I am filled with a holy emptiness, fed by the unseen.  The hunger of my belly wanes. It is day 9, and I slept at last, all night.  In meditation the practice reveals itself. Inhaling the suffering and pain in the world, exhaling love and compassion.  Breathe in, breathe out. The observer, my sentinel is ever present. I am at One. I surrender fully to my Beloved, to the lotus feet of my sat guru, my true and essential nature. Communion.

My awareness becomes more subtle, my energy more enduring.  My mind giving way to gaps of nothingness.  I feel the natural world in every cell of my body.  As I walk the river with my Sara, the light on the water becomes the light in her eyes. The underlying patterns of relationship reveal themselves. I experience the composition of vibration that creates all worldly form. I am a child in wonder of existence.

I find my rhythm in this alchemical body.  I feel the elemental forces silently at work within me. Earth, wind, fire, water, and ether. Together they create this divine vessel.  In the midst of their transformative chemistry, I sit crossed legged, eyes closed, in the heart of my heart. I work with my medicines from the plant and mineral kingdoms, the animal totems, that have seen me through the most arduous of physical and emotional challenges.  They carry me.

There is a stillness within me that is unchanging, a peace that is ever present.  I hear, like a mantra, the beating of my own heart. I know that seeds are being planted in the darkness of my womb.  These seeds are a portal to a life that is awaiting.  I can see images faint and fleeting of traveling to distant lands… My vows are to serve all of humanity, to awaken divine consciousness, and create peace.  I know that this process is an initiation, an ever deeper distilling of my own Being.  I trust in this.

I walk with all of those who have gone before me, who have fasted, prayed, and meditated for the benefit of humanity.  I take refuge in these great souls who knew that nothing is a sacrifice when it is a holy decree.  I weep at the beauty and grace that has been my life.  I am eternally grateful for all of the experiences that have illuminated the truth of my indwelling divinity.  That have brought me to this moment of consecration.

My beloved,

Lead me from the unreal to the real,

from darkness to light, from death to

immortality.

Om, santi, santi, santihi

santidevi

Students have come to me in internal conflict, in a state of disharmony and suffering. They are in opposition with themselves and their experience. They invariably believe that their unrest is a result of their personal circumstances.  They try to manipulate, control and otherwise alter their external experience believing that peace lies in the resolution of dissent.  Peace is not reliant upon agreement.  Otherwise it would be a temporary phenomenon dependent upon ones ability to negotiate conditions. The beauty of conflict is that it generates the longing for peace.

Generally speaking people contrive “peace” as the equivalent of having their personal desires fulfilled. This will not grant peace because the nature of  desire is insatiability.  Peace is the absence of desire.  Peace is the unequivocal acceptance of things as they are.  Peace is a choice. 

Peace as an enduring condition arises spontaneously and naturally when the mind is still.  When you no longer object or resist what arises in the field of your experience.  When you enter into a state of non-resistance you immediately feel a spaciousness and freedom.  Ironically whenever you try to control your experience you lessen your personal freedom.  You limit your choices.  Acceptance creates possibility.  You can’t fully engage in life unless your willing to surrender the illusion and dysfunction of control.

Do you truly know which of your experiences are of redeeming value and which are not?   Has anything ever happened against your will that proved to be grace?   Has any disappointing moment led to a greater opportunity?  Salvation often comes in the form of tragedy.  There have been times in my life when I have fallen headlong into suffering that scraped the flesh from my bones only to find that my descent into pain and darkness was my deliverance.  I have learned not to judge what appears at my feet or knocks at my door. What appears initially as misfortune is often the gift I have prayed most devoutly for.  

I have learned throughout my life that where ever I proceed with judgement I am humbled.  Whenever I resist my experience I create suffering.  When I desire things to be other then they are I miss the grace inherent in the moment.  I have found that peace is the natural state of the mind.  As I return breath by breath to the vulnerability of my mortal self I feel compassion well within my heart.  Peace in the end is love.

santidevi

May 12th, 2009

I look out my window as a man vomits underneath the bridge.  He is homeless and filthy.  Plastic bags, membrane thin and torn hang from his body like lifeless kites.  His hands on his knees he struggles to maintain his balance, his human stature.  The coal train on the other side of the brick wall is motionless the only other witness to the suffering of a man whose headphones separate him from the rest of the world.  Kolkata arrives outside of my window and I am transported to another continent in a faraway land where this sight is commonplace and just as invisible.  

I feel the swelling ache of the world’s hungry, the despair of the homeless, and hopelessness of the imprisoned.  My heart beats in time with theirs and my relative comfort feels empty and shallow.  I breathe long into the awareness of this life so blatantly brief.  In this precious moment, in the silence of my abode I bow to the grief that bends the world into twisted form.  I absorb the suffering into my own Being and I feel it dissolve into the spaciousness that has no end.    

Santi Devi