Blog #29: The Pursuit of Money
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-29-the-pursuit-of-money/
In Oliver Stone’s classic film Wall Street, the infamous character Gordon Gekko proclaims: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right; greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, and knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
Wow. Such a potent statement. When I watch that scene on YouTube, I get ecstatic chills up my spine. Gekko is touching upon a vein that runs very deep, and in this blog, I want to meet him head-on. So, let’s talk about money, and how the pursuit of money relates to human spiritual transformation.
What is money? Money is a symbolic token that represents things we value. Money is used to exchange all kinds of goods and services across the globe, and money has now become an object that is pursued for its own sake, above many other objects of devotion.
Ironically, the symbol of money has even become more valued than the things money purports to symbolize. Just earn lots of money!—then figure out how to spend it! Clearly, we have put the cart before the horse. What is intrinsically meant to be secondary and arbitrary, is now primary and paramount.
Houston, we have a problem.
The problem is not money, per se, but rather the power we give to money. We are worshiping the proverbial golden calf in the hopes we will find lasting satisfaction and sustenance. The problem is: there’s not much lasting satisfaction or sustenance to be found in symbols, as pretty or ornamental as they may be. Maybe we can get stimulated and hyped up a little bit, but the castles we build in the air will eventually crumble. Imagination can only sustain a fleeting reality for so long.
Symbols can be helpful and useful, but when blown out of proportion, they run contrary to the flow of evolution.
In AYP, we recognize the peak of evolution to be an outpouring of divine love, which results in giving without expectation of return. Certain economic trends and paradigms are not exactly reflective of the leading edge of divine love. For instance, the practice of lending with interest is clearly not in the spirit of giving without expectation of return. Lending with interest is a giving, not only with an expectation of return, but with an expectation that more will be returned than originally given. It’s kind of like cancer, which is when cellular growth depletes the entire system as a result of excessive replication. Like cancer, the gimmick of interest replicates itself beyond healthy proportions.
If we want true abundance and prosperity, we have to remember what is truly valuable, and that is not too hard to find. It is within us, and all around us. It is the Spirit that animates all of life, and far exceeds the value of any price tag.
Gordon Gekko was onto something. His intensity and passion for progress are related to the bhakti within the human spirit. That bhakti is much more than material greed could ever capture. That yearning is far more intelligent, wise, and purposeful than the antics of a stock market.
In my opinion, the objects of devotion do indeed matter, and blind greed is problematic. However, when greed is devoted to a worthy ideal (like global enlightenment), we can achieve human spiritual transformation, which in turn will influence and illuminate all aspects of life, including economic paradigms.
I believe we can reconcile our current economic system with the driving force of divine love, and when we do, we will experience a new kind of wealth that is beyond imagination.
Thank you, Gordon, for stirring up the pot.
Blog #30: Ecstatic Rage and Nonviolence
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-30-ecstatic-rage-and-nonviolence/
“All emotion is the power of love.” That’s one of my favorite Yogani nuggets. He’s spit out quite a few sparkling gems since beginning this radical operation of spreading spiritual knowledge from behind a curtain of anonymity. There’s a wealth of information here, and it’s time to optimize and utilize the raw material available to us.
Speaking of raw material, I would like to explore how anger, rage, and other volatile emotions are related to recovery, enlightenment. and transformation. This is a very important topic, and one that is often misunderstood in spiritual circles, especially in recovery networks like AA. Hopefully, in this blog, I can draw from my personal experience and clarify some of the finer points.
First, let me invoke another spiritual master to dive deeper into the matter.
In his “I have a dream” speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. resounds with a voice marked by intensity, passion, and steadfast devotion. There is an abundance of emotional content in his delivery, and his tone carries hints of what I like to call ecstatic rage. It is a nonviolent anger that has been properly channeled to a higher ideal. His ideal was racial equality, but there are many other ideals to consider.
In the speech, he said: “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” With what he called a “marvelous new militancy”, Martin Luther King, Jr. helped revolutionize the social climate of an entire country, bringing the eternal values of peace and joy into our temporal dimension on Earth.
After spending a couple years in AA, I began to experience a growing discontent with certain aspects of the program, and I had to figure out what to do with my anger. Rather than try to eliminate the emotional fire and lobotomize myself, I chose to use the frustration as fuel for finding a better solution, and AYP for Recovery has been the result.
Without a little ecstatic rage, I think the solution to addiction will be lacking. Just like red is a necessary color in the rainbow spectrum, I find refined anger to be of high value in catalyzing change and improvement within myself and the broader community.
When I was living in San Francisco, I worked for two women who owned a small dog-walking company. They did a superb job of managing the animals with love and leadership. Both women had been badly abused as children (physically and sexually), and they told me that their residual anger helped them to achieve new goals. At the time, it was a radical concept to me, but now, it makes complete sense.
There is still a lot of passive spirituality on the market that can lead to repression, neurosis, passive-aggressive behavior, and a stifling of personal development. The active and heart-driven methods of AYP will ensure a full flowering of enlightenment, and steer us away from sedated and thwarted modes of evolution.
Let’s refine our rage in a nonviolent, ecstatic manner, and we can live as wholesome human beings.
Blog #31: The Land of Plenty
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-31-the-land-of-plenty/
Earlier I ate with a friend at a buffet in the Hard Rock Casino. She used to work there, and her former supervisor gives her “comp” meals, so she is gracious enough to periodically invite me to indulge in this residual perk she receives.
The buffet is huge. There are multiple stations, serving a variety of cuisines. A seemingly endless supply of food is showcased and replenished constantly, free for the picking. Some of the notable options include: raw oysters, steamed crawfish, shrimp, sushi, vegetable dumplings, pot stickers, seared steak, hamburgers, pizza, a full salad station, a French-style charcuterie with artisan cheeses, dozens of deserts—key lime pie, carrot cake, flan, bread pudding, many flavors of ice cream, and so on. I’m leaving a bunch of stuff out. It’s bountiful and absurd.
As I write this blog, I’m still in a semi-narcotic stupor from the feast (admittedly, it’s not the most exemplary meal for an aspiring yogi, but hey, I’m working on it).
I used to go to the Hard Rock Casino for a different reason, namely gambling. I would play Texas Hold 'Em, high on Xanax, booze, and cocaine. Sometimes I would walk away with winnings, but mainly I just burned through cash with repeated withdrawals from the ATM. You know, the addictive cycle.
My friend, the former casino employee, told me that some gamblers get so glued to the slot machines that they soil themselves in the middle of their gaming. They are so transfixed by the spinning numbers and images that their basic bodily functions get ignored. Apparently, the maintenance crew has a code word they use over radio communication to keep the clean-up discrete. The veneer of pristine fun must be sustained 24/7. The show must go on.
On the note of keeping up facades, it has been said the path of enlightenment is one of waking up from a dream, or seeing through a delusion. If this is true, what then is the delusion we are seeing through?
At this stage in the blog, I would normally chime in with some kind of answer or pedantic encouragement. But for this one, I will just let it go and invite readers to contemplate and discover the answer without my imposition. And by all means, let me know what you find. I still feel like a child in the dark.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known.”
Hi Bodhi,
Firstly drooling from all the description of the feast you had.
When you have your first awakening, there is seeing through delusion. After integration, even delusion is real. I’ll share a story again. I had my awakening when I was pregnant with my first child. There was experience of no self- I wouldn’t/couldn’t look in the mirror because there was no “I” plus there were all these flashy experiences. Researching what was going on-I came across advaita. After my son was born, I was in awe and love but had this fear because everything was an illusion. I wanted to go live a monastic life but couldn’t because I had such a beautiful child. I had dreamt of being a mother all my life. So I wanted a practice that I could do without having to leave my family. This is what brought me to AYP. After reading and practicing AYP, I came to the realization that there is no delusion. Now when I’m with my kids and in the world the being lights up. There is only delusion when one is asleep. Even the asleep is part of the one.Also, I wanted to live a monastic life because everyone was deluded 
.
Functioning and run entirely by the ego. Totally identified by the ego may be labeled as delusion. Flowing with life and seeing the ego for what it is and letting it perform it’s role when required and accepting the ego as part of the one/truth may be seeing through delusion.
Sunyata
Thank you, sunyata. I really enjoy reading your interpretation. Your perception and being are very wholesome. I like how you reconcile supposed delusion with deeper reality, showing that really there is no delusion, per se, but that all is really contained within the pure consciousness which we are.
Your child is fortunate to have a mother like you!
Blog #32: Confessions of an Apple Thrower
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-32-confessions-of-an-apple-thrower/
One time during my college days at Florida State, I was hanging out with a couple friends at their apartment, and like so many other students in the nearby vicinity, we were drinking heavily. As the fermented beverage penetrated my blood-brain barrier, some mischievous energy began to stir. I was yearning for an outlet.
There was a bowl of fruit in the kitchen, and while we were talking, I picked up an apple and playfully tossed it up and down in the air. Having been a baseball pitcher during my youth, I seem to notice the inherent versatility in various inanimate objects (and animate ones too). Anyway, I wasn’t drunk enough to be sluggish yet, so I still had a compulsion brewing within me to engage in some stimulating activity.
I looked to the living room, and there was another friend passed out on the couch, about 25 feet away. His glaring forehead suddenly appeared to me like a prime target at which I could launch the apple at high speed. I paused, went into missile-seeking mode, and whispered to my buddy in the kitchen: “Watch this.” I cocked back my arm and let the torque of my hips and shoulders generate velocity, followed by a pivot in the the elbow, then a flick of the wrist, and voilà—release!—the apple spun off my fingertips and went hurling through the air, rapidly closing the distance between the launching point and inevitable destination.
It’s funny how life can become slow-motion at times. When that apple was spinning through empty space, I was perceiving its movement as if peering through a slow-motion camera lens: so crisp and clear and amazingly acute. Athletes call this kind of perception being in the zone. There’s no feeling quite like it. Once you get a taste of it, you will forever chase that inner condition and state of being.
So, the apple went rocketing towards my unconscious friend, and boom!—it made perfect impact on the bull’s-eye of his forehead. The ripe fruit exploded into little pieces and splattered in all directions. His head absorbed the blow easily with the cushioned support of the couch behind him. He didn’t even flinch or bat an eye. He remained totally asleep and clueless to the covert assault that had been unleashed upon him.
I started laughing maniacally and pumping my fists in a celebratory manner. My friend in the kitchen, who is typically very stoic and unemotional, stared at me with a dropped jaw and said: “Bro, that was messed up.” I quickly retorted: “Oh, don’t worry, he’s alright! I’ll clean it up.” Of course, I cleaned up all the fruit particles and inspected my buddy’s skull. There was only a very minor bruise at the point of detonation, but nothing majorly concussive or injurious.
Now, this was obviously a shameful act of comedy, like something you might see on Jackass. When I reflect on the event soberly, it’s not something I would likely repeat (the operative word being likely). Even so, I can still discern and distill the bhakti contained therein. At the heart of my mischief was a desire for ecstasy, and that is remarkably pure. Admittedly, there are much more congenial and friendly ways to satisfy that yearning, which I continue to learn through the process of refinement.
Of course, there are certainly events in my drinking career that were no laughing matter. Where there is comedy, there is often tragedy. Sometimes I can laugh at the follies; other times I wince and cry. It’s a full-spectrum show. Such is the nature of being human. How could it happen any other way?
In closing, let me say: Forgive me, dear friend, for pulverizing you with an apple. If it’s any consolation, your martyrdom brought me great joy in that moment. I’m sure that the law of karma will perfectly reconcile the bond between us, and one day I will be serving you an abundance of fruit on a golden platter, if you so desire.
Blog #33: Turtle Power
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-33-turtle-power/
Turtles. Have you been close to one? Have you observed the delightful slowness of their movement? Have you watched them recede into their shell and patiently wait for the right time to emerge?
I grew up watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I used to ride my bike around the streets of Tampa, looking in sewer drains, hoping I might see one of their bald, perfectly round heads (preferably Michelangelo, who is the most surfer-like turtle and fights with nunchucks).
As of yet, I have not spotted any of the beloved, amphibious warriors, but I do not rule out the possibility. However, I did recently get to visit some non-fictional turtles. They are under the care of a family friend, who has turned his backyard into a legitimate turtle sanctuary. He feeds them huge quantities of fruit and vegetables and treats them like royalty. And they deserve it. They are magical creatures.
He shelters different breeds, but the most magnificent kind is the Galápagos tortoise. At the time of my visit, he had one of these gigantic reptiles under his care. So, my friend handed me a couple of bananas, and I slowly approached the tortoise, who weighed about 500 pounds and was no less than 100 years old (I’m telling you the truth).
As I crept closer to him, I almost felt unworthy. Knowing his age, and feeling his calm presence, I began to melt, as if sharing space with an animal saint. As a matter of fact, I thought: this animal is radiating more bliss than thousands of other humans I have come across. So I fed him the bananas, which he chewed up ever-so-slowly and thoroughly, with a huge smile on his face.
After feeding him, I petted his massive neck and shell a little bit. He stretched out with eager receptivity. Tortoises of his age and maturity enjoy being touched and rubbed. Needless to say, it was a true privilege and pleasure to do the honor. When I left the sanctuary, I felt full of peace and joy, having witnessed and interacted with a miracle of creation.
Since beginning AYP techniques and turning a corner in recovery, I have envisioned lots of grand scenarios and idealistic outcomes. I am dreaming of utopia. Often times though, the progress seems very slow, and I get frustrated. I want quicker results. I want to see some fireworks and major changes. Without the pacification and stupefaction that comes with drug and alcohol use, my desire is not so easily squashed or repressed. It demands attention.
It is during these exasperating trials of impatience that I remember the turtles, both fictional and non-fictional. If they can last, we can last too. We can make it through.
This is a long walk to freedom. I guess I better settle in for the ride and make sure the engine of my nervous system is finely tuned and primed for optimal traveling.
Turtle power!
Blog #34: Space Cadet Extraordinaire
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-34-space-cadet-extraordinaire/
I’m not spaced out. I’m spaced in. Big difference. Let’s explore.
“Spaced out” is a phrase commonly used to describe someone that seems to be absent-minded, or not focused on the present moment in space and time. At any given moment in waking consciousness, there is an external, physical scenario to be navigated, and if someone’s attention seems to disengaged from that scenario, they might be deemed to be spaced out.
At some point or another, even the best of us have been spaced out. It’s OK, it happens. I can certainly recall many an inebriated night when I was not only spaced out, but whacked out, kicked out, passed out, out of money, out of common sense, and definitely out of Get-Out-of-Jail-Free cards. In short, I’ve been down, and out.
But, there is a happy ending here. For those of us who have been down and out, there is certainly a way back up and in. Many ways, actually. And what might those be? AYP, of course.
Here are some of my favorite avenues to get back to the wonderful world of being spaced in: Deep Meditation, Spinal Breathing Pranayama, Samyama, bhakti yoga, karma yoga, playing music, writing creatively, exercise, intimate conversation, contemplation in solitude, and much, more more.
How do you know if you are spaced in vs. spaced out? Well, here are a few benchmark qualities I have found when being spaced in:
- - There is a calm, clear awareness of both internal and external worlds- There is a functional ability to co-exist with the interior and exterior dimensions - There is a way to communicate with fellow space cadets through meaningful and benevolent transmissions- There is an effortless flow in navigating the unity among all levels of Being
Blog #35: Granny
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-35-granny/
Recognizing the perfection of cause and effect, I now reflect upon the history and condition of my dying, maternal grandmother, whose path is inextricably intertwined with my own.
Let us begin with the orange tree.
There was an orange tree in her backyard. It bore luscious fruit every season, and we would pick its citrus treasures directly from the branches. Then we would make juice by cutting the oranges in half and pressing them against the rapidly spinning bulb of the electric juicer. Even though this happened during my early childhood, I can still vividly remember the sounds, the smells, the tastes, and all the sensations of this ritual process—from start to finish, from the source of the tree to the final destination in a drinking glass.
There was so much aliveness in that event, in our bodies, and in the thick pulp of the orange juice.
There were other events in the backyard, like kickball. She was in good shape and kept my twin brother and me engaged in the game. Because of her sinewy frame and enduring resilience, she was nicknamed “Bony Dog” by one of my uncles. And like a dog, she was incredibly loyal in her professional and personal life.
By the time I was born, she was divorced from my grandfather. Her loyalty had reached its limits and could not tolerate the volatility and abuse in the relationship. My grandfather was a raging drinker who once told me that he had never worked a hard day in his life. He was telling the truth. He was a brilliant con-artist, who crafted investment schemes that earned him millions of dollars, which he would spend lavishly, across countries, continents, and decades of epicurean indulgence. He never stayed in one place for long. He was perpetually on the run, chasing an elusive dream. He would say: “Boys, Grandpa is building his empire.”
My grandmother was not so ambitious, at least not in the capitalist sense. She was soft-spoken and superbly organized, holding a long and successful career as a secretary at a well-established insurance company. Her pension and retirement fund have sustained her to the present day, and unfortunately, that money has also acted as a co-dependent mechanism for my mother, brother, and me. It is only in the past several years of recovery and picking up AYP practices that I have begun to unwind from the entanglement contained therein.
Granny liked her wine. She would drink openly at family dinners, then secretly in later years—hiding bottles in the closet and carrying the shame of her Southern Baptist upbringing, which forbade such activities. A couple years ago, she had a series of strokes which severely debilitated her. In all likelihood, her demise is the result of many years of alcohol consumption. The toxic elixir is not friendly to the nervous system.
Now, she cannot walk, talk, or swallow. She is being fed by a peg tube tied to her stomach. It is not pretty. It is gnarly. It is not what I would wish for her, and the frustration broiling in me brings up swells of regret for the part I’ve played in the fiasco. In my high school and college years, I took advantage of her leniency and generosity—using her money and house to throw parties of debauchery and heavy drug use.
This is not a public confession, nor an appeal for pity. This is an exploration of cause and effect, and an effort to get closer to mastering the art of active surrender.
I have a storehouse of joyful memories of my grandmother that are too long to list in this measly blog, but at least I can put a dent in recording our history for purposes of education and enlightenment. The backyard ecstatic bliss and miracles will remain etched in my consciousness, and in the eternal awareness which contains all past, present, and future.
The emotional palette of the human being is perfect in its design. Every feeling is worthy and useful. Even regret, guilt, hatred, and dark shadows serve a purpose. It is how we integrate them that matters. But to deny or try to erase them is foolish. They are the manure that brings new life to our orange trees. They are the stuff of which dreams are made. They are the ingredients that feed the visionary element of Yogani’s Dare to Dream formula.
I can use my joy, and regret, to fuel efforts in recovery and enlightenment.
I’ll meet you on the golden shore, Granny. Peace be with you, now and forever.
Cody. I’m sure she would be very proud of all the fences you are mending.
It is my believe that we need the whole pallet of feelings, only then we are complete. Only by recognize all we did we can trancendence all emotions. Thank you Cody for your story of you, Granny and your honesty.
I know it is so. 
Much appreciated, Charlie-D.
Hi Cody,
After my Granny died, I learned of the abuse in my family. “Spare the rod, spoil the child”, was literal; it was a metal rod. How sad for my father and his brother and sisters.
My Granny was so kind to me; people can change. It’s hard for me to imagine her like that.
She helped two of my drug addicted cousins. Some family members weren’t happy about it. They said they were taking advantage of her. She didn’t give a rat’s *** what anyone thought. She said if she had to do it over again; she would help them. She had no regrets about it.
I’m sure your Granny just sees you as perfect, dear Cody. No regrets! She loves you no matter what!
Thank you, lalow33. It’s interesting how prevalent these themes are in many families. It’s definitely part of the human story and evolution.
On the note of old age and dying, we don’t talk much of the afterlife in AYP, but Yogani has touched upon it in very small doses. I think the general message is that life will continue, and that no momentum will be lost, so I like to keep that in mind.
And my regret is not something that weighs heavily on me. It is very small in relation to other emotions and my broader sense of self. Still, it is relevant and useful.
Thank you for your affirmations and reassurance!
P.S. I think one of the miracles of life is our ability to suffer great pain, and even torture, because that is an experience of diversity, in contrast to pure bliss consciousness. If we all came from a place of absolute peace, it would make sense that we would want to experience some temporary chaos, so it all works out in the long run.
Blog #36: Pushing the Limits
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-36-pushing-the-limits/
A couple interesting things happened this weekend. I went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and stirred up some controversy. I saw the new movie Everest, which is based on the true story of the 1996 disaster when eight climbers perished at the summit of that ferocious mountain. And I spent a little time with some friends and their toddler child, who is not nearly as ferocious as Mt. Everest, nor as controversial as the world of recovering addicts.
How are they connected, and why do I string them together?
Well, they have a common theme, and that is: limits. I’m talking about limitations, boundaries, thresholds—the real or imagined lines that divide the possible from the impossible. As human beings, we push the limits, respect them, honor them, even defile them. We often strive to transform ourselves from being limited, to limitless. It is the comedic drama of life.
But, getting back to this weekend, let me start with Narcotics Anonymous, which is an offshoot of AA that abides by the same masculine, theological principles as its parent organization.
It was an open-discussion meeting, so I raised my hand and shared a short blurb. I was talking about my history of addiction and mentioned the name Xanax, which immediately evoked some mumbling and grumbling in the room. I didn’t understand why at the time, but after the meeting, I was informed that it’s a non-written rule in NA that the names of specific drugs are not to be spoken aloud in meetings. Oops!
I was reminded of the Harry Potter chronicles, in which the arch villain is referred to as “He Who Must Not Be Named”. That’s right, the children and adult wizards are so scared of Voldemort that they dare not speak his name. The Dark Lord is a frightening piece of evil, looming in the shadows, waiting to pounce on victims who mistakenly invoke him with an accidental whisper.
In the movie Everest, the villain is the mountain itself. Its punishing weather and extreme altitude do not act kindly to the tiny mortals who try to scale its precipitous terrain. Some climbers are not only beaten down but also killed by the merciless conditions of the Himalayan peaks. Perhaps it is exactly because of the high risk and life-threatening challenges that mountaineers push their limits on Everest—to defy the odds and achieve the impossible dream. To walk into the death zone, and to return alive.
The Everest scenario is very dramatic. But my experience with the little toddler this weekend was not so dramatic. I was approaching the little creature to pick her up, but she back-pedaled in defiance, which I immediately respected by halting my approach. Her dad laughed and expressed some proud sentiments at his daughter’s early ability to set boundaries and exercise caution when encountering new people. Bravo to the young prodigy!
Now, when it comes to the realm of AYP, we are testing our limits in the nervous system. How much inner silence can we saturate the organism with? How much ecstasy and outpouring of divine love can we sustain?
We ask these questions with the tool of self-pacing, so that if purification and opening become too overwhelming, we can reduce the regimen accordingly. It’s a fine art of learning to slide through, glide through, and soar through, rather than trying to violently break through.
Limits are everywhere, whether it be in AYP, NA, AA, on top of Mt. Everest, or in the mind of a small child. What an interesting array of opportunities we have to explore and navigate.
As the great Buzz Lightyear once said: To infinity, and beyond.
Blog #37: Searching for Jesus in Jerusalem
http://ayprecovery.org/blog-37-searching-for-jesus-in-jerusalem/
Five years ago I went to Jerusalem with my cousin, who was attending a medical marijuana conference there. While he was busy going to seminars and studying the molecular biology of cannabinoids, I ventured into the ancient city to explore.
I was coming off a fresh peak experience from a long car ride through Georgia a month earlier, when I had been blasted with kundalini energy and glamorous visions, so I was feeling all enlightened and ready to have a mystical Jesus experience, now that I was in the messiah’s historical homeland.
With eager receptivity, I visited some of the major tourist spots: Bethlehem, where Christ was born; the Garden of Gethsemane, where he was betrayed by Judas, arrested by the Romans, and suffered the agonizing foreknowledge of his impending death; and finally, the Via Dolorosa in the Old City, where he was crucified after carrying his own cross along a path of humiliation and torture.
At each of the spots, while fellow tourists were snapping copious amounts of pictures and shuffling through the promenades in assembly-line fashion, I managed to find some quiet corners where I could pray and meditate. I had stumbled upon the AYP website only a couple weeks earlier, but I had also been spending time with a fascinating shop owner in San Francisco who had taught me some esoteric prayers. One of the prayers he taught me was called diamond heart radiance. He insisted that I keep it secret and not tell anyone. Well, that didn’t last long. I was too gung-ho about open-source transmissions of knowledge, and I’ve always enjoyed sharing tricks of the trade.
So, might as well share it here. [Some inner silence is required]. With closed eyes, drop directly into the heartspace with your awareness, then silently say in the mind: “I love the universe—the universe loves me.” Release, and repeat, as desired. Kind of like samyama. Pretty simple.
He had also directed me to stimulate my third eye by placing a coin to my forehead and holding it there with a subtle muscular tension exerted from the brow (no hands allowed except during the initial placement). Kind of like sambhavi mudra, but with an added prop for enticing the nerves even more.
So, perched on the peripheral edge of those holy sites, with a quarter stuck to my head, and esoteric prayers resounding in my heart, I desperately tried to induce a trance state in which I would be privy to spectacular scenery that no one else nearby could behold.
After several days of diligent effort, the visions never came. The denial of my yearning was to be an early lesson in the elusiveness of spiritual grandeur, and in the pitfalls of strenuously chasing mountaintop experiences. You can knock on the door, bang on the door, and desperately beg for someone to open the door, but that door opens only when it is good and ready.
Though I failed in my quest for an ignited boost of cosmic consciousness, I did succeed with a smaller mission. Before leaving for Israel, my San Francisco cohort had given me a couple hundred dollars to purchase a batch of unprocessed sandalwood, which he would end up using to make consecrated oils to be sold in his pagan shop. After searching for miles in the underground alleys of the Old City, where all kinds of supply and souvenir stands are stuffed underneath the cobblestone streets above, I found a trustworthy dealer who sold me a decent stash of the highly revered and aromatic timber. Score!
Of course, after my adventures in the daytime, I would rendezvous with my cousin at night and enjoy Middle Eastern cuisine and camaraderie among the other doctors who were intellectually devoted to cracking the code of medical marijuana. All in all, it was a wonderful trip, and there’s quite a few details and mini-excursions I’m leaving out.
Not to stretch out this already long blog any further, but I would like to touch upon the aforementioned avatar, Jesus of Nazareth.
I received a Catholic education from kindergarten to high school, and some of my close family members are Christian. I’ve been to plenty of masses, read lots of apostolic literature, and even majored in religious studies at Florida State University, with a focus in Buddhism and Christian mysticism. Yet, I have more questions than I do answers when it comes to Jesus, and I’ve had to learn to tolerate my uncertainty. If I’m certain of anything though, it’s the principle of the golden rule, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. All of the scholarship and dogma are secondary to that truth.
What I don’t buy into is that Jesus is the only son of God. To me, that’s just a gimmick of the overly masculine church authorities who have been trying to monopolize our salvation for millennia. Nope, in my book, there are many sons and daughters of God, at various levels of personal evolution, and each is unique and worthy in their own right. In the end, I think the deepest reality is that we are all God, and that there is no separate being ruling from above, but rather expressing Himself/Herself/Itself through our individual and collective consciousness, within and without.
There’s a beautiful Jesus quote from an apocryphal gospel that didn’t make the mainstream cut, and it goes like this: “Behold, I have become human. If you should not want to join me in becoming God, you would do me wrong.”
And that’s about as good as it gets for me. If there is a second coming of Christ on the horizon, I think I have found it in the form of Yogani, not because he is particularly special or even saintly, but precisely because he is an ordinary householder yogi that is laying the foundation for spiritual autonomy and freedom, in a way that Jesus would approve of.
Amen.
Amen Cody son of
on those who are devoted to me and worship me with love ,i bestow the yoga of understanding, by which thay come to me .krishna to arjuna
Charlie-D, Kumar
Jesus - my beloved.
I could never relate to him but then he exploded out of my heart one day - in about my 3-4th year of meditation - and imprinted Himself on my consciousness, in all my chakras esp. in my heart and crown. He is never not there. Never says a word. The few times I explode into Internity, I never get far. He steps out and catches me. Why?
Still I did not acknowledged him as my Ideal until recently. Guess I was still rebelling against my catholic upbringing. Baptism is a powerful thing indeed. He is there. Always.
Sey