thepeoplesashram

Posts Tagged ‘shiva’

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Trika yoga & the Goddess Kundalini

In Uncategorized on November 1, 2011 at 12:54 am

Shakti is the mother of the universe.  She is responsible for everything that we experience, from light and color to sound and smell.  She is also responsible for there being an “us” in the first place.

Mother Shakti, according to Trika yoga, is the author of all creation.  She created the temples of our body/minds to make us the perfect beings for our world.  There is nothing in our universe but what is, in one way or another, available for our experience–directly or sometimes indirectly.  We belong to our world and our world belongs to us.

The first verse of the Shiva Sutras states,

“Universal consciousness is one’s own nature.”

The second verse continues,

“Knowing the individual consciousness as one’s own nature and not knowing the Universal Consciousness as one’s own nature, is bondage. (Or in other words, the origin and cause of suffering)

Verse fifteen of the Shiva Sutras goes on to say,

“By establishing one’s mind in the heart-the Universal Consciousness-the whole world of perception appears as one’s own nature.”

(From the Aphorisms of Lord Shiva, trans. by Swami Lakshmanjoo)

The Goddess Shakti, Mother of the immanent universe, commanded her handmaiden, the Goddess Kundalini, to move among human beings searching for the truth of their own eternal nature and to assist them in discovering their true identity.

Mother Shakti said, “teach those who will listen, who have the patience and passion, how to experience the world as their own body.”

Then the Goddess Shakti created a seat for Kundalini in the base of the spine of human beings.  Shakti commanded her handmaiden, Kundalini, to teach humans to recognize the living sensation of their own universal personhood.

“Teach any with ears to hear and eyes to see,” the Universal Mother said, “to recognize that at the Heart of all things, no matter their size or variety, is the luminous, abiding bliss that is Shiva, the God whose Light animates all existence.”

The word, “kundalini” has come into popular use both in the Western world as well as in the East.

Allow me to suggest that wherever spiritual energy assists individuals in discovering truth, peace and compassion, the Goddess Kundalini, handmaiden of Mother Shakti, is at work.  The power of spiritual energies to effect personal change and enlightenment exists beyond the artificial barriers that humans erect between this or that religion or tradition.

For Trika Yoga, however, the mission of Kundalini is very specific.  She is the goddess who exists to take the aspirant by the hand and lead him or her to the Heart of one’s Universal Self.

In practical terms, this means that the mission of Kundalini is to teach the seeker how to recognize that everything she perceives, everything the senses apprehend, is his OWN NATURE.

She begins by asking us to believe, to have faith, that everything that we experience with our senses is real and divine, but if we learn to see beyond the surface, if we learn to surrender our conviction that what we see is all that can be perceived, then we can begin to journey into the Heart of all that is real and experience the One Energy that is the author of the universe of energy.

The Goddess Kundalini asks us to listen with our eyes, to see with our ears and to feel from the inside of our skin.

Mother Kundalini knows that when stress and tension is released, when the maelstrom of the mind is calmed, the seeker can begin to see, hear and feel anew.  The aspirant is able to perceive more subtle qualities of his/her energetic existence.  She can begin to feel the existence of the chakras that begin at the base of her spine and continue on up and beyond the crown of her head.  He can begin to sense the subtle friction caused by the movement of the serpent Goddess Kundalini throughout his body, directing his attention here or there, helping him to know where he must concentrate and intensify the energy to unseat pockets of pain and knots of stress.

Steadily and certainly, the aspirant evolves.  With the ascension of Kundalini, comes an ever greater capacity to perceive and experience the world on subtler levels.  An existence ruled by the tyranny of an ego protecting itself by any and all means necessary ceases.  As one embraces a life not ruled by emotions, or in fact, any kinds of thoughts at all, one experiences finer qualities of quiet joy and peace that owe their origin and existence to nothing more than the marvelous fact of being alive now, in this moment.

If we are willing, Kundalini will lead us to the recognition that our perceived, “individuality” is in fact, only possible because the Goddess Shakti, who indeed we all are, is the goddess of will, of knowledge and of action.  We are creative beings because we are that Goddess whose existence is the creation, maintenance and eventual destruction of all things.  We will recognize that we are in truth, not delimited by our bodies at all.  Our body is but a loving expression of our Universal Self.  The privilege to perceive, to recognize, to see, hear and feel–to exist at all–is possible because our eyes and ears and hearts beat with the Light that is the Source and Substance of One Being.  We all are the universal nature that animates us each as the individuals for whom Life is that singular Stage upon which we all perform.

We look at the trees and see our own limbs.  The crickets chirping are our own thoughts.  Behind the eyes of another person exists the Light that we recognize as the one and only Light that animates all the infinite expressions of our Universal Personality.

All of this and more is possible by allowing the Goddess Kundalini to take us by the hand and lead us along  the path of purification and wisdom.

And it all begins with the sensation of our own bodies.

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One Mind, One Substance

In Uncategorized on October 23, 2011 at 11:24 am
The approach of tantric science to the project of enlightenment is unique from some other well known enlightenment strategies.

Tantric philosophy & practice begins and ends with your body.  It starts and finishes with the SENSATION of your body.  Why?  Because a primary tantric principle proposes that your body–everyone’s body–is a microcosm of the universe.  Furthermore, tantric science believes that in fact, all manifest reality is composed of energy, and the nature of that energy is vibration.  This means that everything we experience–all that is possible to experience–is composed of vibration.  A dynamic, creative symphony of vibration.  
 
For tantra, dynamic reality is not an illusion or born from some kind of ignorance of a transcendental reality that is somehow more real that what we all experience each and every day of our lives.  Rather, manifest reality and transcendental reality are one and the same.  As the ocean’s currents are one with the ocean, so are the immanent qualities of our experience of reality one with the perfectly silent and still ground of that reality.

The tantric philosophy and practice that comprises the perspective of The People’s Ashram believes that all the diversity of the universe can in time be traced to, and experienced as, a single Original Vibration.  A sort of cosmic big bang in the form of an original Sound uttered by an originating Voice. Tantra names this original voice, Shakti.

Imagine an orchestra with ten thousand instruments.  A thousand violins, another thousand cellos.  A thousand bassoons and french horns.  Imagine this ten thousand instrument orchestra playing a symphony–something grand like Beethoven’s Fifth.

Then imagine that the conductor brings the entire orchestra to a point where each and every instrument is playing one note–the same note.  One moment, a seemingly infinite diversity of sound–the next moment, a single, tremendously powerful note.

This is like the goddess, Shakti.  Shakti is the Mother of all the universe, of all creation.  Shakti is also named, Kundalini.  

Shakti is so enraptured by her love-making with her husband, Shiva, that she cannot help but to cry out with one long, ecstatic sound.  From this single note uttered from the rapturous joy of Mother Shakti comes all the infinite creative manifestation that is our universe.  Shakti is the primal sound from whence comes everything in space and time, for the note itself is not different from Mother Shakti, herself, who is not different from husband Shiva.  Shakti is the substance of the cosmos, from the dust of exploded stars to the stardust in lover’s eyes.

Because all of manifest reality comes from a single frequency of vibration, tantric science has developed strategies whereby an individual can begin to recognize that the sensations of his or her own body are in fact, non different from that original Sound uttered by Mother Shakti.

Tantric disciplines, such as yoga asanas, pranayama and especially, meditation, use the sensation of one’s own body as the starting point for developing a fuller and deeper awareness of the nonduality that is our own consciousness.  Thus, the tantric path to Enlightenment suggests that one begin by attending to the ‘grossest’ or the most superficial of physical sensations and move toward the subtlest, finest sensations.   We may then, by the Grace of the God and Goddess of us all, reach that point where the most exquisite sensation is recognized as the divine substance of silent stillness.  This is the event that has of old been described as the ascent of Kundalini through the subtlest channel, the madhya nadi, of the central channel, Sushumna, to pierce the thousand petaled Sahasrara, the blissful throne of Shiva.