A few weeks ago I had the fortune of sleeping with a guy who could best be described as Adonis!

Fair-skinned, soft tresses that gently fell on his forehead, a cheerful disposition, and a quietness that permeated his very being, he made any person who came into his proximity feel tranquil!

Even in the heat of our unbridled passion, as we gave ourselves away completely to the heat of our youth and the lust we felt for each other’s body and form, I kept admiring the beautiful innocence that the gods in heaven had graced him with.

Yet in this earthly ritual, even as I travelled through the contours of his luscious body, my gaze would come back again and again to his eyes … looking for divine refuge, searching for the very essence of Beauty there, only to be hugely disappointed!

What was missing? In this perfect union of two heavenly bodies, why did I keep feeling a void in my heart that was painfully insatiated?

When the heat calmed down with the heartbeats and the world around made its foray into our consciousness; even as we lay spent on the bed I wondered what had left me discontented after a perfectly divine love-making experience. What goodness was missing there in his perfectly poetic face that I searched for in vain?

Ever so often, after that eventful night, we have crossed each other’s paths as perfect strangers, exchanging glances of formal greetings only to hasten to a busy day ahead!

Yet every time I meet him, I search for that one thing in his eyes which I finally know is missing, an ingredient which if I had found in his eyes could by its mere existence given me the reason to abandon this life on earth in the faith that I have fully lived!

It is only now that I know his eyes lack the other essential half to complement God’s perfection expressed in his beauty- the essential ingredient of love. If I could find the beauty and love together in his eyes even for a night, I would have found a glimpse of God Himself!

Holy sweet love, how you keep your distance from a pilgrim who seeks you in the most perfect of places!

Ya Khuda! Have you stopped placing souls in objects which you decorate with your light?

Where will I find the noor of your beauty coupled with the grace of your bountiful love?

So said, your pilgrim continues his journey on the Path to reach you! Forgive me my Complaint, but the Separation is turning unbearable. I need the balm of thy succour in this scourge of a desert, even as I worship your noor in objects you have blessed your beauty with!

Please provide me with the perseverance that alone can keep a dervish on His difficult Path, the lack of which would drive him insane!

Don’t keep Yourself away for too long!

There are many good books on Kundalini. I quote from what I have read or heard from my Gurus.

Our Body is actually the Physical sheath, called Annamayi kosha.. Anna means grain or food.. it is made from the food we eat.

Ayurveda explains how the food is then broken down into bones, flesh, blood, marrow, etc.. in stages..

But there is more to the body. We also have the Manamayi Kosha which is another body that covers our physical body, and Bhutamayi Kosha which is the uppermost sheath… They are akin to energy body; something on the lines of Aura..

Our Bhutamayi Kosha holds karmas - anubandhanas, from this and previous lives that is to fructify sooner or later.

The Manamayi Kosha holds our emotions and attitudes!

Now to keep all the three bodies in perfect order there are the 5 pranas (life-force) in the body. For e.g. Paana takes care of inhalation etc, Apaan takes care of excretion and reproduction etc..

Also there are Seven Energy Centers in the Body (I have attached a pic for the locations)

1.Root Chakra i.e. the Moolaadhaara chakra(Lord Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of this Center)

2.Sexual Chakra (sacral Chakra)

3.Solar Plexus (Swadhisthanna)

4.Heart Chakra (hrydaya)

5.Throat Chakra (vissudhi)

6.Third Eye Chakra (between the brows: Aangya)

7.Crown Chakra (Sahasrara chakra)

Apart from the Energy from food, we also get energy from the Universal Energy known as chi or ki in other languages. (In Reiki we make use of this) We Indians call it Shakti.

If for any reason e.g. by disturbed thoughts, or due to some problem if any of our Chakra is affected (& they usually are), there is an energy imbalance in the body.

We also have Nadis in the body: Sushumna, Ida and Pingala nadis. Nadis are channels for the flow of Energy in the body.

My understanding of Kundalini is this: Kundalini is the dormant energy that lies asleep in one’s Moolaadhaara chakra. Hindus call it the Goddess Shakti.

With Saadhana (i.e. practice under the guidance of a true Guru only), this dormant energy is slowly and gradually awakened.

Saadhana is differently prescribed by different Gurus and Gurukulas and schools of thought…. It can be mantra, visualization, meditation etc.

There are also traditions wherein the Guru bestows his grace to the Disciple at the beginning of the Guru Student relationship, i.e. at the start of the Spiritual practice through Deeksha (initiation into the Tradition of the Kula) in the form of Shaktipaat (transfer of Energy) or giving some secret mantra to the disciple.

With further progress in one’s Sadhana (spiritual practice) which may take a whole lifetime or lifetimes, the dormant energy travels through the Channel: from Chakra to chakra rising higher towards the Crown Chakra. When that happens, a person becomes enlightened. He gets all his answers about Life, our existence, the past, future etc. He may then choose to become a Guru perhaps, but he has still to be a Karma yogi i.e. he goes through his usual life.

Here there is a line of caution: the Sadhana has to be done only under the supervision of a True guru. There are many problems that one encounters on the way as Kundalini progresses and only a Guru who has himself awakened his Kundalini and is efficient, can help you through these problems. There have been cases wherein people have done Sadhanas from books without a Guru and have ended up in Mental-asylums or Psychiatric-wards! Also there are Siddhis (power to work miracles or karaamats) that comes along the way but these are to be ignored by sincere students or they may end up getting entangled further in Karmas.

Yoga

There are 8 parts to Yoga of Patanjali, the great seer who wrote the Masterpiece on Yoga called the Yogasutras… This comprehensive Yoga is called Ashtanga Yoga.

There are guidelines called Yama and Niyama, which form the first two parts of Yoga which one vows to practise before one takes the other parts of the Ashtanga Yoga one by one.. Sivananda Yoga and Satyananda Yoga (of the Bihar School of Yoga – where my Guru belongs to), necessitate that even before the Yama and Niyama, the student should go through Shrama (physical labour) in the Ashram atleast for four months even as he takes up Yoga.

The third limb of Ashtanga Yoga are the Aasanas, like Sukhaasana, Garudasana etc… which develops flexibility of the body to make it a proper vessel for future Sadhana. In modern times we use it also for physical well-being. The Yoga Institute of Mumbai says that Power Yoga is not Yoga and Bihar School of Yoga agrees!

The fourth step ahead is Pranayama. This purifies the Nadis… Even these are to be done under strict supervision starting from simple pranayamas and then one should proceed gradually to the difficult ones. Baba Ramdev’s Pranayama shown on TV should be done, according to my humble opinion, much later after having practised the simple Pranayamas over a period of time.

Beyond these, any decent Yoga teacher or Institute would want you to be patient before you learn about the remaining four limbs of Yoga.

These are:

• Pratyahara – abstraction of the senses, withdrawal of the senses of perception from their objects
• Dharana – concentration, one-pointedness of mind
• Dhyana – meditation (quiet activity that leads to samadhi)
• Samādhi – the quiet state of blissful awareness, superconscious state.

(Source: Wikipedia)

My Yoga teacher at the Yoga Institute in Mumbai warned that Pratyahara was the bridge between the material world and the world of Renunciation… Once a person crosses this bridge, there is no coming back. He loses interest in the material world.

Almost 99% of the students then did not want to learn anything about the remaining four limbs of Yoga

Yoga is a Special science, and is the heritage of India.

-Golden Boy

1. O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.
   My heart has become capable of every form:
   it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
   and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Kaa’ba,
   and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
   I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take,
   that is my religion and my faith.
2. All that is left
   to us by tradition
   is mere words. It is up to us
   to find out what they mean.

    

3. Were it not for
   the excess of your talking
   and the turmoil in your hearts,
   you would see what I see
   and hear what I hear! 

4. When my Beloved appears, With what eye do I see Him? With His eye, not with mine, For none sees Him except Himself.  

5. Rabia of Bashra, as she told of her journey to Mecca: -“I see only bricks and a house of stone;
   What do they profit me?
   ‘Tis Thou that I want.” 

This year I decided to lay all my fears to rest and get an idol of Ganesha on Ganesh Chathurthi. As a child, I was always fascinated by this Hindu Elephant headed God. I watched with much fascination how a few of my neighbours would bring idols of Ganesha and sing in worship during the festival.

Worship in Hinduism is closely related to rituals. Even as reformers through time, like Kabir and Meera, stressed the non-ritualistic worship, with Bhakti (devotion and intoxication with love for the deity) as the only essential ingredient of worship of the Almighty!

So this time, I hope to honour Ganesha without rituals. No Vedic invocations, no mantras! Just a sweet lamp burning at His lotus feet! And simple prayers!

-x-x-x-

Even as I think of worshiping the God, in this season (the Hindu month of Shravan), I am filled with intoxication of another kind! Love!

I happened to read an essay about the Sufi way of attaining enlightenment! It is called the Tariqah!

Sufis look at beauty as the perfection of God. So the feelings of passion evoked in my heart even as I look at the face of a beloved, is a gentle reminder for me that there is no beauty in this cosmos except for the beauty of God reflected in faces and things around me! Beauty, the perfection of God, creates ripples of warmth in a frozen heart!

And who could be the best wine (khamr) for intoxication than your own Guru, or the deity who is the object of your worship? Who could be greater beloved than them?

(The following text was posted as a comment first on Desicritic.org as a comment by Golden Boy http://desicritics.org/2009/07/31/071354.php)

My Yoga Teacher, who has studied Gandhian Philosophy, once told me that she does not believe in Jesus’ theory of extending the other cheek when slapped. She explained that the minute you lost your awareness, you were punished by somebody attacking you!

Ahimsa is an off-shoot of a deeper Indian Philosophy arising from the theory that one should always be Aware.

If a man is aware enough, he would stop the person from slapping him in the first place, so that no Himsa (against himself too) will take place.

As for other people, and also you, who commented on what should one do in case somebody attacks you (somebody even quoted the Dalai Lama!), yes! if confronted with a ‘Live or Die’ situation, Hindu Dharma says - Attack.

However the moment the attacker is captured, (as in Kasab’s case), a mere foot-soldier; we need to know that the scenario is different and here the principle to apply is not self-preservation (because now it is the Government and Judiciary who needs to take care that we are not attacked again, caught sleeping!).

Here the scenario now is, ‘Do we want to mass-murder a criminal?’ Or speaking in the context of real Ahimsa the option is - Should we not put him away to repent behind bars and come to realize what he has really done?

The strong never attacks the weak (which Kasab is right now, caught and behind bars) in the context of Ahimsa.

If we still rant about his crime and want him dead, we are afraid and paranoid people who are scared that the Indian Government can’t handle it’s responsibility of seeing to it that he doesn’t get out of prison for life, or we honestly are reacting out of our anger and trauma.

Perhaps this comment would do some real justice to our ‘holy Texts’ and the concept of Ahimsa which has been dragged into this controversy and used without regard to its essence, to ask for something (Himsa) that Ahimsa is totally against.

Stop Fabricating and misqouting guyz! Please understand that the spirit of Ahimsa comes out of getting out of the Victim position. It is about feeling empowered, which we truly are, and nothing to do with being a Coward.

Remember that forgiving and Ahimsa is an act of heroism; unlike attacking and killing which is an act of cowardice that terrorised and insecure people follow

If we kill Kasab, we will not be doing justice to either the Indian Philosophy of Ahimsa, or our own Sacred Texts!

Amen to that!

Golden Boy