Friday, October 8, 2010

Satsang with Gangaji

I just finished reading "You Are That!" Satsang with Gangaji and found myself nodding through the whole book. Yep, it all made pretty sound sense to me. All of it. Here are a few of the passages that struck me most:


"Discriminating wisdom recognizes the folly of chasing impermanent things in search of permanence. Whether it is in money, food, lovers, or great spiritual states, it is foolish to search for something permanent in something that is inherently impermanent...recognition of impermanence is like a thunderclap opening the mind. Not a belief, not a hope, not a theory -- but a realization that all of your grasping has been in vain. All of your rejecting has been in vain. All mind activity of attempting to hold, to keep, or to deny has been in vain. If you link up realization with particular experience, then in your mind, realization is a thing. No thing is permanent" (p. 51). 

"Self-inquiry is vigilance. If in any moment you feel pulled towards identification with suffering, ask yourself the question, "who is suffering?" The belief, I am not THAT, and the resulting suffering must be faced. Direct experience is self-inquiry. Who is not That? Who is suffering? In self-inquiry, one uncovers self-denial through fabrication of thought. Belief in fabricated thought as reality leads to suffering. In the moment of directly experiencing the fabrication, the lie is exposed and annihilated" (pp. 160-61).

"Attention gets its attentiveness from pure awareness, which is who you are. Self-definition only keeps you fixated on waves while yearning to find the deep. The ocean has no problems with waves. Never for a moment does the ocean imagine the waves as separate from itself. Never for a moment does the ocean imagine its depths as separate from itself. Never for a moment does the ocean imagine there is any separation between wave and depth. Be the ocean. This is vigilance" (p. 166).

"All is true self. There is no separation anywhere. Suffering comes while imagining separation from self. Fear arises around whatever it is you imagine you are separate from" (p. 170). 

Sunday, October 3, 2010

the goddess walks on

decay smells good,
i muse as another flash of orange
presents itself to my sneaker.

crunch.
crumble.
snap.

my steps play a role
in life's great turnover.
with one movement i create ash
and fragile bones crush beneath my feet.

i feel like kali --
the great devourer --
as i walk and plod through death.

all dissolves before me.
farmers remove gold from dried earth
and hang up their scythes for the season.
i watch as they scurry towards the hearth
and shut wooden doors firmly behind them.

i stand on resting soil,
stick out my tongue
and create a new universe.


in the silence that follows,
i join the dervishes
and spin faster and faster
in orbit around something holy.