There’s a secret to life
that I’ve found to help with numerous situations:
you must lower your expectations.
I learned this trick from that holiday everyone loves so much: Christmas!
Sorry, Yoda. Grandmom got you another Christmas sweater. What were you expecting?
I figured: if I lower my expectations, then no matter how the holiday turns out, it’s not that bad.
Well I just put that same reasoning to use before tonight’s special meditation evening, the first full evening with Bhagwan. Bhagwan, my teachers’ teacher, visits from Europe for a 5 day meditation seminar four times a year.
During his summer visits, I just can’t seem to quite focus so well during the meditation.
I attribute this frustration to what I learned about myself from Taoism. In Taoism, the ancient Chinese way of life, you learn how energy flows, and the body responds to the energy of the season. Best not to fight what is. So when it’s summertime, I’m much more energetic: I’m a little more active, physically and mentally, compared to what is ultimately found in the stillness of winter.
So with this August meditation meetup I set the bar really low, knowing it’s my least quiet evening of the year, but that presented me with the perfect platform to soar really high: the most intense Bhagwan experience yet!
I’ve been keeping up with my meditation all summer: I always try to set some time in the morning and evening, even if I can only do 3-5 minutes. If you don’t clear your data daily, you’ve got compiled junk at the reins.
I got to the studio early this evening, and was helping set up a bit, when one of Bhagwan’s longtime followers, Joanne, thanked me, she did so in Italian.
I’m used to being around an old German who would say danka, so I would say bitte. But I had no clue who the bitte was for her grazie. So I asked, “How do I tell you you’re welcome?” She turned around with the cutest smile, she was so pleased that I asked. She replied with an Italian accent, “Prego.”
Her answer instantly struck a cord with me, as if I had been shocked, for I was recently asking the universe for a little guidance: should I have kids? I always told myself, “I’ll figure it out by the time I’m 34,” but here I am, now at 34, and unsure.
Having kids was never really at the top of my priority list. I was probably the first girl in grade school to stop playing with dolls (how could you be so dumb to play with dolls if you’re trying to fit in with your older brother and his friends?).
Also, I attributed my lack of momminess due to my own mom having a subdural hematoma (bleeding on the brain) some time before my third birthday, taking a year or so to learn to walk and talk again after some time in a coma. I always felt as if I probably missed some important mothering imprinting.
Being a mother looks like fun, but I never saw the draw that most girls do.
Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time with a couple of kids to see if this EDS/Fibro body can handle that type of non-stop energy.
Well, even though the kids were ridiculously cute and fun, I felt like a truck ran me over. However, in just a few short moments of leaving their house I saw two, back to back, mom look-a-likes.
My mother, who passed away suddenly in 2014, tends to pop up in “look-a-likes” from time to time. She always appears in pairs (or more), and it seems as if she’s tryng to tell me something. Often I feel like I’m not wanting to listen, so when I saw my back to back mommies I said, “Okay, universe what are you trying to tell me?”
As I stayed open I instantly reflected to the deep sense of genetic duty I felt, just shortly after receiving that terrible phone call from my dad a few years ago. “I am my mother’s genes. I am her. She can’t be gone, because I’m the copy of her. WHOAH!” and a huge rush came over me: HAVE A KID! You need a copy!
So with Joanne saying “prego,” I thought, “Ulp! Are you kidding me?”
Fast forward a few moments, after they set up for the meditation, and people started filing in… One of the girls that took Yoga Teacher Training with me walked into meditation with the cutest baby bump. I thought, “Oh, you meant Kristen. Yeah, prego, ha.”
Kristen made short catch-up conversation with me, and I was hoping that nothing between us would get stuck in my head during meditation. That’s sometimes an issue for me at yoga studios: Some people want to chat, but I don’t think they have any clue how deep some people can get in their experiences. My teachers really drilled that in: how silence is golden.
Bhagwan’s meditations: 50 minutes of silence, then about 15-20 minutes of commentary, then another 5-10 minutes of silent meditation.
I sat down, and felt very at ease. I’ve learned over the years from practice with Bhagwan, that meditation is an effortless-awareness. If you’re efforting to quiet the mind, then you will not settle into these deeper states.
Unattached to any pains that were there, I could feel the grounded foundation of my body, prepared from weeks of SATYA Yoga with my new teacher. Andrea, who I feel the universe brought to me, kept using a cue which struck me the first time she said it, as it was something I was already playing around with for a couple weeks.
Since I’ve been studying and practicing more with the fascial systems, the connective tissue planes of the body, I kept taking a liking to the Superficial Backline, and how the wrap of the tissue from the neck, over the skull, to the forehead, felt like the hood of the King Cobra. This sensation felt deeply transformative, and it reminded me dearly of The Buddha.
Is it a manipulation of the connective tissue in enlightened beings?
As I settled into my foundation, rooted my low spine, I felt the Cobra Hood I’ve been flirting with take shape, and as I tucked my chin gently, the hood penetrated more deeply.
My mind was being catapulted into centeredness like never before. The sensation in my brain was intense. I was reminded of the teachings in Kriya Yoga: to focus on the forehead from the center of the mind. I could feel the coherence in my brain, and it was enhancing the penetration of the Cobra Hood.
Before entering the meditation room, for some reason I picked up the tiny copy of Paramahansa Yogananda’s book Scientific Healing Aspirations to see if a line jumped out. I opened to “God is the shepherd of my restless thoughts. He will lead them to His abode of peace.”
Talk about the perfect line for Silent Meditation!
This line was the ultimate game changer for silent meditation. As soon as I repeated the line, my mind went out of duality, and into a centeredness that nearly startled me. A state like that would usually take me most of the evening to get there, but here, I was already there.
At that moment, I realized that I am already everything I need to be, I am Love, so I might as well just relax into that Love.
From that unwavering centeredness, and high seas heart swell, I felt the my brain-heart coherence, and I was able to take a step back within myself and watch.
The brain-heart coherence was something I heard Joe Dispenza say in a wonderful interview on Youtube (watch later if you want.) It was something I felt during my major spiritual breakthrough in 2012, but didn’t know you could formulate it into words like that.
Since I had one, quick Youtube thought during meditation, it set the stage for another. I had a flashback to another Youtube I listened to yesterday. Something that Jeffrey Mishlove from the New Thinking Allowed said on one of his recent InPresence monologues. He exclaimed, “Okay, time to go into higher consciousness mode!” Starting at 5:55:
Haha, that’s the first time I watched it. Man, it’s good to see him age. I thought he was cute back in the day…
With these guys ingredients in my soup, I had my Cobra Hood locked in place, was resonating in my brain-heart coherence, and as I began to connect myself into higher consciousness mode, I instantly zoinked into a state I had only been able to briefly brush into before.
This state, is the exact “thing” Bhagwan is trying to guide us all towards. (I’m certain, because I previously explained how it felt being there, and he said, “That’s it.”)
It is not the body, and it is not the mind. It is meditation, true meditation.
As Bhagwan defined recently, “Meditation is a state beyond the mind.”
This soup recipe I had concocted allowed me to enter into this state beyond mind repeatedly. I couldn’t believe I was able to access this space at will! Do you know how difficult it is to even get a taste!?
I allowed this state to take over the person I knew. My awareness was in a starry space, and there was no connection to my body. I allowed this sensation to sink into my circuitry, sealing in this total awareness.
I’m not sure what eventually brought me out of this state, but an idea came across my mind. inspired by my friend, Sandy. I’ve been spending some weeks with Sandy, who is very connected to the spirit realm. She would often talk of asking _______ (fill in with God, Universe, angels, whatever haves you) for guidance.
Sandy asks in the morning, she’s asks when she’s meditating. She’s making me realize, I don’t ever ask when I’m in stillness.
So with all this baby talk, I thought, “Okay, since I’m in Christ Consciousness, maybe I should ask. Why not? I’m really open, so maybe I’ll receive an answer.” I ask, “Am I supposed to have a kid?”
I get yet another flash of Jeffrey Mishlove mentioning that he’ll use an autonomic muscle response, “If it’s a yes answer, my right forefinger will go up, if it’s a no answer, it’ll be my left forefinger.”
Well I always meditate in Dhyani Mudra, and to be honest, I wasn’t really in my body all that much at this time, so I couldn’t really feel where my hands were in space. I could not tell which was my right forefinger, and which was my left.
So I thought for the second time, Jeffrey’s: “Okay, time to go into higher consciousness mode.”
With my Cobra Hood, and lack of body connectivity, I felt a magnetic pull, something with a great force was pulling some aspect of my being back, and up, into the Hood. It was continuously drawing me, without a hiccup.
My unwavering awareness was allowing this pull. I watched, as a part of me went higher and farther behind. It was as if part of me was going up the Huge Cobra Hood. I couldn’t tell what part of me this was, but I allowed it to continue.
The force was so strong, and my awareness was so rooted, that this energy filled the room. I was sure everyone in the room was being affected, and it felt like my brains were being spilled out in front of me onto the floor. The g-force was so strong, but I let it continue to pick a part of me up, and pick me apart. The higher I rose, the more intense the energy, and I was pretty sure the physical me might puke if I allowed it to go any further.
I figured it was worth puking over, this was the most intense out of body experience I had with Bhagwan, so I might as well go for it.
It was as if I was in awareness, and my body was going up, up and away. It actually felt a lot like when I was in the tank in my post Beach Yoga + Float Tank = One Sea + Just Be. Sometimes it’s tough to tell what’s up and what’s down when you’re floating outside of mind.
Even though I felt like I was on the Gravitron,
I had enough sense that me opening up to ask a question, and expecting an answer,
was not me being present.
To be present is to be trusting in the moment.
Do you know how liberating it feels to be in complete and utter trust?
To lay down the ego, and let go into the Mama Matrix Most Mysterious*?
To surrender to this magnetic pull, is so against our nature, but is so in tune with Nature.
My Cobra Hood flipped my lid, and I was able to surrender into trusting in the moment. A tube of blue tinged white light connected the top of my skull with something much higher. The words “Channel in the White Light” resonated to my being, so I listened and obeyed.
As the blue/white light beam connected realms, I was completely open to whatever the white light wanted to do. I thought, “Maybe I need to continuously channel in this light? It’s telling me to Channel in the White Light.”
Just then, I overheard Bhagwan breathing out subtle, longer exhalations, a cue that he’s toward the end of the session. So I surrendered to his energy, and felt the top of my head, at the white light center, begin to unfold into a cascade of the endless-opening of a thousand lotus petals at my crown chakra. This wasn’t the first time this happened, but whenever it does, I pause completely, and shower in its radiance, for it’s a rare moment of bliss.
Just as I felt complete, his alarm went off, and everything felt just right. When the meditation ended, I still had my Cobra Hood on, and I was observing reality from a 360 perspective, continuously, effortlessly, whoah.
There’s something to letting go, to no longer control or worry.
That life flowsss ssso sssmoothly when we sssurrender and danccce.
Personal note:
I felt like Bhagwan’s commentary was strangely directed at me. I even thought, “Okay, everyone probably thinks that,” but he was talking about the state I was in, and when I started to doze off on two occasions, he distinctly raised his voice and repeated what he was saying. He continued to say that to be in this state is the most important work we can be doing. It takes practice and commitment. But what if we were always in this state? Is that our life’s purpose?
I usually don’t attend more meditations during his stay, as they get longer and more expensive, but I think it’s worth going to one more.
My brain is stuck in cobra mode, and it’d be nice if we can tie this Hood on tightly.
8/24/18 The next morning…
I went to my teacher’s class this morning, and after a very quiet centering, the first practice we did was “straw breathing,” which is inhalations with your tongue rolled up, with a hissing snake sounding exhalation. I giggled to myself and we all became snakes. I kept my Hood on for the whole class.
Her ending remark of class was a quote from Bhagwan,
“This is all about trust. Do you feel yourself trusting? The Self is full of trust.”
Mmmmmm… I mean sssssssssssss.
*James Joyce
the gluten free yogi 
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