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SRF Walrus

Mt. Washington, Ca

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SRF Walrus > Dealing with my doubts > Drunk with God
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AumBoy Registered User (2/7/02 1:17 pm) Reply	Drunk with God "Be so drunk with the Love of God that you don't know anything else but God." I want to post one method of how I coped in the ashram. I don't know if I quoted the above correctly but I think it is close enough. I witnessed abuses of power and abuses of people in the ashram. And I found these things extremely disappointing. Extremely disappointing. Even when discussing things with my counselor I would find that I was misunderstood then. I realized that some things just weren't going in. Cognitive dissonance. Things I brought up conflicted with others belief systems. Whether in counseling or in everyday dealings. The problems I witnessed forced me more and more to go within. Since love is such an important aspect of God I decided to live it to the best of my ability and remembered the above quote. I decided to live the above quote. It was not easy to do. I would make up chants about the Gurus and focus it around love. I took a simple chant, "Om Guru" and made it as follows: "Om Babaji, Om Babaji, I Love you, Babaji." And I would chant this all day. There would be a rythym to my step, to my work, because it was all about love. Encompassed by love. But I still was aware of abuse going on around me. Although I felt Joy, I also felt the pain of the abused and the danger posed by the abusers. This is hard for me to reconcile even today. I wonder, Did I not go deep enough? Should everything have dissolved in Love? But I feel my purpose was to see the abuses and bring them up in a spirit of love and service. And this I did. And now I'm out. I've come to realize that I did the best I could. I've also realized that sometimes, as Stephen Covey wrote in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, love is a verb before it is a feeling. Love is active and action, too. I brought things up that were uncomfortable for my superiors to deal with. I did this because I loved SRF and Master. Did I not love them, too, because they were a part of the organization? It is extremely difficult for me to stand around and do nothing when others around me are hurt or hurting. Is this the wrong attitude? I want God for the world. But I want Him first. I want peace for the world, but I want it first. I want Love for the world, but I want it first that I may simply pour it out for others. Was I a perfect angel in the ashram? Heck no. But I never gave up. My heart aches when I see people suffer. I am spurred on to action, be it prayer, meditation, yearning for understanding, or bringing up tough issues as diplomatically as I can. For me it is not simply blind following because I always seek understanding, too. This helps me paint a broader picture. I found a book a few weeks ago which asked the following question: Why am I enough? My answer: Because I am. (It is just our inherent oneness with God that makes us enough. I am loved by God as I am. Because I am. I am needed by God as I am. I am one with God because I am. Because I am enough. Because I am He.) We are born to be successful. Imagine having a cheerleading section with all the Gurus and Saints of all religions, sects, creeds, with pom-poms cheering for you! What color would the pom-poms be? Our success is God's success. Our success is Master's success. Our success is our birthright. And God needs us to be successful more than we even want success.
premdas Registered User (2/8/02 3:47 pm) Reply	Re: Drunk with God Dear fellow spiritual alcoholic! I was a practitioner (healer) in Religious Science when my minister introduced me to Yogananda's writings and talks. I often repeated this phrase from Ernest Holmes: "God in me, as me, is me!". Over and over, throughout my day. Like you, AB, I found my moments filled w/ a joyfilled cadence and knowing beyond words. And blessings found me. I still use this "mantra" when I run, exercise and whenever I am in need of a quick course correction. In Master's Joy, Premdas
KS Registered User (2/8/02 11:58 pm) Reply	Practice You can't hear a lecture from Bro. Bhaktananda without hearing some variation of his own techniques for this. I certainly agree and find that almost any phrase works. It focuses the mind and helps you to realize what is important and real.
premdas Registered User (2/9/02 7:05 pm) Reply	Recorded talks of Bhaktananda Help me, gurubais.... where can I get Bhaktananda's recorded talks? I've only seen him twice, and everyone I know and respect feels he is a worthy disciple of Master's.
KS Registered User (2/9/02 10:15 pm) Reply	Shame It is kind of a shame. SRF does not sell any lecture tapes from Brother Bhaktananda. They even have refused to allow him to be filmed at Hollywood Temple. There are other lecture tapes available from SRF: Master -- 3 tapes Daya Mata -- 17 tapes Mrinalini -- 4 tapes Anandamoy -- 5 tapes
Ringbearer Unregistered User (2/10/02 12:29 pm) Reply	Re:Shame Is that true that they won't allow Brother Bhaktananda to be filmed at Hollywood? When sitting in the very back I have noticed a camera filming Brotherji at least a couple times. Perhaps they don't do it anymore but they certainly did it in the past.
KS Registered User (2/10/02 1:58 pm) Reply	Yes The temple was told no no no no for years and years. Bhaktananda finally did it without approval, and the local devotees helped with some donations of equipment and such. ALL the tapes were sent to Mother Center covertly. If you recall when you saw the filming it was not monks running the equipment. Some bliss bunny finally turned Brother in to the bad ladies and got it stopped. The audio video monks were cool about it and didn't turn him in. They were probably in trouble too.
premdas Registered User (2/10/02 4:09 pm) Reply	Bhaktananda recordings Looks like they're not available.... Thanks KS and others for the info. By the way, I've had the recordings you mentioned for some time and I get alot from them. I have to pose the anticipated question: only those number of recordings in 50 years? There are far more available recordings of direct disciples and devotees from outside SRF than within! Still, I'm grateful for and to all. Premdas (God doesn't restrict his manifesting to those in SRF! Nor to those approved by the Board! In fact, when squeezed, God/prana goes the path of least resistance. Let's keep our eyes and minds expansive, not contractive.) PS Reminds me of the Catholic church's historical tendency to keep quiet/hide/seclude those saint-like priests/monks/nun so as not to "confuse" the lay or monastics with their spiritual clarity, a direct challenge to any orthodoxy/organization. Do you know the history of Padre Pio? He was often "put away" and kept under supervision because the people prefered his presence over the church's doctrines. His story is far from unique! Today, he is assumed to become an official saint of Catholicism. Now that he is gone and quiet, the church hierarchy loves him dearly; they can officially designate and define who he was and why he was such a gooood monk. Edited by: premdas at: 2/10/02 4:21:44 pm
chuckle Unregistered User (2/10/02 10:08 pm) Reply	Bhaktananda recordings My only hope is that somewhere there is a tape of him telling his famous "Practicing the Presence" story, particularly one from years ago. I can also remember some of his talks from years ago when he would just crack people up without even knowing he had done it. He was once talking at a convo in the Biltmore days about how the Old Testament referred to the spine, and mentioned Moses being out in the desert. There was the passage which referred to lifting up of serpents. Brother described the symbology in detail and with great seriousness, and then earnestly proclaimed, "He wasn't just sitting around the desert playing with snakes all day!" Now, that doesn't sound funny--you had to be there--but the way he said it just caused us all to explode with laughter. And this was gut-wrenching laughter that went on for several minutes. And through it all, he looked around at us in a puzzled, bemused way as if to say, "What, did I say something funny?" The divine mirth just flowed through him; he is a pure, transparent vessel.
Pig Ma Registered User (2/10/02 10:12 pm) Reply	Re: Bhaktananda recordings Premdas, It's funny, but I never before noticed that we didn't have any recordings of Brother Bhaktananda's talks available. His talks are always full of stories about Master. Maybe if you are at convocation again next year you can take a break from (smile) your other activities and go to his lecture. It would definitely be worth it.
Crog Unregistered User (2/11/02 6:40 am) Reply	Convocation They record all the convocation talks so we do have some of his famous stories on tape, if they keep the tapes.
Been there Unregistered User (2/11/02 6:52 am) Reply	Tapes Sure, they keep the tapes. But just try getting one. Or even listening to it in a room surrounded by armed guards to prevent your stealing it, as you might be tempted to do! Facetiousness aside, what I mean is that the tapes are rigidly controlled and are censored by the time a transcript hits the magazine. So you will be unlikely to get this from SRF. Maybe someone has been making bootlegs...
Notice the Noticer Registered User (6/15/03 12:44 pm) Reply	Re: Drunk with God AumBoy, Such a beautiful and sensitive post! You are certainly a wondrously openhearted person. I would like to comment on one of your statements, where you expressed some self-doubt that I think is unnecessary: Encompassed by love. But I still was aware of abuse going on around me. Although I felt Joy, I also felt the pain of the abused and the danger posed by the abusers. This is hard for me to reconcile even today. I wonder, Did I not go deep enough? Should everything have dissolved in Love? At my current level of understanding, you were right on the mark when you felt Joy but [and!] also pain. As you know, God is omnipresence; as long as we cling to some aspects of Presence and are averse to others, we are only reinforcing our deluded belief that something needs to change in order for God to be Perfect. That's actually funny, don't you think? At least I, for one, get a big laugh when I see how illogical many of my basic beliefs are. If I understand correctly, simply meeting that pain will generate the "correct" results, whatever they may be. Any problem is caused only by believing it to be somehow wrong that pain is being felt. As long as we believe this exact instant lacks anything, or includes something it shouldn't (the pain), we are keeping ourselves from accepting the fact of Omnipresence -- that EVERYTHING exists in, and because of, God. The common, and understandable reaction to such a statement is, "but shouldn't we try to change negative things?" Sure, change whatever you are compelled or inspired to. Everything changes anyway, that's the nature of existence. I believe it's a matter of simply acting to change things without creating the added burden of attachment to the wrongness of what you're changing. Just to be clear, I'm not referring here to your desire to do something about the abuse. I'm only talking about your worry that, since pain was still present in the midst of your joy, you might not have been "doing joy" right or fully. One awakened teacher speaks of things like pain and fear as kelp floating in the sea of consciousness. It doesn't sully or define the sea, nor does the sea need to rid itself of the kelp in order to be the sea. And going further, if you ARE embroiled in the idea that feeling pain is "wrong," well, that's God too. After recognizing an attachment to not feeling a certain way, the attention can simply and without further ado simply be turned back to Self, instead of monitoring and judging your feelings. I recently sat with an extraordinary teacher who suggested to Notice the Noticer (which is why I chose that moniker). He also reminded us that the act of noticing does not involve a lot of effort, which helped me a lot. This seems like a key to true surrender. Noticing something is a simple act, right? You don't work and strive to find it, you just notice it. Here again, we see the cosmically funny logic -- since God is Everything, how can God possibly be hidden and need finding? Our belief in the necessity of the search itself may be the only thing that keeps us from Realization. One more note on the idea of "noticing" the Self: that's really the best our smaller mind can hope to do, since the Self is in fact beyond comprehension. If you look for Self, you will not find some "thing." I've heard that Zen talks about Self as being like a mirror. You see everything it's reflecting -- but not so much the actual mirror. The mirror itself is easily overlooked. This teacher pointed out another thing I found helpful; he said, first we tend to look "outside" ourselves for truth. Then we change and start looking "inside." His suggestion was, essentially, not to look. Don't even try to "be" the mirror. You already are. Just notice that fact and see what happens. All this goes back to your asking whether things shouldn't all have dissolved in love. As you no doubt know, certain mystical experiences prove to us that everything already IS dissolved in Love. What I'm getting at is, we are so accustomed to thinking that if we are not in the midst of one of these experiences, it's as though it weren't true. So we create a problem, we dichotomize the situation and convince ourselves things aren't perfect. But if God is Everything, then God is the way I feel RIGHT NOW as well as when I was having that bliss experience. This can be SO hard to accept. But I recently had a taste of its truth; it was as though nothing changed, yet everything was different. I had serious financial and health troubles at the time, and yet, in the midst of feeling the pain of those situations, I easily felt, "I am HAPPY!" I described this to another awakened teacher who came through town afterwards. I said the great thing about it was, I used to think "getting IT" had to be a great big experience, like I'd had years before. He said yes, when God has shouted to us in the past, we often overlook it when he whispers. The emphasis on having and staying in spiritual experiences is one way in which I feel the BASIC indoctrination of SRF is not beneficial. Like all great religions, they posit Indescribable Oneness as the only Truth. Bottom line, that HAS to mean non-spiritual experiences are part of Truth, too. But then in the next breath, and 99+% of all their other breaths, they talk as though separate things that exist, be they people or experiences, are real, AND inherently good or bad.* So you have to get on a "path," do Herculean self-cleansing, and get rid of all the bad experiences. Well, here's a newsflash: polar opposites cannot exist without each other! Good is inextricably linked to bad! Good and bad both exist within what we might consider "Essential Goodness," but that is inclusive (and therefore transcendent) of all polar opposites. It does not depend on one or the other of them not existing. So if an experience isn't here, then arises, and passes away, it's within that polarized realm, and as beautiful and helpful as it might have been, we do ourselves a great disservice by believing it has to, or even can, be held on to. Paradoxically, it is much more transcendent to be at peace with non-transcendent states than to insist that they are wrong. As is the case for so many other words, the way we use "exist" is exactly contrary to its true meaning. We assume that if something exists, that means it's real, right? Nope. Just the opposite. Anything that can be said to exist (even in the imagination) is, by definition, NOT REAL. Because that which is Real is indescribable, is beyond conception. As the Buddha said, anything that "exists" has three qualities: it is impermanent, it has no separate identity, and it lacks any inherent ability to provide true satisfaction. Again, let's bring our logic to bear: can we, illusory products of God-thought, really have the power to do something to make God Real? Can a scene in a movie be responsible for the movie being made, or even shown? We, at the urging of the deluded purveyors of religious dogma, take on the impossible burden of doing so. Then we spend our whole lives -- though, with grace, maybe not the WHOLE of this one -- missing what is already here by putting all our effort into "finding" it. I just found this board last week and began posting yesterday; I feel that I've gotten into quite a rant here, and ask everyone's forebearance! It's been almost 20 years since I left SRF after a horrendous experience as an employee there. A lot has been bottled up! So please forgive me if I tend to spew. Blessings to you all and deepest gratitude for providing and contributing to this freeing forum. Edited by: Notice the Noticer at: 6/15/03 4:57 pm*
soulcircle Registered User (6/17/03 2:18 am) Reply	to be some day like you Guests, Notice the Noticer and All, well your arrival was indubitably worth the wait Hooray!!!! noticing circle
Notice the Noticer Registered User (6/17/03 10:12 am) Reply	Re: to be some day like you Circle, thank you for the kind and warm welcome! By the way, sincere apologies to anyone who slogged through the original version of my post, which was so stream-of-consiousness (with lots of loose ends) that it was barely comprehensible.

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