Audarya

Here’s a poem from my recent trip to Audarya ashram, a bhakti yoga center in California. The poem is describing my experience of the morning kirtans there. Audarya literally means “generous” and it refers to Krishna’s most tender and compassionate form as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In this form of Mahaprabhu, Krishna comes in the mood of the divine feminine, Sri Radha. It is said that the generosity of Mahaprabhu is such that he wishes to drown the whole world in prema, love of God. But even more generous than Sri Caitanya is his “other self”, Sri Nityananda.

It is said that Mahaprabhu – Sri Caitanya – would give love of God to anyone who asked for it, and that Sri Nityananda would give it everyone – even those who did not want it! Such is their audarya, generosity. Such is grace. It knows no bounds. Bhakti always comes as a gift: she reaches down to the lowest and takes them to the highest. So, as you can see, audarya is most beautiful name for a place that’s all about bhakti. All about giving 🙂 And so generous is that place that it gave me – a mere visitor – a little peak into it’s eternal nature. And what can I do or say in response to such a gift? Not much.

Just my words. My feelings. Share a bit of my own experiences, for what they are worth. Always in hopes of giving hope, and inspiration. As I have been given hope and inspiration by other’s sharing. And, of course, all of you have my sincere hope that you, too, may be blessed to experience in some shape, form or way the generosity of the heart. Such giving is in the very heartbeat of the divine and it is beautiful.

Siksastakam

I have woven verses from Sri Caitanya’s Siksastakam prayers between my poem. These prayers describe the different stages of the heart’s development on the path of bhakti yoga: from the initial awakening of faith, to developing pure love of God. Bhakti is all about cultivating a gradual process of saranagati, surrender, within one’s heart. Surrendering happens in stages, starting from sraddha (faith), leading up to prema (pure love). In my poem, I’ve used mostly words from the first verse of the Siksastakam that describes the power of kirtan to cleanse the mind, to extinguish the fire of our endless desires and to bless us as we step into the path of grace. Siksastakam informs us from the beginning that the path of bhakti – of kirtan – is one that: “swells the sea of blessedness, gives the full taste of deathless nectar at every step, and bathes the self in all respects.” (Siksastakam of Sri Caitanya, Swami Tripurari)

And from the beginning to it’s endlessness, the path of bhakti is grace. It’s a descending path where we make all the effort but know that it’s not our effort that moves us along the path – the only effort here being the effort to love. Or rather, allowing love to teach us how to love. Or even more simply: It’s about getting out of the way of grace 😉 Making space in the heart for love to enter. That’s all. And I know, it’s a lot 😉 And that’s why when I get time off, I go to an ashram and wake up at 4 a.m to sing my heart alive 😉

Every Morning: A Ritual of Light

Every morning, at 5 a.m there’s a morning kirtan ceremony called mangala-arati at the ashram. The word arati is often translated as a “ceremony of light” as the traditional ghee-lamp from India is a prominent part of it. As we offer the light of the lamp to the Divine during the arati -ceremony the idea is that our hearts should become lights in the process, too. That the light of the Absolute, of love, of devotion would spark and shine in us: burn away whatever is dark and ignorant and heavy in our hearts. Cleanse the heart from everything unreal, so that we could – through the ritual – perhaps get a glimpse into the eternal and luminous reality. Ritual worship thus becomes the meeting place of the outer and inner realities; joining them together in harmony. Simply put, it’s a yoga of it’s own. A practice of devotion. It also creates a safe container for the practitioner to explore the inner realm as it links the individual to a larger context, gives him or her an ancient ritual container for protection. At the same time, giving one a sense of connection (and a community) to generations of practitioners that have come before and will come after. It is both ancient and historical and at the same time a practice that is very much happening in the eternal present. A continuum and a gift from tradition.

Rituals have power. In ritual, we are never alone. We are carried by the soft hearts and loving intentions of those that have come before us. It is no coincidence that the mangala-arati happens at 5 a.m when it is no longer night but not quite morning yet. In the tradition of yoga, transitions and the times “in-between” – the twilight of both the dawn and dusk, for example – are considered powerful and we are advised to seek the blessings of ritual during those moments especially. Why? Because as in life, so in rituals…Think about the times of transition and change from your own life. It is during those kind of times that we are vulnerable, open, bare. So, there’s a need for community and comfort. Guidance.

In other words: these are good times to seek the divine. To pause and take a moment, look for meaning. It’s hard to be in-between worlds, in the middle of change. The unknown makes most of us nervous and afraid. Those of us that have gone through a trauma know that such a happening can place us into the “twilight zone” for years, into a feeling of having permanently fallen somewhere in between the past and the present – going back and forth of what’s real and really happening now and what’s simply the past. In a sense you become frozen in time: and gradually you lose connection to your own heart and the sense of being truly alive, the more time you spend in the “netherworlds” of trauma. As being alive requires feeling and the last thing a traumatized mind wants to do is feel. Anything. It might be freezing but what you can’t feel, won’t hurt you. And so you need something beyond time and space to save you from that kind of entrapment and deep freeze. You need eternity. The sun and the moon at your horizon. A bigger picture, a new frame. Hope, to start with. Then, faith.

During such times, hard as they might be, there’s also an opening created within us. Trauma is at it’s best a chance – an invitation, even – to look for meaning beyond the surface of what appears to be happening in our lives and around us. A crisis, a chance to grow and expand. Look with new eyes. Create new containers and contexts for our being that allow us to reach for our full potential and look beyond our limitations.

Moreover, the times just before sunrise and sunset give us a natural pause (reflected even in the natural world); a chance to reflect in the midst of all our daily “busy-ness”. As another day ends or begins, it’s natural to want to ask ourselves: What am I living and loving for?

It is as if the sun and the moon, day and night – in their rising and setting – were created to give us an opportunity to look at the mirror of our minds and hearts. Become reflective. And that reflection eventually becoming like mirror. Then the question becomes: Does my mind need polishing? Is my heart clean? Who do I see when I look at the mirror? Why do I wake up in the morning, for who, for what? What surrounds me – the light? Or darkness?

Ask yourself: When was the last time you were awake to witness the sunrise? Or when did you last take notice of the sunset? Are you asleep or awake? Have you felt eternity? Or are you stuck somewhere in the past?

And My Love Says: I Have Come All This Way, Eager for You

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve spent most of my life soundly asleep, ignoring everything around me. Completely oblivious to the grace and love and beauty abound around me, unaware of my own heart. My eyes frozen shut. Wrapped up in darkness while all around me the sun and the moon kept shining. I’ve spent years in the weird twilight zone of my mind and memories. And then years trying to deal with those lost years. But even those years in the dark – and even now when I’m trying to keep my eyes open but often forget to look beyond the surface and get distracted. But I know, and I am reminded of it every time I take part in the arati-ceremony: that the light of God is such that it exists within the darkness as well.

And when we can’t see the light of the day in our madness, or in our twilight zones lose sight of the sun, the moon comes – and he’s mad too! in his own way – and gives us his light instead. No matter how dark the night, the moonlight is there. The moon of Nityananda always rising to meet us where we are. Shining his light in the form of Sri Guru.

But, despite my beautiful intentions to stay awake and aware, even at the ashram, I never quite manage to be anyone but myself. Which means, I spend far too much time in my head. In the dark, oblivious of the light that shines through all things and people and the eternal now. So, despite the divine surroundings, I am embarrassingly humane; waking up at 4 a.m means often I am tired, feeling a little dizzy and cold. And let’s just say that then the cold shower in the morning is not a blissful prospect. It’s during those moments, I forget why I have come to a place like Audarya in the first place – to get into my heart and explore it’s capacity to love – and waste precious time being in my head thinking the same old, same old.

But then there are moments of grace: when I am drawn – against myself, often – into the deeper realm where real life happens and I begin to remember why I am breathing. Start looking at the mirror of my mind and heart and realize, yes, it definitely needs polishing! And get to it.

In my recent visit, it was the kirtans in general and one in particular that opened the doors for me to take a deeper look at myself and my life. Their power spurred a lot of reflection for me. There was great reassurance in them. And it was through the ritual realm of the arati – and through the sound of the mantra of his names – that love invited me in. Held a safe container for me to try and bring my heart back to alive. Make sense and meaning of my lost years. It’s always like spiritual first aid for me to with my teacher, to be in kirtan.

Every morning, despite my embarrassing humanness of having come into such a soft and sacred space “with my shoes on” so-to-speak, to use my teacher’s language – I would, again to my embarrassment, notice that my beloved Gaura-Nityananda had come all the way to meet me there, eager for me, “without shoes or shawl”. And this is true for all of us: They have come all this way, just so that we could meet in this realm of ritual, realm of light!

All this, of course, facilitated by grace-in-action, my beloved friend and guide. All this because of his merciful glance of om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya cakshur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah. And frozen eyes are bound to melt in the company of such hearts, like my teacher, who always are looking at the eternal. And looking at everything through the eternal: they are able to make meaning out of the meaninglessness.

Many a morning, I felt ashamed that I had entered the kirtan with an inappropriate attitude, unable to get out of my own head, too tired to focus, and so on. Yet, I was shown such tenderness. Mercy. Grace. And I’m telling you: These words I use are not soft enough, tender enough. They do not convey the softness, the delicateness, the sweetness of Gaura-Nityananda’s presence that permeates all of Audarya. I guess you will just have to visit to experience it for yourself…? 🙂

All I can say, to describe what I felt during the kirtans…especially when I was able to lay down the heavy burden of my mind at their feet for a second, is to borrow these words from a poem by Rumi called Bittersweet. This poem came to my mind after one particularly moving kirtan during which I felt for a second their hearts like a powerful magnet pulling me. And the sheer power and charge of their love for me both overwhelmed and embarrassed me: their eagerness to love baring my own heart and it’s inability to love.

Looking at Gaura-Nityananda, and feeling the friendship and compassion that fills my Guru’s heart, this is what I experienced:

I yearn for happiness

I ask for help

I want mercy

And my love says:

Look at me and hear me

Because I am here

Just for that

I am your moon and your moonlight too

I am your flower garden and your water too

I have come all this way, eager for you

Without shoes or shawl

I want you to laugh

To kill all your worries

To love you

To nourish you

****

And here it is, in my own words. My poem.

AUDARYA KIRTAN

From my cabin

in the woods I walk

heavy heart

with legs that lag behind

when I should be running!

From the woods, I walk into

the dark forest of my heart

walls rising high in every corner of it

and if there ever was a word

to describe it – it would be heavy

I can feel it in my bones: I’m dragging something heavier

than my soul up this pathway;

been housing sorrow

and anger,

bitterness in my bones

I want to lay it all down,

lay down

at his feet

at his feet

and write down the bones

as I whisper instructions to my own soul,

and walk to a sound of his name

hand in my heart;

trying to pull up

something to offer

but my heart sulks, turns her back towards me

refuses to awaken:

I have nothing.

But the nothingness

I’ve become, she says,

and always I walk with the shadow of sorrow behind me.

Darkness.

But then a ray of moonlight catches me,

and I think of how in the house of Shrivasa

Dukhi become Sukhi

just by carrying water

and I say, Gaura, let all my tears become the water I carry to you!

I say to my heart, keep telling her:

To come all this way

to all this light

and then walk in the dark?

To come empy handed before

the one who’s very arms are the form of giving?

Let the tears become the water you carry!

But this is like every other morning. I think too much.

Get up, tired. Walk to the bathhouse with sleep all over me.

Watch the light of Sri Guru up on a hill.

The ever-generous moon shining in his sweet fullness

sreyah-kairava-candrika-vitaranam

and my heart should swell

but it only echoes a silence

where the name tries to enter

all this moonlight,

yet I stumble in the darkness and

trip into my own two feet;

save me from myself, Black Moon!

Enter the bathhouse

(of his grace)

where

my heart becomes a spilled water bucket; a splash of icy and cold,

it’s freeze all over me

empty

while he showers me with mercy.

anandambudhi-vardhanam prati-padam purnamritasvadanam

sarvatma-snapanam

In this shower, I’m

naked, yet hiding my heart;

I’ve not yet let him under my skin

for now it’s just me and my heart, empty bucket baths.

The dark.

After the shower, shivering, think to myself:

surely these quivering legs were not made for dancing!

Where in this blackness

has the moon hid himself?

I look at the mirror.

It needs polishing.

Ceto-darpana-marjanam.

Then I take the clay from your realm

press it against my skin: it becomes an ornament.

A reminder: this body is not mine, but yours! Take it. May it dance to your drum.

Ashamed I suddenly think of how freely I press your

footprints to my forehead…

When the gopis were

afraid of placing your soft feet at their bosoms!

How hard is my head. How soft their chests.

We are world’s apart.

Wrap a shawl over my body, the sari in folds on me.

At least I can dress the part.

Walk to the temple,

greet the moon on my way:

Jaya Gaura-Candra! Jaya Nitai-Candra!

The moon has so many faces of love here. Everywhere I turn,

I am greeted by his smile.

In this light,

in his light, I need no flash in the dark; I can see the whole way

to the temple. Finding your way here like walking hand in hand with your friend.

I am bold this morning, and so I ask from my love the impossible:

Bring me the moon! And moonlight, too!

Place my feet on the pathway of saints

and go. The temple is alight; I know where I’m heading.

Stepping on the grass, I think of how

yesterday, there were cows sprinting in joy here.

This must be the pasture where I have come to meet my herd.

To learn all their names.

I look for the prints of their hooves in the mud

like a map

and know just one word:

home.

Follow the cows! March toward Eternity!

Into the sanctuary, I enter. A warmth

welcomes me. The fire is kept tenderly here. It keeps on blazing.

bhava-maha–davagni-nirvapanam,

I place myself near the fireplace. Ask for my heart to keep it:

I need this warmth deep in every bone of my body.

I see the firewood. Think of Krishna and Balarama

as students carrying wood for Sri Guru. Pray for guru-seva like theirs.

Say: Dauji-Gopala ki jaya!

Then the other world welcomes me in

as the doors of the altar open: and

I am standing at the feet of Gaura-Nityananda!

They are so close. Seem closer than usual.

I forget if it was me who stepped in closer than usual

or if somehow they have become nearer.

My heart feels like it’s pulling out of my chest.

It’s beating: You are life, life, life

and the life breath

while my chest is a graveyard.

My heart suddenly leaping out of it.

It’s much too small

for the love you house!

Then the heart just unravels: layer by layer,

as there’s only one way to meet you:

naked.

You open me like petals.

I know my place among the flowers.

I am here to be offered.

The devotees sing around me. I am lost somewhere unknown, familiar.

I come and I go. To where and from where? I don’t know.

My heart bucket empty and filled

then again empty

and filled;

empty of love

filled with love

empty of responses

filled with answers

as the nothingness of leaving

becomes the fullness of arrival

you are here!

I surface. I go under.

The waves continue. I have no words for what I feel.

There’s the pull of love. And the pulling back.

A tug of war of the heart.

A welcome. A determined call,

even though my failure to respond fills the room.

The call of love so beautiful

so beautiful;

while the silence of my response becomes deafening.

etadrsi tava krpa bhagavan mamapi

durdaivam idrsam ihajani nanuragah

Eternity comes, enters the room.

I look at the moonlike faces of my love.

They have come,

all this way

through time and space

– and love has brought me here –

yet, here I stand

in this softness

in this dancing

unmoving

(like a stone)

I want to cry but

tears are for lovers.

I choke on my own bitterness. My ungrateful heart

rises up to my throat as I try to sing back

the love song

that sweet love

has surrounded me with

I swallow. Again and again.

As regret rises within me, I think

but I came in with my tired eyes and unhurried legs and sleepy heart!

Came in with my shoes on!

Came in with my sorrow.

My anger.

My bitter heart.

Your generosity embarrasses me!

And then comes the thank you’s.

Endless thank you’s pour out from my heart;

my tongue wants to repeat them aloud like a mantra.

haribol haribol haribol!

My thank you’s become a kirtan of their own. My heart it’s own mrdanga.

My friends,

here’s the truth:

mercy is given

and grace comes

asking for nothing

seeking no qualification,

while everything, everything is given.

Here’s another truth: we belong to love.

I belong to you.

Love simply wants to love.

You want me!

Even when I am frozen legs in front of dancers. Mute in the sea of singers.

Time disappears as eternity puts my past into perspective:

Years pass through my mind. Images come and go. I am shown

my life

through meaning.

And the meaning

is this:

this moment.

This love.

This love.

Home coming is limb by limb, I’m learning

beat by beat

and it makes me want to

bow down in front of my past

Say thank you to everything that has happened

for it has brought me here.

And it is perfect.

It was perfect.

Everything as it should be.

Everything beautiful.

Everything your kind will.

You want me!

And always was

this day coming, always

on it’s way

I look at my guru dancing in front of me:

I see him young, like me

dancing in kirtan

and I know: when I was not even born

he was there

(and here)

in kirtan

with his guru

like I am in kirtan, now

with him

and this is guru-parampara.

Love linking us to love.

The eternal outreach of Mahaprabhu’s arms coming to catch us.

And how beautiful is the way

you come to meet us on the way!

The kirtan ends. And now, I want to run.

Run away, ask from my eyes: if you cannot cry for this,

what are you crying for?

Run.Tear everything that

keeps me from you

down

so that the next time you come calling my name

I would have an answer.

My soul houses a secret now.

And when I meet my shadow on the way out

I say to it:

His long hands always were and are

reaching for me;

My friend in kirtan even before I was born.

Always on his way to here!

And when the past comes,

it’s haunting sadness,

I have just this to say:

thank you.

I’ve got a friend.

param vijayate sri-krsna-sankirtanam!

Read Siksastakam of Sri Caitanya by Swami B.V. Tripurari here:

http://swamitripurari.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Siksastakam.pdf