India

David wrote this poem from Oregon in a moment of thinking and feeling into his travels in India.

ODE TO INDIA

India!
Full of paradoxes, and teaming with Life.
An ancient Wisdom that resonates with the Building Blocks of Existence of itself!
A vibration, rooted in a wind-like flow that is as muddied as it is pure.
India! Your many competing smells, somehow living in harmony!
India!
Where fires ablaze for millennia!
Reclaiming millions of bodies along a single river,
And in the same city, a tiny temple where the music never stops.
Devotion to Creation 24/7,
As Forever as Time itself.
India!
Where I met my wife!
And Mother Creation embraces all as her true children.
India!
Modern and ancient side-by-side,
Many dimensions dancing in unison,
Yet paradoxically, reflecting Duality.
India!
Where it is easy to seize the moment, as there seems to be nothing else.
And nothing, ultimately, seems so serious.
India!
Where a beggar can be respected as a wise-man.
India!
Forgiving all the many sins that have been laid upon it.
India!
Where there is a vibration of Bliss that sits patiently,
For any who surrender to an acceptance of Life;
And reverence for the Magic of the Mystery.

By David Pan Brown

And here is the "Video-Poem" art-piece we created together from the poem:

Forever Being Born

Please enjoy "Forever Being Born" our second video-poem we made together last week. This one is very meditative. We'd LOVE to hear your thoughts and comments, please share!

FOREVER BEING BORN

Purity roots out impurity through play.

Freedom comes like calm, in a moment.

Success does make us happy, when it benefits the World.

Joy, is not an after thought to be remembered when all work is done but part and parcel of the lived experience.

Love, is the binding source of everything in which all things return.

Breath is like water.

Rain is like sunshine.

Sunshine like food.

Smiles like salvation.

Integrity like solace.

God, like a friend.

Soul, like God.

Heart like Soul.

Liberation in Acceptance.

Acceptance alchemizing pain.

Pain like fuel,

Fuel for expansion,

Expansion of Understanding.

Understanding births compassion.

Compassion grounding Truth.

Truth grounds Compassion.

Wisdom, always new.

Forever Being Born.

In Which World Do You Live?

There is the World of Appearances and then there is a doorway through which you can enter another World altogether; the World of Spirit. And if you live there you are literally residing in another reality, the reality of unlimited potential, and Cosmic Beauty, you are behind the scenes of Reality with Life itself.

Let me give you some examples from my own experience. We are currently staying at Amma's ashram in southern India. This morning David went to get the chai at six, which is a morning ritual for many at the ashram following the early morning archana (Sanskrit chanting). Sitting at the back of the cavernous and now empty hall (in which Amma gives her darshan) in the very early light, I realized I wanted a second cup of chai and joined the dwindling line over by the Indian kitchen. I felt the absolute divinity of the lady who ladled out my chai and walking away shed some tears at her spiritual beauty. In the world of Appearances, she was just another wrinkly old Indian lady. We had no eye-contact, there were only a few words concerning chai exchanged between us, nothing magical occurred. But in the World of Spirit, there had been a happening.

Only the other day, here at the ashram, I had another mystical experience with an elephant. In the World of Appearances he was a banana-obsessed animal, entirely focused on eating the fruit that the people were feeding him but I slipped into a profound communing with the powerful Soul of this elephant and myself received her darshan, feeling devotion throughout my whole body, and shedding spontaneous tears.

Lyrica Mia Marquez

It reminded me of an encounter with a non-verbal, severely autistic young woman I know and love called Lyrica. I remember being at her home in Arizona. In the World of Appearances she would have been experienced as a mentally disabled young woman or grown child, entirely focused on diving her hand into whatever food was in front of her and messily putting it into her mouth. But meanwhile in the World of Spirit that she drew me into, I experienced Lyrica as a spiritual powerhouse and at that moment her eyes, usually averted from the eyes of others met mine and it was the glittering glance of the Goddess herself that sent tears streaming down my face as my energy field leapt into spacious communing with hers; what an awesome darshan from this Enlightened Soul!

Here at this ashram, the accommodation is very spartan. Just a thin mattress on the floor (we are fortunate that couples get their own room) and yet for those who reside in the World of Spirit, it is the greatest luxury to be here.

Which World do you live in? Have you yet discovered the doorway of the Inner-Universe?

Om Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
(May All the Beings, in All the Worlds Be Happy!)

<3 Maha

Maha Brown is the co-author of The Esoteric Path of Marriage

How To Become More Compassionate, Forgiving, Patient & Non-Judgmental to Others

When you travel on a plane and the flight attendants issue the safety instructions, they always say secure your own oxygen mask first and then assist others with their's; and this is sound advice. The same kind of principle applies when it comes to deepening spiritually.

Spiritual principles can seem hard to put into practice: show compassion to others; forgive others; show others patience, don't judge others etc, until we turn this practice around and apply the medicine to our own selves first. So we develop the practice of routinely showing ourselves compassion, forgiving ourselves and being patient and non-judgmental with ourselves. When we have truly mastered these practices (for they must be practiced, Patience, Compassion, and Non-Judgement are not of the mind.) then automatically we become compassionate, patient and non-judgemental with the so-called 'other'. (In this way you are a one-stop shop to your own Enlightenment!) For in mastering these practices we begin to enter ourselves as spiritual beings and plumb the depths of our eternal selves. In doing this we discover a profound unity with the Presence of others.

How do we show ourselves Compassion? Speaking for myself, when there is a pain inside of me and there may be a story attached, perhaps I have spoken out of turn in a moment of unconsciousness and am now feeling the pain of the one I have unintentionally harmed. (Well yes of course we come to realize with consistent inner practice that that one that we have unintentionally hurt is us, but still the practice is the same before or after that realization hits).  In a private space I appeal to my true self, my formless teacher who is all-knowing, all understanding, and all-compassionate, silently, by turning within and I give it all to Her. Sinking into the feeling of woe within, I am like a child unburdening myself to a perfect Mother, this perfect Mother/Father/Beloved at the source of myself. I offer the story up too, which means I surrender it, sacrifice it, drop it and I allow the Compassion to flood the Heart as the Presence transmutes the pain back into Itself. And in it, is understanding and in it, is forgiveness (although your true nature does not even need to forgive because It doesn't blame but still the mind receives the forgiveness it seeks).

And how empowering it is, to allow the Presence to heal you and Love you and expand you in this way because although sometimes we may think that we need forgiveness, compassion, and understanding from another, this we cannot always have! The one we have 'wronged' or 'hurt' may not even be capable of true forgiveness, compassion or understanding at this point because people process emotion at different rates and in different ways or for any number of other reasons. In a relationship you may be given the 'cold shoulder' and that could be a problem to one who has been programmed to need approval but it is disempowering and futile to go after what you seek from the 'cold shoulder'. Rather, transcend that need and give something way better than approval to yourself, from that eternal well of power within you!

So by attending to ourselves first, we can live light and free and unencumbered, nurturing the relationship with that Eternal Presence, which is at the core of the Joy and the Bliss of Life. Then you can overflow your Compassion, Forgiveness, Understanding and Non-Judgement naturally and without effort to others because you are That, so you've got it to give.

- Maha

Ode To The Counter-Culturalist

What we, the youth, (the young-of-Heart and the flexible-of-mind, quite apart from

biological age) are willingly participating in, with what we may call a Revolution of Consciousness, (this opening up of ourselves to birth the truth of who and what we really Are), to birth the much-needed Light of Presence on this planet, is not exactly a counter-culture; for what we are countering is more fundamental than culture. (As ultimately we are not really 'countering' but rather shedding and embracing.) We are sacrificing ourselves, our conditioned selves, burning in the fires of consciousness for the good of ourselves and the good of the Whole. We are misunderstood, so we learn to understand; we are judged, so we learn to hold space; our sanity is questioned, so we learn to see ourselves through the eyes of Unconditional Love herself. 

Today I am grateful to all who paved the way for this beautiful and miraculous metamorphosis that it taking place within us and manifesting throughout the World. And we have all the brave souls throughout Time to thank, who dared to buck the trend and counter the culture. The spiritual transformations that are taking place en masse in these times, would not be possible without those who were and are willing to fight and sometimes sacrifice their very form for the sake of spiritually progressing the human continuum when it comes to human dignity, equality and basic freedoms. 

Know it was all for you, it was all for us and our vigilance and alertness is demanded more than ever in these times. So let us live in and act from the high vibration that it is our birth-right to experience, and our duty to stand tall in, for the sake of the New Paradigm that we ourselves are helping to birth.

- Maha

WATCH OUR VIDEO SHORT of David's poem "Ode to the Counter-culturalist", which is also posted below.

ODE TO THE COUNTER-CULTURALIST (by David)

Bhagavan Das

Thank God for you dear Soul,
The restriction and limits of the structure shook the day you were born.
The chains of gender were broken although not yet known.
For even after a chain has broken,
Some time it takes to comprehend;

The Freedom you invited the World to feel,
The Freedom you gave yourself,
The Freedom you demanded.
None of it lost and,
Forever I am grateful,
For the projections you took,
The ignorance you stand against, stood against,
And all of your offspring, we are still fighting!

There will be no oppression of the Soul,
For any being on Earth in the future,
We create from the seed you have planted.
And, dear Beatnik, Hippy, Truth Seeker, Truth Speaker, Environmentalist, Boundary-Pusher, and all those who rage against the machine; 
you know who you are.

You are not a color, a statistic, a consumer or a generation,
Some of you smoke, some of you don't
Some are into yoga,
Others incognito,
All of your a dear Soul who know:
There is something in you,
Stronger, wiser, and more Free,
Than the structure you were born into...
That you were made to break.