Alakananda Ma: December 2007 Archives
Dear Ones,
Greetings to each and every one! May your New Year be filled with light and peace! As Jupiter and Pluto conjoin, setting off a new twelve year cycle in social trends, and as, concurrently with this astrological event, the social structure of Alandi Ashram re-aligns itself, my thoughts turn to family and community. How do we define family? Does our family operate by expansion and inclusion or by rejection and constriction? What are the qualities of family?
With the development of the nuclear family in the second half of the twentieth century, we began to see a dwindling social network with increasing alienation and isolation .More recently, the nuclear family itself—perhaps because it is unsustainably small—has fragmented into the single parent family, with still more isolation. In
To counteract the prevalent climate of alienation requires care and intentionality. As partnerships shift and change in our postmodern reality, an Indian-like attitude of expansive affiliation can help us maintain ties with those who have been important in our own and our children’s lives. Through such open -hearted and inclusive acts as maintaining a positive connexion with an ex-partner’s relatives and welcoming a former spouse’s new dear ones into our lives, we can forge an expansive family based upon welcome and inclusion rather than resentment and distance. We can also develop our family of the heart, creating a supportive network among those who share our values and devotion.
Three groups of people are especially vulnerable to the effects of fragmented families—children, elders and spiritual leaders. Children need to grow up in a network of long term relationships. They need grandparents, aunts and cousins whose consistent presence they can count on. Our efforts both to sustain inclusive and expansive family and to develop our intentional family of the heart support our children’s need to belong, to matter and to be embraced. Ironically, my work on this letter was interrupted by an unexpected visit from two adorable honorary grandchildren. I spent three hours playing with the girls while the mother of one of them helped Sadananda with a project. We played a game in which they named all their family members. Hot on the heels of biological family came, “You and Matrupriya and Gabby.” Postmodern extended family in a nutshell!
Elders also are vulnerable to isolation. Appointing elders in your community and neighbourhood as honorary grandparents can meet the elder’s need to matter as well as satisfying your children’s need for long term connection with elders. And as I move toward taking renunciate vows, I see clearly how vital extended families are to spiritual leaders. In the Orient, the monastic community is held in the arms of the extended family. Family provides the essential horizontal dimension to support the vertical direction of spiritual leaders. After seventeen years of effort to build community here at Alandi ashram, I still haven’t experienced the flowering of spiritual community as I had envisioned it, yet in its place I am feeling the power of extended family, a community of the heart whose long term bonds and connectivity creates the foundation for the flowering of intense spiritual community.
Family values are often presented as adherence to conventional morality. The true family values are caring, sharing, connecting and including. In this New Year, let us look at all the ways in which we can increase our experience of inclusion and sharing to create wider circles of open-hearted family with real values.
On a personal note, I will be taking first vows as a celibate renunciate at sunrise on January 14th. You can see the text of the vows elsewhere on this blog . After first vows I will be an aspiring sannyasini (technically, a brahmacharini). Because the vows are so radical, it is traditional to wait a few years before taking solemn vows that cannot be revoked. Please hold me in your prayers on this special day when I become more fully yours than ever.
With my love and blessings always
Alakananda Ma
Some months ago, when the realization that I would soon be taking sannyas first dawned upon me, I received an important dream. Someone presented me with a Swiss army knife, saying, “This is what sannyas is, to cut off all attachments.” I replied, “That is not the kind of sannyas I will take. My vision of sannyas looks like this.” And at this, I saw myself with an inexhaustible basket of seeds of bodhichitta (awakened heart). I was walking across the entire world sowing seeds of bodhichitta without ever looking back to see what had become of them.
In my vision of sannyas, there is room for family and the relational aspect of life. Sannyas as I see it is ultimate relatedness, ultimate compassion, because the true sannyasi is intimately related to all beings. Sannyas for me is not the renunciation of relationship but the creation of unlimited and unconditional relationship which sees all beings in equal vision. Vasudev kutumbakum—the whole world is my family.
Then last night, after writing the sannyas vows and linking them up on the blog page, I dreamed that I was about to die. I had contracted a serious condition which had started from a flower-like structure at the base of my spine and had now spread to the crown of my head. As a result I would die shortly and many friends were coming to receive blessings from me. This extremely auspicious dream speaks of the radical transformation indicated in the sannyas vows, which are being integrated into my being. May these dreams and visions shed light on the path of fellow seekers!
Alakananda Ma’s Vows of Renunciation
Major Vows
Sannyasa: Renunciation and Holy Poverty
I vow to walk in the way of Lady Poverty, owning neither money, property nor possessions. Any items made available for my use, even up to the clothes I wear, shall be the property of Alandi Ashram and I shall not regard any item as my own.
Bramacharya: Celibacy
I vow to observe absolute brahmacharya in thought, word and deed, through the guru’s grace, and to hold my mind in the undistracted and one-pointed condition. Regarding all beings as a mother does her children, I shall relate to each with uncontrived intimacy.
Varivasya: Obedience
I vow to obey the true nature of things and to be attentive and obedient to the words of the Sadguru speaking in my heart. I offer all actions in prayer to the will and grace of the Sadguru.
Mahamaitri: The Great Loving-kindness
I vow to regard all beings as my nearest and dearest friends and relatives. As a mother strives for the welfare of her children, I dedicate myself to bring about the happiness of all beings.
Mahakaruna: The Great Compassion
Experiencing the pain of all beings as if a part of my own body were in pain, I dedicate myself to free all beings from suffering.
Mudita: Joy
Seeing all experiences as the gift of the Sadguru, I vow to rejoice in all circumstances without making distinctions of good or bad. As a mother rejoices in her child I rejoice in the happiness of all beings.
I vow to remain sthitha (established in the Self) in all circumstances, seeing everything that arises with even-mindedness and One Taste. Fully contented in the Self I see all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings.
Mahatyaga: The Great Generosity
I place my life, without reservation, at the disposal of all beings, relinquishing any claim to ‘private time’ or a ‘personal life.’ When anyone thinks of me or needs my presence or support, I vow, through the grace of the Sadguru, to be present to them, whether in physical or in subtle form.
Paramshanti: Supreme peace
I vow to remain free from wishing or hoping for outcomes. Not fearing the future, not regretting the past, not resisting the present, I abide in peace beyond the three times, as a child of the moment.
Abhaya: The proclamation of Fearlesness
Now I fear no-one and let none fear me!
Minor Vows or Observances
To sleep on the ground
To wear and utilize white or ochre cloth
Not cutting the hair
To avoid saying ‘my’ or ‘mine.
A few people who read our email about the changes have asked to hear more about the human process involved. So here is a brief summary of the last five months of my journey.
Some time in Spring I had a dream with Ammachi (Amritanandamayi). Amma told me “You are brahma murti…you are a form of God in the world.” Then she showed me a statue representing myself as brahma murti. It was an image of Shiva and Parvati. Shiva was in the background holding and supporting Parvati, who sat with arms flung wide and head tilted back in joyous ecstasy and abandon. Amma then said to me, “Now you must be trained to take up your work as a divine form in the world. I will send teachers to train you.” Little did I guess at the time that the teachers were to be the beloved ones, Sadananda and Matrupriya.
At the end of June these two divinely appointed teachers set off for Albuquerque to see Amma and I was left behind for reasons I didn’t quite understand…except that I could see that I had already received Amma’s darshan in the dream.
When Sadananda returned and told me of the love that had developed between Matrupriya and himself and of his strong pull to be with her, naturally I was utterly devastated and shocked. I entered a two month journey of descent and dismemberment as I fathomed the depths of ancient fears of loss and abandonment. The little incubator baby part of me is utterly terrified of abandonment because I was taken away from my mother at birth and placed in an incubator. Although Sadananda’s conduct was not in reality abandoning, for he was there for the process of reconciliation and resolution, I was having the experience I was having and it was quite overwhelming. At times I cried so loudly in the night that neighbours were awakened.
Then Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year arrived and with it a change of energy .A few days after Rosh Hashanah I was sitting on my bed talking to Sadananda when in ten seconds my entire reality shifted. Suddenly I saw clearly that everything was just a watermoon. And the phenomenon of wishing fell away. Everything became a boundless space permeated with the Four Immeasurables—loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. For the next two months I was completely unaffected by things that would normally be extremely distressing.
When the November New Moon arrived, and the Festival of Divali, I was drawn to include the personal dimension as well as the transpersonal. It was time to return, in deeper way than before, to living in the union of personal and transpersonal. I began including my small and young parts, which I pictured as a baby bunny rabbit and a little girl in a pink dress. But now I am working with the child parts in a new way—holding them in the heart as a presence of tenderness, vulnerability and spontaneity. Everything has become unobstructed and I begin to understand the meaning of Shri Ramakrishna’s words, “the paramahansa is like a five year old child.” Just like a child, I have been experiencing a state that is emotionally transparent and spontaneous. I burst into tears one minute and laugh the next, because there is no obstruction.
Another New Moon rolled around and with it came a weekend of processing in
Is my heart broken—of course! A broken heart is the Holy Grail. It is the pinnacle of human experience to hold the broken heart tenderly in the expanse of boundlessness, without resistance or obstruction. Do I break down in tears during the tender process of recreating ‘our’ room as ‘my’ room, with all that entails? Of course I do. Yet amid it all I experience that true happiness is within and can never be altered by circumstances. We are walking this journey together and in love and care. We have a sense of our direction and yet we are stepping out into the unknown and do not indeed know where we will be led. I pray that our path may illumine that of others.
Yesterday was an unusual birthday for several reasons. To begin with, it was a Saturday, and I was born on a Saturday. Also, this birthday occurred at a time of major life changes, so I had a feeling of being reborn on my birthday. Along with the sense of birth came the vulnerable feelings of the baby I once was, a tiny premature infant in an incubator.
And this rebirth was midwifed by so many wonderful beings! Over thirty of my closest friends gathered to feast and celebrate together. We began with the havdalah ceremony of separating from the Sabbath, in itself a marking of transition. I was in fact born at six o’clock on Saturday evening, so at the time of my birth, havdalah was being celebrated.
Adults of all ages and walks of life attended the ceremony, as well as four children and two babies, giving a deep sense of family. We concluded with the Amethyst Heart ceremony, in which new students were initiated into the Healing Order of the Amethyst Heart, a mystic order which came into beings through dreams that both I and later my students received. Baby Elena became the youngest person ever to be initiated into this energy, receiving the name Suprasanna—one who is ever cheerful and beaming.
This divine feast of love and friendship came as a profound reminder of the truth that all beings are my own and I belong to each one.
This is the day of the Jupiter Pluto conjunction in Saggitarius, initiating a new twelve year cycle in social trends. The conjunction lands right on my natal Mercury, Juno and Chiron, bringing expansion and transformation to whom I am as a writer and teacher (Mercury), healer (Chiron) and wife (Juno). Right over the conjunction, my copy editor,Tristan, appeared with a fully edited manuscript of my latest book, The Amethyst Heart: Healing the wounds of separation. It is a book of healing power for all who have experienced trauma, and fully expresses my nature as a wounded healer (Chiron).
Above all, my manifestation as a wife is being totally transformed as Sadananda and enter a new phase of our journey as spiritual companions. If the course we have set turns out to be the true course, then our days of cohabitation are over and Sadananda wil enter a new life a householder yogi, in partnership with Matrupriya. It is scary and vulnerable to allow my almost twenty eight year relationship with Sadananda to enter the unknown. The unconditional love and friendship are palpably present, yet the new form is veiled in mystery. A cherished life experience of dwelling with my beloved as partners in the life of vanprasthrashram comes to an end and a new phase begins. And I know that Matrupriya, Gabby and Sadananda are all faces of the Sole Beloved.
I am "dating Lord Shiva" with a view to marriage; in other words, I am seriously enquiring into the potential that at this time I have recieved a call to sannyas, total renunciation within a celibate path. How great is the kindness of the guru, who will stop at nothing to bring about awakening! How many times I have prayed, "Whatever it takes! May I be of supreme benefit to all sentient beings, whatever it takes!" And the guru has taken my prayer to heart and blessed me with this doorway of change, challenge and growth, arising in inconceivable ways.
It is an ending and new beginning for Alandi Ashram as well. This precious little abode of light arose from the love and dedication of two people who came together to create a space where we could live a life of sadhana (spiritual practice) and seva (selfless service). During this transition, it appears that the ashram will in the future be held by me, by Ma, with contributions of service and energy from Sadananda, as will unfold. At this time, I am called to hold the vision, to keep faith with the dream, in all my daily actions of seva. From the seed of light that I water and tend, a renewed ashram will spontaneously arise as a beacon of love for all seekers and fountain of peace for every weary heart.
Delivered on the occasion of the 2004 Gurukula Graduation
Ayurveda is the fifth Veda, the Veda that deals with Ayush—life. As such, it is the art of understanding what it is to live—fully, richly, joyously. For to live is much, much more than to survive. Survival speaks of a grim-faced, fist-clenched struggle to keep body and soul together. It is an arduous duty and a grave burden. Living, on the other hand, is a celebration, a receiving of daily blessings, a continuous act of gratitude and appreciation. The world of modern medicine speaks of survival rates; we in Ayurveda speak of svasthi, wellbeing.
To make a genuine transition from surviving to living, we must come to understand both Ayush and Veda. The Vedas are the hymns and proclamations of living a truly human life, a life in which we are part and parcel of the web, a life in which Sun dwells in our eyes, Wind in our nostrils, Water in our blood, Fire in our bellies, Space in the marrow of our bones; a life that comes from joy—ananda—lives in joy and unto joy returns.
The language of survival haunts our daily life. “Hallo, how are you doing?” “Oh… surviving” we reply. It’s a shocking answer, one that might be appropriate in Baghdad or Fallujah, in famine and AIDS stricken Africa, in North Korea…but in America? Why is it that in the lap of peace and plenty, we feel so much stress, so much self-concern, that we frame our existence in the language of survival?
The key to understanding this paradox lies in the Vedas. Surviving is the experience of separation, fragmentation and disconnection. The language of survival is the reflection of our fall from innocence, dramatically portrayed in the Torah as our eviction from the Garden of Eden. If I am separate, then it’s me against the world. Water is no longer my blood, it is a torrent in which I fear to drown, or a force I dam to light my city. Fire is no more the place where God dwells within me, it is an enemy I dowse in flame retardant and a servant to smelt my metals and create my plastics. No longer am I a child of earth, for she has long ago ceased to be my golden-breasted mother. Weaned from her abundant teat, we flog her fields with fertilizer, cut her rippling hair, the forests, for wood pulp, and mine her bowels for oil and gold.
Like archetypal two-year-olds, like rebellious teenagers, we have declared our independence from Bhu Devi, our mother earth and Surya, the sun, our father. Moved by the nagging fear that we truly are completely separate, utterly alone, a fragile body that death will at last forever annihilate, we seize, extort and extract from our erstwhile mother what wealth we can. “How are you doing?” they ask. “Surviving”, we say, our reply moved not just by the fear of not being safe, of not having enough, but also by a deep wistfulness, a longing to return to the sense of abundance and peace.
Walking in the way of Ayurveda, of the Vedas, we must undergo a radical conversion of heart from the language and imagery of survival to that of living. As one who lives, I walk with the stars and run with the deer. The mighty ocean lulls me to sleep, her ceaseless waves the faithful beating of my heart. The rising sap of Spring calls me to renewal and with the falling leaves of Autumn I shed old toxins. The light of the sun, the sweat of the pony and the jewel-flash of the kingfisher’s wings are one with the fire of my eyes and the warmth of my outgoing breath. The Earth is mother, I am child of Earth. Born from her, I will return to her. And though my body will become dust, the force of life of which I am a manifestation will continue, like a river. To live in this way is to be delivered from daily fear, to relax into the continuity of the Whole. With every inbreath I receive from the Whole, with every outbreath I die into the Whole.
Abundance is the movement of the breath—hold it and you die. As Jesus said, if we try to save our life, our prana, we lose it, if we die into each moment, we live in the eternity of the Now. Abundance is not to have, it is to receive and give and receive again. To live is to trust, to trust our mother, the wide-flung Earth, adorned with four directions, to trust the cycles of time, the seasons of growth and decay marked for us by the sun and moon, to trust the flow of life from which we come and into which we shall return. This sitting lightly to life enables us to relax and live rather than cling and survive. It is described by the great Mahasiddha Tilopa as resting like a hollow bamboo and by Rumi as waiting like a reed flute for the breath of the Beloved. This is to live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, taking no thought for the morrow. This is simplicity, resting in the care of the Whole as a child rests in its mother’s arms.
Bring yourself back each day, each moment to this sitting lightly, this resting. Remember, this is about svasthi, not survival, about living, not clinging. Without radical conversion to the essence of the Vedas, Ayurveda will be a mere technology. I’m counting on you to offer this ancient teaching as truly the science of life. Thank you and my blessings always to each one of you.
