Tags
Guru, Runes, Sivananda Saraswati, Spirituality, Tantra, The Matrix
Just so y’all know… the picture at the top of part 2 is not my Guru – it’s actually Swami Sivananda Saraswati. A truly wonderful man – born amongst the high caste of India, he studied to be a doctor, then ‘squandered’ all of his family money on caring for the sick and the poor.
My Guru and me – a meeting
So. A couple of weeks after the rune workshop I attended, I drove an hour across Sydney back to the beach-side home of my Guru-to-be. This time we met in the upstairs part of his fascinating house – a place I was to spend a great deal of time at, over the coming years.
I followed him around the kitchen while he made lunch, trying to figure out what questions to ask him. But I was a little unsure, and so he asked me a few questions to get the ball rolling.
G: So are you interested in spiritual work, then?
Me: Yeah, I guess I am. I have no idea why I’m here… just that after the other weekend, I wanted to come and talk to you again.
He kinda giggled a little at that point.
G: Okay, so generally in spiritual work, it’s about wanting to grow. Having that true wish to grow above and beyond what you think is possible for yourself. Does that sound like something that you’re interested in?
Me: Definitely! I mean, I’ve had all kinds of spiritual experiences of one kind or another. Been involved in all sorts of pagan things – but none of them have really been ‘right’, you know? They’ve all felt pretty empty in the long run.
I remember telling him about this energetic experience. He seemed interested, sorta.
But he never pushed any ideas onto me, though. Didn’t sensationalise anything.
Also, he never said anything like: ‘I’m a Guru and you should get into Tantra and follow me’. Never.
In fact, he barely told me about that side of what he taught. Though he wasn’t hiding anything either, but didn’t big-note himself or explain too much at that point.
Instead, we talked runes. We talked about the breathing practices I was already doing and ways to explore and expand on that.
He gave me some additional practices which would add other dimensions to what I was already doing. He suggested I keep track of anything I noticed.
And he asked me to get in touch if I had any questions.
This was the tricky part. He was leaving the country after living in Australia for years. But for various reasons he was now returning to America.
I still didn’t know yet he was my Guru. Only that he was incredibly wise, kind, and willing to share with me what he knew.
Waaay back when…
Cast your mind back folks – the late 1990’s were a time when not everyone was on teh interwebs yet! Horrors!! Can you believe it? I know, right!!
I did have email at home by then, but my Guru did not. I was given a postal address in New Mexico – where he ‘might’ be. It was all very sketchy.
So, I started doing these practices – but my fiancé (at the time) was very suspicious of my sudden interest in my Guru.
Mind you, that relationship was falling apart anyway. And my complete fascination with a man he’d never met (regardless of the fact that this man had now left the country), didn’t help matters.
But what could I do? It was a very, very powerful experience and connection.
The early years – in absentia
There are several common experiences people have upon meeting their Guru – if they ever meet one, and if that Guru is in fact their Guru (and just coz you meet someone like that doesn’t make them your Guru at all) – often the first reaction, if there’s a connection – is either love or hate. Something very strong anyway.
My infatuation though, gave way over time. I realised it was not a romantic expression of love. But rather, I’d met someone who was more interested in my potential as a human being than anything else. He had no concern for any physical or material definitions of who I was. He wasn’t trying to get in my pants.
He only ever wants to know about my capacity for spiritual growth, and is thrilled whenever something new opens up for me.
Meanwhile, my world rapidly turned upside down with the instructions given to me by my future-Guru. And there was no one around I could ask about it all. I can’t quite explain what I mean though… except things were unravelling.
Like… the very fabric of my perception of this world was being unwoven. Disconcerting? Youbetcha! I was freaking out a bit, but still… enjoying it all at the same time. It was along the lines of… starting to see atoms instead of solid shapes. A bit like that scene at the end of The Matrix with the play between computer code and solid shapes (but not quite so green and black).
And none of this on drugs, I promise!
I wrote to him, but he didn’t get my letter for a long time after he returned from India. In the meanwhile, I was more than a little worried by my experiences.
Eventually I received a letter from him – an aerogram!! But there wasn’t enough in the letter to really assist me. So at that point, I had to give up my practices because I was losing my grip on reality – which affected my ability to function in my day to day life.
Always a little sensitive to energy, its possible I had more pronounced experiences than my Guru had expected. But it was enough to scare me into stopping things in their tracks.
I was mad at my Guru and mad at myself… but mostly I wished I was near wherever he was. So I could ask questions and just keep learning.
~Svasti
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 
Svasti,
It sounds as though this is a pretty cool guru–of course, I have thought that before. In fact, he sounds like someone I would want to know (but then, isn’t that the essence of what a guru is?–someone we want to know).
My have 2 primary spiritual advisors–I guess you could call them gurus. One is a Native American shaman–that I believe I have mentioned here before. His face is one of the most amazing I have ever seen–it is ripped with scars of an old knife fight in which he lost one eye and the scars are so intense you can barely take your eyes off them when you first meet him. But when you do, you are taken by his eyes, which are the warmest, most caring, kindest eyes you have *ever* seen. They are like a pool of calm and gentle water in a raging, war-torn sea of a face. The two are so incongruous.
Jim (his name) helped me enormously in my early recovery–but never more than when I was about to leave Montana to go to graduate school. I was so scared because I had been in this cocoon of safety for four years, nurtured along by my friends and family. When it was time for me to go, he told me that I must leave — that the valley (Gallatin) surrounding Bozeman, Montana, was considered sacred ground by all the local Native tribes and that people were drawn to the place when they were undergoing transition. He said that people weren’t supposed to stay there–that if they did, they would become out of balance.
When I asked him why he could stay and not become out of balance, he looked at me with those amazing eyes and said that some people are guides. He was most definitely my guide.
I only know that when I left for grad school, I was calm, happy, and ready for my new adventure. Jim helped me along that path.
Peace to you, my friend–
Melinda
Hum….this post sort of confirms an Idea I’ve been having recently. Just because a ‘practice’ is out there, it doesn’t necessarily mean that utilizing it will produce positive results.
For me, the litmus test of any useful spiritual practice is this:
1. Does it help me connect with God, and form a vital loving relationship ?
2. Does it help me do the same with myself, and others?
3. Does it develop attributes in me like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity, a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.
4. Do I find myself involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force my way in life
5. Am I able to marshal and direct my energy wisely.
@Melinda – I wouldn’t hang out with him if he wasn’t cool! 😉
Jim sounds really wonderful, you’ve been blessed over and over again on your recovery path I do believe!
@Grace – As I mentioned above, I doubt my Guru suspected that I would have such a sensitive reaction to the practices he gave me. Then, unfortunately he wasn’t around. It was a little bit just circumstantial.
But yeah I do agree – you should only do practices that match where you’re at. Not all practices are for everyone. If it feels right, then do it. If not, then its up to you to decide what to do – and that’s what I did at that point.
However, I don’t think all spiritual practices have to meet your ‘checklist’ as listed above. I hesitate to say all meditation practices ‘should’ meet certain criteria at all. I mean, who’s the judge? Its quite subjective, I think.
Although generally the sense of connection to god unfolding more and more is always there. Generally.
I can’t possibly group the various practices I do in that way you have.
Not only that, they don’t always ‘feel’ good in the way we humans like to feel good. But remember, the feelings we have are self-generated and not necessarily reflective of reality. Like any emotion we have.
Meditation practices for me, are about peeling away the layers of the onion and that isn’t always nice, nor always about others (although ultimately they are – just might not seem that way at the time).
My Guru quotes some other Guru dude when talking about the concept of ‘Seva’ (self-less service). The quote is:
Seva, seva, seva-ya-self, first
The point is, how can you really help others if you haven’t put your own ‘house’ in order?
Sometimes stripping down the layers of the onion means things look and feel messy for a while. In which case, its good to have someone around who can advise – yep, you’re still on the right track. Keep going.
🙂
Your trip sounds sooo familiar in many ways: the big bang at the beginning, the practices that begin to have global effects in your life, the weird sort of support/lack of support.
Sh…….my eyes are welling up just thinking about it all…
it was so very very intense for me because my guru (and he did call himself that and me a disciple…shoulda been a tipoff! – though no matter what happened, I still think I would have repeated the whole experience) …he lived in the same town…in fact a couple of blocks away …so we saw a LOT of each other and began having long phone conversations, walks…but I’m getting into your part 4 I think…so I’ll stop here and say, yes, please keep writing this; it’s helping me make some sense…
Grace, I love your list. One of the reasons why I didn’t have ANY way to gauge what was happening and my old ways of gauging if a spiritual practice worked were kaput ….was because he believed in Crazy Wisdom…which I now consider an excuse for the guru to be abusive, etc. Give me straight-up ages-old wisdom any day I say now. There’s a reason it worked for saints of yore!
@laughingyogini – it was a strange start to things, but that’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. And it wasn’t an intentional lack of support. More, just that I met him at a time that wasn’t so great as he was travelling. But, do you say ‘no thanks’ when meeting someone like my Guru? Just because you’re not gonna be in the same space? No way!!
Unfortunately as I said, I doubt my Guru expected me to get so spacey or he wouldn’t have given me what he did before leaving. Of that, I’m sure.
There are other students, plenty of others, who were lucky enough to live in the same town for a long time. And whilst it was intense for them, it wasn’t intense in a bad way.
And each relationship between Guru/student is different, anyway.
Interesting you mention Crazy Wisdom… Trungpa was the past master of Crazy Wisdom, but I don’t think its something you can fake. I also think… if someone is faking it, then it becomes a cop out.
Have you ever read “The Mahasiddha and His Idiot Servant“? Written by a guy who worked as Trungpa’s butler. Worth a read…