Category: Inspirational Publisher: Marin Mindful Body Press
ISBN-10: 0996150900
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 316
Copyright: March 16, 2015
ISBN-13: 9780996150903
This book is how to use crisis in life to transform darkness into light and live a happier, more loving and fuller life.
What happens after an intense spiritual awakening? How do you navigate the unwinding and deconstruction of self on the physio-psycho-spiritual system? Who is the Kundalini and why does it matter to you? How do we honor and benefit from the gifts of phenomena, and at the same time, see through we are none of these?
If your deepest yearning is to be alive, awake and potent, then this book is for you. If you want to transform crisis into a gift, may this inspire you. If you are navigating the perils of a spiritual emergency or an intense spiritual awakening, then the human sober stories here will serve as examples. The invitation to love and acceptance that reside in the kernel of each of our experiences show us that humanity and divinity are no different. If your deepest yearning is to be awake to both light and dark, and integrate the personality with being, then this book is for you. The kundalini process is about waking up what is asleep in each of us. This is part memoir, part self-help peppered with reflective questions and simple guided awareness practices after each chapter to wake you up. So put on your seatbelt as this journey traverses mercurial terrain. In the alchemical forging ground rises the phoenix. Welcome aboard!
Different people experience kundalini differently depending on different stages of rising as well as what blocks are in the physio-psycho-spiritual system. These could be kriyas, opening of non-ordinary states, glossalia, etc. When the openings are in "wilder" phases because of the unblocking process happening, there are ways to help soothe it and listen to what is the wisdom the kundalini is sharing. Kundalini can be explosive and rapid as a fire razes through a dry forest of beliefs and world views. It can also be smooth like mist.
Surrender honed over decades has allowed me to listen to the teachings of the Shakti (Divine Power Consciousness). There were times that my ego personality desperately wanted to control and manage the phenomena that was very disturbing. This grasping created more problems with the kundalini process. Think of BIG energy moving up your spine, and then LITTLE energy (ego) trying to micromanage the direction of big energy. It doesn’t work. Part of my development was seeing directly these distinctions as energy patterns, and then translating them into the integration of being and non-being. There is a necessary place for the ego, but I found it wasn’t the way we usually think about it.
Excerpt
I had just finished a week of retreat on the bardos (intermediate states between two lives). The next day I was in the emergency room. The left side of my body was numb, like novocaine. My left arm and left leg felt as though they were in buckets of ice cold water or dry ice. The weight was heavier on my left side. I was alone and I did not know if it was a stroke I was feeling. How was I going to leave that room in what condition? I didn’t know if I would die right then. I took deep breaths and let the air out through my mouth repeatedly. Tears silently glided down my cheeks. I was scared. I searched for the face of God. I wanted a personal God. My Buddhist practice did not provide me with one. Somehow at that moment reminding myself of clear light was not enough. I called Ammaji, and she came, kissing the left side of my face, stroking/caressing the left side of my body. I remember the instructions from the bardo teachings, “You can’t get hurt. You’re dead already.” Repeating this to myself over and over again brought deep peace and acceptance.
Another excerpt:
“As we entered the last bridge, Sugata stopped his car and said, “It’s your last chance to turn back.” I gulped, noted my fear, and overrode it. He gave me one of the houses half buried in snow, showed me how to turn on the heater, gave a tour of the pantry and I began my winter retreat. It was a beautifully crafted wooden cottage with rose paintings of a double vajra on its ceiling. Its simplicity framed the depth of blizzards and the ever changing snowy landscape that engulfed me. I burnt many candles that winter. I had shelter, food and all I had to do was watch the mind! I grounded oat seeds by hand and soaked them overnight. That was breakfast. Lunch was rice, sprouted mung beans and grated carrots. Dinner was same or soup with rye bread and homemade cranberry jam. Once a month or so, I would have frozen spinach as a treat. It was harder to cook for myself than to cook for the whole monastery with the Roshi.
Sprouting the mung beans was essential for me that retreat. The seeds reminded me of the mystery of life and to never underestimate it. The power of life force breaking through into its next manifestation is simply immense, powerful and mysterious. The changing snow landscape was my constant teacher. I could not predict anything. I surrendered.
Initially, I took down the bathroom mirror at the beginning of the retreat and hid it. Though as winter progressed, I would peek at it just to remind myself that I was still there. The sun did not touch my side of the valley for the whole three months except the last two days. The first week in Shangri-La, I could still walk with my regular shoes outside, but then it kept snowing and my legs got swallowed up by the snow. I didn’t know how to ski. Sugata gave me a very quick lesson and bought me skis and a red anorak. Red so if I get lost in the countryside, I can be seen and found quickly in the landscape of snow. He took me on top of a hill, and said to bend my knees and let the poles swing behind me, and I flew in the air down the hill so fast. He hadn’t taught me how to stop yet. The fall on the bottom was cushioned by laughter as I saw Sugata, this generous man in his late eighties, running down the hill towards me to make sure that I was all right!
He Keeps Me is a devotional journey of revelation and insight birthed out of prayer.Searching the Word of God revealed the many ways that He has kept me and continues to keep me. Each day is an opportunity to recognize that God is mindful of you, eve
