity to keep flowing for many reasons, and at least simply because never - NEVER - should we allow ourself to suppress any idea - as radical as it may be - that springs in the seat of our heart. Our true God and Goddess-like nature demands that we honor our actions, emotions, feelings and greater connections as they are the richest product of our existence.

If you happen to know me and can't help yourself judging or hating who I am, what I do, think or feel, then GET A LIFE and don't visit this blog ever again. If you are too intrinsically and emotionally ungrounded that you can't read my views without immediately contracting around it, bad mouthing me extensively and creating unnecessarily dark energy around our community, THEN remove the link to this page from your browser's favorites, get yourself one of these self-help books for sad people and leave me and the rest of the Shaktas free to breathe, live, absorb and manifest.

However, if you feel that my views feed and fertilize you, either because they resonate with you or because they shock the roots of your beliefs, then embrace your ecstatic Courage and Greatness, come back over and over again and allow these words to be the rocks upon which the wave of your incarnation crashes.


The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. (Eleanor Holmes Norton)