Ramanama

I recently finished another book about Gandhi, this one an anthology of his writings. I swear I love this man, I love what he stood for and what he so steadfastly attempted to embody. I loved his lifetime model for turning theory into practice, the abstract into the concrete. Rare has so pure a life been lived. Walking the walk, an entire nation of people loved him as their own father. Though we have all the guidance we need within, I wish I knew one such as him to turn to for wisdom when it was needed.

I learned in the intro to the anthology that, to understand Gandhi you must see him as a mystic, ever desiring to know for himself the unitary knowledge of eternal reality, ever desiring to sacrifice all that was not truth within himself upon the altar of that seeking, ever seeking greater humility and love towards his fellow beings, ever attempting to transcend all cultural, religious, and societal distortions to abide in that one mysterious truth to which we are all heir.

At some point in his life he picked up the practice of ramanama. Basically, it is the repetition of the Creator's name - aloud at times but more so within the thoughts of the self. This struck me as a highly efficacious means to bring about that recollected consciousness I so seek to carry into each moment that greets me, thus did i take up a similar practice.

I began by "saying" in my thoughts, over and over, "one creator". This is the base rhythm from which i can creatively build from and expand upon. I make variations to this, such as "one infinite Creator", "infinity", "unconditional love", "i seek the one", etc. When i began this practice I was repeating the Creator's so-called "name" more than I am now. I was waking up in the night singing that sweet rhythm and, it was strange but my right knee felt like it was swelling with pressure everytime i would start repeating "one infinite Creator". Occasionally I still find myself waking in the night, repeating this phrase.

Though I find it virtually impossible, being in an extremely busy, hectic, and distracted culture and society, I believe that if one could retrain their minds to think upon unity throughout all the moments of their day, they would soon realize that which they were looking for. The difficulty in doing this is that, as i mentioned, there are a million and one distractions that take the mind away, there are as many obligations and duties to see to, and even in an environment with no external distractions, such as meditation, the mind itself is hardwired to be wildly unfocused, rambunctious, undisciplined, and resembling much the behavior of an already high-strung individual having just ingested a liberal does of meth-amphetamines. It wants to do anything BUT become relaxed, still, and one-pointed upon that which, to the analytical mind, seems void and empty.

Remembering your seeking, remembering to greet the moment with both eyes seeing through the circumstance at hand towards the truth, that truth for which the symbols of the physical world only point to but do not equate with, remembering to desire the truth instead of letting the separate self's cravings and aversions run the show for you --- this is key. Like Sarah in the Labyrinth, we are each on a quest where there seem more dead ends, traps, and circular pathways than those which lead to the center. The Labyrinth wishes us to forget our quest and instead lose ourselves in the comforts of sleep and our previous symbols of reference and identity. If only we could keep with us the memory of our seeking at all times! There would be no true barriers except those that we allow to exist. With one-pointed memory of our dedication and the faith that what we seek is already and forever within us, we could walk straight through what would seem like solid walls in the labyrinth of real life. No moment could trick us away from our seeking for very long because the strength of our desire would guide us home no matter our starting point nor our situation relative to the center. We would commence the journey and not stop putting one foot in front of the other until we were on that ground which seemed only a distant echo of a dream in some corner of our hearts when we began.

This practice of Ramanama is the greatest means I have come across for remembering to not be blinded by the red, orange, and yellow ray concerns of survival, sex, social positioning, and power issues. Remembering to see my environment as an illusory manifestation of one being, to see others about myself as the one Creator, and to see myself not as a being of flesh'n'bones but as a being of pure Light, i would not be so easily duped by the mental patterns that are anxious about the future, guilty about the past, and forever concerned in seeking lasting satisfaction in that which does not last. It is a wonderful means for the disciplining of the personality which Ra so commends to the seeker of truth.

That is totally the primary mission: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." (Something to that effect.) Everything will sort of "fall into place" when we keep our hearts straight and oriented towards that single truth beneath and beyond the surface play of maya or illusion.

How could one not profit from thinking about, contempltaing, and meditating upon the Creator? What situation would not benefit from bringing the Creator into the forefront of one's thoughts? Isn't it like saying, "I see through this all, Creator. I see the shadows, I see the darkness surrounding me, but I know that this is you, I know that, behind this all and in every iota of this experience is you in all your glory. I no longer wish to be ensnared in samsara, the cosmic delusion. I no longer will look at the world through the eyes of the animal self or the societal self. I will look through your exquisite computer-like program of a finite world seemingly devoid of God and I will see a masterpiece of art, I will see you. I will see the clues embedded deeply within every person, every sensation, every thought, every experience, and ever moment. I will undertake suffering voluntarily and joyfully. I will let go of my attachments to this material existence in order that you might fill me with your truth which is not material. I will wake up from the dream and be with you."

Ramanama is a means to an end. It is a practice which often is without profundity or deep meaning-- I repeat "one creator" while being fully lost within the illusion of daily concerns and worries and stresses, my mind soaked in lesser concerns than seeking the One. Yet, in repeating the words, one part of my consciousness has not let go, one part adamantly clings to the memory of my seeking so that, when more "space" is available within my thoughts, the rest of my conscious self can enjoin the repetition of One Creator and, as a whole, I can focus upon unity, lifting my thinking, my expectations, my hopes and my fears into the light, in songs of praise and thanksgiving, so that that which is not real within me will fall away.

The desire to seek runs deep within me and will resurface regardless of circumstance experienced in the interval and regardless of how deeply distracted i become or how deep in a coma-like sleep I fall... there is no stopping the seeking. With ramanama i hope to make it more constant, to bring it up into my conscious thinking on a more dependable and steady basis so that I may do the work of spiritual evolution in each and every moment, not only in meditation or during my spiritually oriented reading or during those surreal moments when beauty strikes me so hard that I can not help but contemplate the glory of the One Creator. But at all times.

This repetition is a means of refining, implementing, and crystallizing intent. By persisting in the repetition, I am softly rapping on infinity’s door. Eventually, that door will open. Until then, I repeat those words which point to a reality which words can never touch, "One Creator".

Channeling Intensive

The first of the channeling intensives was a memorable event. Leading up to it, during, and after, I believe I saw more repeating digits than either a: I ever have in my entire life or b: I haven't seen in many years. I was astounded how many times my eyes "just happened" to look at the clock to catch a 333 or 444. To bolster the sense of specialness about the weekend, while I didn't see shooting stars as has happened at gatherings past when a certain incarnated celestial body came near my orbit, I had the closest most unusual encounter of my life with a hawk just days before the intensives.

Driving towards Hobbs Park Rd on Hazelwood, a hawk swooped down in front of my windshield, perhaps ten feet away, its wings at what seemed like maximum wingspan, spread across the width of my windshield, it swooped down moving to my right, landing on the far side of a large ditch running parallel to the road i was traveling on. With no one behind me, I stopped the car, put it in reverse, and looked at the hawk through my passenger window. The hawk looked back at me. Amazed, i drove forward, convinced it was somehow related to the upcoming intensive.

Our first practice session at the intensive involved the telling of a story, each person in the circling channeling (or attempting to channel) the next piece of the story. While I wasn't able to serve as a channel through which a contribution could be made, others were. It was a very simple story of a boy who journeys to a distant and exotic land in search of the truth, only to find that the truth was within himself the entire time.

Though a basic story, tears were leaking out from my closed eyelids as it was being told. There was such an innocence about the tale, a purity which, in stark contrast to myself, i felt absent with me. It was as if there was within me a juxtaposition of two worlds. In one world, the world of the story, the Earth was green with thriving, glowing, radiant, vibrant, colorful life, untarnished, pristine, and whole - a paradise, if you will. In the other world, the world of my interior, I found not a green lushness but a thoroughly scorched ground. I felt like all the negative emotions that daily run through me - judgment, bitterness, anger, pettiness - to name a few, have scorched my earth. I saw myself standing on what was formerly an Eden but had been burnt and ruined in the flames of anger and pain. This caused tears, as if I had started out with something so beautiful but in my ignorance turned into a barren no-mans land. Why would I choose to live this way?

I realized that evening, as I have been intuiting for some time now, that I must learn, instill, and cultivate within me those qualities of compassion, softness, tenderness and the ability to relax. To be gentle with myself and with all others, to be kind, generous, and unconditional in my love. Softness is key. My will can be indomitable, my choices firm, my mind single-pointed, my thirst intense, but at the same time I can go about things lightly, gently, without aggression, without inner violence, without cynicism and without resentment for that which is not to my liking. Softness would make the ground again open to the seeds of new life, compassion would water the new seeds with life-giving nutrients, gentleness would encourage the life to grow in what is already a harsh world, and my dedication to seeking the truth would be the light without which few things can grow --- for growth is the reaching for the light.