hamsadeva

I woke up last thursday morning from a restless sleep with a distinct feeling like a breakthrough has been made.  Like the path ahead had shifted into a deep alignment.  Like everything is falling into place by way of change and movement.

The messages I received from you that day were synchronicity itself.

When I got to work, the power was out and we were let go early.  Decided to swing by J's place, whom I have not hung with in a couple of years.  We had had a misunderstanding over the business he encouraged me to start and the significant amount of stock I purchased on consignment for him right before he decided to take vows as a monk in the Tibetan tradition.  On a deeper level though, for a while there I had been taking it a bit personally that he had never come to meet my Master, and yet went everywhere else to meet anyone he could.  Fact is though, I never did ask him outright to come and share with him that it would mean much to me.  When I got to his place, his mentor was there, and they had just mentioned my name amongst each other.  We went to lunch and was happily able to talk to J like the friends we are.  I also committed to receiving at least the basic level of ayurvedic certificaiton from him that I've avoided all these years.  It will be worth it.

I also spoke with K, who is visiting for the weekend and considering moving back out here after a several year hiatus.  I swear she was talking to me about "the breaking of spells" - a theme of the day.

That night I had a wonderful open talk with L about the brief window we were dating last summer.  Afterwards, on a whim went to Oakland to a most wonderful Belgian ale bar (owned by a friend of a friend, hence, an acquaintance) to meet with K and some friends.  Felt good to be alive and spontaneous, but with meaning.

Friday night hung out with L and we continued our tradition of taking cool walks.  This one was around lake Merrit, the full moon in bloom.  I feel so lucky to be able to be close friends with her, usually the friends and dating thing does not work out, right?

I also found out Friday that Gurunath and his wife would be spending the night at my place on Sat (can we say a big YES!).

So, Saturday, from 8:30am to 6pm was cleaning every single little bit and corner of my place.  Man, the most time consuming of all was clearing this place of the dust that accumulates in every nook and corner.  Dust!? What is up with that?

Straight to the Satsang it was from there, was I was fortunate to be able to give the intro.  We had about 150-200 people show up.  Gurunath had to work the crowd a bit to get them activated, but the rest of the night was a blast.  Three dear dear friends also showes up, along with J.  How my heart soars when the people close to me get an opportunity to be around Nath.

From the satsang we ended up cramming about 12 people into my pad for a tea party.  Aie had made rice & dal.  S got samosas and we all had chai.  Nath took the opportunity to cut the socializing and blast us Berkeley boys good heartedly, as well as lay down the tracks for His vision of the next few years.  Was happy to have some of my (old) new friends from the ashram over at the time.  We chilled until 2:30, at which point only me and S were left.  I probably didn't fall asleep until 4 or so.

In the morning, today, woke up with a body high, like every cell was being tickled from the inside.  S immediately commented the same, and we felt Nath was working on us through the night.  Oh, I forgot to mention that totally unexpected bonus - Nath's granddaughter was staying with us as well!  What an amazing treat.  Amazing. 

We spent the morning in intimacy, drinking chai and talking personal.  Since Nath is in high demand these days, these moments are special and I cherish them to no end.  So much.  I had trouble with my sadhana with restlessness, but ended up sitting with S just absorbing the tremendous waves of light from Nath's meditation (He was in my bedroom!!).

Lunch with the local crew and then took Nath to the initiation tonight.  Indeed things are changing.  Tonight, Nath allowed us boys to take small groups of 4 people and teach them the techniques.  First time ever, and the beggining of a new era.  As if by an invisible order of magnetism, my group of 4 included 3 people I had talked to personally the days before, along with a typical Bezerkly type lady thrown in for fun.

At the end of the night, as Nath was pulling away, he told me he had a very easy time meditating in my corner.  (Oh my heart is aflutter).

The times they are changing.  It's new.  It's growing.  Stay in touch.  We each have our role to play.

Gurunath and Shivangani will be staying over tomorrow night :-)

"Faith is a passionate intuition. "

William Wordsworth

I'm a huge Ken Wilber fan. 

I'm completely convinced that his work is profound and utterly crucial for understanding the context of humanity's global situation, and for offering a roadmap of how to untangle ourselves in an integral way.

My two favorite of his books are "Boomeritis" and "Grace and Grit," both of which I will re-read.  I'm now finally getting around to "A Theory of Everything," a title that might sound arrogant to some, but man, he's got his ideas organized and well backed up by comprehensive research.

Anyway, the above tangent comes from reading this week's Thought-Of-The-Week, which suffice to say, spoke to me.

http://tow.charityfocus.org/?tid=582

When I first moved to California in 1999 the Ananda community in Palo Alto was my sole Kriya Yoga community (I had yet to meet Gurunath, that was in 2000). 

Every Sunday I would head over to their church and listen to a sermon from Asha Praver.  She was a huge inspiration and guiding factor back in those days.  At the time I was considering taking the vow of monkhood via Self Realization Fellowship, and it was Asha who helped me sort out that thicket.  I was also close to considering moving and becoming part of the Ananda community at one point, but fate had different plans.

Anyway, I like to look Asha up every once in a while.  I really like her current monthly newsletter.

Introducing:  The Divine Mother

Wow.
It's a time of miracles.

It's a time of initiation.

I've lived the perfect day.

I know what's possible now.

Love and give and serve and free your self.

What a thrilling two weeks it's been.

Tomorrow is the first SF Satsang.

So there was this girl at the farmer's market.  I've seen her for years walking around, she was at the booth with all the cedar soaps, sage bundles and otherwise fragrant woodsy items (juniperridge.com).  We'd smile at each other, and there was a magnetism of intrigue there.

About a year ago in casual conversation, I found out we have a mirrored background - She's half Israeli, part of her family in NY, part of her family in FL.  I always meant to follow up with her on that, but it was right around the time that I was dating Lalita, and then Meera.  In fact, she me walking around with Meera, and somehow that was an unnecessary block for me to continue the conversation.

(what is it about not being single and the inability to talk to people of the other sex?  I'm done with that like big time)

Well now that I'm feeling like I've finally arrived here (took 9 years, f'in long flight) I'm making it a point to smile and get to know all the beautiful people and stories who I come across.  In that spirit (and I'm single), I talked to her a few weeks back and what do you know? She's involved in creative video production projects  (DING).

I don't have a way yet to share what these videos tell me.  They are like a future memory of a primal spirit hungry to express itself within me.  They are like a message from me 5 years ago to now.  Like a whisper heard right before plunging into the dreamscape.

http://www.deconstructionist.com/blacknote/videos.htm

There's this guy Chris whom I met through Wednesday meditations about a month back.  He just moved out here from NYC after graduating college, and in our car rides together to Santa Clara we found out there are intuitive parallels between our respective journeys.

Last night in the car for example, he was prodding me to tell him about what's been going on with me the last few months.  I was able to frame it for him like so - nine years ago I moved out to California on an inner calling.  Everything manifested for me in multitudes of blessed ways nearly as soon as I got here, however, there was always something holding me back from really allowing myself to fully join in and commit.  These last couple of years of my life have been about taking a few steps back, so I can shuffle a few steps sideways, and thus truly move forward.

How does that play out?  On one level, when I left NY, I also left a big chunk of identity there too.  Mainly, the identity of a lonely, frustrated and abused child.  In California I met with all that my future was to be.  In California I saw on the ground the visions which struck me like heavenly cyclones during my college years.  I couldn't quite match up to those grounded visions however, because a part of me was left behind, mired in a muck of darkness and painful childhood.  S, you know about that (not all about it though).  So, I've taken my steps back, I've even taken my steps sideways, and now I feel ready to move forward - my identity is integrated amongst the various times of my life and man oh man, have I ever left a crateful of crap behind.

I shared this with Chris and he expressed how intuitively this resonates with him deeply, and he can see his own confrontation with himself down the line.

Later on, after meditation, Chris was talking to the circle about how when he sees people in a depressed state, from the outside it's easy for him to see how they will go through it and be fine once they find themselves on the other side, but remembering too that he went through intense depressive states back in NY, with little hope and seemingly no way out, and it even being tough to share with anyone what's going on due to the shame he associated with it.   He also talked about having just moved to Cali and encountering a tremendous amount of positive and inspiring people and projects.  How he sees opportunities flow by him, and how he marvels "wow, I really have the potential to do that!" And yet these opportunities slip by his fingers, and remembering with patience that yes, he can and he will do these things, but right now it's just potential.

This resonated with me deeply as well.

The friday before last I was at home alone, tempted to finish my stash of hashish (I gave away all my pot) and just do away with all sources of cloudiness in my life.

John sent me this beautiful rendition of a Leonard Cohen song, called "If it be your Will."  Listening to this, with swirls of fragrant hashish swirling around my mind, my heart opened up to the suffering and collapse of the last few months.  In my depression and lashing out, I've angered at God and turned my face away, lest the pain in my eyes open the floodgates.  My heart opened, and this song spoke to me.  It spoke to my Soul.  All situations and desires were out of my hands. 

Breathing in more of the perfume, my phone rings.  It's Gurunath.  He just landed in LA, and could not have called in a more opportune moment.  I told him of the karmic avalanche of the last few months (I still haven't told you, have I?).  In the middle of my speaking, he said something which cut through straight, straight and deep, deep into the heart and Soul of my situation.  I couldn't believe my ears.  Dumbfounded, I began to ask if I just heard him say what I think he did, and he immediately changed the topic and recited a line he had written,

"The ego is like a wolf's in sheep's clothing.  Like a cobra with a rose in it's mouth."

<silence>

I'm struck.  Waves of bliss hit my Soul. Light pours in my nervous system.  I know I am loved once more.  I know all will be ok.

The phone connection still active, but silence all around.  A minute passes and I hear "Ok Yaniv, good to hear from you and looking forward to seeing you.  Allakh Niranjan!"

I collapse on the couch, still downloading the cosmic transmission.  Buzzing at multiplying levels.  In that moment I get the 420th email in my inbox, from Jessica, thoroughly unexpected.  She tells me she is feeling me and sending me waves of love.  I know all will be ok.  I know it now.  Only two people could have contacted me in that moment to make my heart soar.  Jessica is one of them.

(She has just moved back to Ithaca from Ojai, and is expecting her 4th child!)

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This last weekend I flew down to LA to see Gurunath for the first time for Guru Purnima.  Is it me, or is He that much more powerful?  That much more Divine?  Everything he says is perfectly a reflection of my mind - and those moments when I can put my mind aside, it's just That, the "non-being essentiality" reflecting the truth of all-moments. 

I wove in & out of spending time with Nath, and with my cousin Danny.  Danny's been struggling with his movie script for a while now, and together we came out of the maze of words and worked together beautifully to upgrade his script.  I've been waiting my whole life to work with Danny.  This weekend was a foreshadowing.  A prophecy.  A revelation. 

I think I may move to LA at some point.

Was walking down the street yesterday and noticed a girl checking me out, making prolonged eye contact.  As I near the corner, with a pillar blocking us, my brain recognizes it's none other than Sarah Silverman.  I turn the corner, and my head, and she has turned hers and was still looking straight at me.   I recognize her as an old friend.   I don't know why I didn't go up to talk to her.  I wanted to invite her to meet Nath, whom I was heading to see at the moment.  I hope we get a chance to meet again.

Today I dined at Gordon Ramsay's new restaurant (divine) and at the airport stood behind the main character of "Alpha Dog."  LA is exciting. 

I'm a bit stream-of-consciousness now, as I've hardly slept for 4 days and been going on all the juiced up Shakti. 

I just got home, sat on the computer, and saw the name of the second person in my inbox.

Hope all is well with you.

Just saw my first episode of the wire.

It was a weekend of miracles and much outpouring of love from the universe.

Exactly what I needed.

Went out to Novato last night to hang out with Lisa and Hope, two former roommates.  I met all the horses Hope takes care of and was able to pick fresh blackberrys and figs - a true delight.

It still amazes me just how little of this area I've seen after 9 years.  Exploration of the West Coast will be a life long process I imagine.

Lisa was showing me her vision board, and artistic inspired rendition of her vision for this year, involving photo cutouts and key phrases to remember which mirror her inner ambitions and piece of the puzzle.  In her pocket she also carries a fold-out book reminiscient of those pyramidal hand games we used to play, you know, the one the two kids are playing at the beginning of Waking Life?  I forget the name.

In this little booklet she writes down more specifically the goals and projects she wants to complete.  As she walks around, she can refer to this pocket sized booklet.  It's kind of like, as she reads the book of her goals, she is writing her goals into her life.  I like that concept.  In two weeks when Hope goes to Hawaii we're going to hang out and she will help me clarify my own vision.

Visioning and ambition has never been my problem.  It's really been the breaking down of that vision into tangible steps and keeping focused enough to remember what it is I'm really doing here.

Boils down to one thing essentially.

Really not sure how I ended up reading my high school year book signatures, but this one particularly strikes a chord:

"Yaniv,
so being JEW MASTER. 
THANK YOU SO MUCH for everything. 
I owe you!  Get play at Cornell! Remember the
Will to do and the
Soul to dare are two
different things.  Go
for it! TAKE EVERYTHING.
DO SOMETHING THAT MATTERS. 
STAY REAL.  PEACE.
Rob"

Rob Sandler.  Only really knew him towards the end, where he was a grungy, slightly smelly guy.  Now that I think hard about it, I think the smell was really only a mixture of our daily subway rides, social life in the village (sp. "The Village") and marijuana.  Not really sure why he owes me one, because he picked on me quite a bit when he turned early Hipster and I turned physics geek (was always a math geek).   I did help him with his homework, several times I believe.  And we also did have some meta-natural bond, perhaps a twisted time warp reflection, foreshadowing that someday I'd follow his path in a "Soul to dare" sort of way.

Well, now is the "Will to do" time for me.  I wonder what Rob is up to these days, maybe a renegade physicist?  Doubt it.  Think he'd be a good minority related social worker in low-income areas.

**Update**  Wow, I've got many comments thanking me for help with homework.  I was such an attention whore, jeez.  Note the recent post on fitting into projected roles.

PPS  - Wow again.  Lots of comments expressing bewilderment at my acceptance to Cornell (I must admit, I was bewildered too).  Reminds me how more (and less) deserving candidates were passively-aggressively unhappy with my new found hope, and liked to put me down for it.  Reminds me too how I couldn't wait to get away and start anew.  And I liked rubbing their face in it too.  Yes.

The theme of late has simply been to realize the mess of roles we take on in order to please others, so they in turn somehow please us, or give us whatever external validation we feel we need in order to continue in our habitual ways.

Relationship by relationship it's become clear just how much I have bought into a story of myself - the story that was necessary for me to be accepted, and thus for me to keep avoiding facing myself for real.

God, thy mirror doth blind
Thy wisdom doth burn
Thy light doth terrify
God, I pray for only one more thing
Thy Love, ever bubbling
Ever soothing

My life Now starts for real.

So, In the span of 24 hours, one of my brothers committed to moving out to the Bay Area this summer, while my other brother communicated to me that he does not want me in his life down the line.

I can't say I didn't see the potential for this kind of outcome.  Since my brother was 2 his main focus was in line with that of my parents - money, glamour, luxury.  I always knew he was to be "the one they wanted" and was happy to pass along that role and title to him.  I knew I was not going to be that guy from a very young age.  Nonetheless, to hear something like that from your brother, especially when I know he is encouraged to feel and think this way by our own parents is frankly a bit devastating.   All I can do is to re-assure that I love him and my door is always open to him, and that if he ever wants to hear the true story of our family, all he needs do is to start asking anyone aside from my parents.  For now he's convinced everyone else is a liar and a bad person, which is, what he's been groomed to believe.

As my heart pains for him, our next youngest brother is going to be here.  This too, was an outcome I foresaw.    Actually, did I ever mention that back in '85, when I was 7, I just knew it was time for another brother, and kept closing the door to my parents bedroom telling them it's time for another baby.  They usually laughed it off, but a few months later my brother was on his way.  I also always knew what his name was to be, Elad - which means Lord of eternity, or rather, the El (highest) is Ad (eternal).  I kept pleading with my mom through her pregnancy to name him so, which she staunchly refused, calling it an ugly name and eventually yelling at me repeatedly to stop talking about it, it's a stupid name and she'd never name her child as such.   

At the hospital after birth when I asked his name and she told me it was Elad, I jumped for joy and cried "you listened to me!  you named him Elad because of me."  Immediately she shot me down saying that was ridiculous and that she named him such because of a lyric from a song she liked.

<sigh>  To this day actually I am particularly sensitive to people taking credit for ideas I freely shared with them.  Call it a pet peeve.

Anyway, Elad and I were very tight as youth.  I had a strong conscious thought that we are intimately linked in terms of the work we have to do on this planet, and I always felt he would be a crucial support for me in that vein.  I felt too that someday he'd come out to Cali, and now, it's happening.

Another good friend wrote as well and said she is moving back after being gone for 4 years .. I'm crossing my fingers, as there's rumours across a larger group of emigrants who now wish to return ..

I guess even in the hardest of times, there's always a ray of hope, there's always something positive to keep us going ..

Are you on the Obama e-mail list?

I've been signed up since my first contribution several months ago.  I get several e-mails a week, ranging from the campaign manager, to "special" writers like Al Gore, and occasionally ones attributed to Obama himself.  I *love* receiving these messages and hearing his thoughts as they happen.  Yes, there is always a call for donation, but that's natural and expected, and I'm happy giving $25 a month for a candidate I (finally) believe in.

Here's a portion of today's email:

For the first time in a generation, a presidential campaign is putting staff in every single state for the general election. Our staff and the Obama Organizing Fellows are getting to work right now to build on grassroots energy in all 50 states.

And -- unlike John McCain -- we're going to do it without contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have held too much power for far too long in this country.

By putting our organizational and financial future in your hands, it's clear who will be responsible for our success and who we will be accountable to in the White House: the people.

Now posted as the main video playing at: http://youtube.com/hamsayogi (it's titled "New Life Awakening Retreats 2008 With Master Yogiraj")

My share in this video was to find the clips, find the music, and create an outline of how I wanted it to look.  My friend Rahul then put it together.

Shiva is the pure consciousness into which every "thing" dissolves.  Hence, Shiva at the level of mind is the deity of "death" with the qualities of asceticism, wisdom, and great compassion.    

Shiva also hangs with the demons and spirits. Around him they obey.  

By focusing the mind on Shiva the awareness of the "I" transcends its known boundaries, yet the dance of light and shadow on the screen of mind continues on endlessly.  

You now are the nothing and the everything.  

Ever still while She sings your magnificent song. 

Ok, so after a not-as-spectacularly-exciting-as-we're-used-to season 3, Lost season 04 has pushed the show back up to possibly one of the best TV shows of all time.  Certainly one of the most interesting and original stories ever told on TV.

I'd personally rank it up there with Entourage and Weeds, though I hear that The Wire is also an all time classic.

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Remember Kate's dream in the finale? Where she hears a backwards message and then finds Claire in the room with Aaron? The backwards message, played forwards, is Sawyer telling Kate she must come back to the island.

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Have you noticed that every character (whose story is told) on the show has a difficult relationship with their father?  Can you name an exception?

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The really cool thing is, the last few days I've been thinking a lot about the possibilities of certain kinds of matter or energy-states bend ing space-time and revealing other dimensions.  Then, the night before the finale, while reading Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku delved into a new class of matter called metamaterials that can refract light around it, as well as other materials consistent with the known laws of physics which would be able to create a shift in space-time.

Did you know that there already exist meta-materials that have a negative refraction index for certain wavelengths of light?  That means that light of a specific frequency hitting the material does not deflect back, but rather flows around the material, rendering it invisible to that piece of the light spectrum.

Anyway, point is, Lost season finale was cool, and doesn't yet seem to violate known laws of physics.

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Did you like it?

It's pretty hard for me to cry for myself, no matter how difficult the challenges I face are, no matter how much my mind cries out in pain and no matter where I find myself standing after the bombs fall - I still don't burst in tears for myself.

That's why I was surprised last night.  I've been re-reading Shantaram, one of my favorite all time books, and this time, knowing what was coming, I burst out in tears on the same page, and in the same way as I did two years ago when I first read it.  

Maybe it's really feeling the suffering of another that starts the tears flowing for me.  But I'm no saint after all, I've been past the slums in India and visited the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, and though my heart is, and was touched, I shed no tears for them.  You know, I think it's probably because I never took the time to really hear any individual's story.

There's a lot to be said about just sharing presence and dropping our own stories.  But it's also when we really know one another's story that we can feel each other, that we can understand our shared suffering.  And I don't mean the stories we tell about ourselves, God, how sick I am of those, I mean the "really really" story, the one we see when we step outside our boxes and really begin to understand how we are all so close in effect-and-cause to the great tragedies humans inflict upon one another by choice.

That's when I can cry.

I remember in fourth grade we were all living in a studio apartment on 75th st and 5th ave for a few months.  It was my parents, me, my two brothers and my aunt, who had traveled to America to follow her boyfriend (he turned out to be a bust).  I was often left alone with my brothers when the adults wanted to go out by themselves - pacified by the television remote in my hand.

There was a TV movie on, one of those cheesy 80's dramas (it was 1987).  I think the story was of a woman who got into an accident, and they had to transplant her brain into another woman's body (it was drama though, not sci-fi), but her husband no longer could love her.  Seemed that he loved her body most of all.  The first time I saw it, I burst in tears.  A couple of months later, the same tv movie was on, and I watched it again, fully knowing what was coming, and the tears burst forth again at the same scene, same moment.