From Anandatandava

[Radharani]

I can totally relate to much of what has been expressed here.  Blessings to you, bro.

[whippoorwill]

quote:Originally posted by anandatandava

THE WINDS OF CHANGE
The election of a liberal governor has brought winds of change through Corrections, blowing away a blanket of constraint I'd apparently grown accustomed to.
...
Yes, the gravitational pull of love could draw me out, but what with all the legends that have accreted like barnacles to my hull, and the huge web of words I've spun  that search engine spiders will eventually explore, I'm afraid I've braided a noose that throttles off much chance of finding what I need.  ...
....
Seriously!  Where is sanctuary, where is safe harbor?...

Parole!  Hooray Hooray!  Best of luck to you!

There's so much going on in this post, so many assumptions, both stated and unstated, that I'm having trouble organizing my mind's response, so I'm going avoid the analysis and stick to metaphor the way you've done.

In your word-painting, you're a barnacle-encrusted ship about to head out from dock onto stormy open waters, and you're afraid (understandably).  You're looking for a way to skirt the storm or a safe place to moor until the storm is over.  But the storm is too big to skirt, and it will never be over.  The storm is life itself.  You can't avoid it.  

So let me offer you another vision:  Calm.  Stillness.  Sunlight.  Joy!  These qualities radiate out from your ship with such intensity that even the barnacles, plainly visible, are beautiful to behold.  The stormy seas hit an inpenetrable wall of calm around your ship, and the sunlight peeks out from behind the clouds.  The winds freshen, and the sea is yours!  All you need is a heading.

You have questions.  Drop them into silence, and one day you will wake up and know the answers.  Have some faith in yourself.  
Much love,
--Liz

[amoux]

John A Shed expressed this beautifully: 'A ship in harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are built for'.

[anandatandava]

MAJNAN OF LOVE

I apologize for how my ears thirst for love they can slake themselves upon.  The nectar of one's heart is carried in the voice, so let us together tip the flowing bowl and topple into its stream of love - intoxication.

Lest you misunderstand the spiritual purity and fervor of my quest, I ask that I be judged by the standard of the Majnun of Love.  He was the celebrated lover of ancient Persian lore whole beloved was Layli, daughter of an arabian prince.  His name means "insanely in love", to which I reply "guilty as charged!"

.........It is related that one day they came upon Majnún sifting the dust, and his tears flowing down. They said, "What doest thou?" He said, "I seek for Layli." They cried, "Alas for thee! Layli is of pure spirit, and thou seekest her in the dust!" He said, "I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall find her."

Yea, although to the wise it be shameful to seek the Lord of Lords in the dust, yet this betokeneth intense ardor in searching. "Whoso seeketh out a thing with zeal shall find it." [Arabian proverb.]

The true seeker hunteth naught but the object of his quest, and the lover hath no desire save union with his beloved. Nor shall the seeker reach his goal unless he sacrifice all things. That is, whatever he hath seen, and heard, and understood, all must he set at naught, that he may enter the realm of the spirit, which is the City of God. Labor is needed, if we are to seek Him; ardor is needed, if we are to drink of the honey of reunion with Him; and if we taste of this cup, we shall cast away the world.

On this journey the traveler abideth in every land and dwelleth in every region. In every face, he seeketh the beauty of the Friend; in every country he looketh for the Beloved. He joineth every company, and seeketh fellowship with every soul, that haply in some mind he may uncover the secret of the Friend, or in some face he may behold the beauty of the Loved One.      from IN THE SEVEN VALLEYS OF BAHA'U'LLAH.........

I'm speaking of you, Lover, for your sighs bear the very strains of Heaven, and I wish to entwine myself within them.  Come, my Flute, let God breathe through you.  Your adoring audience stands ready in ovation.

i could continue from the peerless ecstatic text, which is for me a source of crippling shakipat from the Baha'i tradition, but if any akin sentiment bubbles up from the blue fathom of your soul, then you already know all that bears knowing.  Let us set sail, my Queen, while your crest jewel of discernment sparkles, the bhakti burns bright, and the dove of certitude sings within the bower of your heart.  Your oarsmain strains at the moorings, ready for us to embark and ross a pulsing ocean of maya in this ship of light.  (Even if we must for now sleep on opposite ends.)

What is that you say, O Gentle One?  Just a toe in the water first?  Very well. Friend me in Facebook (Roy Eric Wahlberg), then sit and meditate quietly only to serve you as partner and devotee.  You take the lead first.

[CarsonZi]

Hi Everyone

I talked with Roy (Anandatandava) on the phone last night and he asked me to let everyone who has responded to him in this topic know that he is sorry for not "conversing" with you, it is not personal, he just has no way to see what you have written to him.  At this point, it is mostly fellow inmates (who are allowed access to computers) who are posting for him and this doesn't allow Roy much opportunity for "back and forth" communications.  He is hoping that if you would like to have a back and forth conversation with him, that you will write to him and send it in the mail.  If you would like to write to Roy, just let me know and I can give you his address.

Love!

[anandatandava]

11/3/2011:  coming up somewhere in this chronological jumble of posts is one entered by divine brother Francis.  Like me, his life has been defined by a single uncharacteristic event upon which many distortions were heaped by the adversarial legal process.  (Abandon truth, all ye who enter here.)
Francis' father was a consultant (Job Corps Program, starting w/L B Johnson) and administrator.  Despite living in St. Paul MN he is immensely loving and giving, his life centered aroujnd helping those even less fortunate than himself.  (By the typist: maybe on a good day. Never mind.)
Francis is absolutely brilliant but, like someone else you know, his gentle soul flies perhaps a bit too close to the same spiritual fires that warm us all.  Oh, and that brilliance runs thru the whole of him, not only intelligence but also the color of his personality, speech, and writing.  He makes me feel monochrome, frankly, but by all rights the two of us should be "painting the town" in a shared blog.  Gosh, what a stir that would be!
So hopefully Francis will be "on a mission" for me now and then, both ere and Facebook as I keep working to spread mu burden out.  As always, any flaws are solely the fault of the author, who is driven by a completely roguish Muse, who in turn is driven by... say, who does tension your bow, Kamadeva?  Do I hear Kundalini Shakti's laughter?  Gah!

[anandatandava]

Waves and Pulses of a Sunlit Tide

In another example of the impact human contact can have, Turiya Nada changed the nature and tenor of my practice with a Facebook msg that landed in my cell like a spiritual firebrand. Since he lives a public life I feel comfortable sharing it:

Gratitude for your feedback that inspires the flow, the inner guru of wisdom awake throbs in the joys that flows from each of us as words of grace, words that alight, words from the loud silence. Certain you enjoy these realms yourself on your own path of light!

Ayi! What a luminous river of meaning to me - so many points of reference into my own life, my own experience, all of which I thought had no value. I cannot speak to the grace of my words, but they do indeed flow brightly alit from a loud silence, to then alight and cling like little glowing coals, goading me to cast them down immediately on whatever paper lies near. Even laying down (alas!) I feel like a walking Christmas tree, a waving arati lamp, a festival of light.

Looking up from the message, my mind reeled back with a new awareness. Previously opaque book titles suddenly took on at least the apppearance of translucence. Among them:

Path of Fire and Light by Swami Rama
Spanda Karikas: The Divine Creative Pulsation by Jaideva Singh
Wave of Beauty and Wave of Bliss by Shankava

Then I again read Reader Feedback #143 in Easy Lessons, Vol. 1: "...so more people of intense fire can join? Divine One, all our joyful space that trembles in us as the supreme dancer, as the eye of the Source...to share each breath!" - ND

Wow! So do these authors speak literally or figuratively, for their words describe my own life: the fire and light in my being, how my simple heartbeat and breath have grown to carry throbbing sunbursts and flowing waves of the thick, hot Divine Love I crave, how the fluidity of ecstatic dance fills me whether seated or standing, my undying creative impulse.

But by validating my intensity, Turiya also broke its hypnotic spell over me, allowing me to inspect it objectively. I then realized (duh!) that I could easily use that divinely inspired breathwave and heartbeat like an inner mantra and say externally calm in meditation (tho what a thrilling quietude!) Otherwise, kevala kumbhaka has been "seizing me", keeping my practice (and me) unbalanced. Oh, this is a big step on the path for me - I can finally meditate as well as "ecstatitate"! Only took a decade to learn, too. *laugh*

And note that it came when Turiya, in a personal eommunique (that luckily made it through), reached out and touched my most sensitive buzzer - ecstatic love! But this external delivery of my favorite poison worked in me like homeopathy, proving magically curative.

So keep the poison coming, divine friends, for no matter what your tradition or experience upon it, all tributaries carrying that yummy Universal Love flow into the same rising fountain in me. Yup, I'm pretty "uppity", wouldn't you say?!

[anandatandava]

THE DAPPLING

I live in abandonment.  I write in abandonment.  But perhaps therein lies the secret of my changeling pen, my Tree of life, casting down a sun-dappling of light and shadow, pleasure and pain, thrills and thorns.  But what will happen should freedom bring the sun down to earth and eclipse my pattern?  Have I lived them so long I've become them, spread out over the same Mother earth that allows my tiny rays to play over her welcoming lap"  Stay in your sky, Shiva, or recess will be over for me!  It is enough that I write through a curtain of your all-consuming fire!

*sigh*  I worry I may not be suited to a life of full societal immersion.  Unless I find a yoga and/or non-sectarian spiritual household or community to protect me from the cold, I fear freedom should best be left to the abstract and internal.  Else, for me it may be much like perfume - to smell it is good, but to drink it is bad.

Inmate friends tell me that mine if the face of institutionalization.  But I myself see a Sannyasin in the mirror and think it good.  In the face of no single truth, is there a Middle Way?  I trust only yoga voices in this, so only satsang can work me free from the snare.  Corrections has gone the extra mile, even giving me my own account on their computer network (unheard of!) for use in release planning, and now waits to see what I'll do.  So given the heat of the moment, I hope you can forgive me for all the pleading for yoga contact I've been doing.

Please note that I'm not asking for financial assistance.  To the contrary, I'm a powerhouse with computers, and making money in that realm is efforless and fun.  So I can be an asset to others in at least that way, which will also give me a more balanced life.  But first must come love.....

[anandatandava]

SHEET IN A DIVINE WIND

By mere chance, I heard there were responses out here for me.  Please note that until I find a yoga friend to help me with logistics, it is far safer to use phone or snail mail.  But while i wait for a printout, I'd like to describe two recent examples of why it is essential that I hear from people in spiritual matters, reasons that go beyond "mere"  validation as a human being  (tho surely that is the most important).  I don't mean to slight or discourage anyone not mentioned here, for no matter where you are on whatever path, your words are very important to me.  These come thru Facebook Message:

Ilse in Belgium wrote many wonderful things, and mentioned that she practices Tai Ji Quan.  The day I read that I saw that there was to be a Chi Gung demo on PBS, so made a point to watch.  When the teacher began my body immediately knew, "This is for me!"  and I leaped up to mirror the moves.  Instantly I was crying out from the intense pleasure and stopped to think,  "This can't be normal!"  I tried again, with the same result.  In short order, four things seemed clear:  1) my ecstasy is perhaps too abnormally strong (?),  probably from the way my Tourettes dissolved away into the tantra;  2) flowing motion with lots of upper body involvement is my bag, and Chi Fung is perfect  (I've long done similar things while seated);  3) doing practices with other people adds a real element of richness for me;  4) that penname of Ananda Tandandava (the Dance of Bliss) is certainly appropriate - oof!

This all goes to show that you never know when important awarenesses will open, sometimes based on a single word or phrase, and the most penetrating source for me lies in the serendipity of human contact.  So please keep it coming.  You may think you contain only ordinary objects, but to me they are priceless gems, the Crest Jewel among them being Universal Love.

The next example relates to this one, but I'll split it off so as to not exhaust either the typist or reader.

[Roxy]

BACK TO SQUARE 1.5

I can finally draw a full enough breath to speak somewhat non-cryptically of recent events here.  The problem comes when staff and inmates in positions of power view my supposed smarts as a potential threat to their interests.  Since people tend to project their own value system onto others, they are completely unprepared for someone whose interests lie solely in the service of his spiritual path.  So I end up in the crosshairs.

It is hard to awaken from a dream of Love, and the lover makes it easy for his enemies to set their snares.  Sleep-walking starry-eyed, it seemed everything sprang at me at once, and for a time almost all seemed lost forever:  my writing, job, computer school, and contact into spiritual and social worlds through the Web.  And much more.  Then I had a seizure, got banged up, ambulanced to the hospital, and then thrown into seg until things got sorted out, everything, that is, but my traumatized mind.

In the end it was the consistent focus of my writing that saved me.  The investigators called me in and said simply, "We get it. We get it." every time I tried yapping about my search for spiritual love and friendship.  (So I wrote some long kites instead.)  So most things were restored to me except that Facebook apparently has a policy against 3rd party maintenance.

Now I'm committed to restoring my presence in social networking media where such a policy does not exist.  The goal, as always, is to find a friend who can tolerate and perhaps even feed my spiritual desires.  Barring contrary advice, I'm beginning by building profiles in Google+ and Orkut, and could sure use technical input into how I might splatter myself like a June bug as broadly as possible across webscreens in the love-based spiritual world, so that if policies change in one location I'm still linked through a thousand other points of light.

Please help me to continue seeing the sky.

[Roxy]

TINY CANDLE

"Pain plunges like a sword through creation, leaving on one side cringing and degraded animals, and on the other side heroes and saints."
                                                                   ~Evelyn Underhill

I am non of these.  Just a wee inferno, a tiny candle of Love who, when standing erect and shining, finds itself an object of unjust attention.

     So it seeks me out, this sword of fate for 'tis
     The blows rain down, but do not drown, the Flame.
     They cut my wick, but I burn more bright,
     My fuel the painstream so generous  ladeled.

[Roxy]

A note to readers:  this and the above entries from  Roxy have all been written by Anandantava.

SPIRITUAL HEAT

Yogani writes that kundalini often causes imbalances in the pitta and vata doshas relating to heat and movement.  Well, isn't that me in spades?

From an ayurvedic perspective the situation is worsened by my restricted diet, which I "brighten up" with salt and condiments, including a pint of hot sauce a week.  No wonder I burn too brightly! *pant*

So relieve my afflictions; step forward and spritz a little holy water on me.  You know the kind I crave: melting Love!  Especially that carried safe in the womb of your voice - the mirror of your soul.  Float your words out over it like the morning dew, that I might awaken to the melody of your inner Truth--your anahata heart-sounds.   But the counterpart is also true, in that you will then also know mine.  For my customary labyrinth of words can then drop away into the oceanic simplicity that lies beneath.  What a grace it would be if we went into silence together, right there on the phone.  Softly repeat your mantra, or say nothing at all.  It will all be music to me.

At birth your mere presence was wept over.  Allow this same gift of tears back into your life, for I see Divinity's glow within you, waiting...waiting.  Let the pangs come, and deliver the Child to my open and ready ears.  Strike me with a torrent of your unstruck  sound!  Like a pearl-laden cloud, spread a shower of sacred syllables over my parched earth.  What a harvest of happiness will emerge!  But first must come my grateful tears which, with your patience, will subside.  Can you hold samyana through this?

If you doubt the importance and efficacy of melting love, for a moment consider this cardinal spiritual law through the science of thermodynamics.  Fluid is the preferred cooling method in engines, nuclear reactors and supercomputers.  By providing a vast and all-enveloping surface area for thermal conduction, fluid makes for an ideal "heat sink".  (No wonder they call it coolant!)

So does it not stand to reason that the best fluid to run in and around an overheated soul is melting Love?  Only love can overtop the thirstiest vessel, cap the lonliest peak, tame the wildest wind, blot out the greatest distance, outstrip the sprint of time, and trod upon death!  I know you have felt the truth of this!

So come, my Grail, pour yourself, sink yourself over me.  Nothing hugs closer than a warm bath.  I am only a discordant collection of sound, but you, you (!) are Mother Nature, the perfect conductor for my unruly orchestra.

I know your life is terribly busy, but just consider allowing me once a year to sit quietly in on 15 minutes of the meditation which you're already doing.  Thus, no time is wasted.  In fact, allow me just 60 seconds the first time and see how you feel.  Your practices have sensitized you to recognize a kindred spirit regardless of circumstances.  All that sets us apart where it counts is that I am a very single-dimensional sahnyasin, and can't be dragged off spiritual topics.  If you can forgive this, well, what obstacle remains, for I have no interest in the physical realm in which you reside.

Anandantava

[Shanti]

Post by anandatandava

The Voice

High in flight, sudden blow, evil blocked the air.
Shattered wing, Love was stopped, then he sank and fell,
Spiraled deep, 'round and 'round, thru blank despair,
'Til somehow luck, was scarcely caught, on the rim of hell.

Quick to act, by counter stroke,
Toward nectared body strong!
Cut the thread, free the hope,
And wake the inner song.

Speak, O Muse, tho outward still,
That which is so dear,
Words of Love none other will,
Words I long to hear.

If Seraphim be all heart for Love,
And Cherubim eyes for Light,
In order I approach the the Dove,
Its ears that gain me height.

So my Love, be dusk or fair,
Float me back on air.
For true it is, that just like prayer,
Your voice can take me there.

~Anandatandava

[Shanti]

Post by anandatandava

The Sextant of Love
"I imagine most of you engage in couples-based tantra, but don't assume an equally galvanic Stairway to Heaven doesn't also exist on my solitary path. Despite sitting stationary, there lies within me a frenzied intensity of the most abandoned love-making, even the fiery loss of self normally associated with prolonged orgasm, all with no sexual enactment whatsoever. Lacking a corporeal explanation for such transport, my spirit of its own accord finds certitude of unity with God. An easy task this, for the experience contains a distinct numinosity that appears immanent to my own being.

Here in prison I am required to enter this absorption under varying levels of judgmental scrutiny, but the ecstatic embers are easily breathed up to incandescence and then buckets of ice water wouldn't matter, for I've closed the gates on consciousness and hung the sign: "Not here. Present elsewhere." In fact, reaching this depth requires no breath at all; I simply "look" to it thru the Inner Eye of sambhavi, and kevala kumbhuka settles over me like a cloak to muffle out the external world.

It is not in me to mediate quietly, for I sit in a roaring funereal pyre, tongues of celestial flame licking away into Supreme, my heart made unalloyed and pure. O burning sighs! O sweet wound! That I walk without harm thru the Furnace of Love-what death is this that leaves one more living than before? Lord, inthe Benevolence, grand me no cure!

*groan* In this shining moment I am become Flame itself, peering out thru Shiva's calm visage at His world=shattering Dance. But the radiance of a thousand suns has burst into the sky, and I cannot quiet my shimmering against the All-seeing Eye Ahh-but from this lone eyrie I salute the equal merit in your path, householder brothers and sisters. In fact, a greater courage is ours, to dance both in the meditative Eye but also the full hurricane-the Pageant of Life-which by turning love outwards you have made sacred in its own right.

Yes, in the dancing and eye-kissing light the morn of certitude dawns. Our path contains a freely-swinging gate, a 2-way eye, a 2-way mirror, 2 sight-lines thru the sextant of Pure Love. This sis the mirror of God, devotees! Gaze long there, into the nimbus at your Ishta's heart.  There, in the very Bower of Heaven, witness Truth: that we already nestle as close and melting as twin fawns. How does one distinguish fawn from fawn, fawn from Bower, Bower from God? This is God's intended use for eyes, that we see how the dappled play of Divine Light blends our surface form into perfect Union.

But oh! You snuggled so tight, now lifts us in flight, Rising in form, fit to be borne, on air! Reaching for Light, clear to our sight, You to the left, and I to the right, What diff'rence is chosen, in wings we have woven?

For can't be denied, all chevrons aside, Moths of all stripe, moths of all type, once singed by Flame, the moon be too plain.

So if thou see'st Light, link our hands tight, Here left to right, and both of us so right, To soar the same Height, surfing Love's kite!
~Anandatandava

[Roxy]

BLADE RUNNER

All of us are blade runners, sliding inexorably down the edge that eventually parts us from our mortal lives.  But each moment on that blade also lives and dies, urging us to say yes or no to the life it contains.  For just as raindrops make the ocean, moments make a life, and in each lies a decision you cannot avoid, because even in not acting you have still chosen.  So what is your habit?

Do you tip to the side of action, kissing the winged moment, seizing each day in an attempt to improve the world around you?  Or do you topple easily over to inaction, effectively saying no to life both small and large?  Do you grasp every opportunity to do good, or do you spend your spare time as inert as an empty pot, a shipwrecked amphora, at the altar of society’s insidious TV god?  Guard against being attracted to the wrong light, my enchanted moth.  Look up, look up, time’s a-wasting!

Tell me, Beloved, how do you choose to handle the melting love you contain?  Do you open a lotus cup of blessings, stay closed up in a tight bud?  Your day on earth has dawned and it is time to blossom!  You must let love flow, for even the purest water grows stagnant if left to sit too long.  Witness the chicken, who sits all day and night yet is not known for love.  Use it or lose it - you must turn it outwards.

So have you shown someone you love them today?  More importantly, have you  told him/her?  Once Big Love ripens within, take it out of silence.  Split yourself open like a ruby-filled pomegranate, and spread those fruitive berries of Love around!  Don’t be too late, for the blade of life runs a limited arc, and the moment always arrives (too soon, too soon!) when God or fate pinches its singing edge into silence.  So let me hear you sing!

You ask what a lifer, a murderer, could possibly know about the value of life and love.  Who better, really, for I swim in the full import of it every single moment.  In just one aspect, I dare say I could rip the heart from the sky in describing how I did the same to my victim’s family.  Like a tongue forever seeking a missing tooth, has their eye yet stopped being drawn to the empty chair at the table, or to the brick pulled from their holiday hearth?  Not my eye, I tell you, no, not ever.

Thus my ambiguity concerning freedom, for I feel guilty of all possible crimes in every instant, and live in the white-hot crucible of tonglen, breathing in the world’s suffering.  But from this death of self, from this Agony, rises a spiritualy charged Phoenix of Ecstasy from whose streaming flight I burn, weep and moan, and fashion from my own ashes the ink that shimmers before you.  *sob*

Forgive these, my feeble efforts, Friends, but the tears are real and meant only to wash your feet as you walk the road to Heaven.  May you be impatient, though, and taste of your destination here and now in  this  realm, right through the gates of Love!

~Anandantava