Guru Purnima/from Bhairava

[Guest guest]

The following was posted to by M to his Bhairava list.

Photos of the Ashram are at the following address:

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery.fcgi?p=999&gid=16080&uid=11536

 

Also see M's web pages at http://www.nonduality.com/m.htm,

and the links there.

 

Having shared the experience of retreat amongst ourselves,

perhaps it is worthwhile to hear reports of about other

spiritual gatherings (not necessarily retreats, as such). I

have a greater appreciation for such reports, and maybe

others do as well. If anyone else thinks such reports are of

value, perhaps they can be sent to the lists.

 

Jerry

-

 

 

Namaste (Bhairava) List,

 

I am going to share some of the moments of

the week at the ashram this year, including Guru Purnima

and the ground-breaking ceremony on the new Ashram

property!

 

I arrived on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday and Wednesday were

spent acclimating myself to the dynamic stillness and the

early rises, usually around 4:00 a.m. By Thursday I was

musing to myself as I worked in the garden, that I was in

considerably less pain than normal, and that I would

certainly enjoy a walking stick to get me around during the

tough times that I had with the movement and pain.

Immediately after I mused this, I looked down at the large

bush I was pruning, and there under the bush on a concrete

wall about two feet high was a stick cut from a

tree--approximately four or four and a half feet high. It

was perfect in thickness and length, and was strong as

well. When I asked, no one in the ashram knew anything

about it at all, and so I had my walking stick. Thursday

morning was also a delightful chant of, among the other

daily chants, the Guru Gita with the Satguru,

Mahamandaleshwar Guruji Nityananda.

 

By Friday the atmosphere was charged for the weekend and

there were people pouring in from Australia, England,

India, South America and other parts of the U.S. The icing

on the cake with these types of gatherings is a rich

cultural experience. One night while staying in the barn,

myself and an Australian and a couple of others mused over

the differences in dialects in different English speaking

Countries. Delightful conversations like this always capped

the evenings in the Shakti filled barn loft where we

stayed. The nights in the Barn are magical times for me

each year.

 

Saturday was the intensive. Eight hours of chanting and

meditating with the Guru! What bliss! What expansiveness of

Awareness! If any of you had a strange experience or

feeling on Saturday, that is why, for I had you all in my

heart, and the Mahashakti has no limitations of time or

space, indeed She is the root of these.

 

Sunday was full of magic and surprises as we attended the

Yagna fire ceremony at the new property. The Yagna was

conducted under a tent on undeveloped land, so it was

important for rain to pass us by lest we wallow in mud all

day. Two days before the Yagna rain moved in, and the day

before it was to take place it rained a steady stream all

day, with more in the forecast for Saturday. A group was

formed to chant and meditate for these two days at the

property to invoke the Grace of fair whether.

 

What happened next was unbelievable.

 

The day of the Yagna, Saturday, we arrived at the tent and

began to chant the Guru Gita to start the ceremony, which

was to Lord Ganesh, the Shakti of God which is the Remover

of Obstacles and Lord of Categories, Arts and Sciences, and

also to Lord Vastu, the deity or Shakti of the earth. These

two were the chosen dieties in order to remove obstacles

and give a fresh beginning with blessings on the new

property, and to propitiate the spirit of the Earth,

seeking forgivenes for disturbing the land and asking

blessings. In fact, there are only a couple of trees which

have to be removed, everything else was able to be built

without disturbing a single leaf or plant. But the grass

and the couple of trees that are going to be disturbed are

taken very seriously.

 

And so as we began to chant the Guru Gita, a hole opens up

in the sky just above the tent. It got bigger as the

Brahmin priest chanted over the next hour nonstop, pouring

oblations into the fire. Beautiful is not the world for the

ceremony. It was truly magical. Afterwards, we moved down

to the site where the welcome center/office is going to be

to conduct the ground breaking puja/ceremony. As the

ceremony was being conducted, the clouds scattered, leaving

a five mile wide hole of blue sky just above us, while the

rest of the region was cloud covered and even raining in

spots. It was incredible. I even have a picture of the hole

in the sky, which I will post when I get some of the pics

scanned.

 

So then we retired to the dinner tent where we enjoyed a

delicious vegetarian supper, and then I coordinated the

dishwashing at the stream. We got the tough spots of food

of with ash from the cooks fire. Very simplistic and back

to earth...I have some great pics of that too. At any rate,

no sooner than the dishes where done and the major stuff

packed, then the hole closed up and the rain came. It was

weird.

 

Equally weird was the two events that happened to me that

day. At the Yagna, I poured myself into the fire, starting

with the gross elements and working all the way up to the

Shiva Principle. After the ceremony I was musing on whether

my misfortune of the last few months was about to change,

and whether a sign of it would be available. Then the

Brahmin priest thrusts one of the coconuts from the Ganesh

Yagna at me and tells me to take it. Now you have to

understand that coconuts are considered auspicious in

India, and if a holy man hands it too you, consider

yourself a blessed person! The other event that was equally

odd and beautiful was when I was musing on my mala. You

see, it broke that morning in the barn, and I was thinking

that the day was perfect except for my broken mala. As soon

as that thought passed through the mind, a yogi friend of

mine walks up to me and says "here, a late birthday

present" and hands me a beautiful new mala!

 

It was truly an unforgettable day.

 

The days left there at the ashram were spent basking in the

afterglow of the Shakti from the weekend whilst in the

company of the Sadguru...

 

Finally the day came to leave, and as I went to the barn to

get my things, one last funny thing happened. You see, I

had lost my sunglasses the second day after I arrived

there, and had looked everywhere. In the meantime I had

built a puja beside my bed with the coconut from the

brahmin priest and the Ganesh murti I had bought, along

with a picture of Bhagavan Nityananda. There beside the

puja sat my sunglasses on the open floor! I had turned that

area upside down, and could not find them, and yet here

they were in plain view now.

 

Afterthought: When I had bought that Ganesh murti I had

done so with the last of my money that I was going to use

to eat with on the way home, thinking that going a few

hours more without food was a small price to pay for the

murti. However, after the plane rose to cruising altitude,

I was amazed to find that they were serving a hot meal on a

2 1/2 hour flight, something not normally done!

 

Lastly, my wife called two days before I left to tell me

that she had broke her foot and two of her toes. She wanted

me to tell Guruji about it, so I did. As usual, Guruji

simply acknowledged that I had spoken with a gentle nod,

however, upon arriving home my wife and I were amazed to

find that at the bone specialists office the next morning,

they wanted new x-rays, and upon looking at them could not

find the break in the foot or one of the toes. Mysteriously

now there was only one broken toe and the bruising was

gone!

 

Sagurunath Maharaj Ki Jai

M

 

 

 

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