RE: Sadhana or Seva..question for the group

[Guest guest]

Dear Nandaji,

thank you for asking this question which, I think, comes up in the

life of every practitioner especially due to the nature of the

guru/disciple relationship here in the West. I am not really

qualified to describe intricacies of yoga (a tradition which is so

ancient,rich and complex) but I do know that the traditional guru-

chela bond followed a fairly established pattern in India. Usually

people would "prepare the body" with hatha yoga, as children they

would have learned many of the texts and pujas we are learning now,

they would have followed a "pure" lifestyle, been advised, probably,

by a family guru and then, at a certain point, been inexorably drawn

to go deeper into the tradition, at which point they would have

searched for the guru who would help them to move forward. There

would always be a very long period of karma yoga and then raja yoga

and jnani yoga. That is how it has been explained to me by Indian

devotees. Then the Bhakti movement changed everything...turned

everything on its head and totally transformed tradition.

Many times we in the West start at the end, rather than the

beginning...having an amazing meditation experience or a very high

experience of the Shakti, an inner communication with Divine

Consciousness. Then comes the process of grounding this flash of

Grace into our lives. Many times, we find our lives turned upside

down and re-arranged and we might struggle to find a context for

this longing for God in a culture that is based on desire

for "things". This is the GREAT blessing of beings like Maa and

Swamiji, who offer: an example of how to live in the world but not

of the world, generous and unending support for all effort,

compassion and a sense of humor regarding the inevitable

floundering, understanding of how challenging it can be to learn how

to be both open to life in the world and, at the same time, focused

on the Truth that lies beneath and permeates that life...and very

practical tools for working with the particular challenges that

exist here in the West.Most of all, they can be trusted.

There have been long periods in my own life where the main focus

of my practice has been karma yoga, service to the Guru. Whether

that Guru, in fact, turned out to be not "as advertised", I have

realized, doesn't matter all that much in terms of what we are

talking about. In the end, it is the attitude of serving something

other than one's own small incarnational concerns that lasts. The

attitude of serving is what stays with you and here, in this

culture, it is quite the opposite of the prevailing "bhav". Mostly

the question: sadhana OR seva creates a false boundary where there

is none (in my own experience of tussling with this issue). At a

particular point, around 15 years ago, I saw clearly that there was

nothing I liked better than holing up in my meditation hut, doing

puja, meditating, chanting texts and flying up into "sanskrit loka"

and I also had to grudgingly admit that there was an element of

selfishness and separation in it that evaporated when I did seva.

What to do? I did ALOT of Guru-seva. The text chanting and

meditation were like a "reward" I would give myself at the end of

long periods of Guru Seva (I know this sounds bizarre..but it's

true). Eventually, the little boxes I had constructed in my practice

began to collapse and I could see that the separation was something

my mind had constructed in order to hold onto some sense of privacy

and "separation" (the same way I separated "the world" from "god").

What enabled me to hold on through this struggle against my own

selfishness and sense of being "something other than" was Bhakti,

love of God. For me, this is the "glue" that holds everything

together.

This has been a very long response....it's a question that I

really struggled with for a long time until the idea of "no

separation" became a reality in my own life rather than just

an "idea" that I knew was right but, secretly, wasn't so sure was

accurate.

I would say, these days, if you have a chance to be around a

GENUINE teacher and do Guru seva, go for it...it's a very rare

opportunity! Even if your teacher turns out to be not "genuine" (as

was true in my case), the lesson of "no separation" continues to

blaze forth and expand.

best love to all,

sadhvi