tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29647197323675053152024-02-28T15:44:58.435-08:00Letters from AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-66701734890163597922016-03-30T09:52:00.003-07:002020-09-17T16:56:06.428-07:00Tushti<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The following, in sequence, is about the last few months of life for Tushti Conti, a long-time Ananda member. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In August, 2015, Tushti was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. At that time she was living in India with her husband Surendra, serving in the Ananda Pune center there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">She was a most unlikely candidate to receive such a diagnosis. Tushti was physically strong — a yoga teacher and formerly a runner. As her husband put it, “If anyone was expected to live to be 100, it was Tushti!” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, God has His own plans. By November, as you’ll see from the first e-mail in this series, they were moving back to America, both for the medical care, and, as it turned out, to say good-bye also to her American friends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I visited Tushti and Surendra in India in October 2015. She was hospitalized at that time and I spent most of my five day stay with her in the hospital. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">By mid-February, when I saw them again, they were living at Ananda Laurelwood, outside Portland, Oregon. My visit coincided with a shift in direction for Tushti. Up to that point she felt God wanted her to try to get well. Mid-February, she entered hospice, and turned her attention from this world to the next. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I ended up spending most of a month with Tushti and Surendra at Laurelwood. Friends around the world wanted to know — day-by-day — how she and Surendra were faring. At that time we thought she would transition in a matter of days, so I started sending daily e-mails. Days stretched into weeks and the e-mails became a chronicle of a devotee’s last days of dying consciously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many felt the letters have value beyond the individuals involved. In that spirit, we are sharing them with you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This includes some photographs and also links at the end to her Memorial Service in Portland, and an informal, briefer ceremony we also held in Palo Alto.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The gaps in the dates of my letters are when I returned to Palo Alto from time to time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As it happened, I had to leave Laurelwood before Tushti left her body, so that part of the story is told by Surendra and our friend Daiva. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For two days before she passed, Tushti was silent and unmoving. At the last, her eyes were half open, half closed. Clearly, she was not seeing this world, but the one where she was going. Her passing was as light as a feather. One moment she was breathing. The next moment, she stopped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joy,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Asha</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject:</b> In India</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>October 5, 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Dear friends were facing a challenging time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Tushti and Surendra lived in Palo Alto for about ten years, managing East West Bookshop, teaching classes at the Sangha, and endearing themselves to all of us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In July, Tushti became mysteriously ill. At first she dismissed it as the usual tummy troubles of India, but it soon proved itself far more serious. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Eventually she was diagnosed with cancer in the abdomen. Today she begins her first chemo treatment. It hasn’t been, and won’t be for awhile, a pleasant journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Tushti has spent almost 50 nights in the hospital since it began. Indian hospitals are more informal than American ones. Smaller, less techno, more heart-full. The family is encouraged to spend the night with the patient. Sheets and towels are provided and a surprisingly comfortable couch bed to sleep on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Except for a few times when others have come to visit, Surendra has spent almost all of those 50 nights in the hospital with Tushti. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Looking at my week before the pilgrimage [to Israel in October 2015], I saw that I could easily add a flight and come to India. So here I am.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As soon as I met Surendra and went with him to the nearby hospital — Ruby Hall Clinic — and into the large, private room which is home for Tushti right now — I felt a the living presence of Master and Swamiji surrounding us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Surendra is kind and lovingly attentive as always. Tushti is like a child in the arms of her Mother. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On the wall in front of her bed there is a large picture of Master and also one of Swamiji. The doctors and nurses come in and out, but it is clear Who is really in charge. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The situation is so unusual — day and night together in the hospital, with no pressing responsibilities. It is rare at Ananda to have so much uninterrupted time just to be with friends — heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul with gurubhais.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The three of us have always been good friends, but this circumstance has drawn us even closer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The road in front of Tushti in her treatments and recovery, and Surendra in support of her, is not going to be easy. But they are living the truth that Master so often asserted: “It doesn’t matter what happens to us. All that matters is what we become through what happens to us.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Let us become saints together. This is the motto of Ananda.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joy,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Surendra Conti </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject:</b> Indialog - November 18</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>November 18, 2015 at 6:40:44 AM PST</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We’ve been writing these occasional “Indialogs” for nearly four years, but this one will probably be the last, at least for a long while. It has been great fun to live them and to write them. If you have been among those who receive them, thanks for giving them a place to land. In a few weeks we will send a “highlights” edition to all who are getting this one today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tonight, just after midnight, we will start our journey to Oregon to deal with an imperative that will likely keep us there for much of the coming year. Unaccustomed as we are to urgent health concerns, we find ourselves suddenly faced with one that cannot be ignored. In a sense it’s a pointed reminder that we are not the ones who call the tune. But today is for giving thanks for the time, the place, and the people that we have been so blessed to know these past few years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nowhere else in our experience has ever been quite like India. To call it a country of contrasts and contradictions only scratches the surface. Its ingrained acceptance of side-by-side extremes – profound spirituality and routine corruption, astounding displays of wealth and abject poverty, natural beauty and widespread pollution, democratic ideals and caste discrimination – defies any adequate explanation. Many Indians will tell you without a hint of apology, “That’s just the way we are.” One must spend years in India to understand how it thinks, and even then the “how” of it remains largely mysterious. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our life here has never been dull. Nor has it been easy. Every day delivers assorted surprises, from fascinating and inspiring to frustrating and inscrutable, but far more often in favor of the former. Like many of life’s chapters as they draw to a close, this one will be remembered for the love, gratitude, friendships and joy that tell the real story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The years we have spent in India have taught us to expect the unexpected. Especially unexpected since July has been the assault on Tushti’s health. As a lesson in non-attachment, it has been unrelenting, reminding us that growth does not come without challenge, and that all is given of God for us to grow from. It reminds us, too, to cherish each moment of our lives and to cherish each other, even as we contend with the need to accept what was not wanted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We came to India in response to a request, another one of those unexpected, 180-degree U-turns. Many folks have spoken kindly of what our tenure has meant to them, but we doubt that it compares with the learning, support and goodwill that we have received in return. Indians may at times err on the side of emotion. Many tend to react to situations that would be better served by calm reflection and reasoning. But Indians are of the heart. Raised as we were in the West, with its more materialistic ways and wishes, we've been lovingly nurtured and nourished by the accent here on heart over mind. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the last week we’ve had satsangs in Pune and Gurgaon that stand out among the sweetest and most meaningful of our lives. Attached are a few photos, and many more are being posted on Facebook by friends who came with a camera or mobile phone (i.e., almost eveyone).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Will you be coming back, and when will that be?” we have often been asked. It’s hard to say. We weren’t intending to leave in the first place, and our flat in Pune is still ours to return to, furnished with what we have left behind for now. The best answer we can give puts us in mind of a common Indian expression, having to do with how long a person must wait for what he wants or needs to know. For example…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“When will my document be ready?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“After some time.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“When will the shop reopen again?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“After some time.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“When will it be safe to reenter that unsafe area?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“After some time.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ask again, and the same will be said, as if you were not listening: “After some time.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe there’s a hidden specific in much of what Indians often vaguely explain, but we have yet to fully grasp what that is. And now we find that we must give essentially the same reply. But let us put it this way: We will only be away “until we meet again.” Here, or somewhere, those who are dear are certain to be reunited. India will be with us always, and you as well, wherever you and we may be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In divine friendship…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Surendra and Tushti</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>In Portland with Tushti</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>February 18, 2016 9:28 AM PST</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As some of you know, I came to Portland on Tuesday to spend a few days with Tushti and Surendra. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Since January, Tushti has been receiving palliative care at home. She stopped the chemo in December.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">She has been sustained with IV hydration and nourishment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the last few days, her body stopped absorbing what she was taking in. A few hours after I arrived, the accumulation of fluid required a trip to the ER and then two nights in the hospital. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Until now, Tushti has been trying to stay in her body. Now she feels God is giving her a different instruction. Time to let the body go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">She has shifted from palliative care to full hospice. Which means no more IVs, and more access to drugs that will make her remaining time as comfortable as possible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A hospice nurse — wonderfully named Rose — is coming this afternoon to evaluate what is needed at home.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Daiva and Gangamata are sharing their apartment with Tushti and Surendra. They’ve been in the room that was set up for Swamiji, but now with a hospital bed, etc. Probably she’ll stay in the living room, in front of the huge picture window looking out over beautiful Laurelwood. Expansive, uplifting, perfect.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti and Surendra are beautifully surrendered to God’s will. Peaceful, courageous, joyous. Feeling God’s loving hand in every little gesture of the universe. Tushti goes to tears of gratitude often, and usually takes us with her.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She has said, "No one should be sad. Pray only for my soul’s freedom."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What a gift to be disciples of Master with Swamiji as our ever-present friend and guide. We’ve been playing Swamiji’s music much of the time in the hospital. He comes into the room with the melodies. So present with us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ll be back on Friday for the weekend, probably returning to Portland next week.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Much love and gratitude in God and Gurus,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Asha</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Surendra Conti </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>February 18, 2016 at 5:51:50 PM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Over the past few months, hoping that Tushti’s condition would improve, we’ve been sending updates that have focused largely on her brave spirit. Although we have shared some details of her diagnosis, much has been left unsaid, lest it appear discouraging to you or her. More than any medical procedure or treatment, your prayers and her positive attitude have been the most helpful in sustaining her healing efforts. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti’s health, as you may have surmised, has not been improving. Despite the sparkle in her eyes, she remains very weak, and today she is entering hospice care. Her comfort and soul’s freedom are now our singular focus. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In many ways, this has been the most precious time of our lives together, and our gratitude for your supporting role, whether from near or far, cannot be adequately expressed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What follows is a letter directly from Tushti.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear, dear family and friends…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Acceptance is like a pill that is sometimes difficult to swallow. But once it goes down, it brings relief. I should know, because I have been taking a lot of pills in the last several months.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Although hoping for a miracle, I have known for a long time that my cancer was likely to win the battle between us. Now the days I have left of this life are not so many.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">While I am still with you here, whether near or halfway around the world, I want you to know how grateful I am for what my life has been. It has been a wonderful run, and you have been a memorable, loving part of it. Admittedly, at age 68, it seems to be ending sooner than I would have expected or preferred, but the blessings of it fill my heart today to overflowing.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To you, my dears, there is more to say than I can properly convey. What we have shared can have no ending truly, for we shall meet again in this magnificent eternity of soul connection, and the joy of being together shall be renewed. I cherish the thought. We are one.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is time for me now to go more deeply inward. I want to devote my final days to what many of us affectionately remember as Maria Warner’s mantra. When Maria passed a few years back, it was with this indelible advice to us all: Control the reactive process, let go of desires that do not serve the soul’s desire for freedom, and live the Guru’s teachings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Please pray for me, and I will pray for you. We are one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With all the love I have ever known…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject:</b> The next world</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 1, 2016 at 2:14:48 PM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti turned this morning — actually last evening when she went to sleep — from looking toward this world to looking away from it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is mostly sleeping…. Woke long enough to speak of her deep joy, complete peace. She is just waiting, as she said, pointing upward, for Him to decide.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">House is very quiet now. Only Swamiji’s voice chanting AUM. Tushti is resting in the bed in the living room.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Surendra right with her. So sweet. So very very sweet.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And a few others….Willow is also here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Deep peace. Deep, tear-filled, heart opening joy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hours? Days? We are all waiting for Him to decide.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Much love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Still here</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 2, 2016 9:41 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti has been sleeping much of the time. But when she is awake she is fully awake and with us. Chatty. Funny. Loving. Joyful.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The body continues to decline. Tushti is finding it more and more difficult to relate to her body, even to move her legs or feet. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All happening in God’s own good time.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Daiva said Tushti is having repeated “dress rehearsals” for leaving her body. Exploring the other world without yet going into it to stay. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That is how it feels when she is sleeping. Deep peace. Deep quiet which draws all of us with her into the inner world.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love in Master,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Transitions with Grace</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 3, 2016 at 2:31 PM PST</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The journey continues.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been privileged to be with several people as the soul separated from the body, including my earthly father. Always before, though, I was called in for the last hours, or for a day or two. By that point, the soul was more settled into the transition.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">With Tushti, I have been with her for several weeks, including the day she turned from trying to get well to signing up for the "Final Exam," as Swamiji called it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because of her deep devotion, and the profound willingness of both Tushti and Surendra to share the journey with me, Daiva, Gangamata, and other dear friends here, we are all learning more about the “Kriya Yoga Way of Dying” than I knew before.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even for the devotee, with faith in God and a deep willingness to cooperate with God’s will, still, there are so many levels to be passed through. So many threads to unwind, habits to be released.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the <i>Autobiography</i> there is the story of Lahiri receiving Babaji’s message that his incarnation was almost done. Master describes how Lahiri went deep into silence for a time as he severed the last cords of attachment.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If even an avatar has to focus his awareness to release himself, how much more intensely the devotee has to concentrate and strive for freedom.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is all very subtle. Only a little is put into words. Mostly one feels it here as deep devotion and soul concentration.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday and today were further turning points. There are very few visitors now — by choice. Rather than pulling Tushti continually back into being “Tushti,” it was felt that solitude and quiet better serve her soul.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Until yesterday she was also getting out of bed from time to time, but now difficulty in walking, and increasing vulnerability to pain makes that kind of movement impractical. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall, the medication is keeping the pain manageable, but so much of her body is tender, and moving inevitably causes pain.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is full-time now in the bed in the living room. Surendra is sleeping next to her on the couch which allowed me also to move into the house to the room where they were staying.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a journey we will all make, and these early travelers are mapping the way for all their brothers and sisters to follow.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I had planned to come back to Palo Alto this weekend, but feel my responsibility to my soul-sister is to stay with her until she leaves for the astral world. So my return now is dependent on hers. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps I’ll be home by Saturday or Sunday, but it is in God’s hands.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This experience has made even-deeper my profound gratitude to God and Gurus, not only for their Divine Presence in our lives, but also for bringing us together as brothers and sisters in God. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We are deeply blessed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In divine love and friendship,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Asha</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Still here… but perhaps not much longer</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 4, 2016 at 7:53 AM PST </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Early this morning Tushti slipped into a different breathing pattern. Until now, her breath has been mostly inaudible. A little irregular, but not notably.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now she has a long inhalation and short exhalation with pauses between each breath, which we can easily hear when we sit around her. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the times I have been privileged to be with those who are passing from this world, I have seen that this breathing pattern — which can go on for hours or even days — will shift into the opposite: long exhalation, short inhalation. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Soon after, soul and body separate.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the reasons I am writing to all of you is to help us help ourselves and each other through this inevitable, beautiful, God-given moment of transition. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Swamiji and Master have left us a wealth of teaching on this all-important part of life. Still, so many questions arise.…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday, Tushti started to say, “I want to die,” but found herself unable to say those words with conviction. It goes so much against all her understanding and training both as a devotee and a healer.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So we tried, “I am willing to die, if that be God’s will.” Even that didn’t have the power she needed at that moment. For the corollary has to be, “I am willing to live as long as it be God’s will.” Given the state of her body, and the increasing difficulty and discomfort of being in it, it was hard to sincerely say she was willing to stay in it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I am ready to die,” was better. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The answer, though, we found in Swamiji’s music: “I want only Thee, Lord, Thee, only Thee.” That transcends all other considerations.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I remember at the very end of Paula’s life, when she had been silent for some time, she broke the silence saying, “This is very hard. You have to help me.” We started chanting AUM together and soon after she left.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So I am also writing to you because this is not easy, and as Tushti said some days ago, “I don’t remember how to do this.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We have to help each other.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In my conversation with Tushti about “wanting to die” we came to the image of a child raising its arms and crying for its mother when it wants to be lifted into her arms.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Like a little child, we stand at the gateway to Eternity, heart raised waiting for Master to lift us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From Swamiji’s music, again, the answer comes: “Lord, I am Thine, I am Thine, I am Thine.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the middle of the night last night Tushti was awake for a time. Before I left her to go back to bed, I whispered those very words to her and she whispered them back to me. “Lord, I am Thine.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We don’t know if she will awake from where she is now. How deeply grateful I will be if those turn out to be the last words we exchanged.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All in God’s hands.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti’s bed faces the big picture window, looking out over the Laurelwood campus and then to the hills beyond. Yesterday afternoon we were watching the sun set, partially obscured by clouds. The soft sun was shining directly on Tushti’s face. She was profoundly moved by the light and the beauty out the window. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She began to exclaim about the colors — first Nayaswami blue, then orange, yellow, purple. All colors neither Surendra nor I could see.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Part of the beauty of this moment is also that it is happening here, in this beautiful valley, where Master’s work is being born. One soul is dying here. Many souls are awakening here.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">How beautiful, how mysterious, how loving are God’s ways.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In divine friendship,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Asha</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>“Waiting for Him to decide….”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 5, 2016 at 6:03 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti is still breathing quietly. She woke up several times in the last 24 hours. Fully conscious of this world, herself, the people around her. Interacted especially with Surendra. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The soul has its own wisdom….</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Not yet</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 5, 2016 at 12:08 PM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Someone whose life has been greatly uplifted by Tushti posted a beautiful photo of her on Facebook, a loving tribute, and the erroneous message that Tushti had already left her body.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is still very much with us. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Surprisingly so! Last night about 1a.m. she was chatting and laughing with Surendra and another friend who was keeping watch through the night with her. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This morning, also, she was talking with enough strength in her voice to call to Daiva across the room. Complimenting him on the Breve he had made for her — and that she was greatly enjoying. A “Breve” is coffee with half and half, for those who don’t know. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti is as surprised as we are that she is still so much with us!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We simply decided: The party isn’t over yet. Who would go home before the party was over?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is joyful. At peace. Ready and willing to go whenever Master calls her. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">God’s mysterious ways.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">love in God and Gurus,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Asha</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Deep, profound…still in the body</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 7, 2016 at 6:30 AM PST </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday Tushti went to the edge of eternity … took all of us with her in deep and profound meditation. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her heartbeat and breath came almost stillness.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then returned. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She and Master and Swamiji are engaged in a mysterious dance of freedom from this body that is not yet complete.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday we learned from her friend Rose Neal a beautiful affirmation Tushti has been saying.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Divine Mother, my Beloved,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I offer myself completely, </span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">body, mind, and soul,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">into Your healing light,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">and Your unconditional loving embrace.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am your very own child of Light.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In Master’s love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>One more day</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 8, 2016 at 6:26 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So much for “Tushti is waiting till Master’s Mahasamadhi and Mahashivaratri.” :-) Better to be in the Now. Take life one breath at a time. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The hospice nurse and her aid — Angel Shannon and Angel Kami respectively — came yesterday and through their ministrations helped make Tushti much more comfortable. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her bed does resemble a child’s pillow fort as we balance all the factors to keep her in the best possible position.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because her body has become so delicate, their professional attention is especially important and we are deeply grateful to God for sending such lovely, capable souls to help her. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">About 3 a.m. last night Tushti was thirsty and we were giving her water. To the amazement of Angel Shannon she still has enough strength to pull water through a straw. Her physical vitality is one reason she has been able to stay in her body so long.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In photos Surendra has of their 35 years together, Tushti looks as glamorous as a movie star.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, she is even more beautiful.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I leaned over to say good night, she looked into my eyes, smiled, and said, “I love you.” Then added, “I love God.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman than Tushti at that moment. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We now call her “Tushti Angelica.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joy,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject:</b> “I want to die consciously.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 9, 2016 at 6:46 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti continues to rest in complete peace. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Life force is gradually withdrawing from her extremities. When we have to move or lift her to adjust the bedding or for other reasons she is concerned because, “my body is so heavy.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is about as thin as a person can be and still have all their bones and organs, so obviously it is how it feels to her from inside.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Much of the time she is silent, but when she does talk, she is completely aware of her surroundings and her circumstances.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was rearranging some things on her altar and bumped into the table, knocked some things off, and then dropped something again as I tried to put it back. A big clatter!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She remarked to Surendra, “Asha is throwing a lot of stuff around.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She wanted a taste of chocolate ice cream — seems her last desire! — but was engaged with the hospice aide and would have to wait till the “spa treatment” as they call it was done. The living room and kitchen are one open room and someone clanked a bowl in the kitchen. Tushti asked the aide, “Is someone in the kitchen having ice cream?”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I put some fresh-picked camellias on the blanket in front of her, next to the photos of Swamiji and Master we keep here. When she opened her eyes and saw the perfect blossoms, she asked, “Are these real flowers?” She wasn’t asking if they were astral flowers. The question was, are they silk or natural flowers?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few times we’ve been teasing and telling jokes — all of which seem very funny to us; but I think if I repeated them you wouldn’t be as amused as we have been! The point is not the punchlines but that Tushti follows, and even participates.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">None of these remarks (or jokes) are meaningful in themselves, but they all show a continued level of awareness that is truly remarkable, given how close she is to leaving this world.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti is absolutely determined to die consciously. At 3:30 a.m. this morning she was talking with Surendra about it. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to die consciously.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her difficulty, as she sees it, is that she isn’t quite sure how to do that. She isn’t afraid, just not certain about how it is all going to happen. She said, “The dying process is odd.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We offer her everything that comes to us to say that we know from Master and from Swamiji, but alas, none of us remember either how it happens! She is our pioneer.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One can’t imagine a purer, more surrendered heart. Nor a more fearless and determined spirit! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our part is to care for her body and love her spirit with all our hearts. And to pray to Master that his grace carry her fully awake from this world to the next.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Effortless to do. She is a shining light. It is a blessing to be with her.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She said to Rose Neal last night, “It won’t be long now.” What that means compared to eternity we don’t know. But physically we see her body closing down. And her spirit is completely at peace.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We received a note early this morning that Brindey at Ananda Village is also very close to passing. Perhaps the two sisters in God want to be “born” as twins in the astral world. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pray for Tushti. Pray for Brindey. Pray for all of us caring for both of these dear souls — us here at Laurelwood, Brindey at Ananda Village — that we all move in God’s Light and act always in attunement with His will.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">much love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>God’s wisdom</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 10, 2016 at 6:25 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I started sending these e-mails I didn’t know there would be so many.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I told Tushti yesterday morning that Brindey was also transitioning, I said, “You’ll finish the marathon together.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti ran a marathon in Hawaii, and Surendra has reminded her from time to time of that final hill and the effort needed to make it up Diamond Head to the finish line. It is an apt image.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti raised her hands in a gesture of victory and said about Brindey, “We’ll cross the finish line together.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Later, when I told her Brindey was already in the astral world, and Swamiji and Master took her there, she wept for joy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Soon after, Tushti went into a deep sleep — unmoving, unresponsive to voice or noises for about eight hours. This is a natural progression in the soul separating from the body, but we hadn’t seen it before.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then she came back to full awareness, but stayed awake a shorter time, before sleeping again, although not so deeply as before. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She continues to progress through the natural stages, just very slowly. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Neither she nor we nor the hospice nurse has any explanation for why the journey for her has gone on so many days longer than we might have expected. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is nothing we can see to change or resolve. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is a matter of prayer and surrender for all of us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A great learning and deep blessing.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joy,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>“So much joy.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 11, 2016 at 11:48 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sorry to be late with the email. For no particular reason the morning routine was all shifted around, and I’m only just getting to this. This letter is longer than usual. Have had lots of time recently to muse about events, and I’m sharin some of those thoughts at the end here.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti is still with us. Sleeping much of the time; but when she wakes up, she is fully here. She often sleeps with a blissful smile on her face.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Every day her body shows signs of gradually shutting down, but very slowly.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She still has the capacity to swallow. She can still pull water through a straw. Every time the hospice nurse measures the oxygen concentration of Tushti's blood she is astonished by how vital she still is. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti is surprised that she keeps waking up here, but undismayed. “So much joy. So much joy. I can’t hold them all in my heart,” was her comment to Willow just now. She specifically said “them”…. One so wishes for the ability to be in her consciousness now!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday when Surendra asked about where she had been spending her time, she said, “A happy place. A happy place.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We’ve had to up the pain medication a little bit, but doing that has been enough to keep her very comfortable and still fully alert. Thank you God.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For some time we’ve had to reassure her about the medication because of her determination to “die consciously.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently I asked her what that meant to her, “to die consciously.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After careful thought she said, “To feel the presence of God.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then I said, “Why is it so important to you that you die consciously?"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Because it is such an important part of our teachings,” she said. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I answered, “I think the ‘teachings’ are behind you now. The teachings are to help us feel the presence of God in our hearts, which you have all the time now. I still need the teachings. But you have gone past them.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She thought about that very carefully for a time then said, “I try too hard.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After that she entered an even deeper state of relaxation and acceptance. She still doesn’t like the medicine, because it tastes “nasty.” She swallows some of the pills, but others we have to dissolve in water. But she no longer seems concerned about how the medicine might interfere with her “dying consciously.” We are delighted to see this last concern dissolve.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This morning when it was time for her to take the medicine, she misunderstood and thought we were coaxing her by saying it was the last time she would have to take it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, that’s up to you, Tushti. We won’t make a promise we can’t keep. It is up to you and to God."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In this experience I’ve learned how little of communication is actually verbal. So much energy, information, and joy is exchanged in these tiny discussions. The receptivity is so open on both sides that with very little form much consciousness is shared. Little phrases feel so significant. Small, ridiculous jokes seem hilarious and clever!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have often pondered that Master ended his poem “Samadhi” with the words, “A tiny bubble of laughter, I have become the sea of mirth itself.” In some ways a rather surprising conclusion to a poem about cosmic consciousness.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a small way, being here with Tushti when she is as much now on the other side as here, laughter and mirth keep bubbling over and the poem makes perfect sense. Everything resolves into joy…. so why not laughter? why not mirth? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This morning Tushti said to me, “Asha, you are soooo funny!” The merriment was way out of proportion to the apparent cause. It was the “tiny bubble” becoming the “sea itself.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wow.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The other extraordinary feature of these last few days has been the power of love. I’ve always been fond of Tushti. What is there not to love? She has always been a beautiful soul, filled with a kindness and affection for everyone that magnetizes the same from us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, not only does she radiate love, she is also a powerful magnetic force drawing love from all of us. I’ve never given birth to a child, but the only thing in this world I could imagine comparing it to is the way a mother would feel about her newborn baby.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti is rather baby-like — bald, tiny, helpless, utterly reliant on us for all bodily care. One offers it, not only willingly, but eagerly, joyously, with a heart overflowing with affection for her. Or, more truly, to the presence of God for which she has become a clear window. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wow.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We’ve had lots of time (when Tushti is sleeping) to talk about this experience, trying to understand on the deepest possible level. The four of us in the house — Surendra, me, Daiva, Gangamata – and also Willow.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Tushti became ill in India, from the beginning the prognosis was dire. Pancreatic cancer is not easy to overcome. Tushti, however, would hear none of it. “I feel Master has more for me to do,” she said. It was her duty to stay in her body so she could continue to serve. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For those of you who don’t know, Tushti and Surendra moved from Palo Alto to Laurelwood in January 2012. They were eager to be part of the work just beginning here. It seemed an ideal place for them to live and serve, after their ten years running East West Bookshop. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They were at Laurelwood for six days when the call came from India: Swamiji wanted them to come there instead. Like the great devotees they are, soon they were on the plane to India where they lived for three and a half years. When she became ill, though, for medical reasons, and also from the heart, they wanted to come back to Laurelwood.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For Tushti at that time, it was not coming back to die. It was coming back to serve.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On February 17, as I wrote to many of you at the time, Tushti saw that body and soul were trying to separate, rather than stay together.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Looking back, though, on these last months, it is true: Master had more for Tushti to do. If she had accepted at the beginning that she would not recover from the cancer, the great learning and the great service of these last months would not have happened. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So many people have been touched by Tushti’s courage, sweetness, and love. First in India, as she said “till we meet again” to her many friends there. Then at Laurelwood during the weeks of treatment before going into hospice on February 18.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And now, in these weeks, as inch by inch she exits from this world and enters “the happy place” Master and Swamiji have prepared for her, she is serving so many souls around the world.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently — in the last few months — I have read a dozen or more small biographies of Catholic saints by a writer named Mary Fabian Windeatt. I got these books from Helen. Some she read as a child, others she acquired for the school. I saw some in her office and eventually read all she had. It gave me a simple overview of the life of each saint in a sweet and devotional way.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Also a very Catholic way. Not at all familiar to me. Among other things, the saints often did “penance for souls in purgatory.” Quite apart from the whole concept of purgatory, and souls being trapped there, I have been meditating on the idea of making sacrifices for the sake of others or for the sake of accomplishing something you believe in.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the early years of Ananda, a Swami visited from India. Seeing what had already been accomplished at Ananda, he turned to Swami Kriyananda and said, “Someone has done a lot of tapasya to make this happen.” Of course, both swamis knew it was Swami Kriyananda’s tapasya that had done it. His arthritic hips that he endured for 20 years before having them replaced surgically, were part of that tapasya. Literally, carrying Ananda on his own shoulders. Only after it was well established did he allow himself to give up that tapasya.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just after Swamiji moved to India in 2003, he was often in the hospital there with a variety of serious, often life-threatening illnesses. I was visiting in April 2004 when he was again hospitalized. Sitting in his room, a swami from Rishikesh I had never met before, whose name I don’t remember, came to visit Swami Kriyananda.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I am so sorry to see you here,” the swami said.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t be concerned,” Swami Kriyananda said quite cheerfully, “I’m just doing tapasya for the work in India.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Later I asked Swamiji to explain that to me. He said simply, “Whenever the hero in a story wants to accomplish something, he always does penance first. The energy has to come from somewhere.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Ananda was in the last throes of the Bertolucci side of the lawsuits, several people at Ananda were facing terminal illnesses. It was notable that their deaths mostly came as that lawsuit was ending, as if they were holding on as a tapasya to help Ananda through that event. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If Tushti were a Catholic saint going through this dying process in the way she has, all would say that she is doing penance for souls in purgatory. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That isn’t how we would phrase it, but one can’t help but think that this, too, is the service she felt Master wanted her to do, and why she couldn’t just give up the body months ago in India. She had to get back to Laurelwood and do this tapasya, for Master, for Ananda, perhaps for Laurelwood. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All of this is happening in the house where Daiva and Gangamata live. They, of course, carry the lion’s share of responsibility for making Laurelwood a success. Like all Ananda projects at this time in our history, so much is a matter of money. Since Laurelwood is a huge project, the dollar amounts are also large. And right now certain investments have to be restructured, payments made, future possibilities secured.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At the table, just feet away from where Tushti is lying in her hospital bed, spending more and more time in “a happy place” they are also doing their tapasya, of determined effort and prayer to bring Laurelwood into manifestation.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One result of Tushti’s slow transition has been the opportunity for me to spend these weeks here, to feel and see Laurelwood from the inside, to meet and spend time with the great souls — Daiva, Gangamata, and others — who are doing the tapasya necessary to make it happen. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From the first I heard of it, Laurelwood has thrilled me. Such beautiful land. Such enormous potential. So much already in place. So many possibilities to serve generations to come. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But first the tapasya! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We tend to think of tapasya as somehow difficult. The common definition is “austerity” – or “penance,” as Swamiji called it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another, not quite accurate translation, but close enough for consideration, is that tapasya means “devotion.” Devotion to a cause one believes in neutralizes all sense of suffering that might otherwise be attached to the word.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At a satsang here last week someone said, “You were part of the hard times at the beginning of Ananda…..” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not sure what he was going to say after that, because I interrupted to correct him, “Those weren’t hard times! It was total joy!” I recounted once talking to Swamiji about reincarnation. He said, “What draws us back time after time is longing and regret.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I responded, “I would repeat those first ten years at Ananda in a heartbeat. It was heaven on earth!”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Swamiji samiled so sweetly. “That’s different.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The desire to serve God is a “desireless desire” — liberating, not binding.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sri Yukteswar defined “tapasya” as “patience.” That is my favorite. I once did a major household repair job, even though I had no skill or experience for what I was doing. I discovered a principle that has served me well. All accomplishment is the result of the “patient application of will power.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I read Sri Yukteswar’s definition years later, I understood.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That is what Swamiji did for all his years. Patiently, unrelentingly, he applied his will power to the task at hand – and accomplished miracles.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Each of us in our own way is doing the same.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s what Tushti is doing. “So much joy….” is what she describes now. But it is tapasya in the sense of patience. Day by day accepting what God is giving — in this case, one more day of life in that body. One more day for us of caring for that body. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One more day of looking at the task at hand and patiently applying will power in God-guided action to serve Master in whatever way he asks of us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Every conversation with Tushti now is about joy. Her smile is so blissful. Her eyes windows to Infinity. So much joy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<b>From:</b> Daiva & Gangamata<br />
<b>Date:</b> March 12, 2016<br />
<br />
Dear Friends,<br />
<br />
Greetings.<br />
<br />
We awake to another morning in what starts to feel like one long, eternal moment (which, of course, it really is). As Asha notes below, all here are in the practice of Hong Sau with someone else’s breath. It is over a week now since the nurse suggested that she would be surprised if Tushti were still with us, and yet she is - quietly, deeply, gently as in tune with her nature.<br />
<br />
Desultory conversation around the breakfast table drifts through years of being a devotee on this path - stories of Swamiji, times of spiritual courage, quiet exploration of subtle understanding of how the philosophy of our teachings plays out in “real” life…Gentle humor and appreciation of how remarkably, humorously incongruous the events of life actually are punctuate the conversations.<br />
<br />
Sacred times. The prayers and kindly, supportive thoughts of so many of you buoy this time, where this great soul lets go of increasingly subtle layers of attachment and karmic commitment.<br />
<br />
I’ll let Asha’s letter carry the rest of the story…<br />
<br />
Blessings,<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
daiva and gangamata<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject:</b> Lord, May I Serve Thee</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 12 2016 at 8:43 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After being very active — “chatty” is the right word — for several hours yesterday morning, Tushti then went into a deep sleep in the early afternoon which lasted through the night and is still happening. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We now give supplemental pain medication on a regular schedule, rather than on an “as-needed” basis. To “stay ahead of the pain” as the nurse put it. It relaxes her body, but there is no evidence that it clouds her mind. When she is awake, she is as sharp as ever. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even when she is sound asleep (seemingly) and Surendra needs to give her medication — pills dissolved in water and placed into her mouth with a syringe (thank you, Rose Neal, for showing us how to do that!) — he just leans over her sleeping form and says softly, “Tushti, open your mouth,” and she does. Conscious, unconscious — who can say?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The sores on the skin seem to be irritating the nerves. For the first time yesterday morning, Tushti and I had to talk about pain. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I wrote about tapasya yesterday, it was an extension of the idea of our deep commitment to service. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Swamiji has often said, “Nothing happens when you die.” Well, self-evidently, something happens, but what he meant was nothing happens to the essential “you.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We use the physical body to express our inner consciousness. When that body dies, our inner consciousness has a new vehicle — whether an astral body or a semi-conscious astral sojourn until we reincarnate in a physical body, it is the <i>vrittis</i> in the chakras that determine everything. Or, eventually, the lack of <i>vrittis</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Physical death doesn’t in itself change those <i>vrittis</i>. How we conduct ourself in the “final exam” could affect our state of consciousness, but it is not automatic. Like everything else, it is about devotion, will power, and the grace of God.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti has given her life to serving God. Now her body won’t allow her to serve in the same way, but the impulse to serve is not diminished by bodily weakness. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the last days of Paula’s life, she talked to Swamiji on the phone. And in her charming, child-like way, said to him, “I hope they have a job for me in the astral world. You know I like to be busy!” Swamiji assured her that it was all ready and waiting.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Tushti and I talked about pain, I raised the thought, without having a clear answer myself, that she has spent her life helping others awaken to the love of God. Even though we might not understand how it could help, she could offer this pain to God as a way to help others awaken to His love. She smiled so sweetly at that idea and visibly relaxed even though the pain was still there. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Soon after, the nurse came, and we understood what was happening medically, and how better to deal with it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In that same conversation, Tushti suddenly asked about someone at Ananda that I thought she barely knew. The name had never come up before. She was deeply interested in that person’s well-being. We talked for a few minutes about certain tests that person was facing and how sincerely they were trying.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She said, “I pray for them. Secret prayers are the best.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then we talked a little about her mother. She’s been worried about her. Tushti is the second of her four children to die before the mother dies. I assured her (which is true) that her mother is at peace with her passing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Your prayers have changed your mother. She is very strong now.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again, Tushti smiled so sweetly and said, “Secret prayers are the best.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even after all these days, we find it difficult to comprehend that at some point this dear person we love so much will not be with us anymore. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Eventually the form in the hospital bed will cease to breathe, everything will shift, and we’ll all go on to another way of living than just being here and, as we call it, practicing Hong-Sau by watching someone else’s breath.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Somewhere in my subconscious, though, I thought it meant that when the hospital bed is empty and taken away, Tushti will be back to being herself! She’ll be rummaging in the closet choosing an outfit for the day, and sitting at the table laughing with us and drinking coffee. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Very hard to get heart and mind around the reality of death. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Considering how many times we’ve all been through it…. well, Maya is impressive.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One more day. Moving toward Eternity. Maria McSweeney said when she got the e-mail yesterday she was reading <i>Whispers from Eternity</i>, and #199 seemed to describe Tushti perfectly.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Endless Thrills of Delight</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I attuned my life with Thine. Now my life has become a long, unbroken inspiration. Thy foundation of bliss refreshes and delights me night and day, whether I be wakeful, fast asleep, or dreaming fondly of Thee. Oh, what has become of me? Delight on overwhelming delight! Endless, indescribably thrills of divine delight spray unceasingly over me!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">O aged nectar! Wine of centuries! I found Thee at last, and will taste of Thy sweetness forever, forever, forever!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Life goes on</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 13, 2016 at 8:15 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The shortness of this letter will balance the length of the recent ones.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Everything has become very quiet. Tushti is mostly sleeping, waking occasionally and then usually only briefly. Often it seems she wakes because of physical discomfort, which we try to anticipate by changing the arrangement of pillows or adding medication, but there are too many variables, and perfect ease is not easily found. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We speak softly, move quietly. Reading, doing a little work on the computer, talking together. Most of our attention, though, is on Tushti. The flicker of an eye, a whisper of speech, the smallest movement, and in a heartbeat one of us is at her bedside to attend to her.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When she does awake, her eyes shine with love and it is a joy to be in her presence. Even when she isn’t awake, her presence, which has become the divine Presence through her, permeates everything. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Humor persists. I exclaimed just now, “How do you stay so beautiful? No gorgeous clothes. You don’t even have hair!”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She looked at me with mock indignation. She had often asked if her hair was growing back, and would run a hand over the peach fuzz on her head (when she still could) and declare with certainty that it was coming back. I assured her that she would soon be like Rapunzel and rescue the prince with her long braided hair. “Rapunzel” has become a source of amusement.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This time she answered that her hairdo was the “hair-that-is-not-there-do.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Master says that every atom is “dowered with individuality.” We see Tushti fading on so many levels that formerly seemed to define her. Still, the essence of her nature is intact.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She said this morning, “I don’t know how I am able to stay so long sitting here. I have always been such a moving person!” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“In these last days of an incarnation,” I suggested, “perhaps we get to learn many things about ourselves we didn’t know before.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For many days, Surendra has slept on the couch next to Tushti’s bed. Now, I’ve taken to sleeping most of the night on a mat in the living room near her bed. It’s quieter and easier than coming in from the bedroom countless times during the night.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is no longer much in this world, but nor is she fully in the other. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love in God and Gurus,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Further thoughts</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 13, 2016 at 10:05 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At breakfast, we were talking about (what else?) the unique experience of caring for Tushti in these last days.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again we were commenting on how very distinctly Tushti is still Tushti, even though virtually everything that defined her before is no longer there.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What we understood is that everything we think of as ourselves and others is an expression of the individual's inner consciousness. Whatever form it takes, it is the consciousness itself that we experience in …. as … one another. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Maria Warner’s sister Bella died a number of years ago, Swamiji said at her astral ascension ceremony that most of Bella was not expressed on this plane of consciousness. What we saw was just a small portion of who she is.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was more than a metaphysical statement. He was talking specifically about Bella and the way she chose to express — or in this case, not express — her consciousness.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Maria, as the younger sister, knew Bella better than anyone. She confirmed exactly what Swamiji had said, and asked in wonder, “How did he know?”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti can’t put her consciousness into form anymore. At least not very much. But her consciousness is fully present, the same as always. That is why even the little statements and brief exchanges have so much magnetism.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even the joy and love of God that comes through her is “Tushti-esque.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sister Gyanamata told in one of her letters how Rajarshi sent her a blessing, and how he had tried to make it seem like Master’s blessing. But she could tell it was from Rajarshi. Even on that level, with disciples so unified in consciousness with their Guru, individuality remains.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I read a novel</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">some decades ago</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> called </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">House of Fulfillment</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, by Lily Adams Beck. It was an interesting book with a spiritual theme. It was about some English people who become dedicated to spiritual practice, go to India, etc. One of the characters becomes a world-renowned sculptor. The sculptor's name is known, but that is all that is known about her. In the story, she remains hidden from the public.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The sculptor explains how she went to Tibet and did deep spiritual practice with a Master teacher until she came to a state of profound realization. She knew she had to give expression to the consciousness she had attained, but at first she didn’t know if it would be expressed as poetry, music, painting, or some other form. It turned out to be sculpture, but the form that it took didn’t matter, because the consciousness was the same.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I understood this to be the secret of Swamiji’s prodigious creativity. He stood at the center of his consciousness and gave it whatever form was needed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Swamijii wrote the Oratorio, he said that he had no need to write it. "The inspiration was complete within me. It didn’t require any further expression.” He wrote the music in order to serve Master’s work. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a distinction that Swamiji always made. He was not a “creative artist.” He was a disciple. His creativity lay entirely in the thought, “How can I serve Master more and better?” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Swamiji said, “Creativity is essential on the spiritual path.” Not necessarily artistic creativity, but creativity in this sense: the devotee must constantly ask the question, “How can I serve God better?” The form doesn’t matter. God uses the talents at hand. The creativity is in asking the question and acting to express the answer.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Master having lived as a great warrior when he came as William the Conqueror, and Swamiji as his son, Henry I — it is the same principle. Consciousness takes whatever form is needed in answer to the question, “How can I serve?” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So Tushti has withdrawn — not quite completely, her because body and mind are still here — but very far into her essential reality as consciousness. And still she remains, delightfully, lovably Tushti.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even when the bubble merges into the sea, the bubble is still the bubble. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Much to ponder.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>From:</b>
Daiva & Gangamata</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Date:</b>
March 14, 2016</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dear
Ones, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Tushti
is using every available moment, ounce of energy and life force in this process
of becoming free. She is still with us this morning, as noted below. Asha has
changed the flowers - gathering local daffodils, camellias, and other touches
of God</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">’</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">s
color and light. The nurse has been here and helped adjust the support we are
offering at a physical level - a constantly moving target of need to help
manage pain so she can be less distracted as she moves through this process.
The ongoing level of prayer, stillness, kindness, joy and sweetness moves us
all - recalling just how powerful are the blessings of a life offered to God. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Surendra
is present for her 24/7, helping her in whatever ways help. Willow sits quietly
bedside much of the time. Asha brings the depth of her decades on the path,
folded into her natural friendship for Tushti and Surendra. Gangamata holds
life together for us all, wrapping everything in one constant prayer of
kindness and support. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I
was helping Tushti during a few moments where she was present with us. She can no
longer swallow, but bathing her mouth with clean, cool water is soothing and
refreshing. At the end of this, I asked it it was helpful and she nodded very
gently. Then, I asked her if she could feel Master, and she again nodded, and a
quiet smile lit up her face. I recited a few lines from “</span><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Samadhi,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">”
culminating with “I, a tiny bubble of laughter, am become the sea of mirth
Itself.” The smile turned into a glow…</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In
His love, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">daiva
and gangamata </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
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<!--EndFragment--></span><br />
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">for
Tushti, Surendra, Asha, Willow and all who are sending prayers and love </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Blessed</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 14, 2016 at 6:50 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti has been still and quiet for many hours. We were able to find a new way of arranging the pillows that has made her more comfortable. She has been sound asleep without moving for many hours. Breath is steady, but very quiet. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One more day.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The thought I was reaching for yesterday, but never quite expressed is simply this: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joy,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Pray for Tushti’s freedom</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 15, 2016 at 7:52 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no reason to feel that Tushti’s slow departure is anything other than ideal for her soul progress. But it is not easy to watch. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She mostly sleeps, and only comes to awareness when pain brings her back. Or, more recently, the need to cough.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is often disoriented when she does awake, and not much interested in relating to what is going on. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the last years of my parents’ life, my mother struggled physically with Parkinson’s and my father with mental decline. I often asked God why He was keeping them in those disintegrating bodies. It seemed to me that they were overdue for an astral vacation! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Anything you want, God,” was not sincere. I had feelings that I couldn’t deny. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So I prayed, with great fervor, “Whatever it is You want them to learn, you must give them the devotion, wisdom, and receptivity to learn it.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I offered it not as a gentle request, but as a prayer demand, and I added, “And please do it now!” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thy will, not mine be done, but if Thy will could coincide with mine I would be most grateful! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And if they are not going to coincide — at least not on my timetable – then, “Whatever it is you are trying to teach me, you must give me the devotion, wisdom, and receptivity to learn it!"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti has surrendered herself completely to Master. She is in His hands. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But whatever it is Master wants from her now, pray that he give her the devotion, wisdom, and receptivity to learn it. And that the grace of understanding come soon so that she can take her spirit away from that broken body and soar in Light with God.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Much love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>From:</b>
Daiva & Gangamata</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Date:</b>
March 16, 2016</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dear
Friends,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">We
move from the unlikely through the improbably, toward the unimaginable…and yet,
all things are governed by the hand of the Divine. Tushti continues to inhabit
a body that shouldn</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">’</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">t, by any outward measure, be able to sustain
her. I often have wondered, as we move through this process with her, with
Surendra, whether this is an opportunity for her soul to burn up the last
vestiges of karma, perhaps freeing her soul forever. Whatever the reality, she
continues to carry this with more grace than seems possible. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Each
person involved is having their own experience, whether it is Tushti as she
leaves this life, Surendra as he shares this last part of their shared journey
together (for this time) and faces a dramatically different reality, Asha and
Willow who can barely recall their previous daily patterns, or us, who have
grown comfortable with this divine event happening in the midst of all the
things that go with our outer roles. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Consistent
sleep patterns have become a dim memory, as each moment is filled with
sensitivity to what might be needed - by Tushti or by anyone else here in
support of her transition. It is, truly, an ongoing, moment-by-moment
involvement in the pulse of life. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Below
is another sharing from Asha…we were discussing how none of us will go back to
our other lives…you can never step into the same stream twice, and each of us
is in some way changed and uplifted, more awake and surrendered through this time.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">With
love, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">daiva and gangamata</span><!--EndFragment-->
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject:</b> Peace</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 16, 2016 at 9:46 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the last couple of days, there was more tension in the house than there had been before. Tushti had slipped mostly beyond verbal communication, and at the same time, seemed to be in more pain than before. Naturally we felt an urgency to make her comfortable. Adjusting medication is not instantaneous. Finding exactly the right position, given the developing tender spots on her skin, was also a challenge, made more difficult by diminished communication.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From the nurse we’ve learned that skin is the biggest organ we have. And like all organs, as death approaches it, too, ceases to function. What people call bedsores is organ failure of the skin. Heartrending.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even though we have been doing all we could according to our best intuition, naturally we have been searching our hearts to be sure we are assisting her outward journey, while not holding her back. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All of this now seems to be resolved. Comfortable resolution for Tushti of physical issues. More profound acceptance of God’s will. Deeper peace in every way.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti remains mostly asleep, but not in a coma. She remains for hours without moving at all, except for her breath and heartbeat. The effort required to come back to this world is almost more than she can do, but she still does it when needed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because she is so unmoving, every day the hospice nurse or aide needs to reposition her to keep her comfortable. Shifting her body is often painful, and Willow sits close to her, pressing on the spiritual eye, urging her to move away from body consciousness. She AUMS quietly and Tushti AUMS very quietly with her. On other occasions, too, as Willow was meditating with her, Tushti’s lips were moving as she inwardly repeated AUM.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Quite remarkable.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti is transitioning out of her body as we are transitioning to a deeper understanding of what it means to help someone on this final journey. Spiritual friendship takes on a whole new level of meaning.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many of you have written good suggestions, often from extensive experience in hospice work. We are grateful for all of them and have incorporated as many as we can. The soul has its own wisdom. From this plane we do our best to serve that higher cause. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For me, the opportunity has been the obvious one: deeper faith in God. He knows. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I had a little bit of experience before this with the transition from life to death, but this time has humbled me completely. In this, and in all things, I am but a child, relying entirely on my Divine Mother to guide me. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Swamiji was always humble and childlike. I believe that is because he saw himself only in relation to Master. We saw him in relation to ourselves and to the ordinary men and women around him. From that perspective he seemed almost infinite in stature.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From his perspective, the only self-definition that mattered was, “I am the disciple of a great Master.” He always saw himself as Master’s chela — Master’s child. His humility required no effort. It was simple self-honesty. Before God and Guru, we are all children.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another deep blessing of this experience is the bond that has formed among the members of Tushti’s team. A few days ago, when she was relating more to this world, I was helping her in some way, but had to step away while Surendra took my place.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I explained, as we always try to do, what was happening. When a person has so little control over their own life they appreciate being informed rather than surprised by what happens to them.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I have to step away now,” I said, “but Surendra will continue what I was doing.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a soft but audible whisper, Tushti said, “Yay team!”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Being together day and night, sharing such an intensely moving experience has united us on both a personal and a soul level. As it always is when Ananda devotees are together, harmony is effortless. We switch places from dishwashing to tending to Tushti, from sweeping the floor to listening or speaking to Tushti in the most profound ways. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One could imagine groups of friends or family concerned for themselves at such a moment. But not Ananda devotees. It is God serving God in whatever ways He asks of us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I realize it could have been an entirely different group of devotees, and the unity of spirit would be the same. It is not us individually, but our devotion to Master and Swamiji that unites us. We are here to serve.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many years ago, in the early ‘70s, about twenty-five of us went with Swamiji for a weekend of programs in Reno, Nevada. Satya (one of Ananda’s founding members) had a married son who lived in Reno, and they were kind enough to host us. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a small house, two, maybe three bedrooms, and one bathroom. For three days we all lived together in effortless harmony. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Swamiji often referred to that weekend as a perfect example of the spirit of Ananda. Cooperation with joy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another day now with Tushti. There can’t be many still to come, but whatever there may be, we welcome with joy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love in Master,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>From:</b>
Daiva & Gangamata</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Date:</b>
March 17, 2016</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dear
Friends,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Not
much to add to Asha</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">s note today. It is evening now, Ishwari is
here, as she frequently has been over the weeks, offering solace, support and
insight. Asha and Willow prepare for their morning departure back to their
other lives, Tushti breathes ever so shallowly, the sun sets again and time
which has seemed to hold its breath over these last weeks will slip each of us
into very different realities very shortly. “Time flows on like a river that
homes to the sea: One hour bounding through mountain vales, one hour winding
through a lea. None may linger on the way. None may coax time to stay. Fleeting
scenes flow by us like a stream. Cling not, none will be your home. Lest you
grieve to be alone, look within you - There</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">s your home.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In
His love,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">daiva and gangamata</span><!--EndFragment-->
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject:</b> Awareness</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 17, 2016 at 1:20 PM PST</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the last 24 hours, Tushti has been more often awaken than asleep. Eyes open, sometimes tracking this world, sometimes seemingly in another.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She can still speak, and does so occasionally. Sometimes she is disoriented. At other times, fully aware.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The hospice nurse came and leaned over to greet Tushti. Tushti said softly, “How are you?” Exactly the right greeting for the nurse. She knew who it was and how to respond.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The nurse asked in return, “How are you?”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti said, “I want to die.” Again, showing full awareness of what was happening to her.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is doing exactly what she set out to do. Die consciously.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is one month since Tushti made the decision to go into hospice, to give up trying to live and accept that she would die. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Given how strongly determined she was to heal herself of the cancer and continue to serve Master, it is no surprise that it is taking her some time to detach from that commitment.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The body continues to decline, and every day we feel that she is progressing in her detachment.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Whether it is her spirit gradually letting go, or the simple strength of her body which also takes time to let go, it is a process that can’t be hurried.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Both Willow and I have to leave tomorrow morning. She has pressing engagements that can’t be put off, and so do I.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been here most of a month, and my promise to Tushti has now come up against other promises I also have to keep. I explained it to her as carefully as I could, hoping that soul-to-soul she will understand. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Other commitments coincide with an inner feeling that it is the right time to leave, even if she is still in the body. Even if I am not here for the final moment of transition, I have kept the essence of my promise which was to help her through this journey. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is divine timing that Willow also has to leave on the same day.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti’s care is simpler now because she is so unmoving. Daiva and Gangamata are here to help Surendra, and others from the community can come in as needed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In God’s plan I feel everything is happening as it should.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">love,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">a.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>From:</b>
Daiva & Gangamata</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Date:</b>
March 18, 2016</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dear
Ones,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Stillness
follows in the wake of Asha and Willow leaving for the airport. A timeless
hush. Inwardness grows, and the blazing warmth of shared outer friendship
quiets into the lasting glow of coals. Swami Kriyananda poetically reminds us
of the truth behind these moments when he writes in the Astral Ascension
Ceremony:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dear Friend, Tushti.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">You, who have gone before us, have entered a realm which our
souls remember: A place of freedom, light, and laughter.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Take with you on your journey our blessings, and our love.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">We shall miss you!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Our desire is not to hold you back, but only to tell you:
Friend, we are yours; our love and support are ever yours, and our prayers for
your highest happiness. We shall meet again! Once more we shall laugh together,
rejoice together, and share in the joy of seeking Him!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Claim your soul</span><span lang="FR" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">’</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">s freedom!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Bless all who ever harmed you, or ever wished you harm. Give
them your love, and your prayer for their freedom in God.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Friend, cast from your heart all outward attachments! Realize
that earthly goals, however shining, are but dreams:</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">God is the only Reality.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Burn your earthly desires in the fire of wisdom!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Burn earthly limitations in the blaze of inner freedom!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Burn earthly disappointments in the flames of spreading peace!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Burn earthly joys in the bonfire of divine bliss!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">See your physical form as a discarded garment:</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Clothed you now are in garments of radiant light!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">O Free Soul!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">See your past actions as scenes in a vast, unfolding tapestry.
Feast not your gaze wistfully on episodes already finished, but look ahead!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">New adventures await you—fresh, joyous victories as you advance
toward perfect freedom!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And what of us, Friend, who love you and would be remembered by
you? Behold us as threads of light in the tapestry of your life—threads which,
through the magnet of soul-friendship, will appear ever and again, woven with
increasing beauty as our hearts expand together in God</span><span lang="FR" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">’</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">s love.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Divine Mother! receive this, Thy child.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Purify him/her in Thy perfect light and love.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Grant him/her eternal freedom in Thee!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">AUM, Amen!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Shannon,
the hospice nurse who has been supporting this part of the journey for the last
month, stopped by this morning briefly, noted some of the changes that are
happening for Tushti</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">s body, and said that it cannot be more than
hours now (though Tushti has walked to the door quite a few times over the last
weeks only to return, at some point the body simply quits regardless of any
other process going on). The quiet is entrancing, filled with richness…</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Surendra
hovers lovingly, supportively, quietly, prayerfully…offering tender touches and
supportive gestures when appropriate. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">To
hitchhike on Asha</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">s
caption, a friend of ours was want to depart with a joyful “TTFN," which
we discovered meant “Ta-ta for now.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In
His love, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
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<!--StartFragment-->
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">daiva and gangamata</span><!--EndFragment-->
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Asha</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>“Ta-ta.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 18, 2016 at 6:24 AM PST</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In India Tushti learned the Bengali way of saying “good-bye” — “Ta-ta.” For much of this month it was our exit line from the house. Many times I’ve said “Ta-ta” to Tushti, knowing there would soon be another, “Hello, Sunshine” to follow (Daiva’s favorite morning greeting).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This time, it seems, it is good-bye. Not to our soul friendship. For, as Swamiji writes so beautifully, “We shall meet again! Once more we shall laugh together, rejoice together, and share in the joy of seeking Him!” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Still, this particular lila is coming to an end. In an hour Willow and I will leave and return to our life as it was before we were swept up into this beautiful chapter. So this will be the last email from here. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti closed her eyes in sleep yesterday afternoon and has been silent and unmoving since. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many times during this month she has gone to the edge of Eternity and returned, sometimes fully and vibrantly to this world. So only God knows what will come next, and when. But the body is closing down more every day, and soon her soul will separate from it. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When that happens, Surendra will let me know and I will pass that news to all of you.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Master wept at the funeral of Sister Gyanamata. He had seen her merge into the Infinite Light forever, and still he was moved to tears as he contemplated the ending of their life together in that form.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so do I. I will miss her.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And I will miss this household of friends, united in our one-pointed devotion to serving our soul-sister in these last weeks of her life.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She has been heroic in her steadfast determination to die with full-awareness of God, to face down every fear, every limitation, every attachment.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That work seems done. Her body is so small, still, and frail. She has become nothing but breath. Hong-Sau. “I am He.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When she asked me to be with her when she left this world, I said, “I will if I can.” Meaning, “This is not a promise I can make. Only God can decide."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He has given me the privilege of walking with her though much of the journey and for that I am eternally grateful — to Tushti for inviting me, and to God for gracing me in this way.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Go with Love, may joyful blessings, speed you safely on your way. May God’s Light expand within you. May we be one in that Light someday.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love in God and Gurus, always,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Asha</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 13px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>From:</b>
Daiva & Gangamata</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Date:</b>
March 19, 2016</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Dear
Ones,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Greetings.
It is near 9pm on Saturday, and Rose is here with us. There is so little to
say. The last day and a half have been quiet, music playing, breath in, breath
out, breath in, breath out…</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">There
is so little of her body left, it is easy to forget that she is still fully
Tushti, just having a different experience. She was more alert today than she
has been over the last 48 hours, but it is now completely impossible for her to
move her body - even opening her mouth a couple of millimeters is virtually
beyond her. Just her eyelids and eyes - and they are expressive. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It
is medically beyond imagining that this body could still host a soul, but each
of us has our own story to live out, and everyone leaves in their own fashion,
according to their own karma (or for those who have given their lives to God,
according to His grace setting us free). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">All
here are grateful for your ongoing prayers. Please do be sure to include
Surendra, as well as Tushti, as he bears the main freight of this process
(beyond Tushti, of course). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In
love and blessings,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">daiva and gangamata</span><!--EndFragment-->
</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 13px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Nayaswami Daiva Glazzard </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Tushti</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 19, 2016 at 8:59:25 PM PDT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Ones,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Greetings. It is near 9 p.m. on Saturday, and Rose is here with us. There is so little to say. The last day and a half have been quiet, music playing, breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is so little of her body left, it is easy to forget that she is still fully Tushti, just having a different experience. She was more alert today than she has been over the last forty-eight hours, but it is now completely impossible for her to move her body – even opening her mouth a couple of millimeters is virtually beyond her. Just her eyelids and eyes – and they are expressive. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is medically beyond imagining that this body could still host a soul, but each of us has our own story to live out, and everyone leaves in their own fashion, according to their own karma (or for those who have given their lives to God, according to His grace setting us free). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All here are grateful for your ongoing prayers. Please do be sure to include Surendra, as well as Tushti, as he bears the main weight of this process (beyond Tushti, of course). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In love and blessings, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">daiva and gangamata</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Surendra Conti </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Blessings abound</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 20, 2016 at 12:59:12 PM PDT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Is it stranger that Tushti is still alive, or that we would imagine otherwise? The staying power of her life force is absolutely stunning. She is a shell with a heartbeat and barely discernible breath. But the beat goes on.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am alone with her today, and every moment is dear. This is Sunday, and most of Laurelwood is at the Ananda temple for weekly services. Our living room is temple aplenty for us, imbued with a reverence that permeates every space within and around us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have ceased wondering when Tushti will leave this world. She is hardly a part of it now, and yet something of importance is holding her to a facet of it. We cannot know what that is, but we must honor its divine significance for as long as it prevails upon her consciousness.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">With love and deepest gratitude...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Surendra</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Surendra Conti </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Tushti has taken flight</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 21, 2016 at 1:26:40 PM PDT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Softly, sweetly and serenely today, Tushti took leave of body and earth at 1:05 in the afternoon. She is soaring unfettered now, bound for glory, a being of light. Let us celebrate her passing as an inspiration, just as her life was ever that, for death is but a door to a higher incarnation. And let our tribute be that we strive to live as she: simply and purely from the heart.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Go with love,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">May joyful blessings,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Speed you safely on your way.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">May God's light expand within you,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">May we be one in that light someday."</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Image by Lilly of Ananda Portland.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Song and lyrics by Swami Kriyananda.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq_SQGHfJVvv8UtKLGlGZ-7alTdyiIDT0i_j2MpUt7nLB3o8qCvLjAPEjt8u10LPkkneaeyyHhGXBnKfBcrGU60lZDMha8mCuWV4_AEUEr1LRIcCwenGJJmDiTFNfipieXTnzjF2hQjl-c/s1600/Tushti+in+flight.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq_SQGHfJVvv8UtKLGlGZ-7alTdyiIDT0i_j2MpUt7nLB3o8qCvLjAPEjt8u10LPkkneaeyyHhGXBnKfBcrGU60lZDMha8mCuWV4_AEUEr1LRIcCwenGJJmDiTFNfipieXTnzjF2hQjl-c/s200/Tushti+in+flight.JPG" width="152" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Daiva Glazzard</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Last melody</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 21, 2016 at 1:40:35 PM PDT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti was listening to the album “Song of the Nightingale” and the song playing as she took her last breaths was “When Thy Shining Foot Shall Pass.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This music is by Swamiji, on the 75th quatrain by Omar in the Rubaiyat:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Where I made one – turn down an empty Glass!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paraphrase</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">O devotee, the time will come when you, too, will lose your earthliness, to become the Infinite Light. Your soul will then soar through luminous astral regions. Beholding the material worlds, with their myriads of temporary guests, you will shower blessings on them all, and seek lovingly to awaken them through the silent whispers of their conscience.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When your soul’s limited joy becomes transformed into the limitless bliss of Spirit, its liberating chant will resound through countless responsive, truth-seeking hearts.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 36px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ultimately, you will attain the vastness of omnipresence, where I myself, Omar, achieved Oneness with the Infinite. You, too, when you merge into pure Spirit, will turn down your glass of separate existence, emptied of ego-consciousness. Lo! your ego, then, will have vanished in the Infinite.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">How appropriate. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">daiva</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="min-height: 15px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b>Surendra Conti </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b>Photos of Tushti</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Date: </b>March 23, 2016 at 11:34:33 AM PDT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Most of you knew Tushti in just the last few years of her life. I thought you might like to see some photos of her that span the thirty-five years we were together. You will not find it hard to see how instantly it was to be in love with her. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I cannot say why Tushti was called away, except that she must have been very needed elsewhere. But in looking back on the last seven months, following her diagnosis and throughout her prolonged illness, I think I’ve begun to understand what this difficult ordeal was all about. Sitting at her bedside in the waning hours of her life, I could see the faces of the hundreds or more people she touched: nurses, doctors, aides and orderlies who would come to her hospital room un-summoned just to be in her warm, welcoming presence; devotees too numerous to number – some who had barely crossed her path – who remembered Tushti as one of the kindest, most loving friends in their lives; strangers whose day was brightened by a passing smile, and who would not forget it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti was on a divine assignment, which she performed perfectly simply by being herself. God was whispering in her ear to leave a peaceful and reassuring impression with everyone she met that “This is how you do it.” This is how you come to the end of your life, beautifully and bravely, your heart brimming with love no matter the pain and discomfort, no matter the silent wishing to have stayed on into healthy old age. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tushti was at her finest in those seven months, a saint in the making. From her we learned how to die with grace. I have never known a time that I will cherish as much.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What a life it was. Thank you for being a part of it. May you know such love as I have known with her.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Surendra</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Friends...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here is the link to the astral ascension we held for Tushti in Portland. It's a treasure I will keep for as long as I live. Thank you for the beautiful services and remembrances you all held as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Blessings and joy to you...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Surendra</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBdsk1tpFWo">Astral Ascension in Portland (1 hr, 50 min.)</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoIjQsurD-s&google_comment_id=z12odlxotufyc5rj204cglmztz34evkpkfs&google_view_type%23gpluscomments">Brief ceremony with Asha in Palo Alto (23 min.)</a></span></span></div>
Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-17845021781018238722015-10-20T12:21:00.000-07:002015-10-26T18:29:24.424-07:00Mt. Tabor, Nazareth, Meggido, Tzfat, JerusalemDear Everyone:<br />
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Pilgrimage is unpredictable. You leave home with an idea in your mind of what your heart is longing to see, where you expect to have your most meaningful moments. God laughs and gives what He knows you need.<br />
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I spoke of this trip as going to Jerusalem. Among other reasons, that was why I was so intent on joining the group on time. The trip began in Jerusalem.<br />
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As it happened, there was unpredictable violence and with a (welcome) excess of caution, our tour company changed the itinerary to avoid the Old City in those first days. I missed Ain Karim (where Mary and Elisabeth met), the Mount of Olives (which they only drove around but did not walk through), and Gethsemene. Important places for sure, but in the whole flow of the pilgrimage, I don’t feel deprived.<br />
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Also because of the random acts of violence in the country, we exchanged one night in Jerusalem for an extra day in Galilee.<br />
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Which, as it turned out, was God’s perfect plan. Jerusalem has been profound, but Galilee is my home with Jesus. <br />
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Especially Mount Tabor, the Mount of Transfiguration. It was here Jesus took a few of his disciples to witness a divine vision. Jesus was transformed into light and beside him stood Elijah and Moses. Here is Swamiji’s song:<br />
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<i>The man that was Jesus had shown his pure form.</i><br />
<i>Upon a high mountain he stood, transfigured in light.</i><br />
<i>That his chosen might see that he was the Christ.</i><br />
<i>Ah, hope of all hope! Ah, joy of all joy!</i><br />
<i>Toward Thee we aspire, who believe in Thy word.</i></div>
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Also dedicated to the Transfiguration is the song, “When Human Hopes Toward Thee Aspire.”<br />
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As you would expect, all through Israel there are mobs of pilgrims from all countries and denominations. The final ascent up Mount Tabor is a switch-back road, too winding for the buses, so you stop at a taxi stand and wait till a mini-bus can take you up. <br />
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Arriving at the top of the hill we were listening to the Mass in several languages as well as the general hubbub of so many visitors. We’ve grown used to it and are getting good at tuning it out. We luckily found a quiet spot on the outside of the church, where we could sing the appropriate songs and hear our own voices.<br />
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After the singing, the group went off to have a Purification Ceremony, but it was my moment and I sat against the wall, in a deep, immoveable silence. <br />
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The site closes from noon to four, and as we approached the noon hour, the hilltop vacated till our group was virtually alone. <br />
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At every site there is at least one, often multiple churches (different denominations). The churches themselves (to me) are usually not of interest. Meditating in or outside of them is more a question of convenience or quiet than beauty or vibrations. Not so on the Mount of Transfiguration.<br />
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The architecture was guided by the spirit of Christ. It is an enormous structure, but so elegant in its design and decoration that it gave even more inspiration to the experience.<br />
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After a time I wandered into the church, empty except for a few of us meditating there, and silent in a way that gave new meaning to the word. Not merely the absence of sound. It was the living proof of the Biblical promise, “Be still and know that I am God.”<br />
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In various places there were glass panels on the floor revealing the bedrock underneath where, presumably, Jesus stood with his disciples at the moment of divine revelation. <br />
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Finally, it was going to be lunch hour for the taxi drivers and we had to take the last ride down the hill. Reluctantly, so reluctantly, we left.<br />
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From Mt. Tabor we went to Nazareth, where the angel appeared to Mary and told her she would be the mother of Jesus.<br />
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For this site, Swamiji wrote:<br />
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<i>God is Truth; God is Love;</i><br />
<i>Father, Mother, both are one.</i><br />
<i>When our hearts cry out in pain,</i><br />
<i>Mother, bring us peace again!</i><br />
<i>Every mother brings to birth</i><br />
<i>Hints of Thy love for all the earth.</i><br />
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Also this:<br />
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<i>To Mary there came an angel of light</i><br />
<i>Who announced the will of the Lord.</i><br />
<i>Her purity blessed mankind with new life:</i><br />
<i>Through Mary, the light descended.</i><br />
<i>O God of peace! O God of Joy!</i><br />
<i>May our souls find their freedom in Thee!</i><br />
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The church is built over a stone dwelling, a converted cave, which is believed to be the house where Mary lived and where the angel spoke to her.<br />
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The church itself is immense and entirely lacking in the inspiration we found in the architecture of the church of Mt. Tabor. To further complicate the experience, there is a huge organ and our visit coincided with the practice hour for the organist. The instrument was amazing, his skill impressive, but his taste in music wasn’t my own. His theme seemed to be the battle of light and darkness and I had the impression that darkness was winning. (To be fair, others thought the music was fabulous and could have listened to him play all day! “Every atom of creation is dowered with individuality.” Each of us follows a unique karmic thread to the same divine goal!)<br />
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Still, the site of Mary’s simple home and the realization of what a profound event took place on that site transcended all other considerations and sweet silence existed inwardly in the midst of everything.<br />
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Our last day in Galilee we again went out on the water before dawn. There was no mist and we had an unobstructed view of the brilliant orb of the sun coming over the hills surrounding the lake, its rays streaking out over the water, as if reaching out to bless us in the boat as we silently watched (and inwardly applauded) Divine Mother’s show.<br />
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We were heading back to Jerusalem with two stops along the way. First in Tzfat (also spelled Zafed, Safed), the home for centuries of mystical Judaism. Some time ago enlightened rabbis settled there and over the years it has become the center in Israel for the study of the Kabbalah. It is also an artists colony. Altogether very interesting.<br />
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Our guide, Marty — an enthusiastic, giving, highly knowledgeable man — took us to meet a particular artist/teacher. Like so many Israelis, this man was born in America and emigrated later. He gave us a fascinating introductory class on the Kabbalah, illustrated with some of the many mandala-like pieces of art he has created. <br />
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Beautiful art. Wise and loving man. Fascinating subject. It helped all of us to feel more clear about the ancient and present reality of Judaism.<br />
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A little time to wander through the shopping area — filled with lovely artistic pieces. Feast for the heart and for the eyes. <br />
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Marty is very knowledgeable about the history of Israel and how it links to the Old Testament. This country gives a whole new perspective on the word “old.” We visited an archeological site called Meggido. This is a hilltop near a key canyon on a critical road through the country. <br />
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It is mentioned in the Bible several times as well as other historical texts. Archeologists have uncovered 24 different distinct cities all built on the same strategic hill. <br />
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I’m not much for piles of old rocks, but this was truly impressive! <br />
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In the song Swamiji wrote for the crucifixion of Jesus — “You Remain Our Friend” — which we sing every week, there is this line, <i>“Though eternally rejected, you remain our Friend.”</i><br />
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Seeing the grand sweep of history and how mankind has acted out over and over again essentially the same story of conquest and defeat…. well, to quote Bertie Wooster (i.e., P. G. Wodehouse), “It makes you think a bit!”<br />
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Once we reach the human level, Master tells us, we have the freedom to wander in delusion for as long as we choose. Not that all 24 of those cities were built by the same souls but one can well imagine a cycle of defeat and revenge and victory and defeat being acted out through reincarnation quite a few times before the soul is ready to move on.<br />
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By the way, some of you may not have remembered that “You Remain Our Friend” was inspired by Swamiji’s visit to the Holy Sepulcher (the place where Jesus was crucified). Swamiji says that “When praying for a melody that would express, for me, the mood of Christ’s crucifixion, I concentrated on compassion, and on unconditional love.” It makes it ideal for weekly reaffirmation of our relationship with God and God’s relationship with us.<br />
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Now, Jerusalem.<br />
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Our guide is an observant Jew. Which means from sundown on Friday till sundown on Saturday, among other things, he doesn’t use any mechanical devices. He doesn’t use a car or a bus, but only goes places that he can walk to. <br />
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We were happy to have a religious person as a guide and accommodated our schedule to his needs. Which meant that we went into the old city — within walking distance of our hotel — on our second day in the city, so that Marty could go with us.<br />
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The first day we used the bus and went to the Museum of Israel. <br />
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I am not big on museums but on pilgrimage part of the sadhana is to say an enthusiastic “yes” to whatever God brings. Fortunately, He knows better than me.<br />
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This is one of the premier museums in the world — and well-deserves its reputation. To begin with, they have “immortalized their ideals in architecture.” It is beautifully laid out and every exhibit is exquisite. Only the best is on display and everything is perfectly displayed.<br />
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They have all kinds of collections, so I’ll just mention a few.<br />
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The Dead Sea Scrolls (or copies) are on display. The building in which you view them is designed to match the clay pot in which the scrolls were found. On an immense scale, of course. But when you look up from the fascinating exhibits you are inside a clay pot, with a rising curving roof and the circular pattern of how the clay was formed. And downstairs you are inside a cave where the pots were discovered.<br />
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Magnificent.<br />
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Here also there is a scale model of Jerusalem as it is presumed to have been at the time of Jesus. The son of a wealthy man was killed during the war of Independence in 1948 and the father built this model as a memorial to his son. Every building is made out of stone, laid out across a large hill outside, at a scale (I think) of 1:50. <br />
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So before we went into the Old City, we got a view of how it had been before. <br />
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Most impressive was the immensity of the Temple that was there at the time of Jesus. You could see why the sincere devotees of that time attracted to them one who would reform and renew their faith. The mere size of the Temple compound spoke so much about worldly power and wealth. Oh my. Quite a contrast to the simple “love God, be ye like little children” message of Jesus.<br />
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Wandering on our own in the museum I randomly found my way to the European art section where I found a Rembrandt painting, “Peter in Prison.” <br />
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There is a reason why some art is revered through the ages. This is one of those pieces. This was not the final imprisonment for Peter, but the time he was miraculously freed by angels. But before he was freed, when he didn’t know the miracle was coming.<br />
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You can look the painting up on the internet. Even there you can see what an exquisite piece of art it is. <br />
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Right near it in the museum was a carving done from ivory and ebony, plus a little metal and glass. The subject was Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac. Isaac is bound and the fire is laid. Abraham has raised his sword to strike Isaac but there is an angel above him, hand outstretched just about to stop him. That is the moment captured in this exquisite piece. It was made by an artist whose name I can’t remember sometime in the 1700s. (When I tried to find it on the internet I wasn’t able to.)<br />
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And these were just two pieces in an immense warren of galleries. <br />
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In the afternoon of that day we went out into a nearby woods and made pita bread over an open fire which we consumed with olive oil, an herbal mix of sesame seed and hyssop, and, for a total change of pace, Nutella if you preferred. Child-like fun.<br />
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Friday night we were invited to the home of a family in Jerusalem to celebrate the Sabbath. It is an American couple, Hillel and Chaya, who founded and run the Sheval Center. They are also transplanted Americans. He is an orthodox rabbi and she is a writer and artist. They are both therapists and are pioneering a style of Jewish life that is orthodox in its beliefs and practices but speaks also to the needs of the time.<br />
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Every Friday evening they have tourists groups from all over the world into their home to share the Sabbath dinner, prayers, songs. <br />
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Having grown up with some of these rituals I admit I wasn’t all that interested in this event, but saying “yes” (and meaning it with one’s whole heart) is pilgrimage, so I was happily present for what turned out to be a deeply touching evening.<br />
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They have four children. The oldest are 8-year old twins. The children had already gone to bed so we only met the baby at the end, who woke up and demanded the attention of his parents. As it happened, this baby boy, Levi, probably ranks in the top ten all time cutest babies. Our hearts were already wide open and he just marched right in!<br />
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It was the sabbath, however, and no electronic devices could be used, so no pictures.<br />
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Hillel and Chaya have chosen to bring light where light is desperately needed, living and doing their work in Jerusalem. They combine their therapy practice with the kinds of activities we also offer — groups for men and women, meditation, yoga practice. <br />
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My favorite for pure creativity goes to the event for women held at/in the Dead Sea aptly titled “Floating in Bliss.”<br />
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Pray for their work. They are kindred spirits. Part of the great ring of light-workers around the globe. <br />
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Through Marty we had come to know much about modern Israel and present-day Judaism, but this brought it all to a clearer, heartfelt focus.<br />
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Saturday we went into the Old City. We started just outside the walls, in a replica of the room where the Last Supper was held. It was filled with very loud pilgrims and I found it without inspiration. Right nearby was the tomb of David. <br />
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It is considered a synagogue, and this was the sabbath, so no electronics could be used, i.e., no pictures. The small room is partitioned into separate sections for men and women. It was delightfully cool and silent and meditation was deep and effortless.<br />
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From there we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Which was neither cool nor silent, but jammed with noisy pilgrims. <br />
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It is a huge church built over the last few stations of the cross. It includes where Jesus was crowned with thorns, crucified, taken from the cross and laid on a stone, anointed there with herbs and oils and then placed in the stone tomb where he lay for three days until the Resurrection.<br />
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Naturally, every Christian coming to Israel wants to come to this place. <br />
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The lines to touch the stone upon which the cross stood, and the tomb where his body was laid were too long, too noisy and too restless for me even to consider. I found a spot nearby. Fortunately, spirit is stronger than the restless human mind, and it was deep and still.<br />
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Later I also sat by the stone where his body was laid. Impossible to get close to the tomb, so I leave that for another time.<br />
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That whole spot, of course, was vibrant with the presence of Christ but for me where Christ lives in the Holy Land was in Galilee. <br />
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We went into the Old City for lunch in the Armenian Quarter.<br />
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The next day we went to the Western Wall, at the base of Temple Mount, where the Temple stood where Jesus preached and faced down his critics. Where he drove out the money changers and so many of the dramatic incidents of his life took place. <br />
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The Mount itself is a Moslem site and our guide suggested we not go there at all. So as close as we got was the Western Wall, where Jews come from all over the world to pray and to press into the cracks in the rock written prayers. Impossible not to be moved by so much devotion, ancient and now.<br />
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What made an even deeper impression on me was a part of the Western Wall that is an archeological site. They have excavated down to the paving stones of the Roman world, the level of ground on which Jesus walked, which is considerably lower than ground level at the prayer section.<br />
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Massive doesn’t begin to describe it! Stones, immense in themselves, piled one on top of another going many many many feet into the air.<br />
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Standing on those paving stones, looking up at that wall. Leaning up against it, feeling its immensity, my thought was simply, “No wonder Jesus left for Galilee!” And also, “The simplicity and joy of his teachings never had a chance against the weight (literally!) of this material power!”<br />
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Earlier we had walked through a district where our guide explained lavish mansions had been uncovered — which were inhabited by the temple priests! Power and money. Those delusions have tempted man forever.<br />
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The conflict between the message of Jesus and the establishment of the religion of his day was so obvious.<br />
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Jerusalem was where Jesus fought to bring light into darkness. I could understand why he wept as he looked over the city. Wept because of the unwillingness of so many to see what he had to bring them.<br />
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The drama of Jerusalem, the sheer power of Jesus’ triumph is thrilling.<br />
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For me though, Galilee, with “his chosen few” where “they sang with him and worshipped the Lord,” was my heart-place in the Holy Land..<br />
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This has been a profound and joyous journey. Every minute of it.<br />
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And I am ready to come back to life as it has been given to me in this incarnation.<br />
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So grateful, for so many blessings,<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-72857327016805718962015-10-13T12:32:00.002-07:002015-10-13T12:34:59.351-07:00Rome, Bethlehem and GalileeDear Everyone:<br />
<br />
I’ll start where we are now. Galilee.<br />
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Jerusalem is the most dramatic part of the life of Christ, but Galilee is where much of his mission took place.<br />
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It was here that he “gathered round his chosen few….in their youth, in their joy, all they asked of God was freedom to love.”<br />
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That’s the whole teaching. And we are living it.<br />
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Yesterday began early out on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, drifting in the middle of the lake in silent meditation as the sun rose over the hill.<br />
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The crew remarked afterwards that we were the most serene group of pilgrims ever. If more people were like us, they said, there would be peace in the middle East.<br />
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It is hard to explain experiences like these. “Living presence of God” comes the closest. It is Swamiji’s name for his Oratorio, “Christ Lives in the Holy Land — and in You.”<br />
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Swamiji said when liberation comes we look back at all our incarnations and the only thing we remember is those moments when we were in the presence of God. Much of yesterday will be remembered.<br />
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We went also to Capernaum and sat at the water’s edge and meditated. Then later wandered around the ruins, including the remnants of a synagogue built on the exact spot where the temple stood where Jesus taught.<br />
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On pilgrimage, one is in so many places at the same time. Where we came from and where we will soon return. The physical place we have traveled to. And the ancient reality we came to experience.<br />
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At Capernaum, we had The Festival of Light, looking out over the water, sitting on rocks under the shade of a tree. <br />
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We must be careful not to let over-familiarity blind us to what we have in The Festival and in all that Swamiji has opened to us of Master’s ray. On the banks of the Sea of Galilee I felt The Festival as Swamiji intended it to be.<br />
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Most Catholic priests can do their Mass in less than an hour, but Padre Pio would spend 3 times that long, because every aspect of it was to him, not mere ritual, but the living presence of Christ.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixGiSIfsDLDpLqudodrn3Xvmo1gk9YMbciUnqWtdev0N5i2TiSxwp3SZFrbVtBJrBSuLqJKMIs9RKXbRJXR2hnCMoze28Fs885rj4lTX_vhRu63GZOXVq_qcPtpilux0-eSU-WujlHDxLv/s1600/12112359_10206322282710575_8514647288881528125_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixGiSIfsDLDpLqudodrn3Xvmo1gk9YMbciUnqWtdev0N5i2TiSxwp3SZFrbVtBJrBSuLqJKMIs9RKXbRJXR2hnCMoze28Fs885rj4lTX_vhRu63GZOXVq_qcPtpilux0-eSU-WujlHDxLv/s200/12112359_10206322282710575_8514647288881528125_n.jpg" width="200" /></a>Before coming to Galilee, we were in the desert region, near the Dead Sea, at a hotel run by a kibbutz. The scope and desolation of the deserts here is hard to imagine until you see it. The beautiful hotel and grounds where we stayed has been scratched out of the desert over the past 60 years by the kibbutzim.<br />
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The view from my room was a bluff of barren hills. When the first kibbutzim came to the area, the bluff on which the hotel sits was equally barren. Water was a kilometer away and no one until then had even considered that the hillside could be transformed by pipes and pumps and sheer determination. <br />
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We visited Masada. Some of us walking up that massive hill in the relative coolness of pre-dawn, watching the sun rise over the Dead Sea, and the play of light on the barren, wind-carved landscape spread beneath us. <br />
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Masada is a story of courage — Jews fleeing from Roman rule to take refuge on the hilltop where they lived for about 7 years until Roman legions came and crushed their rebellion. At the end, the entire community chose death before dishonor and committed suicide rather than allow themselves to be conquered.<br />
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So many lifetimes of alternating tragedy and fulfillment. Literally, beyond our ability to comprehend. Understanding comes only in the presence of God.<br />
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We also visited Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. We hiked a brief distance up into the surrounding hills, where the monks had their caves. <br />
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Sitting on the ground meditating on a rocky hillside, it was easy to imagine a lifetime of silent communion. In Kali Yuga descending, spiritual seekers had to separate themselves from society. Truth was preserved in isolation, waiting for a more auspicious time.<br />
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Master’s mission is Dwapara rising. Kriya has come out of the hermit’s cave, brought by Lahiri to the streets of Varanasi and through him to all of us. Different times have different needs but the communion with God is always the same.<br />
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We also visited Bethlehem. It was pure joy to be there. Hot, crowded, noisy — none of it mattered to me. It was all about the baby Jesus.<br />
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My arrival in Israel was later than expected. I planned to be here last Monday evening but didn’t arrive until dawn on Thursday.<br />
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In all my travels till now, I’ve only missed one connection, and had luggage delayed only one time. Last week karma was different.<br />
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Coming from Mumbai through Abu Dabi, we were late. I just made the flight to Rome but didn’t stop to think that my luggage probably wasn’t with me. In Rome, luggage was late coming off the plane. Of course, my bag wasn’t there. It was almost two hours before it was straightened out. Too late to get the plane to Israel.<br />
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No problem; there are lots of flights. I arranged to have my bag sent to Jerusalem. <br />
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Turned out it was a Jewish holiday and everyone was going to Israel. The earliest I could go was late Wednesday night.<br />
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I checked into the airport hotel. It is a 2.5 hour direct flight. Searching the internet, I found a route through Munich that would take a mere 10 hours (most took 24 or more, taking you all around the planet before reaching Tel Aviv).<br />
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The next day went to catch that flight. Expensive, but the first day of the pilgrimage was in Jerusalem and I wanted to be there. God had other plans.<br />
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That morning at breakfast, the waiter said, “We are closing the buffet in 5 minutes, at 10:30.”<br />
I looked at my watch and it was exactly 10:25. I left the hotel at noon, and I think my watch said 12:00.<br />
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Sometime between noon and 2:00, when I went to the gate to get on the plane, the batteries in my watch lost power and slowed it down 40 minutes.. Instead of boarding the plane, I found out it had already taken off!<br />
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Amazing.<br />
<br />
As it happened, Kirtani and Anand and Dana Anderson were in Rome to catch a flight the next morning, so we had a few wonderful hours together. Great compensation.<br />
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Overall, I was not even-minded or cheerful about the delay. Some ripple in my karma that had to be lived through. Perhaps in a previous life I died on the way to Jerusalem! I felt intensely nervous inside. <br />
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The time in India touched my heart and spirit deeply. That, plus sleep deprivation, and intense eagerness to be in Jerusalem reduced me to tears on Monday when I saw I wasn’t going to make it. I went into a corner of the airport, sat on the floor and sobbed. I wasn’t sure why I was crying, but I had no choice.<br />
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I was too attached, too self-concerned, too committed to my plans and my desires. God wanted me to be on pilgrimage, not on a journey of my own choosing. <br />
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When I missed the plane on Tuesday, I was simply amazed. “God doesn’t want me to be in Jerusalem yet,” I said to the clerk when I checked back into the airport hotel. He didn’t even need my passport. All the information was still active in the computer. My 24-hours of internet hadn’t expired. <br />
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The whole time in Rome, I had no luggage, having confidently sent it on to Israel.<br />
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I expected to find it in Jerusalem, but when I got there at dawn on Thursday it hadn’t yet arrived. By then, I was having a good time and just borrowed from everyone, ready to do the whole pilgrimage in other people’s clothes.<br />
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But when we returned from Bethlehem, my bag was there. I felt the karma come to zero. Whatever that was about was over.<br />
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Forgot to mention baptism in the Jordan. The river is only about 20 feet across and meanders quietly through banks dense with reeds. At what is presumed to be the spot where John baptized Jesus, beautiful stone porticos have been erected but at the river itself there is a simple wooden platform that goes down in steps into the river — like the ghats in India.<br />
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Diksha and Gyandev stood at the deepest part — only waist deep on the platform — and we one by one went into the water and received a blessing from them. As Diksha put it quite simply, “As soon as I went into the water I went somewhere else and I didn’t return for a long time.”<br />
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It is muddy looking but feels pure and blessed. As I went underwater there was a feeling of leaving all karma behind to be carried away by God. We sat on the bank and chanted a bit and sang some from the Oratorio. <br />
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Where divine events have transpired, the imprint of the divine remains seemingly for eternity.<br />
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While in the desert (forgive the lack of sequence to this narrative, the order doesn’t matter) we hiked into a canyon to what is called David’s spring. From the most barren, brutally hot landscape we soon found ourselves walking by a stream, passing through waterfalls until we reached a large fern grotto with water falling from the rock some hundreds of feet above. <br />
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Quite apart from all the spiritual power, the land itself is stunning in its contrasts. And what the Jewish people have done with it is nothing less than a miracle. The politics of the region are overwhelming. We’ve had to tell ourselves repeatedly: Self-Realization is the answer. Therefore, the best thing we can do is what we are doing: love God, serve God, commune with God.<br />
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This morning we went to Tabgha — the place where Jesus appeared to some of his disciples after his resurrection. This was when they were out on the fishing boat and the “man on the shore” asked them: “Have you caught any fish?” When they replied in the negative, he suggested they cast the net on the other side. The net filled with fishes. In that moment, John recognized it was Jesus speaking to them. He told Peter and Peter leapt from the boat and rushed to Jesus through the water.<br />
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Jesus cooked fish and served bread to them. <br />
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At Tabgha there is small stone church which is built over a large rock which is said to be the rock from which Jesus served the disciples. It emerges from the floor and you can sit next to it and touch it and lay your to-be-blessed items upon it. <br />
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Right next to it is small opening to the Sea of Galilee. Wading out into the water, perched on the rocks time stops. I was facing the Sea when it occurred to me to face the shore. For that is where Jesus stood when he called to his disciples. Easy to see him with the eyes of spirit, and, like Peter, to drop everything and rush toward him.<br />
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<br />
AUM GURU.<br />
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Much love to all,<br />
Asha<br />
<br />
P.S. <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117333920063460117344/AshaSHolyLandPilgrimage2015?authkey=Gv1sRgCLKisYWN6varew#6205213039196496258">More photos taken by various fellow pilgrims are collected here</a>.Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-22104415771227544472015-10-04T14:40:00.000-07:002015-10-04T14:40:25.118-07:00Pune, IndiaDear Friends:<br />
<br />
I’m away from Palo Alto for about a month on a journey of several parts.<br />
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The timing was defined by a retreat with East Coast devotees. For many years, every spring and fall, the devotees in that region have gathered for a weekend at a rural retreat center in Massachusetts. Usually in the spring it is Kriya; in the fall the subjects vary.<br />
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Jyotish and Devi did the Spring retreat; I was invited for the Fall. The theme was discipleship.<br />
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Many of the devotees have been meeting together for years and are strongly connected, not only with God and Gurus, but with one another. What joy! <br />
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It was a glorious weekend. An honor to be part of it. <br />
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When I accepted the invitation months ago, I thought I would extend my stay adding programs in New York and perhaps Boston. But when it was time to make that calendar, my heart wasn’t in it.<br />
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For months I had been looking at the Pilgrimage to Israel sponsored by the Expanding Light. I wanted to go, but kept talking myself out of it for all the usual reasons — time, money, and pressing responsibilities.<br />
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When I was a tour leader to India for those years (1986-2006) many times I advised people: When pilgrimage calls, say “Yes.” Finally, I took my own advice and signed up.<br />
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I’ve always wanted to go to Israel. First, growing up Jewish, then when I came to Ananda, out of devotion to Christ. The life of Jesus is so vivid to me, when I read or speak of it I can almost see the places where he walked. Now I will see them. <br />
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Between the retreat and the pilgrimage, there was a week to fill, which I decided to spend in Assisi. I haven’t been back since April 2013, right after Swamiji’s passing. <br />
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There would be one satsang. Otherwise the trip was to see friends, and meditate in the holy places there, including the room where Swamiji passed from this world.<br />
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Then news started coming from Pune, India. Dear friends were facing a challenging time. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxWKmrrIPo47Iifo42QPsd1w9De5qnjV6csq2GpHXr8pG5I-nbaYq5OXzaITLHbRm7U7Zl_P9CbqqIwL5yDV038bTfrroIHNw4ECwBK2cR8Gm4i9N-WuJL3_LtD2Z1kM1_tHWhihXL0IS/s1600/tushti_surendra.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxWKmrrIPo47Iifo42QPsd1w9De5qnjV6csq2GpHXr8pG5I-nbaYq5OXzaITLHbRm7U7Zl_P9CbqqIwL5yDV038bTfrroIHNw4ECwBK2cR8Gm4i9N-WuJL3_LtD2Z1kM1_tHWhihXL0IS/s200/tushti_surendra.jpeg" width="200" /></a>Tushti and Surendra lived in Palo Alto for about ten years, managing East West Bookshop, teaching classes at the Sangha, and endearing themselves to all of us. <br />
<br />
In July, Tushti became mysteriously ill. At first she dismissed it as the usual tummy troubles of India, but it soon proved itself far more serious. <br />
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Eventually she was diagnosed with cancer in the abdomen. Today she begins her first chemo treatment. She is in the category of “most positive outcome” but it hasn’t been, and won’t be for awhile, a pleasant journey.<br />
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Tushti has spent almost 50 nights in the hospital since it began. Indian hospitals are more informal than American ones. Smaller, less techno, more heart-full. The family is encouraged to spend the night with the patient. Sheets and towels are provided and a surprisingly comfortable couch bed to sleep on.<br />
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Except for a few times when others have come to visit, Surendra has spent almost all of those 50 nights in the hospital with Tushti. <br />
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Looking at my week before the pilgrimage, I saw that I could easily add a flight and come to India instead of staying in Italy. So here I am.<br />
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I have to admit I felt a pang at giving up my time in Assisi. But Divine Mother, as always, had me in the palm of Her hand. <br />
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As soon as I met Surendra and went with him to the nearby hospital — Ruby Hall Clinic — and into the large, private room which is home for Tushti right now — I felt the living presence of Master and Swamiji surrounding us.<br />
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Surendra is kind and lovingly attentive as always. Tushti is like a child in the arms of her Mother. <br />
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On the wall in front of her bed there is a large picture of Master and also one of Swamiji. The doctors and nurses come in and out, but it is clear Who is really in charge. <br />
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The situation are so unusual — day and night together in the hospital, with no pressing responsibilities. It is rare at Ananda to have so much uninterrupted time just to be with friends. <br />
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Exactly what I had hoped for in Assisi — heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul with gurubhais.<br />
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The three of us have always been good friends, but this circumstance has drawn us even closer. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwzBMSyXl4VEq-2REOQgLYpvuP4eXffV8Wqr9OiBU9HkjkZ8sQx0-vUJEKVnNYJ2aiJTQfQAcbDOxpBdIPOMZgZiz-x8xlqchHgNFn-ipQq2WnjsoDCIMrnMcUPolrHOEsG72gXdLhofqt/s1600/tushti_asha.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwzBMSyXl4VEq-2REOQgLYpvuP4eXffV8Wqr9OiBU9HkjkZ8sQx0-vUJEKVnNYJ2aiJTQfQAcbDOxpBdIPOMZgZiz-x8xlqchHgNFn-ipQq2WnjsoDCIMrnMcUPolrHOEsG72gXdLhofqt/s200/tushti_asha.jpeg" width="200" /></a>The road in front of Tushti in her treatments and recovery, and Surendra in support of her, is not going to be easy. But they are living the truth that Master so often asserted: “It doesn’t matter what happens to us. All that matters is what we become through what happens to us.” <br />
<br />
Let us become saints together. This is the motto of Ananda.<br />
<br />
Because of the pilgrimages we led, and later visiting Swamiji here, I’ve been blessed to spend much time in India. The country has always held my heart in a way no other place does. “Vitamin India” seems essential to my inner wellbeing. It has been almost two years since I last visited, and my system was craving what only India can give.<br />
<br />
Divine Mother’s perfect plans.<br />
<br />
But that is not all.<br />
<br />
As many of you know, for the past year or more I have been “working on a book.” This is, as I describe it, the “big book” about Swamiji I feel I was born to write.<br />
<br />
I am a much more confident writer than I was a decade ago, but I confess to trepidation over this project. I haven’t yet reached the stage of procrastinating (out of lack of confidence) but I seemed to be getting ready to procrastinate! Oh dear.<br />
<br />
A decade ago, when I was working on what became <i>Swami Kriyananda As We Have Known Him,</i> I spent almost a year reviewing and organizing a lifetime of notes. From the beginning I wrote down significant observations, events, and comments.<br />
<br />
At the time I felt I should have been taking even more notes. Now I’m glad I didn’t! I have so many!<br />
<br />
That first book turned out differently than I expected, being mostly stories I collected from others. The “files” were used, but only a little. All the years since they have been sitting — organized and ready — waiting for this project.<br />
<br />
I am not able to think clearly about material that is only in the computer. So scanning has never been an option. I felt I couldn’t start writing until I had the whole picture. So the past year I’ve been “working on the book,” i.e. reviewing the files but haven’t started the actual writing.<br />
<br />
Insights, understandings, relationships between events have become clear to me in ways they never were before. I am down to just 6 inches of paper, which I brought with me, and this is helping pass the time in a useful way during hours of plane flights. <br />
<br />
Even though writing is no longer as difficult for me as it was a decade ago, I have been more anxious than I’d like to be about this project. I’ve been joking with my friends that I either need to start writing this book or stop talking about it!<br />
<br />
So here I am in Pune, with Tushti and Surendra in the Ruby Hall Clinic. Tushti is remarkably better (according to Surendra) from the low ebb she reached earlier in this journey. She had a blockage in her stomach and wasn’t able to eat which has a rather deleterious effect on one’s energy. That was taken care of through surgery, nutrition through an IV, the insertion of a stent, and now, finally eating again. By comparison, she is absolutely peppy!<br />
<br />
We walk several times a day through the hall of the hospital. She has a few visitors and we’ve had many lovely conversations. <br />
<br />
I offered to read aloud to her. My choice was <i>Swami Kriyananda As We Have Known Him.</i> Short sections, interesting, inspiring. Seemed ideal. <br />
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I haven’t looked at that book in many years, but always think of it with great satisfaction. I know it came out well. Even more important though, for me personally, I know I did my best. Great satisfaction in that.<br />
<br />
So I started reading it to Tushti. <br />
<br />
You all know me, so you’ll understand this in the way I intend it: It is an excellent book. The author writes so movingly about Swamiji. Some times I had to stop reading until my tears subsided. It is sensitive, well written. Reading aloud, hardly a word needs changing. <br />
<br />
I had forgotten, Divine Mother, how you work through me when you have a job to be done.<br />
<br />
If I hadn’t come to India, I wouldn’t be reading that book aloud and I would never have known. This alone has made the entire trip worthwhile, and I haven’t even reached Jerusalem.<br />
<br />
We live in the palm of Divine Mother’s hands. What a grace-filled, glorious place to be.<br />
<br />
Love in God and Guru,<br />
AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-7538466419942074982015-08-13T11:14:00.000-07:002015-08-13T11:14:43.263-07:00Swami Kriyananda: A Truly Happy ManI learned, some years ago, that the Stanford University Graduate School of Business offers a class on “How to Be Happy.”<br />
<br />
I think it’s extremely touching. Excuse me for being a little cynical. I’m a Stanford dropout, from a very long time ago. Also, it’s my belief – though you may think it quaint – that most people in business school believe they’re taking courses on happiness. <br />
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When I entered Stanford in the fall of 1965, I thought there had to be a purpose to life, and I was desperate to find out what it was. <br />
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I was gifted in the ways that schools traditionally value – I had “school smarts.” Sometimes we just know things – we can play the piano easily, we know intuitively how to arrange flowers, or we have a special affinity for the French language. <br />
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In India, these past-life tendencies are called samskars. And my special samskar was school smarts. I knew how to do well in school without working hard. <br />
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And because I was school-smart, people expected me to do great things that held absolutely no attraction for me. It was a great dilemma. My teachers, parents, and relatives expected that my school-smarts would translate into money, success, and acclaim. But I knew those sorts of rewards couldn’t give me what I wanted. <br />
<br />
I would look at the world and wonder what would be fulfilling. My parents were very loving, and there were no big traumas in my life. So I had nothing to complain about. But I was very much at sea, because I couldn’t figure out how to relate to the world. <br />
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On the outside, I functioned fine, but on the inside I felt as if I was standing a bit apart from the world with my arms folded, watching and trying to figure out how it worked. <br />
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I couldn’t relate to other people’s interests. I could hardly understand their conversations. I wondered, “Why are we always talking about nothing? Aren’t people interested in anything more?” <br />
<br />
When I discovered Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, I found a phrase that perfectly described my situation. In the chapter on reincarnation, Yogananda says that it isn’t the tragic events of our lives that compel us to look for something better. It’s the “anguishing monotony” that begins to get to us after many incarnations. <br />
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Sooner or later, we begin to feel that we’ve “been there, done that,” and we start to wonder what it’s all about.<br />
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No power on earth can instill that longing in us for something better. It has to come from our own experience. <br />
<br />
I wasn’t unhappy, but I felt a certain anguish about this life. I thought: here I am – I can be a doctor or a professor, and I can have a family and marry a dentist. <br />
<br />
For some reason, I always imagined marrying a dentist. So I could marry a dentist, live in the suburbs, have a station wagon and a couple of kids and a dog. I could see it all looming, and in my mind’s eye it looked like a living hell. I didn’t know how I would survive if that’s how my life would end up. <br />
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There’s nothing wrong with that life, except that for me it was a picture of excruciating dreariness. <br />
<br />
When I tried to imagine my life in thirty years, I really thought I would go out of my mind. <br />
<br />
After several years of drifting, I met Swami Kriyananda, and it was a huge experience, because – wowie zowie – the moment I saw him, I instantly recognized that here was a genuinely happy man. He was the first happy man I had met, according to my personal definition of happiness. <br />
<br />
It was ironic that I met Swami Kriyananda on the Stanford campus, where I had dropped out. I said above that I recognized him as a happy man. Later, I would understand that he was happy because he had tremendously expanded his consciousness. <br />
<br />
When Swamiji walked into the room, I had an immediate feeling that I couldn’t sense the edges of his consciousness. With all the other people I’d met, I’d been able to sense the boundaries of their consciousness. They might be wonderful people, but there was a feeling that they were identified with a small corner of reality. There was a clear-cut edge to their awareness, as if their sense of self was fenced-in and could only expand so far. <br />
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From studying the lives of Christ-like masters, I’ve learned that their consciousness, and potentially ours, is unbounded. <br />
<br />
In my life, I had reached a terrible impasse, where my existence seemed meaningless, and I couldn’t see a way forward. And then Swami Kriyananda walked in, and I immediately recognized that the answer was standing before my eyes. As I watched him walk in, I found myself thinking, “Look at that – a person can know himself and find happiness!” <br />
<br />
Swami Kriyananda was a very natural person. He spoke good English, he told lots of jokes, and he had a wonderfully cosmopolitan background. Yet he was perfectly accessible. He wasn’t that different from me, except that he was a hundred percent different. When I saw him for the first time, I knew that I was seeing what it’s like to be happy all the time. <br />
<br />
Not happy because life is dull and, oh well, we might as well be happy. Or because it isn’t so terrible, or because it’s all we’ve got. But in the sense of the heart’s deepest longing being completely fulfilled.<br />
<br />
Christ’s crucifixion showed us that death no longer holds any power over us, once our consciousness is sufficiently expanded. He looked with compassion on those who were crucifying him, and he prayed that God spare them the consequences of their actions. <br />
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Now, that’s real happiness. Just making it through the day isn’t real happiness. True happiness is being completely aware of our deepest bliss-nature. <br />
<br />
Swami Kriyananda was the least closed-down person I ever met. He was absolutely fearless in the way he related to life, because he knew that he had nothing to lose. He lived in an all-satisfying bliss, a “portable paradise” as Yogananda put it, so that his happiness was always within him. <br />
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How can we be happy all the time? By expanding our identity to include an ever-broader reality, until we are no longer enclosed by the ego’s limitations. <br />
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When we meditate, we remove the external reality from our awareness for a while, and we discover who we really are, when we aren’t involved with outward things. <br />
<br />
You can’t die by meditating, but the process is similar. In meditation you return to the source of the breath. We breathe all the time, but where does the breath come from? <br />
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In the astral world, we don’t breathe in the same way. We breathe energy. It’s possible for great yogis to stop their breath and breathe only that pure energy, without dying. It happens when you meditate deeply – you move your awareness so close to the origin point of your energy that your body can remain alive and breathless for a long time. Your consciousness merges with a source of energy where you don’t have to keep pumping oxygen. In fact, the yogis tell us it’s very rejuvenating to the body to rest it so completely. <br />
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Now, the reason meditation is so valuable is that it helps us understand that we can exist without all the external things by which we define ourselves. I’m meditating, and I’m not talking or looking around, and ideally I’m not generating my usual mental chatter. Yet I’m fully conscious and aware of reality from a different perspective. And I feel wonderful, because I realize that all of my restless thoughts and actions are part of a superficial layer on top of my true reality. The power of meditation is that the more you experience that reality inside you, the easier it is to keep that joyful awareness while you’re active in the world.<br />
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The secret of being happy all the time is to live from the higher centers in the brain, just behind the forehead, at the point between the eyebrows. Yogananda said that the more we live with our attention at that center, in the “spiritual eye,” the more we will live in a state of positive awareness that eventually becomes perfect bliss. On the other hand, the more we live in the older part of the brain, especially the seat of ego in the medulla oblongata, below the back of the skull, the more vulnerable we are, and the more we feel separate from others.<br />
<br />
Living with our awareness at the spiritual eye develops a feeling that I am as much a part of you as I am of myself. And a thousand beautiful awakenings follow.<br />
<br />
Joy to You,<br />
AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-70051570216794463042015-05-11T13:17:00.000-07:002015-05-11T13:17:21.606-07:00Taupo, New Zealand #3Dear Friends:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ02FsOy4jmaZ7RsuLpjehijUylZ4BEJgioggttMqOiLxo4jCfoy4GhfVxKA_dJRRqNPh5qIdCaHkg-b3ZRM0kiP38KO2g0tYeXplBYazTtT2_8cFApWlvQ76mMnVYGWRHQdJ8Vqe5Sl1L/s1600/IMG_20150510_145753183_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ02FsOy4jmaZ7RsuLpjehijUylZ4BEJgioggttMqOiLxo4jCfoy4GhfVxKA_dJRRqNPh5qIdCaHkg-b3ZRM0kiP38KO2g0tYeXplBYazTtT2_8cFApWlvQ76mMnVYGWRHQdJ8Vqe5Sl1L/s200/IMG_20150510_145753183_HDR.jpg" width="200" /></a>Yesterday we finished our last program, the good-bye circle of our weekend retreat at Lake Taupo. <br />
<br />
Being at Ananda is like living in an operetta, we explained, and then taught them the “good-bye song.” With many tears of gratitude we sang to each other. Then the New Zealanders took over and sang the traditional Maori good-bye. It was as if all the threads of the past weeks were knitted together in the most beautiful way.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs2lV3sA9lgUCFc6SwUcDOXECipX8t7dtDDvxEwRZHcSwF1I8C7LS7-kHxb-F9753yKP3y3mF7KyRzKeZo3g8_0fZg1FSKTeb7tT7t8RAUFRqJ-zU873xJ6Jd_L1zUJvojblHe_pYrlPQK/s1600/11233805_834400723315653_8354734691732238586_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs2lV3sA9lgUCFc6SwUcDOXECipX8t7dtDDvxEwRZHcSwF1I8C7LS7-kHxb-F9753yKP3y3mF7KyRzKeZo3g8_0fZg1FSKTeb7tT7t8RAUFRqJ-zU873xJ6Jd_L1zUJvojblHe_pYrlPQK/s200/11233805_834400723315653_8354734691732238586_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>Years ago I read an account of a death-and-return experience, in which the man said he found himself on the other side standing on the playing field of what seemed to be a huge sports stadium entirely filled with angelic being cheering for him! They were there to give him strength for the final burst across the finish line of that incarnation. <br />
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The retreat was not the end of life for any of us, but it does mark the end of this journey and the beginning, or early stages, for many of their exploration, devotion, or discipleship to this path of Self-realization.<br />
<br />
We were “two or more, gathered in His name,” and there He was in the midst of us. <br />
<br />
From the beginning of my travels -- starting in the 70s -- I’ve never gone on tour without musicians. What it takes an hour to accomplish in words (and you may never reach!) can be conveyed in minutes through Swamiji’s music.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUHzDGRYX0Uc6zLUMUNFa0HgqKC2D38C2t7QitBjt1fzTTFZIq0T6UjZ6KhzMTDJOi8S2M_-1_qAe48fZZ33RAZUP6BAVM7zPU8lOeWiv65Rr2khoXgOgS8MzNgD2jzlTT5Gir4B0iObZl/s1600/10835290_834400359982356_7155579981435196425_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUHzDGRYX0Uc6zLUMUNFa0HgqKC2D38C2t7QitBjt1fzTTFZIq0T6UjZ6KhzMTDJOi8S2M_-1_qAe48fZZ33RAZUP6BAVM7zPU8lOeWiv65Rr2khoXgOgS8MzNgD2jzlTT5Gir4B0iObZl/s200/10835290_834400359982356_7155579981435196425_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>Tandava and Dambara are a dream team, able to sing and play almost anything in the repertoire on a moment’s notice. It is not always possible to predict in advance how the energy will unfold and their relaxation and skill made it possible to respond intuitively with just the right song or chant. <br />
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All the events are being posted on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ6EjqzSVNPJ1MjrjqowTh6a7W_ZbqpmN">YouTube channel</a> and include not just the talking, but also the music.<br />
<br />
Saturday afternoon five others of our group spoke. The three Americans -- Tandava, Dambara, and Atmajyoti -- and two core members here -- Kavita and Alan. The theme was “How I Found the Path.”<br />
<br />
Over the years, I’ve heard many panels on this subject, but rarely have I heard such a moving collection of talks. It’s just an hour, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=439kwZTmUtM">already posted</a>. You’ll enjoy hearing the stories. <br />
<br />
On Saturday night of our retreat, Dambara and Tandava gave a one-hour musical program (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uk7DiMLj1s">video here</a>). They started with the lighter, more humorous songs, gradually moving into the deeper, more inward ones.<br />
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At first, everyone sang along, laughing, clapping. By the end it was absolute stillness. <br />
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No matter how many times I hear this music, it never ceases to move me to my core. What an extraordinary channel Swamiji was for the power of God and Gurus.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ruSHT9soLYvohXcSqxjzl6Zr0LmP_j97ucFIifRF2JappdERcNJVWeumVXQt97-tAEMXm_bI2UVYbSAr0-5U6_G_72kERyPFZxZGgTk6bFymXpvIhoM26NifJ5NKxSFUS_hORa1skYkG/s1600/11257875_834400486649010_932290984909306705_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ruSHT9soLYvohXcSqxjzl6Zr0LmP_j97ucFIifRF2JappdERcNJVWeumVXQt97-tAEMXm_bI2UVYbSAr0-5U6_G_72kERyPFZxZGgTk6bFymXpvIhoM26NifJ5NKxSFUS_hORa1skYkG/s200/11257875_834400486649010_932290984909306705_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>We were blessed with cold, but clear weather, so after the music ended we silently moved outside where a big campfire was already burning. <br />
<br />
About 30 of us made a close circle around the flames. Above our heads, no moon, just dark sky filled with blazing stars. <br />
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Together we chanted the Sanskrit mantras, poured ghee onto a campfire -- it flared up in a most dramatic way -- and tossed our grains of rice into the flames to burn up our karma through the power of divine love. <br />
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Glorious.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwlTC_UzSpL034uauhBjGXkYps9GIvKzab0SldKQDDjk2c4gt8AgI3oOCYcIhJSEQB_W5xrINMrCGr_dCKTn-pLxWGgNy_40gLx0cKklOV64VCTvrkvQqD3xd4qmQz_ksgv4at_M4PNa17/s1600/10477874_834401076648951_9074695221148889038_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwlTC_UzSpL034uauhBjGXkYps9GIvKzab0SldKQDDjk2c4gt8AgI3oOCYcIhJSEQB_W5xrINMrCGr_dCKTn-pLxWGgNy_40gLx0cKklOV64VCTvrkvQqD3xd4qmQz_ksgv4at_M4PNa17/s200/10477874_834401076648951_9074695221148889038_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>The next day, ceremonies continued. First the Purification.<br />
<br />
You might think the Purification would not be well received by those not yet committed to our path. Not so. That ceremony touches something elemental in all of us. It confirms our inherent divinity. Promises to fulfill our longing for freedom. Tells us, “You are not alone. I, the Infinite Spirit, am always with you.” <br />
<br />
Every time I have the privilege of offering that ceremony, especially to those who have rarely, or never seen it before, I marvel at Swamiji’s perfect intuition, providing just what is needed for the unfoldment of Master’s mission for generations to come. <br />
<br />
Then we did Sunday service ending with The Festival of Light, followed by a Discipleship Initiation for five new disciples, plus a blessing for those who had taken it before. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bWVucVICqYypVWXZBGaYOumJQokKjuLB9GoRMV2GExbedND_blE1jXhusQQC-_q8TXEghb7Px7l-oknn0eUekAvhe_jKY8PJ8k_Z2yhnxQ0VntcowUHCoFv81oyZ_E0QLhJHnENMb9mU/s1600/11187284_834401143315611_4128263232568969014_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bWVucVICqYypVWXZBGaYOumJQokKjuLB9GoRMV2GExbedND_blE1jXhusQQC-_q8TXEghb7Px7l-oknn0eUekAvhe_jKY8PJ8k_Z2yhnxQ0VntcowUHCoFv81oyZ_E0QLhJHnENMb9mU/s200/11187284_834401143315611_4128263232568969014_o.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Finally, the morning ending with the all-important Facebook Ceremony: photos in front of the altar! Master’s ray is spreading all over the planet, in so many countries and cultures. These moments in Eternity are shared with brothers and sisters around the world. <br />
<br />
As we gathered for the pictures I told them that even though you haven’t met the devotees in Mexico, Croatia, Russia, or India, you already know them and they know you. We recognize each other as friends from other lives smiling now with the face of the present incarnation.<br />
<br />
The joy of this tour is not only bringing Master’s teachings to truth-seeking souls, it is also doing it as part of this team. The effortless harmony of Ananda people together never ceases to amaze me. So much creativity, devotion, and joy. <br />
<br />
My heart overflows with gratitude to Swamiji for drawing us together in Master’s ray.<br />
<br />
AUM GURU<br />
<br />
Much love,<br />
Asha<br />
<br />
P.S. <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117333920063460117344/NewZealandAprilMay2015?authkey=Gv1sRgCPjC8MrMltr5Rw">You can find more photos from the trip here</a>. Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-69663402216908584042015-05-05T12:08:00.000-07:002015-05-04T17:10:54.556-07:00Hamilton, New Zealand #2Dear Friends:<br />
<br />
We have about the same number of programs on this tour that we had on the previous one (although the whole tour is only 3 rather than 6 weeks) but we aren’t going from city-to-city as we did last year. Everything is happening in the Hamilton area where Kavita can follow-up on the energy.<br />
<br />
So the pace is more relaxed. Days off are really free, rather than spent packing and driving.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPoPbVYl134pTCV2VpmHin2okX8svtG4p64gKjBDSydf1SJTe5jZw_D_a34fx8zsyJXWZczSuX_fv4Fzd9MI4Yh_omS4mYvQwQlqB6tHEnKNV_PiTeHsEC77wxpiFsSTzPUWzMsmwJGkas/s1600/IMG_20150504_110429406.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPoPbVYl134pTCV2VpmHin2okX8svtG4p64gKjBDSydf1SJTe5jZw_D_a34fx8zsyJXWZczSuX_fv4Fzd9MI4Yh_omS4mYvQwQlqB6tHEnKNV_PiTeHsEC77wxpiFsSTzPUWzMsmwJGkas/s200/IMG_20150504_110429406.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Yesterday we took a perfect New Zealand hike. Weather cooperated precisely. Cool in the morning, sunny when we got to the “top,” not a drop of precipitation. <br />
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We are always looking up the weather reports and contrasting them with the actual experience. “It can’t be raining,” we say, even though we are watching a torrential downpour. “The <i>internet</i> says ‘zero chance of precipitation!’” <br />
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We didn’t actually count, but one day I believe it went from clear and sunny -- including a rainbow -- to pouring rain at least a half-dozen times in the course of a few hours. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dce-VgmLxtPcJREffirspKzM9X_zME_1Sn9Mcdq0M-QlvKiQomQ5rBnnL7SHn3bpLstfXnUczpbWLYf-zxEXKEAQgsvR8zlivT6F9BMGwoXEJjZv3CtFYY4306JOBpDb1dlVXmpQq6Q2/s1600/11210216_10152798985182401_132954795_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dce-VgmLxtPcJREffirspKzM9X_zME_1Sn9Mcdq0M-QlvKiQomQ5rBnnL7SHn3bpLstfXnUczpbWLYf-zxEXKEAQgsvR8zlivT6F9BMGwoXEJjZv3CtFYY4306JOBpDb1dlVXmpQq6Q2/s200/11210216_10152798985182401_132954795_n.jpg" width="200" /></a>Yesterday we drove to Matamata to climb to the top of Wairere Falls. [We couldn’t help thinking, somewhat irreverently, if any of the senior SRF nuns retired to Matamata they could be Matamata Matas ☺ ] It was a “tramp through the bush” as it is called here. A well maintained trail, but still a rugged, uphill climb. And then, of course, down again.<br />
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Through deep forest, along a bubbling stream, then finally to the point where the placid -- surprisingly placid -- stream plunges over the cliff edge to become the hurtling torrent of Wairere Falls.<br />
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It was 5k round-trip, steep and rocky going up and then all had to be repeated on the downhill. Just a little more challenging than any of us -- especially the chronologically advanced semi-matas, i.e., Atmajyoti and Asha -- would have chosen in a perfect world. Although even Travis, our new Australian Kriyaban, admitted it pushed him, too.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHawwTLi1FxfhBd8GuOmnXg-C_as1tRRwFbFgEYqQqGtgT3FrWhdFT-HJYGLdKZPluxIV3_vfW1tlI-SzumreLz40oT3OMnXYMIYT8-HiCMJo9Wvw1MxbnsBa355yBRGWIiJLLaHp2xpc/s1600/IMG_2526.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHawwTLi1FxfhBd8GuOmnXg-C_as1tRRwFbFgEYqQqGtgT3FrWhdFT-HJYGLdKZPluxIV3_vfW1tlI-SzumreLz40oT3OMnXYMIYT8-HiCMJo9Wvw1MxbnsBa355yBRGWIiJLLaHp2xpc/s200/IMG_2526.jpg" width="150" /></a>Last year, all our hikes proved to be a little less difficult than anticipated. This made up for all of them. <br />
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It was worth every bit of effort, though and every moment of, “How am I ever going to get down off of this mountain?” Nature has its own rejuvenating power, especially in this country where it seems many of the devas have gathered in a last stand against the appalling indifference of so much of the world to their subtle messages of cooperation, harmony, and beauty.<br />
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The theme of almost all of our programs has been meditation, what it is, how to do it, and how to do it better. Kavita has found that this is what people are looking for these days.<br />
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My oft-repeated comment is that in the 40 plus years I’ve been teaching meditation there has been a global shift of interest. Not everybody meditates now -- too much to hope for in early Dwapara Yuga -- but many more people feel <i>guilty</i> about not meditating! Progress of a sort.<br />
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It has worked well, in that we have attracted a serious group of students. It has been a little challenging on my intuition at times, because even though they are serious, only a handful of them actually have an ongoing meditation practice. So topics like: “How to take your meditation deeper” have no obvious answer for the crowd I may be facing.<br />
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Still, by the grace of God, ideas come and it is a joy to share. Tandava is filming everything and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ6EjqzSVNPJ1MjrjqowTh6a7W_ZbqpmN">posting it to YouTube</a>, so you can decide for yourself how well we are doing!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRvXUrn_vgMIm4RMbZvN3RIHMMpsYtVzak6QX67uPAA2otR96tQX7xam3mFC07QMKRw06EmBaX9pqjwd8mGGiqw0MzJUafjPLq6iUjq130E0KxxRo5x8HrcRSGy2FUGVwHQPRDvg9zkdT/s1600/11159892_364247020435977_6609019664620710914_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRvXUrn_vgMIm4RMbZvN3RIHMMpsYtVzak6QX67uPAA2otR96tQX7xam3mFC07QMKRw06EmBaX9pqjwd8mGGiqw0MzJUafjPLq6iUjq130E0KxxRo5x8HrcRSGy2FUGVwHQPRDvg9zkdT/s200/11159892_364247020435977_6609019664620710914_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>It has been my privilege almost from the beginning of my spiritual journey to be in continuous contact with those just starting on the path.<br />
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This has been one of the greatest blessings of my life because it has kept always before me the miracle of the spiritual path. Seeing the gratitude in the eyes of those just beginning is a constant reminder <i>never</i> to forget what it means, after lifetimes of wandering in delusion, finally to find the way home.<br />
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It began for me in the 70s when I was working as Swamiji’s secretary. At that time he was the primary meeting point between the public and Ananda and the teachings of Master through him. I coordinated his appointments, which made me the go-between for many souls just coming onto the path.<br />
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It has been the same ever since. Traveling for Ananda, being on staff at the <br />
Retreat, developing the Palo Alto community, now going to other countries. Everywhere explaining our line of Gurus, the practice of meditation, Ananda, what it means to be a devotee.<br />
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It is so touching to see how God draws people to Himself. There are as many variations on that theme as there are devotees. Each of us has a unique, individual relationship with God.<br />
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Over time, whether through returning to the same cities after intervals of time, or living as we have with one branch of Master’s family and developing his work together over years, we see in each other’s eyes an ever brighter flame of love and understanding of what it is to be a devotee.<br />
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When we used to travel to the Northwest in the early 80s, before our Ananda colonies were started there, I gave a great deal of thought to the program we would offer. There is a definite “curriculum” that devotees of this path would do well to learn. Meditation and Kriya are central, but there is so much more.<br />
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One of my favorite courses from that era I called rather grandly, “How the World Works and Why.” Although the details have faded somewhat over time, as I recall it was karma, reincarnation, the need for a guru, the power of Kriya, and perhaps a bit of the Yugas thrown in for good measure!<br />
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Inevitably I followed a trajectory in educating others about these teachings that mimicked my own learning curve. Master has to use the instruments at hand in the way they can be used. <br />
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In addition to the philosophy, techniques, and principles, I also tried to include as much as possible of what I call “the Ananda culture.” Always in my mind was the idea that we were looking for Master’s children, inviting them into the family, and praying that they would find in Ananda and this path the same profound joy and satisfaction it has given me and countless others. Informal time together is essential. Also serving together, sharing with others the blessings we have received.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjph8PIBgyZecDxjIVmZYA2zPaVqPu9GGl_IblBsy4IN7uxoWzP1f56PfWMoJWBwhxiHgP-MbyvPrvOuQ9IQ0spRXn8BpaEqllI0ob5R8yWWQtjIrt7iWy7hrJ_5txAiD1jkumwVD-RXr-2/s1600/1597785_825700257519033_7470011813431204655_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjph8PIBgyZecDxjIVmZYA2zPaVqPu9GGl_IblBsy4IN7uxoWzP1f56PfWMoJWBwhxiHgP-MbyvPrvOuQ9IQ0spRXn8BpaEqllI0ob5R8yWWQtjIrt7iWy7hrJ_5txAiD1jkumwVD-RXr-2/s200/1597785_825700257519033_7470011813431204655_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>Like every family, Ananda has its unique world view. An appreciation for P.G. Wodehouse, for example.<br />
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Even classic lines from favorite stories, like, “We will now sing the school song!” Utterly incomprehensible unless you know the particular story from which it is drawn. In case you don’t know, here it is:<br />
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Bertie Wooster, the good-hearted, but often inept hero of many of Wodehouse’s stories, finds himself as the keynote speaker for an assembly at a school for girls. Unaccustomed as he is to public speaking, and unnerved by the beady-eyed stares of the students, Bertie begins telling jokes of dubious moral quality. The iron-willed school director interrupts his speech before the juiciest lines can be delivered, by declaring emphatically, <i>“We will now sing the school song!”</i> <br />
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In his public reading of this story, Swamiji rarely got through that line without himself bursting into laughter. Ever thereafter whenever Ananda folks find themselves in a dicey situation, especially an embarrassing moment in front of an audience, someone will invariably suggest, “We will now sing the school song!” Naturally, that comment is met with bewildered stares by the “uninitiated.” <br />
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Admittedly, this is a rather trivial example, but it illustrates the importance of bringing people completely into the Ananda world. The caste system, the yugas, the chakras are other more important examples that often find their way into everyday conversation, frequently with a humorous twist. So much of our humor has behind it an understanding of, well, how the world works and why. <br />
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I remember Jyotish once telling us about a movie that was well-done, but not particularly worth seeing, as “The touching story of a <i>sudra</i> becoming a <i>vaishya</i>!” In other words, of a totally unmotivated person developing selfish interests. Good for the evolution of the hero, but hardly inspiring entertainment for a yogi.<br />
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Coming back to New Zealand, it is deeply touching to see -- not <i>sudras</i> becoming <i>vaishyas</i> -- but <i>kshatriyas</i> (self-motivated idealistic people) becoming <i>Brahmins</i> --deepening their attunement with God, Gurus, and dharma. Very moving.<br />
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Our core here is still small, but every person is highly motivated, which makes it a joy to serve.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVpG4tV093ZS-oaoM_p-LvsUxJAnZUzqlAAU2a0k_ExVmz5JbH1vCcTWRTbsn0BgbViiL3xG4GWJPGZNycWnQRbcynBlD0NNEsr8An-uBJvCBEe9rphRQke2MJcoj_JLtfSkDMQHgr2CIB/s1600/11216528_365409520319727_2026676730757339601_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVpG4tV093ZS-oaoM_p-LvsUxJAnZUzqlAAU2a0k_ExVmz5JbH1vCcTWRTbsn0BgbViiL3xG4GWJPGZNycWnQRbcynBlD0NNEsr8An-uBJvCBEe9rphRQke2MJcoj_JLtfSkDMQHgr2CIB/s200/11216528_365409520319727_2026676730757339601_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>We had a small discipleship initiation on Sunday. Like the Kriya earlier that week, there is a special grace in these intimate ceremonies. We gathered in front of the altar afterwards for the usual picture. <br />
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With Facebook connecting us around the world, how many such photos have we seen, especially in recent years, of Kriyabans and disciples in so many countries. The setting is the same each time. The Masters on the altar, the devotees gathered in front. Whether a handful or a roomful, the spirit is the same: joyful recognition of the simple, but momentous implications of the initiation that has just taken place.<br />
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We may not speak the language, or know the names of those whose faces we see. But in their eyes we see reflected our own gratitude to God for bringing us, too, whether recently or long ago, to that moment of profound gratitude.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_5GZRlV8Cut-q-K0l6M7R1ai8v-yHBVQn_6kqOiCFrBkqNx0jztTHXw6EqgD6fDh__d9Ur8BYI3DdoBdkBqZPd_Ntl8Q1eLXjEz177zdXX1oN4heOJxppyyPq99nCghROqCK3-92nSWfj/s1600/11174255_365409373653075_1379553344397081671_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_5GZRlV8Cut-q-K0l6M7R1ai8v-yHBVQn_6kqOiCFrBkqNx0jztTHXw6EqgD6fDh__d9Ur8BYI3DdoBdkBqZPd_Ntl8Q1eLXjEz177zdXX1oN4heOJxppyyPq99nCghROqCK3-92nSWfj/s200/11174255_365409373653075_1379553344397081671_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>Sister Gyanamata put it perfectly when she said to Master that she knew he came with a world-changing mission, but she also liked to think that he came just for her. And he did.<br />
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Remember Babaji saying, that the spirit of potential saints in countries round the world came “flood-like” to him? For this reason, this line of Gurus incarnated again.<br />
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To change the world, by changing hearts, one by one, starting with yours, and mine.<br />
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What joy.<br />
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In Master’s love,<br />
Asha for Ananda New Zealand devotees<br />
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P.S. You can follow along with the <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117333920063460117344/NewZealandAprilMay2015?authkey=Gv1sRgCPjC8MrMltr5Rw">ongoing photo album here</a>, and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ6EjqzSVNPJ1MjrjqowTh6a7W_ZbqpmN">YouTube channel</a> here. <br />
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<br />Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-80794238592862748922015-04-28T20:59:00.002-07:002015-04-28T22:01:00.047-07:00Hamilton, New Zealand #1Dear Friends:<br />
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Arrived Friday morning, 5:30 a.m. on the overnight flight from San Francisco. The greatest hardship of the journey was my onscreen catalog of available movies didn’t work properly and I had to choose without knowing <i>all</i> the options. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbW862oCdtYow4Rw9FqxvwDqI-MN5JOsstzRgvJYlrt3ZY9T206C3mB0-T82MYO129qsukw3UYyJy6ZDCXg7zx8-kDTMt8pLPuMhY__cZ0pQBP3n91dS0kp5wgcyiHTE-M5XB0R5iYhTbG/s1600/11188156_824838607605198_7520885148189550981_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbW862oCdtYow4Rw9FqxvwDqI-MN5JOsstzRgvJYlrt3ZY9T206C3mB0-T82MYO129qsukw3UYyJy6ZDCXg7zx8-kDTMt8pLPuMhY__cZ0pQBP3n91dS0kp5wgcyiHTE-M5XB0R5iYhTbG/s1600/11188156_824838607605198_7520885148189550981_n.jpg" height="141" width="200" /></a>My travel companions came two days earlier. I wanted to be at home for Swamiji’s Moksha Day, rather than caught somewhere near the international date line, so I left later. <br />
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The time difference now is only 5 hours, and Kavita’s house, where we all stay, is so much home now, that it hardly feels like travel.<br />
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There is, however, that unique feeling of New Zealand, which I came to know and love last fall -- relaxed, happy, and completely at home.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzTVYDpL-qOX4d8Vsz8YCgoJWwPPTJeyF9csxvR1XY44McjU1c27lyGNQQ6xWSdCmiwUoLBTRZWN4le67ORJDMxC6ASvOd62AGeLeist5ursL-4AgiH72CHBIcbQQV7EqmE7QuJeJx9y-/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-04-27+at+5.39.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzTVYDpL-qOX4d8Vsz8YCgoJWwPPTJeyF9csxvR1XY44McjU1c27lyGNQQ6xWSdCmiwUoLBTRZWN4le67ORJDMxC6ASvOd62AGeLeist5ursL-4AgiH72CHBIcbQQV7EqmE7QuJeJx9y-/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-04-27+at+5.39.25+PM.png" height="125" width="200" /></a>Dambara and Atmajyoti are returnees from last fall. Tandava is the “new guy” but his newbie status dissolved immediately and we are working as one harmonious team already. Having his fabulous musicality to inspire and accompany Dambara in songs and chanting is a treat for all. The two of them have great fun making music together and the rest of us are the happy beneficiaries. <br />
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In addition to Kavita, her husband Aroon, and teenage daughters Veda and Devya, a Canandian woman named Zeb is also living in the house. She had contacted Kavita looking for a work exchange, with a backpack full of just the talents that were needed -- photographer, writer, web-savvy marketeer, truth-seeker, and all around delightful person.<br />
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She arrived in time to help Kavita put together and publicize the program. Truly a godsend. We all bonded immediately. Today we were joined by a young Australian named Travis who will also be with us for the whole time. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNWSvl91MNBfweYcQAnoRj-cLGG35czpOeXIjdQev3b1GOYT6qoAtVWyO5h2mxZoKFwgeqEr5Mcwp7wZyWZLJ2qCPkzowD5Ol7lrxgxVrporLPJ6srxhSnXlh2CvHMN3lgyCHAMI9NMoB/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNWSvl91MNBfweYcQAnoRj-cLGG35czpOeXIjdQev3b1GOYT6qoAtVWyO5h2mxZoKFwgeqEr5Mcwp7wZyWZLJ2qCPkzowD5Ol7lrxgxVrporLPJ6srxhSnXlh2CvHMN3lgyCHAMI9NMoB/s1600/1.jpg" height="135" width="200" /></a></div>
This morning we had a Kriya initiation for him and for a core member here named Alan. There seems to be a special grace from Master for these small initiations, scheduled for the benefit of specific devotees. We did two of them last trip as well. <br />
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Last trip we traveled the length of the north island -- from Auckland to Wellington and met many fine souls. The greatest concentration of energy is with Kavita here in Hamilton, though.<br />
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Since our last visit she has been teaching meditation and yoga and building up magnetism from her spacious home on the river which she calls The Narrows Retreat. You can <a href="http://thenarrowsretreat.co.nz/">look up her website</a> to see where we are presently ensconced.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-QYcnEQvbSELQKuLyTB6BiRvl0XWsewfJzpAyF_D7graWb-OkR7zoZKhplEpUqhz76ppaJ7t5TgZev9DSjMU4HUTEOKGaumbl6l47o-vChQWgppQ_vOhOKlScAjhOxU41Awj3xz-ycO9Y/s1600/11148575_826447010777691_4663126317733739075_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-QYcnEQvbSELQKuLyTB6BiRvl0XWsewfJzpAyF_D7graWb-OkR7zoZKhplEpUqhz76ppaJ7t5TgZev9DSjMU4HUTEOKGaumbl6l47o-vChQWgppQ_vOhOKlScAjhOxU41Awj3xz-ycO9Y/s1600/11148575_826447010777691_4663126317733739075_o.jpg" height="151" width="200" /></a>This trip we are exclusively in Hamilton for two weeks, then on the third weekend we go back to Lake Taupo, a beautiful location, centrally located. Many people from other areas will join us there.<br />
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Just up the road from The Narrows Retreat is a conference facility called The Narrows Landing. You probably get the theme here: the Waikato River ... guess what? ... narrows right here! <br />
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The Narrows Landing is larger than Kavita’s home and has been an ideal setting for our weekend programs. At lunchtime, we walk from the Landings to the Retreat for the informality of being at home, then walk back to the conference center to continue the program. Perfect.<br />
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Kavita has found that the greatest interest now is in meditation, so we have made that our theme for the whole stay, exploring the subject from many directions over the whole series of programs. You can see the details at <a href="http://anandanewzealand.org/">Ananda New Zealand</a>.<br />
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For our first program on Saturday we had about 40 participants. Some were returnees from last visit; many were first-timers. Interestingly, even those who were coming for the first time were on the same wave-length as the returnees.<br />
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In other travels through the years, I’ve noticed that when I return to a place it isn’t only individuals who have progressed in the teachings, it is the whole place that has progressed. Even if you are talking to a different crowd, you can speak on a deeper level.<br />
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On Sunday we had the service, Festival, and Purification Ceremony. On Monday we did another 10-4pm day. Attendance for those days was closer to 20. <br />
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Everyone who came was focused and serious about spiritual life so we had a wonderful time together. Even though for many we were meeting for the first time, we felt like old friends.<br />
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It is a remarkable life we have. Our bonds of spiritual fellowship transcend all limiting conditions of country, culture, or personality. Soul-to-soul. That is the joy of friendship in God.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEico7HKLPWy6PgW6P9fhIOYe80ZDigf3HaNdJzUYcy6UBDIr24pNdI6SwMYLc_gsKEmSVDS15yRbezxSDV6zlGJXL6NexXL27fP2JraSYPBNK-h1s6tfeKSjLaXt9ok_UiyU7t_fjapjMZx/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-04-26+at+7.10.51+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEico7HKLPWy6PgW6P9fhIOYe80ZDigf3HaNdJzUYcy6UBDIr24pNdI6SwMYLc_gsKEmSVDS15yRbezxSDV6zlGJXL6NexXL27fP2JraSYPBNK-h1s6tfeKSjLaXt9ok_UiyU7t_fjapjMZx/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-04-26+at+7.10.51+PM.png" height="125" width="200" /></a>Sunday afternoon we went to the Theosophical Society. The subject was the chakras -- in 60 minutes! <br />
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From my point of view, every program I give is a demonstration of the power of desperate prayer: “Here we are, Lord, give me something helpful to say!” <br />
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The chakras, at the Theosophical Society of Hamilton, New Zealand, was yet one more proof of God’s response. It was energetic and entertaining, we sold quite a few books, and a couple of people came on Monday because of the program there.<br />
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Our host gave a moving testimonial about how much her life has been enriched in the 6 months since we were last there because of all that she has gained from online classes and reading Master’s teachings that she began because of our visit last fall. <br />
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We have met several people already who read <i>Autobiography of a Yogi,</i> even became deeply engaged with Master many, many years ago, but somehow let the connection lapse. Now, finding Ananda is opening that doorway again. <br />
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Another woman spoke to me of her Catholic upbringing and the love she had for Jesus, which was gradually covered over by disillusionment with the Church. Now her youthful devotion has been reawakened. A whole new life direction is opening.<br />
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What an honor to serve in this way.<br />
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Much love to all,<br />
Asha for the Ananda New Zealand team<br />
<br />
P.S. <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117333920063460117344/NewZealandAprilMay2015?authkey=Gv1sRgCPjC8MrMltr5Rw">An on-going photo album of the trip can be found here</a>. Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-52761098504571797582015-03-23T15:35:00.000-07:002015-03-23T15:35:00.994-07:00The Bliss that Dispels All FearsDear Friends,<br />
<br />
In <i>The New Path,</i> Swami Kriyananda describes how Mt. Washington was like a hotel when Master lived there – how people would check in and out, and how very few of them ever stayed. <br />
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It’s hard to fathom, isn’t it, how people could have the tremendous good karma to be with Yogananda, and not to be able to appreciate it enough to stay.<br />
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As Swamiji said, it wasn’t easy to live with a master. And it wasn’t because he was harsh, but because in his love for them, he wanted to remove everything that kept them separate from God.<br />
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Swamiji said that if you didn’t want Master to change you, he wouldn’t interfere. He would be kind and sweet and supportive, but he wouldn’t discipline you unless you’d decided that he had the only answer that would satisfy your soul. <br />
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We fear that the guru will take away the things we least want to give up. But he will never do that. What good would it do? If we haven’t accepted our need to change, no one can inspire us to want it. <br />
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Swamiji said that in Master’s presence, the force of light was enormous, and in the presence of that light a great deal of your self was suddenly revealed. For many people, the revelation was too painful, and they would hastily depart. <br />
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When we discover a fault or a weakness in ourselves, how can we handle the pain? It’s useless to say “How terrible I am! How hopeless I am!” Because it doesn’t help – it just glues us more firmly to our errors.<br />
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We have to realize that everything we cling to will eventually be taken away. We won’t get to save any of the parts of us that we cling to with tender affection. <br />
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That’s for religion, written with a small “r.” Religion says, “Be a nice person. You don’t have to be perfect (never mind what Jesus said). You can just continue to measure yourself by a basic, minimal standard where you’ll still look pretty good.”<br />
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On the spiritual path, we have to measure ourselves against Infinity. We have to wake up every day and realize “I’m not there yet,” and calmly and cheerfully keep going forward, a step at a time.<br />
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There are definite stages of awareness that we all go through. And there’s a stage where we’re making a spiritual effort and moving steadfastly toward God, but there’s still a great deal of temptation to look for a safe corner where we can hang out and be comfortable, at least for a while.<br />
<br />
Over the years, David and I have done a bit of scuba diving. And one of the things you have to learn is that when you come up from a depth, you have to stop at l5 feet and hang out there for three or four minutes. You’ve been breathing compressed air, and you have to give your body time for various chemical reactions to take place, or you’ll get the bends, a dangerous and painful condition. <br />
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So you hang there for a while, neither rising or sinking, and you try to breathe in a comfortable manner. And it’s like the stage in our spiritual life where we don’t want to sink lower, but we aren’t ready to rise. So we adjust our consciousness until we have a kind of neutral buoyancy, and we hang out there.<br />
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It’s a mystery why we would want to do that. But, really, it’s because we have a false notion of where our happiness comes from. <br />
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In Swami Kriyananda’s later years, it was very interesting to see how, as his body grew old and debilitated, he was always using it to express higher levels of consciousness. It was extraordinary to see that frail body radiate such a magnificent power of bliss. <br />
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Master defined the ego as “the soul, identified with the body.” It’s a nice, neutral way to define the ego, so that we don’t see it as either positive or negative but simply a fact. The soul becomes identified with the body, and our sense of self becomes identified with the body. And that’s the reality that we have to deal with, and that we’re working to gradually transcend.<br />
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Swamiji describes how he was walking with Yogananda, and he was holding his arm to support him, because his body was infirm. At one point Master stumbled, and he explained, “I am in so many bodies, I forget which one I’m supposed to keep moving.” <br />
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What if you were so expanded in your consciousness that everybody’s reality was equal to your own? Swamiji talked about how people who aren’t spiritually evolved misunderstand the saints. They decide that the saints must be doing it all with will power, the way an unevolved person would try to do. “Hm, the saints are able to love people because they have a lot of will power, and they can suppress their natural selfishness.” <br />
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But religion doesn’t understand that the negative qualities in us can be wholly transcended, as we discover God’s desire-quenching bliss and love and become absorbed in it.<br />
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It’s wonderful to meditate and project yourself into a completely different reality, identifying another person’s needs as your own and praying for their healing and freedom. Because that’s the standard by which we should judge our progress on the spiritual path. <br />
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How would I feel about this person with whom I’m angry, if I could know their reality as much as my own? What would it be like to have no fear? To have no fear of embarrassment, no fear of making a mistake, no fear of exposing your ignorance, no fear of physical pain, no fear of being rejected, no fear of being afraid? <br />
<br />
It’s wonderful to meditate on how the masters have found the bliss that dispels all fear. As we pass through the stages of our long journey back to God, let us meditate on the bliss of the masters, and how that bliss and love contains all of the fulfillment we’ve ever been seeking.<br />
<br />
AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-67086666618020286332015-01-24T15:24:00.001-08:002015-01-24T15:26:07.849-08:00Let's Be Real with GodOne of the monks in Yogananda’s ashram became emotional in his fervor. In the midst of group chanting he would cry out and roll on the ground, calling to God. <br />
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Some of the monks were put off by this. But when mentioned it to Yogananda, he said, “Ah, if only you all had that kind of fervor!” <br />
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We need to understand what’s important to God. We may have our own ideas of what the spiritual life is about. But God doesn’t care about our ideas. Nor does He care about the feelings, ideas, and images we have about ourselves – including the self-image we try to project to the world around us. <br />
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He accepts us exactly as we are. And what we are is a vibration that we’ve generated by our consciousness. Our consciousness shapes our actions, thoughts, feelings, and what we feel is important in our lives.<br />
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A disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, the great Bengali saint of the 19th century, brought a group of dancers, singers, and actors to visit the master at the ashram. In India, entertainers were considered of low caste, but Ramakrishna embraced them and gave them his heart. <br />
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After they left, some of his more narrow-minded disciples wondered aloud why the guru would welcome such low-class people. <br />
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The great yogi said, “The God they are worshipping now is dance and music.” Then he added blissfully, “Ah, but they know how to worship!” <br />
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This is what pleases God. It isn’t the careful, well-organized way we present our self to the world. It’s when we give our whole heart. <br />
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Now, this certainly is not an age when we can live extreme lives of pure renunciation and devotion. I’m sometimes overwhelmed by the complexity of the modern world. I look around my house and the thought comes insistently: “How can I simplify?<br />
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“How can I keep less food in the fridge? How can I clear out my cabinets? How can I spend less time cooking meals?” Faced with the endless stream of emails, phone calls, and material objects in our lives, the aspiring heart rebels. The mind seeks to escape – “I can be a better devotee if I have less to do – I would love God so much more if someone would do all the cooking, and if I didn’t get so many emails.” <br />
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It’s easy to be distracted by all the irons in the fire. And the temptation is to mentally put those things in a separate box from our spiritual life. <br />
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But how can we imagine that the conditions we’ve created for ourselves are completely outside of the will of God? <br />
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Some years ago, I got into a difficult situation with friends. I saw that they wouldn’t be able to escape the suffering they were going through, and I was distraught, weeping for their pain. And because I couldn’t do anything about it, finally the thought entered my mind, “Do you think this could be happening outside of God’s will?”<br />
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Do you think that the entirety of God’s creation is a manifestation of his <i>satchidananda</i> – His ever-conscious, ever-new bliss – except for this little square where you’re standing? Is this little piece of the cosmic structure a forgotten hole that isn’t <i>satchidananda</i> – not God?” <br />
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Of course not! So the natural conclusion is, “Why am I rebelling? Why am I sad that things are this way? If this is where God has placed me, and what He’s asking of me, what kind of a response is rebellion?”<br />
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It’s not so dissimilar from when you give a child a doll and she cries, “This is purple! I wanted the pink one!” <br />
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Swamiji’s father returned from a business trip and gave him and his brother each a little toy boat. And they immediately began to argue about whose boat was best. <br />
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The father said, “Oh, I made a mistake,” and he switched the boats. And of course they immediately began to argue again. <br />
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There’s a natural, uncanny inclination to rebel against our circumstances. Because, let’s face it, it isn’t hard to imagine how almost any circumstance could be better. <br />
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But it isn’t the answer. “I’d be a lot better person if my circumstances were different. I’d have more time to love God if someone would do the cooking.”<br />
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A classic spiritual question is whether we have free will. Yogananda answered it very simply: “We have one choice: to think of God, or not to think of Him.” <br />
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Let us assume it’s true. And, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Divine Mother is every bit as present when we’re cleaning the house, driving the children to school, shopping for groceries, and cooking. <br />
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How could God not be there? How could anything be outside of God?<br />
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We need to turn ourselves within and see if <i>we</i> are in tune with the divine energy continually expressing through us. Or if we’ve allowed ourselves to sink into dullness, full of grumbling, while we wait for our problems to be magically taken away so that we can pursue our “real” spiritual life. <br />
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Swami said, “We spend so much of our life waiting to be rescued from the conditions we’re in – imagining that something will come and rescue us from them.” <br />
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We imagine that death will be the final rescue. “At least I’ll be released from the struggle for a while.”<br />
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I read about a man who worked with people with terminal illnesses. In his workshops, he had them make two lists. <br />
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First he had them list everything they would miss if they died – the marriage of their children, the birth of grandchildren, caring for their elderly parents, and so on. <br />
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Then he had them list everything they would be happy to leave behind because they wouldn’t have to face it anymore. And, of course, we all have our lists, conscious or subconscious. <br />
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“Hurrah! I’ll no longer have to cook three meals a day.” <br />
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The desire to be rescued is an expression of our soul’s desire to be healed of all suffering and liberated in God’s bliss. But if our consciousness is omnipresent, if our power is limitless, and if there’s really no difference between ourselves and all creation, then if there’s anything we aren’t fully embracing in this life – to that extent, we’re separating ourselves from God.<br />
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I remember a time when I was frightened about something I had to do. I prayed for Divine Mother’s comfort, and I was very puzzled when She didn’t send it. <br />
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I prayed, “Why aren’t you comforting me?” And then a picture flashed in my mind of someone who had passed through my life, and to whom I hadn’t given very much compassion. <br />
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It was a person who had struggled in his life, and I didn’t feel much affinity with him. I thought it would be okay if I turned my heart in other directions. And now I heard Divine Mother say, “If you close your heart to any of My children, how can I open My heart to you?” <br />
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I was urging a friend to be more conscientious in her attitude toward her work. I felt that I’d earned a right to speak somewhat sternly, because I’d been trying to get her to understand this point for years. But she kept giving excuses, one after another. We were laughing, because we were friends. But I kept escalating and she kept rejecting, excuse after excuse. <br />
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Finally, she said, “I’m scared when I do that.” <br />
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I said, “Oh, now you’re telling the truth. Let’s work with what’s true.” <br />
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It isn’t our weaknesses that God objects to. It’s our fear of opening ourselves to Him. How can we help but be imperfect? We’ve lived many lives, and this is as far as we’ve gotten. And God can’t hold us responsible for where we are, or for not doing more. <br />
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I said to someone, “If a child is four and behaves like a four-year old, will you be furious with him? What can he do? He’s four. Soon he’ll be six, then nine. And if he’s nine and behaves like a four-year-old, you can say, ‘You’re too old for this. You’re a big boy now.’ But when he’s four, you can’t say ‘Be a teenager.’ It’s impossible.”<br />
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And here we are, at whatever spiritual age we’ve attained, and we are exactly what we are. And Divine Mother is extremely sympathetic when we don’t wait to be rescued, and when we don’t hand Her a long list of reasons why we can’t do better. And She is instantly sympathetic when we have the courage to say, “Divine Mother, I’m scared. This frightens me.” Then you find that She says, “Oh, you’re frightened. Take my hand and I’ll help you get through it.”<br />
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That’s the consciousness we want to have. Yogananda isn’t with us. Even Swami Kriyananda is no longer with us, and so it’s more important than ever to know how to invite their presence.<br />
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When Swami died, I said, “The only grownup has left the planet. We’re here by ourselves now, and we need to band together to take care of ourselves. Like little children when they’re orphaned, we’ll have to learn to manage.”<br />
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The spirit and divine presence of the masters is with us, but not when we close our hearts, because then they simply can’t get in.<br />
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God bless you.<br />
AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-76102254650916893152014-10-29T19:41:00.002-07:002014-10-29T19:41:18.641-07:00Auckland, Hamilton & General Tourist TimeDear Friends:<br />
<br />
We are in the last week of our time here. On November 4 we fly back to California (except for Dambara who is joining a pilgrimage in Israel before returning to Oregon). <br />
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We leave the night on the 4th and arrive the morning of the same day, getting back what we lost on the way over.<br />
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Inward glimpses of California occasionally break through now, but the best policy is still: “Be here now.”<br />
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We are with Kavita and Aroon again in Hamilton. Last weekend we had a Saturday retreat, Sunday service, and then a talk on “Happiness” at the local Theosophical society. Tonight we have informal satsang.<br />
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We were warned in advance that New Zealanders are more “British than American,” meaning more reserved. They have to get to know you before they’ll ask questions or share experiences.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5YZ-ZMelWKJko5J1OV8u__t-dTRqwgthyLbnk1dxKwBtJmJ6PMSijZ-yjaAY2RKy2jOwW0aIbNGnKOVtMFJFty0ItsdlNoyDSRBynNq6cn3Irhy-LbvcQB4QgRspKh4qdy5uQgzsZ73X7/s1600/10343507_10154767043715257_4694366486160757931_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5YZ-ZMelWKJko5J1OV8u__t-dTRqwgthyLbnk1dxKwBtJmJ6PMSijZ-yjaAY2RKy2jOwW0aIbNGnKOVtMFJFty0ItsdlNoyDSRBynNq6cn3Irhy-LbvcQB4QgRspKh4qdy5uQgzsZ73X7/s1600/10343507_10154767043715257_4694366486160757931_n.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a>I scheduled classes for 2.5 hours -- a lot of time for a lecture, just right when people interact and engage. <br />
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Sometimes it worked. In Wellington the time flew by. By the end of the first weekend in Hamilton, the audience was contributing more. Informal satsangs are going well.<br />
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Since Palmerston North, we’ve included more music, chanting, and meditation. Probably the best idea from the start, but I’ve had to learn by doing. <br />
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People often ask me about their own spiritual progress, “Can I do more?” <br />
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My answer is a question, “Are you pushing against the edge of the unknown rather than coasting on habit?”<br />
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Nice to be able to answer those questions: Coasting: No. Learning: Yes. <br />
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Swamiji set the example of creatively serving God and Guru to the last breath. Just weeks before his passing, he finished his last book. I want my tiny feet to follow his mammoth footprints. <br />
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As I rounded the corner of 60 years -- and kept on going -- I wondered how to stay spiritually dynamic to the end.<br />
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When Swamiji announced the New Renunciate Order (June 2008) he asked me, “What do you think?” <br />
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I said, “The answer to a prayer. This will save me from spiritual mediocrity.” <br />
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“Yes,” Swamiji said. My concern was justified.<br />
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The ideal Indian lifestyle brings everyone to <i>sannyas</i> in their last years. Walking off into the forest isn’t the model Swamiji set. Giving everything to God is. <br />
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Talking about Self-realization to a new friend here, she exclaimed, “There is so much to learn!”<br />
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“Yes,” I said happily. “Whenever you think you have reached the edge of the possible, the possible expands before you, literally to Infinity!” <br />
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I had hardly reached the edge of the possible in 2008, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Nayaswami vows solved that nicely. <br />
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In Auckland, the venue Kavita chose is also a retreat center. We promoted it like any other class series. Though set in a secluded valley, the venue is close to town. People came and went for the various programs.<br />
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All of us, though, and about seven others, lived at the retreat. Meals, sadhanas, and lots of time for conversation proved transformative. <br />
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There is so much to Ananda. One hardly knows where to begin! My way is to give classes -- karma, reincarnation, meditation -- as much of the “Self-realization curriculum” as I could cover. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZSpJN-VyexqPFvqkmIaXfrSlO3z7bEWPPiy3xLv3FGWzHDhMO5P2_LqD1U9hsKWRTfssigqJL6UEW-h1PQviznY6HTfhOWcvAcOEoRWqHg5XOSg7G3JVqwsbLYZq05SxQX7ln4iv6hK9B/s1600/1621743_10154767043855257_6334839148927524912_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZSpJN-VyexqPFvqkmIaXfrSlO3z7bEWPPiy3xLv3FGWzHDhMO5P2_LqD1U9hsKWRTfssigqJL6UEW-h1PQviznY6HTfhOWcvAcOEoRWqHg5XOSg7G3JVqwsbLYZq05SxQX7ln4iv6hK9B/s1600/1621743_10154767043855257_6334839148927524912_n.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a>Having Dambara to sing was essential. A few minutes of song can change consciousness more than hours of words.<br />
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Still, even with lots of words, music, sadhana, and satsang, one barely touches the surface.<br />
<br />
For introducing Ananda to a new audience, <i>Finding Happiness</i> is a godsend. It is almost like being there. Everyone in the movie, and the ideas they present, expands the definition of what Ananda is and how to be part of it. <br />
<br />
On Friday, we go to Lake Taupo for a weekend retreat. <br />
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It is a gorgeous setting. Weather report says: warm and sunny. (We now read and quote these unreliable reports like native New Zealanders, for whom weather is an ever-fascinating, because always changing, dimension of life.)<br />
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About 20 have signed up, mostly people we have already met (plus two from Australia). Being together for three days we hope will launch Ananda New Zealand into the future.<br />
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When we were filming <i>Finding Happiness</i> we had to constantly remind ourselves, “We can’t include <i>everything.</i> This movie alone will not teach someone how to start a community.”<br />
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But it can inspire people to learn how to start one.<br />
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Many times since we arrived here I’ve had to repeat this to myself: In one class, one weekend, one month we can’t teach <i>everything</i> about the spiritual path. <br />
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But we can inspire people to <i>want to know more. </i><br />
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<i>May we be able to awaken Thy love in all hearts:</i> our constant prayer.<br />
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As Swamiji often said, you can live next door to the best restaurant in the world, but if you aren’t hungry, you won’t go in. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ukpilxCXX_8YsuxJ3RRnFN9RNQSAlA08BQobeInTQ_fTiZ8bLu3sG7FPP58eWtHIxodyz-PxNqntxiT7aIHhYAbNAo45G9UMZb5-ArbcC2S1C-2-vcuKcJQsQx5DeFQ7VLnPyuBU1Cll/s1600/10462921_10154738688070257_2756950184029435441_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ukpilxCXX_8YsuxJ3RRnFN9RNQSAlA08BQobeInTQ_fTiZ8bLu3sG7FPP58eWtHIxodyz-PxNqntxiT7aIHhYAbNAo45G9UMZb5-ArbcC2S1C-2-vcuKcJQsQx5DeFQ7VLnPyuBU1Cll/s1600/10462921_10154738688070257_2756950184029435441_n.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a>Fortunately, when spiritual hunger comes, in Dwapara Yuga, everyone lives next door to a spiritual smorgasbord. Passing out a directory of online classes, websites, and YouTube channels has been central to what we are doing here. <br />
<br />
In one of our programs, Dambara sang (exquisitely) some of Swamiji’s songs of divine longing -- like <i>Through Many Lives, Mother of Us All, Divine Romance, Door of My Heart. </i><br />
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People sometimes feel Swamiji’s music is sad. After the singing, I felt to comment. <br />
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“<i>Belief</i> in God is not enough. You must also <i>long</i> for Him. Longing moves you toward God, and pulls God toward you. Longing for God is what these songs awaken.”<br />
<br />
“I have only two desires in life,” Swamiji said, “To realize God and to help others also to realize Him.”<br />
<br />
We place our tiny feet next to Swamiji’s giant footprints.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQYvBEpUi6pG0dKz3NnVlqC_Yojj76-Un3I-Dr06Ypf51_fO64lfskgeeHPcmdCnQH68xOghPjoqfYPaQRzTEK9w4L1YxXBq-ahUXK0Vp3so88S4zaMvZPvXhDLYHzRf2atrPaEDiqPMOf/s1600/IMG_1332.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQYvBEpUi6pG0dKz3NnVlqC_Yojj76-Un3I-Dr06Ypf51_fO64lfskgeeHPcmdCnQH68xOghPjoqfYPaQRzTEK9w4L1YxXBq-ahUXK0Vp3so88S4zaMvZPvXhDLYHzRf2atrPaEDiqPMOf/s1600/IMG_1332.jpeg" height="200" width="133" /></a>In these last days, we’ve had time to be tourists. Rachel is a born tour guide and has planned marvelous excursions. We’ve bathed in geo-thermal waters, climbed to the base of a giant waterfall (and back up again), communed with amazing trees, climbed over rocks on a black sand beach. <br />
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Mother Nature rules in New Zealand! And we bask in Her glory. <br />
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We are so grateful to God and Gurus for bringing us here, for re-uniting us with soul brothers and sisters, and letting us help launch Ananda New Zealand. <br />
<br />
Jai Guru.<br />
<br />
In divine friendship,<br />
Asha for all here <br />
<i>Kiwis and Americans united in Master’s ray! </i><br />
<br />
P.S. The ongoing photo album for the New Zealand tour <a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/117333920063460117344/albums/6064511431880596353?banner=pwa&authkey=CPmCjveZio6zPg">can be found here</a>.Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-30888930028615719272014-10-16T08:03:00.004-07:002014-10-16T08:05:24.234-07:00Wellington & Palmerston North, New ZealandDear Everyone:<br />
<br />
Mid-tour everyone needed rejuvenation. Dambara went off on a hike, Bryan, Rachel, and Atmajyoti are at the beachhouse of a friend, Cancer-me chose to stay home in Hamilton. The trip is jam-packed, but with enough down time to also keep it fun-filled. <br />
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Air, food, and water are <i>prana</i>-rich, so we continue healthy, and after a few days off, well-rested.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow everyone returns to Hamilton and Friday we go to Auckland for the weekend. That venue is also a retreat facility. Fortunate, since we have no friends there (yet) to host us. We planned a series of classes then added sadhanas to turn it into a retreat. <br />
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That’s the future; here’s the past.<br />
<br />
Wellington started with a program at the Theosophical Society. The Theosophists have not been on my radar until we got here. The movement started in the late 1800’s and was a groundbreaker for world brotherhood and spiritual adventurousness, promoting unity of race and religion, the idea of <i>Mahatmas</i> guiding the planet toward evolution of consciousness, and metaphysical thinking in general. <br />
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It has no creed of its own, but fosters honest exploration of all paths. It continues to be a force in New Zealand. In both Wellington and Palmerston North we have been hosted/aided by the society.<br />
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The Wellington Theosophical Society has a marvelous old building, narrow, high ceiling room, wood trim and floors, and an extensive lending library of spiritual and occult books. Some join just for the library, which now includes a selection of Swamiji and Master donated by us.<br />
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About 40 people came, half Theosophists, half there for the first time. A decades-long tradition of spiritual inquiry gave the room a unique flavor. The subject -- <i>The Yugas</i> -- was ideal for the place and the audience. <br />
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For the weekend, we moved to St. Andrews Church, another fabulous old building in downtown Wellington. Friday was in the sanctuary; Saturday classes in a smaller, modern room in the annex.<br />
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The sanctuary included one of those elevated platforms with a waist-high railing where the minister can stand to deliver his message. I enjoyed the God’s eye view it gave, but for the program opted for ground level.<br />
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I’m glad to have moved on from those church-going days, but the real estate is gorgeous, and the atmosphere profound. <br />
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St. Andrews was a marvelous venue, and I’m happy to have spent an evening there, but it was spacious for the 20 people who came. Choosing the right size venue is the hardest part of tour planning -- the delicate balance between optimism and realism. <br />
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We’ve done well enough for our maiden voyage. <br />
<br />
It was June 2012, when Swamiji asked me to become a “global ambassador.” Profound moments often happen in mundane settings. We were walking into the Stanford Shopping center when -- between the teashop and the luggage store -- my life was redirected.<br />
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I told Swamiji I, too, felt a change was needed, and was working with websites, webinars, and a YouTube channel, to be “Global from my living room.”<br />
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“Personal contact is also important,” he replied.<br />
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Information, vibration, even consciousness comes across the internet. I watch Swamiji’s videos almost daily. Something happens in person, though, that can’t happen any other way. Especially a first contact.<br />
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I felt that in India, but even more here. Perhaps because in New Zealand Master is little-known and people are attracted as much by example as precept. Ananda people are unique.<br />
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Another reason for personal contact: more relationships are possible than just with the featured creature -- oops, featured <i>speaker.</i> During the breaks in the classes, <i>everyone</i> is fully engaged.<br />
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None of us can imagine doing this tour with anyone but this team. But, in fact, we could substitute dozens of times, probably a hundred times, and each team would be an equal expression of harmony, attunement, talent, individuality/eccentricity, and joy. <br />
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All of Krishna’s soldiers look like Krishna. And all Master’s children raised by Swamiji express the same spirit. <br />
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At the end of a recent program, with tears in her eyes a woman said to me, <i>“You must keep on doing God’s work in this way.” </i><br />
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Someone later asked about the whole group, “What are you doing that makes you so different?” <br />
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That’s the right question. As Swamiji often said, you meet one or two good people you credit them personally. If you meet a whole group you think, “It must be what they are doing.” <br />
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The Wellington classes were delightful. Small attendance, not more than 10, but each person was interested, intelligent, open, and fully engaged. It was effortless to talk to them -- first about intuition, then about death and dying -- because of the magnetism in the room. <br />
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Earlier in the week we played tourist in Wellington, strolling by the harbor, taking the funicular to a botanical garden, walking down the hill through acres of plants, trees, and flowers to lunch by the rose garden. Wellington can be cold and windy, but for us it was warm and sunny. <br />
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The city is a pleasant blend of energy and relaxation. That seems to be the characteristic of this country. <br />
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It reminds us of Switzerland, in the way everything is clean and neat, even in the less prosperous areas. <br />
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And in wealthy neighborhoods, things are simpler than in the U.S. Houses less elaborately designed and decorated. Certainly there is materialism, but not as <i>avid</i> as we are used to. <br />
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Every meditation, no matter how new the group, has been exceptionally still. Swamiji said that many New Zealanders are naturally attuned to subtle realms, a legacy in the land from the Maoris. Perhaps that is part of what we are feeling.<br />
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Visiting a new friend in a quiet neighborhood today it occurred to me, “New Zealand is a good place for sadhana.” <i>Expanding Light New Zealand</i> could be a popular destination. Plus a community to run it. Energy and relaxation. Perfect.<br />
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Oh dear. I’m getting ahead of October 15, 2014! Better get back to, “Do our best and leave the rest to God.”<br />
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On the way back from Wellington we stopped again in Palmerston North. (The North refers to the island on which it sits, there being also a Palmerston South.) <br />
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For our classes, we have not set up the full altar, displaying only Swamiji and Master, to give context to what we present. The altar comes out for Sunday service and teaching meditation afterward, and for the Kriya we did.<br />
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Even though we were offering the usual classes in Palmerston North, we felt more devotion was appropriate. Classes were held at the Theosophical Society hall -- another marvelous old wooden structure, newly refurbished but still holding decades of truth-seeking vibes.<br />
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Right under their motto -- “The only religion is Truth” -- we set up the whole altar.<br />
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Dambara always sings a few songs at the beginning, middle, and end of each program, but here we divided each session almost in half, starting with a long period of songs, chanting, and meditation. After a brief intermission, class started. <br />
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It wouldn’t have worked in Wellington, but in Palmerston North it was perfect. <br />
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We also showed <i>Finding Happiness,</i> to rave reviews as always.<br />
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A first-time viewer, though, later said to us, “There must be difficulties at Ananda. How do you deal with them? You should have devoted more time in the movie to the downside of what you are proposing. There are pros and cons to everything.”<br />
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I quoted Devi from the movie: “Meditation changes everything.” <br />
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He wasn’t satisfied, but I couldn’t think of more to say, nor did I feel like arguing the point. <br />
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Later I thought of the right response.<br />
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“If you want to persuade,” he had said, “you have to present both sides. Everything has two sides.”<br />
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Yes, everything <i>worldly</i> has two sides. Waves on the ocean -- for every crest there is a corresponding trough. <br />
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There is no opposite, however, to the spiritual path. Every effort to realize God brings you closer to God. It is the end of duality. <br />
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To present life at Ananda in terms of the “pros and cons” is to miss the point. <br />
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The purpose of <i>Finding Happiness</i> is not to <i>persuade,</i> but to <i>inspire.</i> In this it succeeds beautifully. <br />
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His suggestions were well-meant even if they missed the point. The movie <i>did</i> touch his heart, and he wanted to make a good thing better. <br />
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I had an interesting discussion with a devotee about another path where obedience to that guru is the fundamental practice. Even when the disciples don’t understand what the guru is asking, or why, still they must obey. They can question up to a certain point, then they must surrender to his will.<br />
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Perhaps this benefits those disciples. It is not my place to judge. <br />
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All I can say is: Thank you, Master, for sending us Swamiji. <br />
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Swamiji taught us to build our faith on the bedrock of our own experience. <br />
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Even for subtle questions, like “Why did God create the universe?” Swamiji answered in a way we can all understand. “It is the nature of Bliss to want to share Itself,” he said. “When you find a restaurant you love, or a movie you enjoy, what is the first thing you do? You call a friend and tell him about it.” <br />
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Happiness expands when it is shared. From this everyday example we can extrapolate all the way to <i>Satchidananda.</i><br />
<br />
I remember a time years ago when the community was questioning something Swamiji had suggested. He said, “I bend over backwards to explain things to you all. Master never bothered. A few words, a look, that’s all he gave us. We had to work the rest out ourselves.”<br />
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Thank you, Master, for sending us Swamiji! <br />
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Swamiji often said he preferred an honest argument to a mindless yes. <i>Cooperative</i> obedience is the right practice for this age. Respect for wisdom with full engagement of intelligence and will.<br />
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If you start with a dogma that can’t be questioned, you can only think to a certain extent. If reason doesn’t support dogma, reason has to be sacrificed so dogma can survive. <br />
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The relationship between Ananda and SRF hasn’t been part of any public discussion, but privately it is an ongoing issue. Our hosts are former SRF members. They are clear in their decision, but some of their gurubhais have expressed grave concern about their involvement with Ananda. I would love to put this whole issue behind us, but I think we have a ways to go.<br />
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One more reason why personal contact is important: An SRF member came to our program then later said to Atmajyoti, “What I was <i>told</i> about Ananda is so different from what I <i>experienced.</i> I don’t know what to do.”<br />
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“Go with your heart,” Atmajyoti replied. <br />
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Sage advice. As Master said, “Only love can take my place.”<br />
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Much love in Master,<br />
Asha for the Ananda New Zealand team<br />
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P.S. The ongoing photo album for the New Zealand tour <a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/117333920063460117344/albums/6064511431880596353?banner=pwa&authkey=CPmCjveZio6zPg">can be found here</a>.Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-61125912754350171832014-10-07T19:34:00.003-07:002014-10-07T19:36:57.943-07:00Palmerston North & Hutt Valley, New ZealandDear Everyone:<br />
<br />
Six days ago we left our home in Hamilton, heading south. We are still getting used to the need to dress warmly the further south we go. At the southern tip of the north island especially the wind blows fiercely.<br />
<br />
Yesterday was a typical spring day in New Zealand -- warm sunshine, cool wind, rain, hail, and a 5.1 earthquake! Fortunately, no damage was done. Everyone is skittish about earthquakes, after the devastation of Christchurch (South Island) a few years ago. So much was destroyed the city has yet to recover.<br />
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Our first stop was Palmerston North, where Kavita used to live, and where her parents still reside. Pramod and Urmilla were perfect hosts, opening their home, and feasting us on homemade Indian food and what Rachel deemed “the best masala chai <i>ever!” </i><br />
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This visit was added to provide Kriya Initiation to 3 new initiates, and a first-time- with-Ananda renewal for 3 Kriyabans. <br />
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Kavita’s spiritual life started in Palmerston North with a meditation group there. When Kavita discovered Ananda, she naturally wanted to share this with her long-time devotee friends.<br />
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We arrived on Wednesday and gave a satsang in the very room where Kavita came to know Master, and the next night we gave Kriya there.<br />
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Years ago -- 1982 -- David and I traveled with Swamiji through Europe for six weeks. He was on a lecture tour; for us it was our honeymoon. (After Swamiji went back to America, we had a more traditional celebration: two weeks in the Greek isles.)<br />
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That was before Ananda had established itself in Europe. Swamiji did programs in many cities, each arranged by individual devotees or small groups. Some were old SRF connections; others had come afterwards.<br />
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About 5 times during that trip, Swamiji gave Kriya initiation for a handful of new initiates, usually in the living room of someone’s home. <br />
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Our first acquaintance with Mayadevi and Helmut -- long-time leaders now of Ananda Assisi -- was staying in her parents’ house in Frankfurt, bonding over the making of Kriya drink for the ceremony Swamiji gave there. <br />
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The initiation in Palmerston North was sweet deja-vu of that trip with Swamiji.<br />
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The fabulous traveling crew rose to the occasion, converted the small living room into a temple to our Masters. Already there were pictures and artifacts, but with permission, we used the pictures we had brought to make it unique for the initiation. <br />
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Even though we have all attended many Initiations, this was one of the most moving, because of the uniqueness of the setting and the profound gratitude of those being initiated, both the first-timers, and those renewing.<br />
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Because of the infrequent occurrence, and the expense of travel, it is unlikely that two of the new initiates could have participated in a Kriya ceremony if we had not come to their very doorstep.<br />
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Watching each disciple kneel before the Masters and place their offerings with such loving care --- every effort, every expense to bring ourselves to that moment counted as nothing compared to the inspiration filling that small room.<br />
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One of the new Kriyabans wrote:<br />
<br />
<i>“For your tireless service, for seeking out the separated and lost, for helping us achieve what we were always looking for, for extending hope of receiving Kriya in simplified circumstances in these fearful times...I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am honored to be among the first initiated here.”</i><br />
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The next morning, greatly uplifted in spirit from the ceremony the night before, and fortified with several cups of “the best masala chai ever,” we left for Hutt Valley, a city within commuting distance of the capital, Wellington.<br />
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Traveling from Hamilton to Hutt Valley over two days we experienced the amazing variety of this country. Fields in a shade of green that seems more astral than material. Sheep and baby lambs arranged with such pleasing harmony one imagines an Artistic Director places them in the fields each morning for the pleasure of those passing by.<br />
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Rolling hills give way to forests, and eventually to a barren highlands, with two snow-covered, volcanic peaks rising dramatically from the plains, at the edge of an immense lake. Then again into forests, velvet green fields, and, suddenly, we are looking are the roiling waves of a vast ocean. <br />
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Rain and wind gives way to glorious clouds, then sunshine, then clouds and rain again. <br />
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Also cheese-tasting (and buying) and “the best ice cream in New Zealand” at the not-to-be-missed tourist stop, with a wandering peacock there to greet us. <br />
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New Zealanders are very health conscious. Whole grain and gluten-free options abound. Eggs, produce, and dairy products are delicious. Inasmuch as good food is the “last legitimate pleasure of the yogi,” we are enjoying ourselves immensely.<br />
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Hutt Valley is the home of Kavita’s partners in the planning of this trip, Bryan and Linda Rose. Bryan is a long-time disciple of Master. Master’s devotees here have a national retreat every year and through those events Kavita and Bryan became friends. When she shared Ananda with him, he took to it enthusiastically.<br />
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He and Linda planned to be at SRW this year, but a family emergency prevented it. So, except for e-mail and a few Skype calls, this was our first meeting.<br />
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They have a lovely spacious home where, to our joy, we have all managed to find a room or cubbyhole to stay in. On a tour like this, everyone adds to the magnetism and even a day apart feels like a long time.<br />
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Bryan Rose is well-educated in Master’s teachings and in the almost 20 years of being a disciple has obtained many unpublished or out-of-print writings of Master or collections of teachings from other disciples. We’ve enjoyed a box full of Master’s magazines dating from 1925, a notebook of quotes from Brother Bhaktananda and also from Brother Turiyananda, among other treasures.<br />
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In advance of our arrival, we shipped Ananda Publications from India and Bryan has been avidly reading through Swamiji’s books and The Wisdom of Yogananda series.<br />
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We brought him a copy of <i>Fight for Religious Freedom,</i> by our attorney Jon Parsons and, as you can imagine, we’ve had some lively discussions as Bryan, Kavita, and us sort through the amazing SRF-Ananda karma. <br />
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After all these years I’ve come to a very simple way of explaining it. SRF is <i>centralized.</i> Ananda is <i>de-centralized.</i> For each organization, this is both an organizational and a spiritual principle. <br />
<br />
Being so far away from the “headquarters” of both SRF and Ananda, it is more obvious than ever: So few on this planet strive to live in the light. What pleases God most of all is to love one another, for in God, all are equal. Whoever loves God is our brother and sister. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbgd7G6CMbFjqowutJxEUGStmjJLogdml9loCtCPbDm3U97zndv8qxXW7HUdJihknkOHHVd0BOXIdNmMOWbcSZJ3iHRNzOw4EcTIeRR17qSK-fbD9N3PZPBWaRht6Du66aHyrVeonu4tXL/s1600/10474739_10154648384125257_3558565314977719540_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbgd7G6CMbFjqowutJxEUGStmjJLogdml9loCtCPbDm3U97zndv8qxXW7HUdJihknkOHHVd0BOXIdNmMOWbcSZJ3iHRNzOw4EcTIeRR17qSK-fbD9N3PZPBWaRht6Du66aHyrVeonu4tXL/s1600/10474739_10154648384125257_3558565314977719540_n.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
We had a full weekend of programs in Hutt Valley. The venue again was lovely, a room in the Dowse Museum of Art. <br />
<br />
Bryan and Linda live right on the edge of town, and the Museum is within walking distance. Transporting books and all the other paraphernalia of Ananda-on-the-Road required that The Marshmellow (the name of our van...we’ve changed the spelling from “mallow” to “mellow” to express the attitude of those traveling within it) still had to be used, but most of us walked back and forth.<br />
<br />
New Zealand is a major exporter of dairy products and other agricultural goods. If they could package and sell the prana in the air, however, it would be the richest nation in the world. <br />
<br />
The turnout here was smaller -- about 15 for the free lecture and no more than 6 for any of the classes. Kavita has been active in Hamilton for some years, and she has built up a group. Here Bryan is just getting started with Ananda, so this is the beginning.<br />
<br />
Having a whole weekend together, we shared lunch, and sometimes dinner, bringing our new friends to Bryan and Linda’s where we ferreted around in the kitchen and made meals together.<br />
<br />
These informal interactions are as important -- perhaps more so -- than the formal classes. Ananda is a way of being in the world. It is spiritual family.<br />
<br />
When we showed <i>Finding Happiness</i> here, there was hardly a dry eye in the room. Swamiji’s presence is so powerful. And the picture of what life can be like when you put God first is thrilling, both for those of us who have decades of experience in Ananda, and for those seeing it for the first time. <br />
<br />
Although life in New Zealand is beautiful in so many ways -- national health care, among other things, removes many worries -- depression is a major problem. Kavita speculates this is because life is so comfortable, there is nothing to strive for and the “agonizing monotony” as Master’s calls it in <i>Autobiography of a Yogi,</i> leaves people groping for meaning. <br />
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Master’s teaching can be a solution. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikL1GcILR1QDXUkf3musjGP7w2zRAmYOBQybtEmd040MtWW2Zd0xbsNBDuzma6TNo-pXNvA3kTgVAKsUcD1VRMKVHJUnis5fHNADP13YO8_A-5HwFdkpR0kEd1hZCv_Ctz-Cp073_fq8n4/s1600/IMG_1334.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikL1GcILR1QDXUkf3musjGP7w2zRAmYOBQybtEmd040MtWW2Zd0xbsNBDuzma6TNo-pXNvA3kTgVAKsUcD1VRMKVHJUnis5fHNADP13YO8_A-5HwFdkpR0kEd1hZCv_Ctz-Cp073_fq8n4/s1600/IMG_1334.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
Nature is vibrant, and much respected. The biggest ecological problem is imported predators -- rats and other rodents -- brought over on the boats with the Europeans. This was devastating to the indigenous bird population, and efforts are being made now to restore the balance and protect endangered species.<br />
<br />
Bryan is deeply engaged in this and has taken Dambara into the high hills on an outing related to this effort.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, Bryan took Dambara and me to a nearby park. In typical fashion, it was sunny for the drive there, but as soon we reached the parking area, dark clouds moved in, torrential rain fell, then hail. <br />
<br />
A few minutes later, the storm abated, and we decided to take the walk we had planned. It was a rainforest after all, so getting wet should be part of the story. When you travel halfway around the world you want experiences you can’t get in your own neighborhood. <br />
<br />
We crossed a river on a swinging bridge, wandered through thick forest down to the river’s edge. This area was used for Rivendell in the filming of <i>The Lord of the Rings.</i> You can imagine how magical it was. <br />
<br />
Tonight we have a program at the local Theosophical Society. The subject is <i>The Yugas.</i> Should be interesting.<br />
<br />
This weekend we will be in Wellington on Friday and Saturday, then Palmerston North for Sunday Service and a class in the afternoon.<br />
<br />
For me, this journey is about attunement: To be in the moment, to feel what God and Gurus want, and as best I can to be their messenger.<br />
<br />
Keep us in your prayers.<br />
<br />
In divine friendship,<br />
Asha for Ananda New Zealand<br />
<br />
P.S. Turnout for the first Wellington talk was about 35 people -- a full house of dynamic and interesting people. Many plan to come to the classes on Friday and Saturday night. More about that next letter.<br />
<br />
P.P.S. <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117333920063460117344/AshaInNewZealand2014?authkey=Gv1sRgCPmCjveZio6zPg#">More photos of the trip so far are online here</a>.Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-47683315859599364002014-09-29T08:34:00.002-07:002014-09-29T08:36:06.351-07:00Hamilton, New ZealandDear Everyone:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ0L0ml1Sjpqkyw2YuAG4EtKaEaD0ZNgS3RMGYJ6dMMoFAzj9miZrjD9IE52nYNoovE2hLi_1-nuYPLFxuV40IFr3H9SI4cLQMqOt1vq7pYwxVwcVLpPRgrjpYpUTjvAL-Myerybr74A11/s1600/10687525_10205011251462726_6896348874269017856_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ0L0ml1Sjpqkyw2YuAG4EtKaEaD0ZNgS3RMGYJ6dMMoFAzj9miZrjD9IE52nYNoovE2hLi_1-nuYPLFxuV40IFr3H9SI4cLQMqOt1vq7pYwxVwcVLpPRgrjpYpUTjvAL-Myerybr74A11/s1600/10687525_10205011251462726_6896348874269017856_o.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a>We arrived on Wednesday, September 24. Traveling from the USA September 23 vaporized, but we will get back its equivalent with double-length November 4 when we return.<br />
<br />
On Wednesday and Thursday we had informal gatherings and met a handful of core people. <br />
<br />
Kavita, our host in Hamilton, has been teaching yoga, meditation, and related spiritual subjects for a few years, so we are coming into an established community of seekers.<br />
<br />
On Friday, our formal program began -- six sessions from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTJpHsf7VQ9fAZhUG5u24JCCrfnsjdA0kyIP-tIBvjl_K039wjMbVUMaLuTScCmp-tYoKwk2M4MlP098pol3PHxOxBE2Ku12rcxgyTNaeU1khdb0YwYRRKO8k-tivkrfybI7kKJFBWa-f/s1600/10686657_10154634201150257_6529329857791246065_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTJpHsf7VQ9fAZhUG5u24JCCrfnsjdA0kyIP-tIBvjl_K039wjMbVUMaLuTScCmp-tYoKwk2M4MlP098pol3PHxOxBE2Ku12rcxgyTNaeU1khdb0YwYRRKO8k-tivkrfybI7kKJFBWa-f/s1600/10686657_10154634201150257_6529329857791246065_n.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a>First were subject classes: super-consciousness, intuition, karma and reincarnation. Then we showed the movie, <i>Finding Happiness,</i> had a Sunday service, which included initiating three new disciples into this path, and then in the afternoon a beginning meditation, first steps to Kriya class. Some had already learned from Kavita the first techniques, but it was also a chance to explain the essence of this path.<br />
<br />
For the subject classes, we had pictures of Master and Swamiji, so people would know we represent a lineage, offering more than just our own ideas.<br />
<br />
For Sunday -- service and intro to Kriya -- we had the full altar in place. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06kKY9bef_zaPx2emOcX8ATE_sAWCQo37nZJj5yXGLneSJvF0292ev4xOLe4YhOvS-DjeoBmWicfVof-piLfVrnRVF_EtytCuec9EOFWTj1rJuvV3C8Ief2TWe7h48EwqcHRUrgl6jqvr/s1600/240177_10154640048055257_8206427882311277218_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06kKY9bef_zaPx2emOcX8ATE_sAWCQo37nZJj5yXGLneSJvF0292ev4xOLe4YhOvS-DjeoBmWicfVof-piLfVrnRVF_EtytCuec9EOFWTj1rJuvV3C8Ief2TWe7h48EwqcHRUrgl6jqvr/s1600/240177_10154640048055257_8206427882311277218_o.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a>Attendance varied from 25-40 people for each program -- <i>wonderful</i> people. Serious truthseekers, open-minded, and open-hearted. They listened thoughtfully and laughed easily. All were fully and appreciatively engaged.<br />
<br />
They loved <i>Finding Happiness.</i> No matter how much we try to explain Ananda, words are inadequate. And the movie has Swamiji. After the movie, all that we say makes more sense.<br />
<br />
Very promising start for Ananda New Zealand. <br />
<br />
That’s the summary. Now the travelogue. <br />
<br />
It is a nonstop, 12-hour overnight flight from San Francisco to Auckland. You lose a day, and change hemispheres, but New Zealand is directly south of Hawaii, so the time difference is only a few hours. <br />
<br />
The easy flight, plus excellent homeopathic remedy (<i>Jet Lag Relief,</i> from Homeostasis Labs -- accept no substitutes) meant no jet lag. Fabulous.<br />
<br />
It was rainy and cold in the days before we arrived -- spring here is unpredictable. Sunshine arrived with us and has kept us company ever since. Breezy, a little cool, but perfect.<br />
<br />
Kavita, her husband Aroon, and two teenage daughters, Veda and Devya, live in a marvelous old house right on the Waikato River. At one time the house was the post office for a nearby community. Later it was cut in half, moved, then reassembled in this location.<br />
<br />
Aroon is developing lovely orchards and gardens on the open acres around the house. By generously rearranging their own living quarters, they accommodated all of us under one roof. From most of the bedrooms, and two of the showers, we have a view of the river. <br />
<br />
Hamilton is in the middle of the north island. We are traveling from end to end, but will come and go from here. <br />
<br />
On Wednesday we go North Palmerston, where we will have a Kriya Initiation (for one person), and meet a long-time devotee friend of Kavita’s.<br />
<br />
Then on to the Wellington/Hutt Valley area for 10 days -- two big weekends and a smattering of classes and a little sightseeing in between. <br />
<br />
Long time devotee friends -- Bryan and Linda Rose -- are hosting us, organizing the events, and spreading the news of our coming. We’ll see what Master has in store.<br />
<br />
The traveling group is perfect. I have the laboring oar where the classes are concerned, but we are equal in carrying Master’s ray. Each is eloquent and enthusiastic in his or her unique way.<br />
<br />
Dambara is presenting Swamiji’s music. Bryan McSweeney filming the classes with help from Rachel Ebgi who is also taking informal footage for an eventual video about spreading Master around the world. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4biYrRUsEhz0jtabieWqaWSmupilAaCRNb_xUlWIdzCLHLzsiZmZN8TsmqISfcyvJ2GaXmoXW5oiuu3mAggPyUBoJd6fOHEISOdkmvhN0NfsqmLSNC7pfTIv7jR9RT0eBAiKcBy0KMxja/s1600/10295147_10152351444542401_393988370860634813_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4biYrRUsEhz0jtabieWqaWSmupilAaCRNb_xUlWIdzCLHLzsiZmZN8TsmqISfcyvJ2GaXmoXW5oiuu3mAggPyUBoJd6fOHEISOdkmvhN0NfsqmLSNC7pfTIv7jR9RT0eBAiKcBy0KMxja/s1600/10295147_10152351444542401_393988370860634813_o.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a>The second day we were here, we were having an organizational meeting around the breakfast table. I had to announce that Jill (Barker) would not be continuing with us on this journey.<br />
<br />
It was touching to see the consternation of the others at this announcement. We bonded deeply very fast.<br />
<br />
Their dismay was so great, I was naughty and let the moment go longer than necessary.<br />
<br />
“<i>Jill</i> won’t be with us anymore,” I said finally, “but <i>Atmajyoti</i> will be.”<br />
<br />
The evening before, the subject of a spiritual name for Jill had come up over the dinner table. I’m not entirely comfortable suggesting names for people but the essence of her name came in a flash of intuition, and it seemed right. <br />
<br />
So, no more Jill -- Atmajyoti has taken her place. <br />
<br />
The <i>atman</i> is the divine Self within. <i>Jyoti</i> is light, so <i>Atmajyoti</i> is the light of the divine Self. <br />
<br />
Atmajyoti has taken on the book sales, the registration, keeping track of the money and making everything beautiful. <br />
<br />
From Ananda Publications in India we got a large selection of books, which are all selling well, another indication of the serious interest here.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiMc1ZvCoLU3ZlMVINDzYYCGwFmQNSs0W1yR4KH026114Q4MwUqoWebJgP2lS-y2zrhSTb4l5vcs0rsknRh0p6PiAdleCtzsOJM94bURafOL1UTr90HgrP99Uu5Y1gaSjWj4SqQgPUByc2/s1600/10341504_10154634201280257_1202989926385247645_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiMc1ZvCoLU3ZlMVINDzYYCGwFmQNSs0W1yR4KH026114Q4MwUqoWebJgP2lS-y2zrhSTb4l5vcs0rsknRh0p6PiAdleCtzsOJM94bURafOL1UTr90HgrP99Uu5Y1gaSjWj4SqQgPUByc2/s1600/10341504_10154634201280257_1202989926385247645_n.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a>Dambara arrived a few days early, and met musician friends of Kavita who arranged an “insta-choir” with four excellent singers who learned and performed some of Swamiji’s songs throughout the weekend.<br />
<br />
On Friday evening, the official launch of Ananda New Zealand, this local quartet came in singing a Maori song of welcome and blessing. <br />
<br />
I’d never heard the melody or the vowel-filled language before, but it was deeply familiar and profoundly moving. With beautiful, heartfelt words, one of the singers then welcomed Master’s teachings and us as his representatives to the country of New Zealand. <br />
<br />
A most auspicious beginning.<br />
<br />
Much love from all here.<br />
<br />
AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-10858206344060445902014-09-12T07:44:00.000-07:002014-09-12T08:11:57.219-07:00New Zealand-BoundDear Friends:
<br />
<br />
Today is September 12th: Swamiji's discipleship anniversary and an auspicious day to share our latest adventure with Master. In ten days, September 22, I leave for New Zealand.
<br />
<br />
When Swamiji was with Self-Realization Fellowship, he may have visited New Zealand, but not after. He went to Australia a few times when Ananda tried to start a community there, but that community never took hold. “It isn’t time yet,” Swamiji concluded.
<br />
<br />
Now, 15 years later, we are again going to the Southern Hemisphere to see what Master has in mind.
<br />
<br />
The traveling party is five.
<br />
<br />
From Ananda Village, Bryan McSweeney and Rachel Ebgi. They’ll run the video equipment, Bryan can share about the schools, Rachel teaches yoga, and they plan to create a video log of the journey.
<br />
<br />
Dambara is coming from Portland to chant and sing Swamiji’s music, be a Lightbearer, and help teach various levels of meditation.
<br />
<br />
From Palo Alto, in addition to me, there is Jill Barker, to share her love for God, her deep understanding of the teachings, and her gift of creating beauty everywhere.
<br />
<br />
We are a nicely varied group, with a 45-year age span. Everyone will do a lot of everything, showing the many facets of Ananda.
<br />
<br />
Some of you have asked, “Why New Zealand?” Here is as much as I know.
<br />
<br />
In June 2012, Swamiji asked me to become “Ananda’s global ambassador.” My address would remain Palo Alto, but my duties and attitude would shift from local to global.
<br />
<br />
In the two years since, I’ve traveled some in the U.S, but mostly in India.
<br />
<br />
I love India, and seeing the open-ended potential there, I asked Swamiji if, when he said <i>world,</i> he actually meant <i>India.
</i><br />
<br />
“No,” he said, “I meant <i>world.”
</i><br />
<br />
I then asked, “By <i>world</i> did you mean <i>America?”
</i><br />
<br />
“I’m of two minds about America,” he said.
<br />
<br />
I understood perfectly. With its spirit of equality, freedom, and “We can do it!” America is ideally suited for Self-realization. This movement couldn’t have started anywhere else.
<br />
<br />
On the other hand, after you experience the devotion of India, and the heart-centered spirit of Italy, America can feel a little dry.
<br />
<br />
But devotees are the same everywhere no matter what passports we carry. The truth-seekers motto is <i>“One Nation of Self-Realization.”
</i><br />
<br />
When Master left India for America in 1920, Sri Yukteswar said, “Forget you were born a Hindu, and don’t be an American. Take the best of them both. Be your true self, a child of God. Seek and incorporate into your being the best qualities of all your brothers, scattered over the earth in various races.”
<br />
<br />
“Go where there is energy,” Swamiji told me, meaning where there are truth-seekers receptive to Master’s ray.
<br />
<br />
A further consideration is to continue in the directions Swamiji set, for Ananda and for me personally.
<br />
<br />
In 1971, Swamiji described Ananda’s future as “First we’ll build communities on the West Coast of America, then the East Coast, then on to Europe, from there to Australia, and from Australia to India. India will be more receptive if we bring an international work, not merely an American one.”
<br />
<br />
Much of what he envisioned has manifested. Ananda flourishes in India and Europe. “The work in America is going beautifully,” Swamiji often said. There are many devotees on the East Coast, although no communities -- yet. Australia is still waiting for the right time.
<br />
<br />
Twice Swamiji thought to send David and me to the East Coast. He tried also to involve me in Ananda Los Angeles, but the needs of Palo Alto took precedence. This gives me some direction for my future in America.
<br />
<br />
When I was in India last winter, I began to ask, “Where next?” Australia seemed an obvious choice. They speak English (my only language) and it was part of Swamiji’s vision.
<br />
<br />
“Should Ananda come to Australia and New Zealand?” was the subject line for an e-mail I sent to some 400 people on our list living in those countries.
<br />
<br />
Seconds after it was sent, I got a response. “Yes!” coupled with an offer to arrange the tour -- in New Zealand.
<br />
<br />
Several dozen devotees, from both countries, expressed enthusiasm, but no one in Australia could take charge. I had thought to do it myself -- I’ve organized many tours -- but those days are past. Without the right person in Australia, it was impossible.
<br />
<br />
“Go where there is energy,” which turns out to be New Zealand.
<br />
<br />
After the tour was set -- September 24-November 4, six cities on the North Island, no junket to Australia -- Kavita Parshotam, my New Zealand friend, told me “the rest of the story.”
<br />
<br />
Kavita has been a disciple of Master for more than 20 years. She found her Guru through Self-Realization Fellowship, was part of a small SRF group, and attended several Convocations in Los Angeles.
<br />
<br />
Kavita loves Master’s teachings. It is the nature of joy to want to share itself. She began to teach yoga, meditation, the Bhagavad-Gita, and other spiritual subjects.
<br />
<br />
In SRF only monastics are allowed to teach and Kavita has a family. She did her best to work within their guidelines.
<br />
<br />
She knew Master had a commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, but it has never been published. She googled Yogananda + Patanjali. In a matter of minutes, she ran through several videos on the subject; none held her attention. Then my face appeared.
<br />
<br />
I have been giving classes on <i>Demystifying Patanjali</i> for over a year. Poised to move on after the usual minute, instead Kavita watched the whole class and several more.
<br />
<br />
This opened the door to Ananda. She drank deeply from the online resources, and made plans to come to California in June for Meditation Teacher Training. Ananda provides many opportunities to serve. It is the nature of joy (Ananda) to share itself.
<br />
<br />
In January -- when I was in India asking, “Where should I go next?” -- Kavita grew impatient, waiting for June to come.
<br />
<br />
She gave Master a prayer-demand: “Bring Ananda to New Zealand.” Then, more specifically, “Bring Asha to New Zealand.”
<br />
<br />
When the pop-up window on her computer said, “Message from Asha: Should Ananda Come to Australia and New Zealand?” Kavita didn’t even read the e-mail. “Yes!” she typed, and hit send.
<br />
<br />
That we will have a delightful adventure is guaranteed. Traveling with devotees in a gorgeous country -- what is there not to love?
<br />
<br />
Will this be the beginning of Ananda New Zealand, leading perhaps to Ananda Australia as Swamiji envisioned decades ago? That is in the hands of God and Gurus.
<br />
<br />
But perhaps we can influence the decision.
<br />
<br />
Please pray for the success of our journey, that we may “Awaken Thy Love in all hearts.”
<br />
<br />
The itinerary is posted at <a href="http://www.anandanewzealand.org/">www.anandanewzealand.org</a>.
<br />
<br />
Wherever we are in the world, we are one in Master’s spirit. Joy. Joy. Joy.
<br />
<br />
In divine friendship,<br />
Nayaswami Asha
<br />
<br />
P.S. We’ll keep you informed as the trip unfolds.Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-15770142391208187702014-08-28T10:18:00.000-07:002014-08-28T10:18:09.649-07:00Seeing the Divine EverywhereDear Friends,<br />
<br />
When I first lived at Ananda Village, many years ago, it was very easy to be detached from material things, because we had none. For those of you who’ve been to our Pune community in India, it looked a bit like that, but worse, because at least they have a few nice buildings, and we had hardly any.<br />
<br />
We had a few domes, and we had a little temple, but for many years I lived in a tiny trailer. If I stretched out my arms I couldn’t actually touch both walls, but somebody slightly larger than me could have. I would walk maybe three or four steps up the middle of the trailer to sleep, meditate, do a little cooking, and sit and eat my meal. I never had dinner parties, but I was perfectly happy. I had everything I needed, and it comforted me not to have anything, because it meant that I didn’t have to ask myself questions about attachment. I found that being very poor is easy.<br />
<br />
When we had nothing, the question of material desires never arose. Why go there? You can’t buy anything, so you don’t need anything. And a certain inner reality began to grow in me during those cave-dwelling years – that as long as I didn’t have material things, it meant I was spiritual. <br />
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In other words, there was no question of my having actually refined my feelings – I was living a fantasy: “I can easily push my desires aside and they’ll be transcended.” <br />
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Of course, they weren’t transcended; they were in abeyance, waiting to fall on my head. <br />
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And then, by a series of events, I married David, and we suddenly needed a place to live. The area around Swami Kriyananda’s house was being redeveloped, and there was a tiny cabin on it, very funky, and Swamiji invited us to come and live next door to him – which, of course, was something highly desirable. <br />
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He asked if we could live in this little cabin. So the two of us walked into that cabin, and it immediately didn’t feel like a wholesome place for us to live. It’s odd, because normally I’d have said yes, but it didn’t feel right. <br />
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So Swami said, “Well, build a house there.” <br />
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There was a dual purpose to this. We didn’t have any money, so Swami said, “Why don’t you travel and lecture, Asha, then you can earn the money.” <br />
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I never, ever would have done that, but it was his way of picking me up by the seat of the pants and throwing me out into the world. So I started that work of traveling and lecturing, and it led to where we are today. <br />
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Then we had to build our little house. And my husband is a very energetic man. He has a very big aura. And he has taught me a lot, because he doesn’t break the world up into pieces. He doesn’t see material things, non-material, spiritual, non-spiritual. He just emits energy. And that’s what I learned from him; that it’s all energy, and if you live in a nice house, fine, and if you live in another house, fine – it doesn’t make any difference to him, because it’s all just energy. <br />
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So Swamiji asked him to build a house. And David has a very refined aesthetic sense, and of course he started designing the Taj Mahal. And finally I had to say, “Honey, I don’t know what incarnation you think we’re in, but it’s not that one, I promise you.” <br />
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Sometimes I joke with him, that if we’d done all this work for ourselves instead of for God, we’d be very wealthy by now – but not this time.<br />
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We whittled the house plans down to the right size, and now it’s the guest house at Crystal Hermitage. It’s a charming little house. But I had this enormous emotional attachment, of all things, to being impoverished. <br />
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Most people have an attachment to owning things, but my attachment was to being poor. I had made this little dream narrative that said “As long as she’s poor, she’s spiritual.” As long as people can come to my trailer and say, “How can you live in this tiny little dump?” I can say, “See how spiritual I am.” This was not an inspiration from God. It was an emotion that I had built around my life. A peculiar one, but just as binding as if I had been attached. <br />
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Meanwhile, David felt, “Swamiji wants us to build this house, and as devotees it behooves us to reflect the beauty of God. There’s nothing particularly spiritual about having nothing. It can be a sign of not putting out enough energy.”<br />
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I came up with a sort of secondary emotional plan, which is that we would build an ugly house and it would be perfectly clear that I couldn’t possibly have been attached to building this house because look at how badly it’s done. <br />
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David put up with that quietly for a while, then one day he said, “If you’re not going to help, at least get out of the way.” <br />
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That was when I began to realize, you know, “What’s this really all about?” I was pretending it was a divine feeling because it was all about being spiritual, but I had moved away from genuine intuition and from Swamiji’s guidance, and even away from my own common sense, because my emotions had constructed this self-enclosed reality and I wasn’t able to see the whole picture. <br />
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So I eventually just took it all down and erased it. I didn’t work on the house much, because I wasn’t that interested. But I chose the wallpaper and a few little things, and I began to discover that it was fun. <br />
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“Well, Divine Mother, here we are in the wallpaper store, a place I never expected to go ever, and there’s all this wallpaper.” And what kind of wallpaper reminds me of my own inner feelings of happiness? What represents to me what I want to be all the time? Because when you’re looking at beautiful things, or you’re looking at art, these are feelings of the heart. <br />
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When we come at them with too much reason – “That’s cheaper” – or “We don’t want that because our neighbors have it” – we cut ourselves off from our core. <br />
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This is what David was teaching me. “What is life asking of us right now? How can we make whatever we’re doing, whether it’s building a house, making lunch, raising a child, or teaching school – how can we make it a true emanation of the inner feeling of the Divine that is in us all the time?” <br />
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Then every little leaf of our life begins to vibrate with that reality, and we are living in our truest feeling nature, in divine awareness, but we aren’t caught up in the self-generated emotions that can so easily take us away from God.<br />
<br />
In Joy,<br />
asha Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-16298879043923732592014-07-23T19:14:00.000-07:002014-07-23T19:15:57.477-07:00How Can We Forgive?I read a touching article about a woman whose daughter was murdered. <br />
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After the murderer was sentenced to prison for life, the mother continued to boil with anger. In time, she realized that her own anger was killing her. And thus the man who had taken her child’s life was taking hers as well.<br />
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In hopes of finding healing, she traveled to the prison and met with the murderer. At first, she found it difficult to be in the same room. But, desperate for healing, she persevered.<br />
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She gradually began to see the man not as a monster, but as a fellow human being who had suffered. The story ended with them growing closer in mutual understanding, and with the woman becoming like a second mother to him.<br />
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The woman never condoned what the man had done. But she found that she could accept it – not as good or beautiful, but as a reality that simply had to be faced. <br />
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The murderer also experienced an expansion of consciousness. Before his meetings with the mother, he had no concept of the suffering he had caused. By getting to know the grieving mother, he came to understand that negative actions can have terrible results far beyond the moment of the act. <br />
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Accepting responsibility for his actions created an opening for the woman to open her heart to him in compassion. She offered him an example of the all-forgiving love of God. And she experienced the blessing of that love which constantly forgives.<br />
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In this life, all that we can ever experience is our own consciousness. If we poison our consciousness with anger, grief, bitterness, and resentment, our life becomes miserable. <br />
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Even if our circumstances give us every logical reason to be miserable, the real issue is: <i>Who suffers?</i> Divine forgiveness is an absolute requirement <i>for our own happiness.</i><br />
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There are no shortcuts to forgiveness. But perfect self-honesty will give us, in time, the humility to purge our hearts of blaming others for our suffering. No matter what the <i>facts</i> are, the <i>truth</i> is that we are responsible for our own consciousness.<br />
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A friend told me about the trouble she was having with an elderly relative. This old, bitter person was doing everything he could to suck the joy out of her life. <br />
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At one point, I interrupted. “You just sat there and let him talk to you like that?”<br />
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“Yes, I did.”<br />
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“I would have walked out and never come back,” I said. “It is not good for him to speak like that. And it is an offense against the God within you to let yourself be treated that way.”<br />
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Let me add that if my friend had been <i>unaffected,</i> I would have answered differently. If she could be detached and able to give her love joyfully to this unhappy old man, it might have been a spiritual service worth offering. But she was deeply affected, and all the joy was being sucked out of her.<br />
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To give people the impression that you live solely to be abused by them, and that whatever they do to you is fine, and that their actions will have no consequences for them, is <i>not</i> love or forgiveness. Almost always, it is simply guilt or fear. <br />
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It’s not always easy to analyze our own motives. But it has to be done. Humility isn’t self-abasement. It is courageous self-honesty – seeing things exactly as they are, without shame or excuses.<br />
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Years ago, Swami Kriyananda received a letter from a woman who said she was leaving her husband after seven years of marriage. <br />
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“Whenever I try to meditate,” she wrote, “he turns the television on as loud as possible. When I speak of spiritual things, he makes fun of me.”<br />
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Privately, Swamiji said to me, “She put up with that for seven years?! I wouldn’t have taken it for <i>fifteen minutes!”</i><br />
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I once received a letter from a woman whose partner of fifteen years had repeatedly betrayed her. He excused his actions by saying it was the result of the inner pain of a mental disorder. He announced he had been healed, and that he wanted to continue the relationship.<br />
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The woman asked me two questions: “Can people really change?” And, “When we commit to love and forgive <i>everything,</i> does it include inconstancy?”<br />
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Can a person change? Of course, anyone can change. We are children of God, capable of infinite improvement. But true healing requires that we take responsibility for our actions. And, so far as possible, we must make amends. Even if it’s very difficult to make amends, we must try; otherwise, there is a gap in our healing.<br />
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This woman’s partner attributed his betrayals to his mental disorder. But to “explain it away” isn’t the same as taking responsibility.<br />
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There was man who lived at Ananda Village who subsequently left and did his best to harm the community and many of his former friends by aggressively spreading false and malicious rumors. His lies caused pain for many people.<br />
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Years later, I happened to run into him. He behaved with great friendliness and began talking about the importance of forgiveness and healing. His point was that I, as a member of Ananda, should be expansive in my consciousness and forgive him for the trouble he had caused.<br />
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I said, “Have <i>you</i> changed? Do you repudiate the attitudes and actions of the past? Will you apologize to all those you hurt? Will you take back your lies?”<br />
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His answer was carefully crafted. “I’m sorry that some of you suffered.”<br />
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I said, “That’s no answer! Are you sorry <i>for the part you played in causing that suffering?” </i><br />
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To that he made no reply, which told me all I needed to know. He wasn’t willing to admit that he had acted improperly. Instead he was trying to shame me into believing that I would be acting improperly if I didn’t welcome him back with open arms!<br />
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I bear him no ill will. But, as I explained to him in no uncertain terms, it would be irresponsible of me to welcome him back into my life and into the life of Ananda if he showed no actual proof that he had changed. He was trying to take advantage of Ananda’s well-known generosity of heart.<br />
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The question isn’t, <i>“Can</i> a person change?” It is, <i>“Has he changed?”</i> And, if so, “What is the <i>proof?”</i> Pleasant-sounding statements alone are not enough.<br />
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Returning to the subject of the straying husband who attributed his inconstancy to his emotional illness: Even though an apology isn’t the same as reform, it’s a first step toward taking responsibility for one’s behavior. <br />
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In the case of the person who had tried to harm Ananda, there was no apology. There was no acceptance that he had done anything wrong. <br />
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Did the straying husband apologize for his behavior? If so, and if he was genuinely trying to become a better person, then there was no lowering of standards to prevent the partner from forgiving him and welcoming him back into her life. But before welcoming him back, she would need to deeply consider his potential for falling back into the same delusion.<br />
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Certainly, perfect love can forgive all. But to consider yourself a victim, and to act like a doormat, is to doom yourself to suffering and disappointment.<br />
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We all make mistakes. God understands us completely and forgives our weaknesses endlessly. But it is our duty to do our best to change.<br />
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In joy,<br />
ashaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-82280036992019545442014-06-25T16:19:00.001-07:002015-05-11T01:49:21.834-07:00How Should We Relate to Spiritual Authority?I’ve always considered Swami Kriyananda to be Paramhansa Yogananda’s chosen messenger. <br />
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Master told Swamiji that he would not be merely a teacher, but that he would have spiritual responsibility for people. And an essential part of our relationship with him involves understanding how to relate to his spiritual authority.<br />
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I like to think of the spiritual realm as a kingdom, where the king appoints a prince to be in charge of a certain province. The fact that the prince isn’t the king doesn’t give him any less authority to rule in the king’s name. Nor are his subjects more in tune with the king when they ignore the prince. <br />
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In the subset of Yogananda’s spiritual family that is Ananda, Swami is the one whom Yogananda gave the responsibility of speaking for him. If we relate to Swami with that kind of respect, it facilitates the flow of dynamic spiritual energy between us. But if we refuse to hear Swami as Yogananda’s representative, thinking “I don’t know who you are, I only know I love Yogananda,” the system breaks down, and our spiritual progress is weakened.<br />
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In a Catholic monastery, each monk’s superior becomes the voice of Christ for him. Of course, the Church pushed the concept too far, when it insisted that the superior can demand blind obedience. <br />
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Many people don’t understand how to relate to spiritual authority. Often, they think they have to relate to the teacher mindlessly, like the monks in a Catholic monastery, and that they can’t think and evaluate for themselves. <br />
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It’s very important to remember that God can reach you more effectively if you’re sincere about wanting to be reached. If you act from faith and devotion, from common sense and discrimination, then the people whom God has given spiritual authority in your life will be empowered to help you, through your faith and humility.<br />
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Any relationship works better if you’re respectful, and if you’re attentive and trying to tune in. This is especially true in the relationship of the teacher and student, where we’re trying to let ourselves be guided. <br />
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Sister Gyanamata, who gave us the most extraordinary example of a disciple, shared many wonderful instructions from her life with Paramhansa Yogananda. She said, “You can say anything you want to the guru, as long as you speak with detachment and respect.” <br />
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I’ve given Gyanamata’s words a lot of thought. And of course they’re true about our relationship with the guru, but they’re also true in our relationships with the other people in our lives. <br />
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You can say pretty much anything you want to anyone, as long as you speak with detachment and respect. It’s when you’re not detached and respectful that things start to go awry. As long as you’re impersonal, bringing forth your ideas with sincerity, and being respectful of the person you’re talking to, not sneering and putting him down, that communication can flow.<br />
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Many years ago, Swamiji told me, “You don’t express what you really feel, but you’re not fooling me.” <br />
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I had been working hard on holding the right attitude – too hard, in fact, so hard that I wasn’t allowing myself to have my own feelings and think my own thoughts. <br />
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Swami has always said that he much prefers an honest argument over a mindless “yes.” A mindless yes is not a yes; it’s a firecracker waiting to go off. An honest argument is the process of coming to the truth you’re looking for.<br />
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Years ago, just after Swami published one of his books, a woman kept calling me with incredibly convoluted, niggling objections to what he’d said in the book, paragraph by paragraph. <br />
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She was a bright woman, and I couldn’t understand her objections. Finally, I got so tired of talking to her that I said, “What are you doing?” <br />
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She said, “If Swami isn’t wrong, then I have to listen to him.” <br />
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I said, “Oh, I get it. Okay, we’re talking about fear. We can have a real conversation about fear.” <br />
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She had been exhausting us with her attempts to discredit him, so that she wouldn’t have to face the real issue, which was that he might be right and she’d have to accept his spiritual authority.<br />
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I’ve always treated Swami as if he were Master, because I consider him to be Master’s representative, and he’s always spoken to me in that way. I’ve always felt that what he said to me carried that level of authority. He’s been, and continues to be, an extraordinary channel of Master’s for us all. But God can only inspire us to the extent that we’re receptive. If you’re praying, and you sincerely want to hear the answer to your prayer, then the truth can come into your mind.<br />
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I’ve had the experience of people asking me for advice, and I found I couldn’t think of anything to say. And I realized the person didn’t actually want me to say anything, because they were afraid of what I might say, and as a result I drew a blank. <br />
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Several times, I asked Swami for advice in such a way that we both knew I wasn’t going to be able to follow whatever advice he gave me. At those times his answer was always, “I have nothing to say.” <br />
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People say to me, “I like coming to church, and I like what you say, but I don’t connect with Kriyananda.” And I tell them, “You’re connected with nothing <i>but</i> Kriyananda. You just don’t know it yet. You have called it as you see it, but you don’t yet understand the source of the power. <br />
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“Everything that you experience through Ananda is created by Swami Kriyananda. Everything that I’m saying comes from Swami. Rarely do I give you an idea of my own. So if you like any word that I say, you really like Kriyananda without realizing it. I encourage you to go beyond me to the source, to Swami and through him to Yogananda, because you might as well climb the highest mountain.”<br />
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Swami Kriyananda wasn’t fully liberated until the end of his life, but he was highly attuned with Yogananda. He was, and continues to be, a pure channel for Yogananda’s energy. <br />
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In Master’s Joy,<br />
ashaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-46443543166368806992014-05-28T19:52:00.000-07:002014-05-28T19:52:30.615-07:00Ask Asha: How Can I Have God All the Time?<b>Question</b> <br />
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How can I have God all the time? <br />
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<b>Answer</b> <br />
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Many of the techniques we practice on the spiritual path are so simple that we can all too easily fail to see how powerful they are. <br />
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We imagine that if something is complex and hard to understand, it must be powerful. If there are lots of things to remember, and if you have to get the syllables just right, then it must be important and powerful. Yet the techniques of this path are simple and powerful. <br />
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Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re easy. Practicing the presence of God is simple, for example, yet it’s a challenge.<br />
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You find that the more you practice, the more the boundaries of your ego dissolve, and the more you discover that you are part of a greater reality. And then your intuition develops, so that you find that you’re aware of that higher reality in everything.<br />
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Several years ago, Swami Kriyananda challenged us to keep our minds on God for just five minutes a day. <br />
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I was very embarrassed, because he was asking us to think of God without letting our minds wander: “I’m hungry,” “I want to get that blue dress,” “Oh, there’s a spot on my pants,” “What am I going to do tomorrow?”<br />
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We all know how it goes. You’re sitting there trying to meditate, repeating the mantra, and all of a sudden you aren’t. And you’re not sure exactly when you stopped doing the mantra. <br />
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That’s why we say we “practice,” because we have to practice bringing our minds back over and over whenever they wander away.<br />
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Yogananda said that if you take care of the minutes, the incarnations will take care of themselves. The problem is, we think we have to look past the minutes and take care of many important things. But if your consciousness is uplifted and centered here and now, you find that your life flows beautifully.<br />
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One of the reasons we chant is that singing the words is a wonderful way to keep our hearts engaged and our mind focused. When you repeat the words with feeling, the mind <i>wants</i> to practice the presence, because it sees how enjoyable it is.<br />
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When Brother Bhaktananda was a young disciple, he spent eight years constantly repeating a simple phrase: “I love you, Guru.” One day Yogananda saw him and said, “I love you, too.” <br />
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Swamiji’s book <i>Affirmations for Self Healing</i> gives us many wonderful phrases we can repeat to keep our minds in the present, on God. <br />
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<i>I possess the creative power of spirit, the divine. </i><br />
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<i>The infinite intelligence will guide me and solve every problem. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The sunshine of divine prosperity has just burst through my dark clouds of limitation. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I go forth in perfect faith in the power of omnipresent good to bring me what I need, at the time I need it. </i><br />
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When life’s laundry list tries to fill up your mind, you can start saying your affirmation and everything changes. <br />
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Frank Laubach was a protestant missionary in the Philippines. Rev. Laubach began to suspect there might be something more to religion than anyone had told him. He began to try to be constantly in the company of Jesus. <br />
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In his book <i>Letters of a Modern Mystic,</i> Laubach describes all the things he did to be aware of the presence of Jesus, and how difficult this simple idea was to practice – and how magnificently it turned out for him.<br />
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There’s a book called <i>The Way of a Pilgrim</i> by a Russian peasant who became a saint by practicing the presence of God. He had read in the Bible that we are supposed to “pray unceasingly.” And in his simple religious fervor, he set out to discover what it meant. He took as his mantra the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” <br />
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At first he repeated it a little each day, then more and more, until he was saying it unceasingly. And then he began to discover that his breath, his heartbeat, and everything in the universe was the same. His prayer became all of creation, and he became nothing but that prayer. <br />
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These stories open startling possibilities. You realize that if we pick up these simple tools, how much can happen. <br />
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We think we have to do something big and important. We have to move somewhere and change our job so we can make more money and go on more retreats. But none of those things have to happen. You can find God if you step out the door of your mundane habits and start saying your chosen prayer.<br />
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It’s a thrilling process. Once you recognize the power of it, then you can have the presence of God anywhere. If you’re in a prison cell you can be with God. If you’re ill and can’t sit to meditate, you can do your practice and have God. If everybody in your family is screaming and won’t give you a moment’s rest, you can do it. Silently practicing the presence of God is the devotee’s secret weapon in the battlefield of life.<br />
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In Joy,<br />
ashaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-70916080717945306892014-04-30T15:56:00.000-07:002014-04-30T15:56:53.962-07:00Ask Asha: Divine Mother<b>Question</b> <br />
<br />
I’m used to thinking of God as the Heavenly Father. The idea of Divine Mother is very new to me. What’s the Divine Mother all about?<br />
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<b>Answer</b> <br />
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In the summer of 1970, I visited a friend who lived on the small property that was Ananda’s only land at the time. Later, it became the Seclusion Retreat. But at the time, it was all there was of Ananda, just 12 acres of remote land with hardly anything on it but trees, bushes, and a few primitive structures. <br />
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We were all very young, and everybody was just scratching out a living on the land.<br />
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Binay was a young monk who lived there at the time and still lives at Ananda Village. But back in those very early days, he started a jewelry business in the back of a delivery truck that the owner had abandoned there.<br />
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Binay would cut little pieces of wood and put rosin on them, then put dried wildflowers in the rosin. It was a very nice product. Every so often, you can still see Ananda folks carrying them as key chains or wearing them as necklaces. <br />
<br />
Then someone got the bright idea of cleaning up the property, and so they attached a tractor to Binay’s jewelry shop and hauled it away to the dump.<br />
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On the afternoon I arrived, I wandered around and eventually found my friend talking with Binay in the office dome. <br />
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Binay was saying, “Well, I really thought that Mother wanted me to start that jewelry business, but I guess She didn’t, because she hauled the truck away.” <br />
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As I sat there listening, I thought, “He’s got a really strange mother! First she tells him to do a jewelry business, and then she takes his shop away.” <br />
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I thought, “And he’s a pretty old fellow to be letting his mother run his life.” <br />
<br />
The whole thing was way, way too weird for me, even though I’d studied eastern philosophy for quite a few years. And when I found out that he meant the Divine Mother, it didn’t make it any easier. In fact, it made it worse, because I had no mental cabinet where I could fit that idea.<br />
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The first job I had at Ananda was in the kitchen. The woman in charge desperately needed help, and so someone asked me to go work there. <br />
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I told her I couldn’t cook worth beans, but she said, “That’s okay, for lunch you just need to make scalloped potatoes.” <br />
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I said, “How do you make scalloped potatoes?” And she raised her eyes to the ceiling and said, “Oh, Mother, why do you always send me people like this?” <br />
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So again I was thinking, “What’s wrong with these people?” But fortunately, I liked Ananda enough to stay.<br />
<br />
This woman consistently turned me off to the concept of Divine Mother. She was extravagant in her expression, and she was always blaming Divine Mother for everything that happened, always in an extremely dramatic way. And I just wanted nothing to do with it. <br />
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A year or two later, somebody was talking to me and I said, “Oh well, just trust Divine Mother, and it’ll be all right.” <br />
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I heard myself say the words, and I thought, “Where did that come from?” And I realized that they were only words to describe something that had become very big and real for me.<br />
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There are people who have an image of the Heavenly Father as looking like Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel – a God in human form, living in a house with Divine Mother, and they have a little family and they cook and lead a normal life like you and I. But that’s not what we’re talking about when we refer to God in these familiar forms as mother and father. <br />
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“Mother” and “Father” are, in fact, only words. What we’re saying is that there is a force in the universe that you can experience inside yourself, and this force feels like someone who always loves you, whom you can trust completely, who accepts you completely for who you are, and who is always on your side.<br />
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Jesus called this force “the Comforter.” I love that word. In the Bible, Christ says, “I am leaving you, but I will send the Comforter.” <br />
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Esoterically, Jesus was talking about the AUM vibration. AUM is an actual sound that we can hear in meditation. It is, in fact, the force that is our own deepest nature. It’s the Comforter – which we know because when we experience this vibrational force, we experience the power and presence of God – not way out there somewhere waiting for us to get organized so that He can bless us, but right inside of us, exactly like a mother.<br />
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Think of what it is to be a little child, and to be able to rush up to the mother and experience her complete acceptance and love. A two-year old can be playing happily, and all of a sudden they see something that is way too much for their little minds, and so they press against the mother’s body. They’re gripping her legs and asking to be lifted onto her lap. And the mother picks the child up and holds it against her bosom.<br />
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This image, which seems so intimate and loving and familiar, is in fact very small compared to the love that we feel when we receive this inner vibration. <br />
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Searching for a word to describe what that inner vibration is like, we arrive at the image of a mother, because that vibration is saturated with unconditional love. <br />
<br />
It was hard for me to accept the idea of Divine Mother, because it wasn’t intellectual. I had studied philosophy and I’d read the Gita and the Upanishads, and I had a grand picture of the cosmos all worked out in my mind. <br />
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And then to say, “Oh, Divine Mother…” – I simply couldn’t be that childlike! It was too unsophisticated. And it wasn’t until I had lived the teachings for a time that I began to feel, without really thinking about it, the presence of the Divine Mother. And then the words came out of my mouth naturally. Because there weren’t any other adequate words to describe that presence.<br />
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Jesus spoke of the Father, so that people could feel closer to God. And he promised that their Father would never judge them harshly or punish them, because He was a spirit of Love, and not only of impersonal Law.<br />
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Now, Yogananda has come to us with a new dispensation from God, and he speaks of God as the Mother. <br />
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Yogananda told people, “Pray to God as Mother, because the Mother is closer than the Father.” <br />
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The image he urged us to hold in our heart is that there need no longer be any separation between us and the consummately loving expression of God as the Mother. Yogananda came to tell us that God is much closer than mankind has ever dreamed.<br />
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You find that your experience broadens over the years. In 1970, I would never have thought that I would take Divine Mother as my own. I was far too small and mentally contracted. But as I began to open my heart, what do you know? I found that I could experience a reality that included Divine Mother.<br />
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So, even if you can’t accept the Mother for now, don’t reject it. Just say, “I won’t put on that particular garment yet. I’ll put it in the back of the closet, and for now I’ll wear this one, because it’s comfortable.” <br />
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Yogananda said that if we would do only ten percent of the things he said, we would find our freedom in God. But everyone needs a different ten percent, and that’s why he gave us so much. <br />
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The point is, you can only trust your experience. So go forward step by step, and don’t limit yourself because something seems strange at first. After a time, it won’t seem strange at all.<br />
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God bless you,<br />
ashaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-86706075350340663012014-03-27T10:21:00.001-07:002014-03-27T10:25:07.242-07:00When Should We Be Moderate? When Should We Be Extreme?Dear Friends,<br />
<br />
A question I’m sure we’ve all asked ourselves is how we can practice moderation, as the masters recommend, when they also urge us not be moderate in our devotion and our selflessness. <br />
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The brief answer that Paramhansa Yogananda gave is that we should have common sense. <br />
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St. Teresa of Avila established many convents in her brief life. Either eleven or twenty-four nuns would be set up in a cloister where they would live in perpetual seclusion. Once they entered the convent, the door would close, and they would remain there the rest of their lives. Teresa stressed that great care must be taken in selecting the nuns, because otherwise the whole convent would fall apart. <br />
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She said, “Above all, look for common sense.” She told those who had the duty of choosing nuns that everything else, including devotion, can be acquired, but common sense is much more difficult.<br />
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Moderation is just another way of saying, “Use your common sense.” <br />
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We need to keep our eye on the goal. And if the goal is self-transformation – well, you know what a project that is! In fact, it’s a long process. You don’t want to live in a way that puts you on a perpetual cycle of exerting too much effort, then collapsing, then feeling terribly guilty, then going to extremes again so you can’t maintain it and you fall back. All you’re doing is generating lots of excitement, but you aren’t making progress. It’s in this sense that the masters urge us to be moderate, because moderation is sustainable.<br />
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We’re looking for a life that is sustainable over the very long haul. As Swamiji said, the spiritual path is not a sprint. It’s a long-distance race. You can’t use up all your energy at the beginning, or you won’t be able to finish. Moderation means thinking of the long flow of what you’re trying to accomplish. <br />
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At the same time, the transformation required to attain Self-realization is anything but moderate. It’s not that we need to be a teeny bit nicer than we are now. That’s not what’s being asked. We’re urged to aspire to total self-forgetfulness, total release from the identification of our soul with the body. So we have to be extremely vigilant and attentive to the inroads of false ideas, and very determined to weed them out of our lives. But we have to weed them in a way that works. We have to do it carefully and patiently, step by step.<br />
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Swamiji said, “Don’t resist what life asks of you.” Our natural tendency is to pull back from what we think we don’t want, in the hope that if we make ourselves smaller it won’t find us. But whatever comes to us, comes because it’s our karma. It’s what’s demanded for our growth. <br />
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A friend of ours was living in an ashram, and she was assigned a job that she simply couldn’t do. She went to her meditation room and prayed, “Lord, if You want this job done well, get somebody else. If You want it done badly, leave me here.” <br />
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She figured that if He didn’t replace her, He must want it done badly, but it wasn’t her problem. She proceeded to do the best she could.<br />
<br />
Before you begin a project, large or small, ask God to guide you. I find that when anxieties threaten to overwhelm me, I can always find the strength and guidance I need by repeating the affirmation, “I know that God’s power is limitless, and I know that I am made in his image.” Then what happens? I find that in a very short period, I feel more confident and much less anxious. <br />
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I’ve used this affirmation a lot, because there’s no part of me that resists that thought. “I know that God’s power is limitless, and I know that I am made in his image.” <br />
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I find it very powerful to say before I go to sleep. Fall asleep with a positive affirmation. Then as soon as you wake up, before anxieties try to enter your mind, say it again. Pick an affirmation, and chop the weeds of your anxiety with it every day until you’ve overpowered them. Because, you see, all of your fears and anxieties exist in your head. There’s no reality to them. Change your thoughts, change your consciousness, and you’ll change everything.<br />
<br />
In Joy,<br />
asha<br />
<br />
<i>For more inspiring articles, visit “<a href="http://www.nayaswamiasha.org/heart">Heart to Heart with Asha</a>.”</i>Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-53647768665404859112014-02-19T20:13:00.002-08:002014-02-19T20:14:08.725-08:00Pune, Bangalore, and ThiruvannamalaiDear Friends:<br />
<br />
My last letter ended when I had to dash off for the first of three classes of a weekend retreat at the Pune Community: Finding Happiness. Aptly titled to ride on the wave of the movie, which we had recently screened in nearby Mumbai, as well as a number of other Indian cities.<br />
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All those screenings, by the way, have gone splendidly, with stellar reviews from a wide variety of people -- business, filmmaking, education, social work, politics, law. Everyone seems to like the movie.<br />
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Theater release has been arranged for mid-April in 12 cities.<br />
<br />
As you know, Elisabeth Rohm is enjoying a great boon in her career because of her part in the award-winning movie <i>American Hustle.</i> Many opportunities are coming to her and as a result it is not good timing for her to come to India for a “premier,” which was an option Shivani had been exploring.<br />
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In India, a premier is primarily a media event, with lots of opportunities for interviews and publicity. Since the movie star in our film is unable to come to India, we’ve hit upon a spectacular life-imitates-art solution, and are bringing two Indian journalists to America to visit Ananda Village, to recreate -- to a certain extent -- the plot of the movie itself. Elisabeth wasn’t able to come all the way to India, but is able to take the weekend at the Village. The resulting publicity for the movie opening in India, and perhaps even in the U.S., we hope will be notable.<br />
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The journalists will also be passing through Palo Alto (for about 24 hours) to get an impression of an urban center as well. Great fun.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTs-m-h8-quca6EzdJZwP14Dc0KUqXADfBTRQLO8i6L5TGHhS-T3WzTtwyyialz6V51OBV6Yvk-iBIZjO1lfwJxIZsRiUp1Jk5V1cUTzadZD-_BRjeX-cZtwEV7NVpeO0nH4NMAg0gjZXk/s1600/IMG_8980.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTs-m-h8-quca6EzdJZwP14Dc0KUqXADfBTRQLO8i6L5TGHhS-T3WzTtwyyialz6V51OBV6Yvk-iBIZjO1lfwJxIZsRiUp1Jk5V1cUTzadZD-_BRjeX-cZtwEV7NVpeO0nH4NMAg0gjZXk/s1600/IMG_8980.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>The weekend at the Pune community went extremely well. We had about 30 visitors, including quite a few from Mumbai, including our Public Relations agent and two representatives of the media, all working to line up publicity to break in early April in time for the theater opening. As you can imagine, a great deal of energy is going into that event, and it looks extremely promising. The movie will play in theaters for at least a week, more if attendance warrants it.<br />
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Our Pune community is still “coming up” as they say in India, but even with some of the buildings still under construction, and the construction barely begun for the temple, there is a profound and beautiful spiritual atmosphere that all our visitors felt immediately. Especially when you contrast that rural setting with the hectic life in the cities where most of the visitors come from!<br />
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There were about the same number of residents and long-term guests (who have become members of the family) as there were weekend visitors. The spirit of Ananda shines through the eyes and hearts of Master’s children and touches all who come into that magic aura.<br />
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The temple we are using until the final one is constructed has net walls, a tin roof, and a strong tree branch holding up the center point of the ceiling. In these simple surroundings, the altar shines as always, with big pictures of the masters, and beautiful garlands. It is heaven on earth.<br />
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The Pune community at its present stage of development is so like the early years of Ananda Village it is a special joy for me to stay there.<br />
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I had been a little concerned about coming to the place where I last saw Swamiji in the body. When I went to Assisi after his passing, I was relatively calm until I went to his house. As some of you may remember, I wrote at the time that his house is where I always saw Swamiji in Assisi and I think some part of me expected to see him there. When I finally did go and found only a shrine in his bedroom, marking the place where he breathed his last, it was the moment when my emotions overtook my philosophical calm and for a time nothing could stop my tears.<br />
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I saw Swamiji as he was driving out of the Pune community last March (I believe it was the 11th) and my last personal interaction was taking leave of him in the living room of his house. He always sat in one particular chair and I can see him smiling his good-bye as I walked out the door, not knowing what was soon to come.<br />
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So it was with some small trepidation that I returned to this community. <br />
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Fortunately, my concern was unfounded. His presence is so strong there was no sense of loss.<br />
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Swamiji gave the house to Narayani and Shurjo. His dining table is in one corner of the large living room, and she keeps his place set. Most days he would have coffee after lunch in one of a brightly colored set of espresso cups that he particularly liked. Narayani says each day he would select from the several choices the color he wanted to drink from. Now she has one of those cups at his place and every day or two tunes into what color he would prefer.<br />
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In the chair where he always sat, some of his things are laid out. Devotees coming to visit Pune can come to the living room, sit at the dining table, meditate and feel his presence. Often on his chair one finds flowers or cards placed there by visitors. <br />
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Off the living room, is the bedroom, and after the bedroom, a small office. That room has an outside entrance, which opens onto a patio where Swamiji usually had tea. Compared to the other rooms, the office is rather small. Just a desk, chair, and armchair where Swamiji could sit and read over what he had just written. <br />
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I felt Swamiji’s spirit everywhere in the house, but most particularly in that office. In fact, it was so strong it startled me every time I came in or out. So much brilliant, divinely inspired creative work happened there. The vibrations remain.<br />
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Whenever I was with Swamiji, his presence would entirely dominate my consciousness. Those of you who live in Palo Alto may remember my asking all of you to bear with me during his visits because I would be unable to respond even to the simplest requests. It wasn’t just a matter of looking after him and his staff. I found myself unable to put my mind on anything else. I was always grateful for your understanding and support.<br />
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When we would visit Swamiji in other communities it was the same. I had no responsibilities for his care, but still my thoughts were absorbed in him. Even if I had hours free every day, it was difficult to give my energy to anything or anyone else.<br />
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I remember when we flew to Rome immediately after Swamiji’s passing. People were coming from America on many different flights and converging on that city over a period of 3-4 hours. <br />
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Our custom when going to Assisi was to leave the airport as quickly as possible to reach Swamiji with a minimum of delay. It was poignant last April to realize there was no need to rush. As I wrote at the time, we sat for several hours at a coffee shop in the airport as flights landed and our table expanded to include the new arrivals. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxz9MMzZDgaYYEAd1a1UeQoSXQ0BURTEqGeiojm-QylI7WrBYnnEbED5kjPU3P3tmivJgYIvbK0sZ6gPfFIMfcgrd_aDmaoyoriKjcy4g4Rm5QWSSo0WpypkVfxPao7BBG9cieWZ4NvLSh/s1600/IMG_8992.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxz9MMzZDgaYYEAd1a1UeQoSXQ0BURTEqGeiojm-QylI7WrBYnnEbED5kjPU3P3tmivJgYIvbK0sZ6gPfFIMfcgrd_aDmaoyoriKjcy4g4Rm5QWSSo0WpypkVfxPao7BBG9cieWZ4NvLSh/s1600/IMG_8992.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>In Pune community this time, I suddenly found myself free to relate to the people there. I ended up giving quite a few satsangs. The weekend, of course, several programs for the community, two at our Pune city center, and two workshops at a company in town where one of our devotees works.<br />
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When I wasn’t sharing with a group, I was spending time with individuals. All my time, in fact, was with people. By the end of the 10 days we spent there, I was so much a part of the community it was hard to leave. Such is the power of our divine connection with one another.<br />
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From the Pune community we flew to Bangalore. Shivani’s husband Arjuna has been in India for the last month, bringing a pilgrimage group from Europe and then staying on to spend time with Shivani. <br />
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The four of us -- Shivani, Arjuna, Asha, and Bryan -- shared a 3-bedroom apartment a guest unit in the complex of apartments where one of our devotees lives.<br />
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The showing of <i>Finding Happiness</i> on Saturday night had been long-planned. At the last minute, another showing was arranged for Sunday morning at a University some distance from the city. This is a “yoga university,” based on the teachings of Vivekananda. It turned out to be the largest showing yet -- some 300 students and faculty. This is an innovative university, with a huge medical facility, teaching and offering treatments in many natural methods of health care, all based on the principles of yoga.<br />
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I wasn’t able to go since our Finding Happiness workshop was scheduled already at the center for the same time. Shivani, Haridas, and one of the local devotees went and had a stellar time. The equipment at the university includes machinery with the ability to measure subtle energy in the body and they greatly enjoyed testing some of it. <br />
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Shivani is hoping to set up with them some scientific way of measuring the effect of the Energization Exercises. Haridas and Roma -- the Bangalore Center leaders -- are going to follow through and be the guinea pigs. Shivani said she has been hoping for the last 20 years that equipment would become available subtle enough to measure this energy. Seems like the time is now.<br />
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The Bangalore Ananda Center is the living room of a two bedroom flat where Haridas and Roma live. The altar is particularly beautiful. Whenever there is an event in any of our India centers, fresh flower garlands are lovingly placed on every picture of every Master. In India, the providing of garlands for home and temple decoration is a huge, daily business.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixFQq6BaLHLg_MEdj7JnWHa2C24MSKx73yhyJI3DtoYc2z9ATGpbKj4nSVdzsHpLefF-CxN1kLp3C4MOCdCDfJaq8KxQIekAwqvsDaQ1_w4iMuiuDBy54xKEKzNY8Zsi5gzx-yIB7yNOD7/s1600/IMG_9089.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixFQq6BaLHLg_MEdj7JnWHa2C24MSKx73yhyJI3DtoYc2z9ATGpbKj4nSVdzsHpLefF-CxN1kLp3C4MOCdCDfJaq8KxQIekAwqvsDaQ1_w4iMuiuDBy54xKEKzNY8Zsi5gzx-yIB7yNOD7/s1600/IMG_9089.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>For the Finding Happiness seminar, the garlands were of red roses and red carnations. I’ve seen many beautiful altars, but there was something uniquely entrancing about those red flowers. Certainly set the mood for a most enjoyable program.<br />
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Because people work long hours, and traffic in all Indian cities can be horrendous, weekday programs are uncertain at best. So my efforts are mostly concentrated on the weekends.<br />
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Since the next stop is Calcutta (Kolkata as it is now called, but I have trouble remembering that!), we found ourselves with a few days free.<br />
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Bryan went down to Puri, to the Mahasamadhi Mandir of Sri Yukteswar. In all his time in India he had never visited that particular shrine. Since it is my favorite, I was delighted that he would have the chance to experience it. The ocean there is considered holy. It washes away our karma. Always a good idea!<br />
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Shivani had arranged for the three of us to come to Thiruvannamalai. This is a place between Bangalore and Chennai. The reason to come is because of a holy mountain, said to be the physical manifestation of Lord Shiva. It is called Arunachala. You find temples here where the <i>murti</i> -- the image of God -- is the three hillocks of Arunachala.<br />
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The mountain itself has been especially blessed in recent times by the presence of a great yogi, Ramana Maharshi. From the late 1800s, until the mid-50s (I am not certain of the exact dates) he made this mountain his home.<br />
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He was a very austere yogi, who spent much of his time in silent meditation. Before I met Swamiji, I read a great deal about him and felt deeply inspired by his one-pointed devotion. Up until the age of 16, he lived as an ordinary person. Then he had a revelation that there was no purpose to life except to realize the Infinite within. He walked away from his home and never returned, although later, his mother came and lived with him and became very spiritually advanced.<br />
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He went first to a temple at the base of the mountain where he meditated for some years in a small underground room. Then he moved up the mountain, found a cave under a huge rock, and for some 16 years lived there. People in the area, even when he was in the temple, discovered him, felt his spiritual greatness, and began to come for darshan and provide the little he needed to live there. Eventually they built for him around another cave higher on the mountain, a small ashram where he stayed for another 7 years. <br />
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Then one day he came down the mountain, and an ashram was constructed at the base of Arunachala, where he lived until the end of his life.<br />
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Early this morning, we went to the ashram and to the caves, meditating in each for some time. <br />
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Since we stopped leading pilgrimages, almost 10 years ago now, the holy spot I have visited in India has been wherever Swamiji was staying. So it has been many years since I have had a morning like today. It was blissful. Pilgrimage is a great spiritual boon.<br />
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I visited this ashram once before. I think it was 15 years ago after one of our India pilgrimage. Durga, Vidura, Lila and David Hoogendyke, David and I came here for three days. Our thought was perhaps to add it on to the itinerary we usually followed. We stayed in the ashram that time. We were inspired, but felt it wasn’t right for our tour.<br />
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Accommodations at the ashram were simple, and I think we were a little spoiled by the 5-star hotels we were used to, and also a little tired from our long pilgrimage. For whatever reasons, I didn’t tune into the place as I did today.<br />
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This ashram is more notably dedicated to silent meditation that many we have visited -- quite appropriate given the nature of Ramana Maharshi himself. There are large shrines to him and also to his mother, where daily ceremonies are carried out, but even the ceremonies are more melodious than in some places we have visited.<br />
<br />
And the most important shrines -- the caves where he lived and the room where he gave darshan -- are silence only, reserved for meditation. Even when the sounds of ceremony and song drift in from the nearby halls, they add, rather than take away from the meditative experience.<br />
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Many people come here, including quite a lot of devotees from Europe. The Europeans seem to enter easily into the spirit of India. There were lots of dreadlocks and shaved heads among the light-skinned devotees. And many rock still, silent meditators. A joy.<br />
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During the meditation, especially in the caves, I tried to tune in to what it would be like to feel, as Ramana Maharshi did, that the <i>only</i> duty in life is to meditate. He served through his meditation, and the darshan he gave freely to all who came, but in no other way. No classes, lectures, writing, or building of communities. A very different mission from ours.<br />
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I wondered what his years of meditation were like. When he was living under the temple it is said he was plagued by mosquitoes and other animal pests, but remained completely oblivious. What would it be like to be so absorbed in the Infinite?<br />
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I remembered a passage in Swamiji’s commentary on the Gita in which he instructed highly advanced yogis how to work out their remaining karma through meditation and visions. Was that what Ramana Maharshi was doing?<br />
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Somewhat jokingly, when I read that passage in the Gita commentary, I said to Swamiji, “This part doesn’t apply to very many people.”<br />
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With complete seriousness Swamiji replied, “But for those to whom it does apply, it will be very useful.” <br />
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Thinking about Ramana Maharshi walking out of his home at the age of sixteen, finding an underground room in the temple and sitting there to meditate without a thought about how he would eat, shelter himself, or survive in the years ahead, I am awestruck by his indifference to the human condition, and his complete faith in God.<br />
<br />
Then I thought of the life I have led. In my early 20s I came to live at Ananda. In the course of this tour, I spoke of that choice. Someone asked me, “Weren’t you afraid? Weren’t you worried about what might happen to you?”<br />
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“It never crossed my mind,” I said. “I never gave it a single thought.” All my “batchmates” at Ananda did the same thing with the same faith.<br />
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My moving to Ananda hardly compares to Ramana Maharshi leaving home at 16 and settling into a room under the temple where he did nothing but meditate. Or perhaps it does. Not in realization, but in the direction of development that each represents.<br />
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I walked away from a university education. Ramana Maharshi walked away from the whole world. My “renunciation” doesn’t compare to his. I am an infant; he is a King. But both of us were motivated by the same impulse: <i>What is day to the worldly man is night to the yogi. What is night to the worldly man is day to the yogi.</i><br />
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Whatever stage of realization we have, we have faith to match it, and take action in accordance with that faith. I easily left behind my university life (brief and unsatisfactory) and any thought of money or career. Far below the faith of Ramana Maharshi certainly, but still, more faith than some would have -- the woman who asked me about it, for example. Especially in India, education is everything. The idea of doing what I did made her about as nervous as I feel contemplating the life of Ramana Maharshi. What we haven’t experienced we don’t understand.<br />
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There was a yogi living in Badrinath -- a holy place in India -- that we met on one of our pilgrimages. Later Swamiji asked me my impressions of him. The yogi had told us that during the winter season he leaves his physical body and goes in his astral body to be with Babaji high in the Himalayas.<br />
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I said to Swamiji, “He spoke about it in such a matter of fact way. I didn’t know what to think. I would have expected a more reverential tone.”<br />
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“Well,” Swamiji replied, “at a certain point, it is matter of fact to do such a thing.”<br />
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In <i>Autobiography of a Yogi,</i> Master explains the “law” of miracles. In other words, miracles are as matter of fact for those who perform them as they are, well, miraculous to us who don’t have the power to operate the law.<br />
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It is very important for all of us to embrace the naturalness of spiritual advancement. Yes, we should have reverence for those who have attained states high above our own, but at the same time, appreciate that they have merely advanced farther down the same road we ourselves are walking.<br />
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Remember when Swamiji played the part of Jesus in a pageant for a local group? He had a beard, which was rare at that time, and the group had asked him if he would play the part. When Master asked about it afterwards, Swamiji said, “I would rather <i>be</i> like Jesus instead of merely <i>looking</i> like him.” <br />
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Master replied in a matter of fact way, “That will come. That will come.”<br />
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So it is for all of us.<br />
<br />
When Master came to India in 1935 he came to this ashram to visit Ramana Maharshi. There is a brief film clip of Master’s visit here, at least one moment of it when a group gathered around Ramana Maharshi to have their pictures taken. It was a movie but, notably, the yogi was not moving. Master moves and gestures around him, but Ramana Maharshi remains utterly still in the middle, seemingly absorbed, as he often was, in the Infinite.<br />
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We are not staying in the ashram. We are not quite 5-star, either, but are resident for a few days in a beautiful little resort. Simple, peaceful, harmonious. Stone buildings with tile floors in a garden setting. Couldn’t be nicer.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo1vaUknyKMreKZ8QaJfxeKEN2KwycyFGVWSjdn08bmRKl3f48VuGvnwUBKn-4dgUDgyAIM1daxsYCK-iUYNLsAJitUj8yXtIJ7SPl0JrRUIXDqfVAgMzdBTSd_qC5l9rtMPbYk4WdF4St/s1600/IMG_8984.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo1vaUknyKMreKZ8QaJfxeKEN2KwycyFGVWSjdn08bmRKl3f48VuGvnwUBKn-4dgUDgyAIM1daxsYCK-iUYNLsAJitUj8yXtIJ7SPl0JrRUIXDqfVAgMzdBTSd_qC5l9rtMPbYk4WdF4St/s1600/IMG_8984.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>I have been healthy and energetic through this entire tour, grateful to be sharing almost every day with groups and individuals. Especially now that he has gone into the Infinite, I feel a deep joy in passing on to others as much as I can of the grace, love, and wisdom Swamiji showered on us.<br />
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I haven’t felt the need for a break from that service, but, nonetheless, I am basking in the silence and inspiration of being here.<br />
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Day after tomorrow we drive to Chennai, Arjuna goes back to Italy, and Shivani and I go on to Calcutta to meet up with Bryan, Shurjo, Narayani, and Jemal, for a long weekend of programs, and one more showing of <i>Finding Happiness.</i><br />
<br />
Blessings and joy,<br />
ashaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-3144462423894852822014-02-08T09:00:00.000-08:002014-02-08T09:01:27.489-08:00Gurgaon, Mumbai, PuneDear Friends:<br />
<br />
Last time I wrote I was beginning my series of classes in Gurgaon. Bryan and I had moved into the spacious ashram we now have there, settling in for a longish stay. I am a little fuzzy on the details, but I think it was about 10 days, with occasional forays back into Delhi or to other of our branch centers. Think going to Berkeley or Scotts Valley from Palo Alto. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHUS5fulGisyILJVVBCZNk3Dk3EJDoIMHWyD-EOH_jRTsJzNZZspCs1H3x421bxW7cX2Fqep8IwMphizd8CcLYXHqc0ksHAtgBM5y3Yekqj8qXjzKqJJ7_QZhGU3ZN_x1MDjhRgHqnRnQ/s1600/IMG_8681.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHUS5fulGisyILJVVBCZNk3Dk3EJDoIMHWyD-EOH_jRTsJzNZZspCs1H3x421bxW7cX2Fqep8IwMphizd8CcLYXHqc0ksHAtgBM5y3Yekqj8qXjzKqJJ7_QZhGU3ZN_x1MDjhRgHqnRnQ/s1600/IMG_8681.jpeg" height="200" width="133" /></a>Years ago, a friend from another ashram spent all her time traveling. She had no fixed residence but went from city to city sharing her guru’s teachings. I asked her, “How do you do it?” <br />
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“Where ever I am,” she said, “that is where I live. Even if it is only a taxicab for 30 minutes, I consider that cab my home.”<br />
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So, for the duration, Gurgaon was home. I deliberately blurred the concept of a starting and ending point. Much more enjoyable that way. <br />
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Whenever someone asked Swamiji, “How have you been able to accomplish so much?” he replied, “By concentrating completely on whatever I am doing.”<br />
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With so many dear and beloved friends far away, it would be easy to live divided. The sadhana of travel is surrender to the moment.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepR4eEPLCNT5tHXV_tVIZLUUddmP9QHnjN9dIP9jFG2RFSvYGIIIxPKgC-3XjoZA9RLLfIU5ndl241w0SvG3rp9LOORBNA2sYJ3aniOhttHTENio1S4pvspY13Ie1xPbGritrYRbVCuGF/s1600/IMG_8850.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepR4eEPLCNT5tHXV_tVIZLUUddmP9QHnjN9dIP9jFG2RFSvYGIIIxPKgC-3XjoZA9RLLfIU5ndl241w0SvG3rp9LOORBNA2sYJ3aniOhttHTENio1S4pvspY13Ie1xPbGritrYRbVCuGF/s1600/IMG_8850.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a>All the programs are already posted on-line. Suffice to say it has all been interesting. Since I always speak extemporaneously, new country and culture bring new inspiration. <br />
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I had thought to use our “spare time” (of which there is precious little!) and Bryan’s high-quality equipment, to make an audio book of <i><a href="http://www.lovedandprotectedbook.com/">Loved and Protected: Stories of Miracles and Answered Prayers</a>.</i><br />
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It turns out that a few minutes from the Gurgaon ashram, there is a recording studio that belongs to the family of one of our members. She is a beautiful singer; her parents are filmmakers. They built into their home a world-class studio. <br />
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It was available, so arrangements were made, and 3 days in a row, I went to their home/studio and read the book out loud. <br />
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What beautiful stories! Reading it brought back all the inspiration I felt gathering and writing them. I was sorry when the project was done!<br />
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The circumstances for recording couldn’t have been better. Pleasant surroundings, skilled engineer, good friends to entertain and cheer me on during the breaks. And more than the comforts of home. <br />
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All I had to say was, “A little hot lemon and water, please.” “Masala chai would be nice.” “Anyone else hungry for lunch?” and soon the needful would appear on a tray. <br />
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The engineer, Mani, is now editing the file and perhaps it will arrive in Palo Alto before I do, or at least not long after.<br />
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I had a few uncommitted days at the end of the tour, so have decided to go back to Gurgaon and do an audio of the next book, which is questions and answers. Many of you received over the last few years, answers to questions that people sent in to me. I thought I could just staple them together and have a book. Turned out to require a huge amount of editing.<br />
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It was then organized by Crystal Clarity and designed by Tejindra (in Italy, who did the other book, too) in time to be sent to India and printed before I arrived. The final title is <i>Ask Asha: Heartfelt Answers to Common Dilemmas on the Spiritual Path. </i><br />
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People here seem to like it. It will be published in America in a few months.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLUpGuQhWBPyjszWCTcPskit1AFCLskr5KXgRzDj1NxRtahGzMcDH78zpVnyjSJgDOWep3BP_Rtpr_EKLOn8N1P1AwXKi-3ReLv39Txf7hvmEWsoF6f0MVUvkAwpO4mT-9qGZfMLKM8pZ/s1600/IMG_8965.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLUpGuQhWBPyjszWCTcPskit1AFCLskr5KXgRzDj1NxRtahGzMcDH78zpVnyjSJgDOWep3BP_Rtpr_EKLOn8N1P1AwXKi-3ReLv39Txf7hvmEWsoF6f0MVUvkAwpO4mT-9qGZfMLKM8pZ/s1600/IMG_8965.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a>From Gurgaon, we flew to Mumbai for two days. First night was a satsang at the home of a devotee for the core members of the Ananda group. About 25 people for informal questions and answers. I felt so blessed to be in their company. All of Master’s children shine with his sweetness and love.<br />
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The next evening, I spoke in the same lecture hall I was in a few weeks earlier. The day after was a “Level One” class -- which is first step to Kriya yoga. <br />
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My subject was “Kriya Yoga: Pathway to Self-Realization.” It was the freebie to entice them to sign up for Level One.<br />
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When I have a talk to give, I meditate on the subject and see what inspiration comes. Sometimes what I feel in advance matches what the audience needs to hear. But if I am too committed to a particular series of ideas that can interfere with what the people in the room at the moment need to hear. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx_av_rzMa0aVCU6C0cxVd_m2w-65Xc8IclQeuV5LRewNBJD7GHa0ksae8BDlx0V1m6Yhfw3YeP0KwBtWeAU05fXy-QOMN29-II9C9dmEBlZTBwMPIxiwVAGI9uU-z87Rb4kGAl9xRN3cB/s1600/IMG_8951.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx_av_rzMa0aVCU6C0cxVd_m2w-65Xc8IclQeuV5LRewNBJD7GHa0ksae8BDlx0V1m6Yhfw3YeP0KwBtWeAU05fXy-QOMN29-II9C9dmEBlZTBwMPIxiwVAGI9uU-z87Rb4kGAl9xRN3cB/s1600/IMG_8951.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a>Although I was rarely at a loss for words, it was not an easy talk to give. Of the 60 or so people there, the majority were new to Ananda. There were so many different thoughts and questions in the room that I felt myself scrambling from point to point to provide the understanding they wanted. <br />
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There was no unifying thread on which to hang the talk, as there is when more in the room are already devotees. There was a good turnout for the class next day, so I guess Master managed to touch a few hearts. <br />
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Even though I have been giving classes for many years, every situation is unique. Whatever gathering of souls, in whatever location, has never happened before and will never happen again. It is a unique divine convergence for which I am asked to be the mouthpiece, an expansive opportunity to learn on ever-deeper levels how to be a channel. When I am in places I have never been, speaking to people I have never met, I understand why Swamiji asked me to serve in this way.<br />
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Last time in Mumbai we stayed at a delightful hotel right on the beach. This time we stayed at the guesthouse connected to the ISKCON temple in Mumbai. ISKCON -- International Society for Krishna Consciousness -- runs what amounts to a hotel on the same grounds as their large and very popular temple. Many of the people who stay there come to enjoy the temple. Others, like us, find it a pleasant, sattwic way to be in noisy, crowded Mumbai.<br />
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Not that the hotel itself is quiet! First ceremonies begin at 4am and ISKCON devotees are known for their exuberant expression of devotion. I passed on 4am and went for the second round at 7:00am the two mornings we were there.<br />
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The temple is lovely, a large open patio, next to a roofed area with shrines for the deities. All is beautifully carved and painted. There are three sets of deities -- two of Radha and Krishna, one of Rama, Sita, Lakshman, and Hanuman. <br />
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The shrines and the statues are exquisitely and elaborately dressed and decorated -- different every day. Plus flowers galore, garlands and bouquets and other offerings. I have deep samskars with the culture of India and even though I am not drawn to this kind of worship now, it touches my heart to see it.<br />
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While the priests were doing their ceremonies, and the devotees passed near the shrines to receive the light, prashad, and darshan from the deities, groups of men on one side and women on the other were dancing to the chanting and drumming which went on continuously.<br />
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The men were almost athletic; the women more delicate, holding hands, moving in a circle. <br />
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One woman stood out from the group. Her movements seem to come from a source deep within herself. Watching her, I remembered the story in the <i>Autobiography of a Yogi</i> when Master was silently criticizing a too-outward expression of devotion by a group of chanting devotees. Suddenly Master Mahasaya appeared by his side and said about those devotees, how blissful to hear God’s name chanted whether loud or tenderly. <br />
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On the path of Self-realization, we have to start where we are and move forward from there. Every step in the right direction is cause for celebration. Those who have achieved the goal define the practice. Everyone else does his or her best as realization gradually dawns. That one dancer so inwardly inspired shows where all of them are heading. <br />
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After the chanting and ceremonies were over, ladies settled around the patio with large bunches of fresh flowers quickly carried in by flower merchants. The women went right to work making the garlands for the next round of worship.<br />
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Past life memories merged with the present and I saw myself embroidering garments for the deities and making the daily garlands. Happy incarnations serving God in that way. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqh02tt3AfW7MXzEIu25QPTAMEmU4xJE0_gQfX2N-hqFv6MDvJfZi7ZBB3sEV7elFcI-vPvAQTk4Bv_-QOsa_nIK_GnexAbSWseMEyGderpOpEV176AG9yvAulW4ap2Ab6sO6KfO-kyBvL/s1600/IMG_8973.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqh02tt3AfW7MXzEIu25QPTAMEmU4xJE0_gQfX2N-hqFv6MDvJfZi7ZBB3sEV7elFcI-vPvAQTk4Bv_-QOsa_nIK_GnexAbSWseMEyGderpOpEV176AG9yvAulW4ap2Ab6sO6KfO-kyBvL/s1600/IMG_8973.jpeg" height="133" width="200" /></a>At the same time, how grateful I am that those days are past! On to the next stage in the soul’s long journey home to God.<br />
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Narayani and Shurjo came to Mumbai, and on Saturday we drove together to Pune City for a satsang with our group there. They have rented a small house in a lovely neighborhood where they hold most of their meetings.<br />
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This group is nourished both by devotees in the city, and by those living on the land, 1.5 hours away. It is a joyous and focused family, a blessing to be with them. <br />
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There are several unifying factors of Ananda groups worldwide. Kriya, of course, devotion to the Gurus, the music. Then there is the food! Cuisine may vary but quality, quantity, and enthusiasm are shared by all. <br />
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Every Pune City event is followed by refreshments that amount to a multi-course meal. Swamiji once said to Master, “Help me overcome my attachment to good food.” Master assured him that it was nothing to be concerned about, “When ecstasy comes, everything goes.” Meaning <i>all</i> attachments dissolve. Nice to have permission to enjoy ourselves in the meantime!<br />
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Then on to the community, where I am now, and will be for another 6 days.<br />
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Right now I am starting a weekend retreat called Finding Happiness. <br />
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So I have to end this letter and get ready for the first class.<br />
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Blessings and love to all,<br />
ashaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-38176332143170963202014-01-22T17:19:00.001-08:002014-01-22T17:19:16.960-08:00Mumbai, Delhi and GurgaonDear Friends:<br />
<br />
Windy, cold, and rainy. Not my usual experience of India! Winter in Delhi is only a few weeks long, but I’ve landed in the middle of it. Fortunately, at the last minute I was persuaded to throw in a few warm clothes so all is well. By the time I leave this area and go south a week from now, the weather will already be shifting.<br />
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The trip started in Mumbai with a VIP showing of <i>Finding Happiness.</i> About 90 people in a perfect small theater -- best sound and visual that I’ve seen anywhere. Once again, enthusiastic response that has led to more endorsements, contacts, and some very promising possibilities for the premiere now set for April.<br />
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Many of you know that Elisabeth Rohm, the lead actress -- in fact the <i>only</i> actress in <i>Finding Happiness</i> -- has a role in what is turning out to be a major award-winning movie, <i>American Hustle. </i><br />
<br />
Amusing to contemplate the difference in the names of these two movies! <i>Finding Happiness </i>vs.<i> American Hustle.</i> Both, of course, reflect the fundamental human condition: All sentient beings seek to escape suffering and increase happiness. <br />
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The solution proposed by the Ananda movie, however, is quite different than the other! <br />
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For Elisabeth, the success of <i>American Hustle</i> is an enormous boost to her career, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer or more deserving person. <br />
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And, incidentally, her increased name-recognition will also be a nice boost to <i>Finding Happiness.</i><br />
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Amazing how Master orchestrates everything in ways that we least expect. <br />
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A day after the film screening, I did a morning seminar in Mumbai. Quite well attended and a strong feeling of connection between me and the group. Helped me remember why I like to come to India. <br />
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After all the effort to extricate myself from Palo Alto life, followed by hours of travel, shifting to a hotel, getting used to the whole new setting, it all seems like an end in itself and I forget why I am here. <br />
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Then a few hours with sincere devotees eager to learn about Master’s teachings, and I it all comes back.<br />
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After Mumbai, I came to the Delhi area. We have two centers here, geographically and energetically think Palo Alto-San Francisco -- close to each other, but separate spheres.<br />
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The Delhi center, run by Keshava and Daya, is still located in the delightful garden house where I stayed last year. As a house, still my favorite in India. But it is too small for their purposes, plus the lease is up.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, Master and Swamiji had it all worked out, and renovations are now happening on a much larger ashram and teaching center that has been offered for Ananda’s use. Very centrally located in an excellent area. The present house has four fairly small rooms; the new center has at least a dozen, large, spacious rooms, plus terraces and garden. <br />
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Once established there, Ananda Delhi will be able to serve in much bigger, more complete way.<br />
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Now I have moved to the Gurgaon area, where we also recently moved into a very large ashram house. Dhyana, Amit, and Devendra live here full time. In addition to me and Bryan (who is traveling with me to do the video), there are four guests from Pune doing business in Delhi, but the house is so large, and well-designed (as a multi-generation family home) that we all move easily without any sense of crowding. <br />
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It is in the same area where Ananda started in 2003, so it feels familiar. From the first time I came to this neighborhood, it felt like a place I had lived very happily before. So it is a treat to be back here. Gurgaon also has a large center separate from the house. So things are happening here!<br />
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I gave a series of classes at the Delhi center, which were quite enjoyable. My series in Gurgaon starts tonight, plus I am going here and there to two of the smaller centers we have in the area.<br />
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Bryan is filming and posting fairly quickly, so you can follow what is happening on line.<br />
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Master spoke of bringing unity between East and West. Mostly I have been aware of the East coming to the West. Like all American devotees, expanding my consciousness to embrace that vibration and make it my own. <br />
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Now I have been meditating on the West coming to the East. Master spoke of the spiritual efficiency of the East uniting with the material efficiency of the West. <br />
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How does that express in the path of Self-realization as we follow it? And what of that message can I share with the devotees here? That is what intrigues me now.<br />
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A characteristic feature of Indian audiences is their love for abstract, philosophical questions. Spirituality has been a subject to discuss and speculate about for centuries.<br />
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For most of us at Ananda, and certainly for me personally, spirituality is about seeking happiness. Abstractions interest me very little. I want to <i>do</i> something that will change my life for the better.<br />
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I see that this inclination of mine is more than just my way of approaching the path. It is at least one thread of Master’s mission.<br />
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I’ve hardly begun to spin this thread, much less weave it into a whole cloth, but it is providing an interesting theme for my meditations and sharing here in India.<br />
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I realize, with no small tug at my heart, that my letters all these years from so many different parts of the world were always centered around news of Swamiji. Everything, now is “news of Swamiji” as I feel his presence strongly here in India. <br />
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Still, I am accustomed to adding to that inner reality, outward experiences. <br />
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The only certainty in life is change. And happiness is found in flowing gracefully and gratefully with whatever comes. All is a gift from God and Guru.<br />
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Blessings and love,<br />
asha Ananda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2964719732367505315.post-19204712833183687062013-08-06T12:50:00.001-07:002013-08-06T15:01:27.695-07:00An Amazing New Development for Ananda in the Bay AreaDear Everyone:<br />
<br />
When Swamiji passed into the Infinite, it was as if an enormous wave of energy was released. As his body declined with the passing years, his consciousness expanded, until the body was simply too confining to hold it. For him it was a joyous release.<br />
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And once freed, Swamiji became able, so it seems, to be with all of us everywhere even more. <br />
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In Palo Alto, that sudden increase of energy flowing from a higher source has taken a very specific, and somewhat surprising form: the acquisition of a farm in Half Moon Bay. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJIqtwe6Ie-X284QrImDgHwN5_4uKrz20eogym6HvJK778qaZcf_aB0YmGIexLC96i5lXA9BZbrUkS5MbI9UY1peIcO1jY0FuHvDxqLcEQsgc3stK84UFiT__K4T4_0ztcIMcQE3AGGBS/s1600/jpeg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJIqtwe6Ie-X284QrImDgHwN5_4uKrz20eogym6HvJK778qaZcf_aB0YmGIexLC96i5lXA9BZbrUkS5MbI9UY1peIcO1jY0FuHvDxqLcEQsgc3stK84UFiT__K4T4_0ztcIMcQE3AGGBS/s200/jpeg.jpeg" width="200" /></a>Those of you who are members of Ananda Sangha here have been following this story carefully over the last two months. What we are writing here is to bring our far-flung family up-to-date on the latest developments.<br />
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Whenever Swamiji would visit Palo Alto over the last decade, he would always urge upon us one important unfinished task: to get land farther away from the populated area, a safe haven where we could shelter and grow food if times become difficult. <br />
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Master predicted such hard times would come and Swamiji often reiterated Master’s warning.<br />
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None of us enjoyed hearing these predictions, but considering the source, we couldn’t ignore them either.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQV1C6l7uoYrARFAXXDMZQv3hpJ0UtlZAgGM-RynV1qQ3uja65zAZ2edePyWzXubNrKmBeZzMCGy1YiZJkrPOwIf3pnRsey1CejM3QgYWr4ktIc2qSLxDlWRsOIlLmVRYxWyUts3hXO-h/s1600/jpeg-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQV1C6l7uoYrARFAXXDMZQv3hpJ0UtlZAgGM-RynV1qQ3uja65zAZ2edePyWzXubNrKmBeZzMCGy1YiZJkrPOwIf3pnRsey1CejM3QgYWr4ktIc2qSLxDlWRsOIlLmVRYxWyUts3hXO-h/s200/jpeg-1.jpeg" width="200" /></a>For years we had hoped to fulfill this commission by finding an existing conference center or retreat. That way we could run it as a business and also have it as a safe haven. Retreats, it turns out, are few and far between and we never managed to find a suitable one.<br />
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The very last e-mail we received from Swamiji, just days before he left his body, was again an urgent request that we buy land. Whenever he visited he would point toward the hills between us and the ocean and say, “Find land there.”<br />
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We decided to shift our focus from “retreat” to “working farm.” We were told that good farms, especially with sufficient water, are not that easy to find in an area where development is rampant and land is so valuable. We hoped farms were not as scarce as retreats.<br />
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We passed out the word to our members that the focus of our search had shifted, and people began to send to David reports of properties they found on the internet or heard about in other ways. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj77GgqPlePqKKLM-FzYojGoWLnq_MszZ2HVgzNf5ACvCbiqLImBDs4PIsxKlwMyXW3LqV9ibj_Gs2gElBtylar3WKuZ4bPte2HtZcLJrucnMWzwY-c3Htkoexjx-hJgkC04-cmc5YPZ9F/s1600/jpeg-4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj77GgqPlePqKKLM-FzYojGoWLnq_MszZ2HVgzNf5ACvCbiqLImBDs4PIsxKlwMyXW3LqV9ibj_Gs2gElBtylar3WKuZ4bPte2HtZcLJrucnMWzwY-c3Htkoexjx-hJgkC04-cmc5YPZ9F/s200/jpeg-4.jpeg" width="200" /></a>David reviewed on the internet some fifty possibilities, from nearby to 100 miles away. One property stood out above all the others. So much so that it came to David from a dozen different people. <br />
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Buying a farm was going to be a typical Ananda experience, i.e., many hands make a miracle. Which means: no money but lots of faith! <br />
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Fortunately, a long-time friend and devotee, James Morris, had recently become a Realtor. We signed up with him because we knew we could tell him the truth and he would still keep us as a client! He proved the perfect choice, not only energetic and capable, but also quite happy to start our “business meetings” with a prayer to Master.<br />
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We knew that if we could find the land, God and Gurus would give us a way also to buy it. <br />
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Which is exactly what happened.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBA9o52WjhHW_nXqHZcV2RRcJ8nk5duGQ9-AZ3pMxpKILKwXKHfDtjVU35p6c-3KwycKioedAPIXiA42wtmYEuLIcwejHIDbblhtWfat2zotZagAwLiKuZ94YoduuuPLekkdu6y_gsF0dn/s1600/jpeg-6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBA9o52WjhHW_nXqHZcV2RRcJ8nk5duGQ9-AZ3pMxpKILKwXKHfDtjVU35p6c-3KwycKioedAPIXiA42wtmYEuLIcwejHIDbblhtWfat2zotZagAwLiKuZ94YoduuuPLekkdu6y_gsF0dn/s200/jpeg-6.jpeg" width="200" /></a>Some people believe that land has a mystic destiny and will find its owner. After our experience of acquiring this farm, we are inclined to believe it is true. It feels like home.<br />
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Often people say, “It’s a long story, but I’ll make it short.”<br />
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In this case, we’ll make it short because it is a short story: In six weeks we raised $1.8 million dollars. Yes, that is the right time frame and the right amount of money. As you all know, we are not wealthy people. But we are dedicated. It was thrilling to see how much we can do when we work together for God. <br />
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As it rapidly unfolded, we often joked that it was as if Swamiji, from the other side, was pushing money across to us! For years he had been telling us to buy land and he was going to make sure we followed his advice!<br />
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What we have bought is a working commercial farm, in the hills where Swamiji always pointed. It is two miles in from the ocean, just outside Half Moon Bay. The road ends in a secluded canyon that we are now calling Ananda Valley. <br />
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Even though you are literally just 10 minutes from a good cappuccino, when you are in Ananda Valley you feel as if you are miles from any other habitation. <br />
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And it is only 40 minutes from our Temple and community. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKWQFZoYHHQvGSSdtrrWJljbMOT4Ky0YMmQvu8JNQjXexsKxjK-ucWong44fnFUZZRa5grSQYmjJvopt74paprb_tx707WV9zTMXD_gizKbTQPvgjIgrCj6-K6J5u3G9tKzq6rqWTRfU8/s1600/jpeg-7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKWQFZoYHHQvGSSdtrrWJljbMOT4Ky0YMmQvu8JNQjXexsKxjK-ucWong44fnFUZZRa5grSQYmjJvopt74paprb_tx707WV9zTMXD_gizKbTQPvgjIgrCj6-K6J5u3G9tKzq6rqWTRfU8/s200/jpeg-7.jpeg" width="150" /></a>Some of the 67 acres goes up the brush-lined hills, but there are still about 25 acres of first-class farmland. There is also plenty of water—two wells, a creek, and an ever-flowing spring that comes out of granite rock, pure and drinkable.<br />
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There is no primary residence on the property, just a bunkhouse and several trailers where those who work on the farm can live. There is also a warehouse, a barn, three greenhouses, a mechanics’ shop, an irrigation pond, and all the equipment to run the farm.<br />
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Because it is so close to the coast, you can grow all year. <br />
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When God provides, He does it in style.<br />
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We are in escrow now and expect to own the farm sometime in the middle of August. Our idea is to make a farming-based ashram, calling it Ananda Valley Farm.<br />
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We are very fortunate in that the long-time manager of the farm is willing to stay on for the transition, perhaps well into the future. He has worked there for decades and knows every inch of both the land and all the systems and equipment. A great blessing indeed.<br />
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We are looking now for experienced organic farmers and also for those interested in learning, or just helping out in whatever way is needed. This is a big project. Definitely a many-hands-make-a-miracle moment!<br />
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If a farming-based ashram life appeals to you, either full-time or as an occasional volunteer, do let us know. <br />
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Although we have successfully managed the land purchase, there are many expenses ahead. If you are interested either in investing or donating to this project, please contact us right away.<br />
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We are planning a blessing and dedication ceremony in early October. (For those who have been following this project, note the change of date from September to October.) <br />
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We would love to welcome you and show you around Ananda’s newest home in the Bay Area: Ananda Valley Farm.<br />
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Blessings and joy,<br />
David and AshaAnanda Palo Altohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04044641053866886993noreply@blogger.com4