On Forms, Shyam Space, or Tao and the Soul

In Shyam Space, or in the Tao, or Emptiness, or Oneness, we are, we just are. I am that being, I am the life, I am the eternal. I am not white nor black, born or dead, sweet or sour, sick or healthy, boy or girl, big or small, gold or black, good or bad. I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not the ego, yet I permeate it all. In order to identify with what I am, then I can say I am SELF. The I is the universal I. Because nothing else exists besides that. And it is pure, free, forever. Birth and Death of body or forms exists only like waves in the ocean. They are formed by the Tao, with the ocean rising and they go back to the ocean. They were never waves, they were always the Ocean.
Forms of human beings have mind. The mind has allowed us to take care of the form and to uniquely inquire about the SELF but it is not the SELF. Yet the SELF permeates the mind (and the intelect and the ego). So what we call EGO is the part of us that has developed not very long after we came out of the mothers womb and that knew that it was one but it looked at the oneness from the perspective of the body using the mind, or you could say the brain, and the brain of others, in order to develop a large amount of knowledge about who it is, yet confusing its identity to what it saw outside of itself as opposed to inside, to the Divine truth of its being.
The fact is that, as human being, we are not taught from our birth that, well, we are just the SELF trying to know itself. We are taught that we are people, we have names that define who I am. I am Annissa, a girl, born here, and who is going to school to learn this and who has fail this and has succeeded in that and who has boyfriends, and sometime no boyfriends, and friends,who is a teacher, who has this kind of health issue, who believes in this kind of ideas about the spritual awareness. The ego also believes what the mind says how everything changes, and that we will be born and die and we will be sick and we will learn lessons, and we must hang in there, ect..Well the relative truth is that it is true from the perspective of the mind and the body. But Annissa is not the truth of my BEING. The SELF is Annissa and Annissa is permeated by the SELF. In other word, I, is really the SELF. I am Annissa is relatively correct. I am THAT, I am SELF just is. I am the isness or the Beingness. And this I is expressing when I know I am not expressing from my mind.

It is the nature of the mind to question everything and to change everything, and to make everything perfect since to its perception, nothing is ever perfect. It is the nature of our brains (limbic, primal and necortex) to gear us into different state of evolution and that is it. The mind is really about survival, making friends and making knowledge. And so all this stuff I know about me from that perspective is only mind stuff to make me a surviving human being. And the mind is a great tool for the next evolution!
The next evolution that I embodies is REMEMBER who I really am, who is the "I" that speaks, that use to speak when I was a child. Cause when I was a child I remembered and then I forgot. So I have to use my mind to REMEMBER but I remember that I am not my mind nor my ego but I am the ego in the perspective of the knower, the soul. And my quest from long time ago has brought me to the most beautiful teachers in our time.
Every Master Teacher will say that one needs a teacher, a guru, a divine realized being to Remember and guide our own Divine being so we become that. In that perspective, my teachers like Oceana, Master Sha, Swami Shyam and many more have brought KNOWLEDGE and PRACTICE to transcend the human mind and REMEMBER who we really are so we, as humans, can live in the truth of PEACE and LOVE and HARMONY and HAPPINESS.

India, a begining and an end

In the begining there was a large piece of Earth floating northbound on the great ocean until it reaches land and kissed the great land of what is Asia, creating such passionate roar that it created the greatest and tallest mountains on Earth: the Himalays. And there was born a territory and a country.
The history of India is quite full and goes back to 10000 years and more. Starting as an Island, it moved north to crash onto the Asian continent which created the Himalayas and a climate that would sustain billions of people up to our century.
It was the People from the African continent that migrated to South India and whose descendant still exist with the very same DNA than their ancestor over 5000 years ago, older than Ancient Egyptians.
The rest of the story is a mixed of migrations, wars, invaders from all over the globe from Aryans, to Greecs, to Roman, to Arabs, the Europeans, ect...
This is now the 21st century and many part of India still pulses at the same beat than their ancestors. Same believes, same traditions, same ways of life to which was added 'some' modern amenities like running water and cell phones. I know, it seems quite striking of a difference. But it seems to me more people have cell phones than they have a bed to sleep in, or heat in their adobes.
It is too much to understand and let alone to talk about. This place is such a mix of old and new, rich and poor, ignorant and knowledgeable, beauty and uglyness, virtuous and vicious, gods and humans...It is all there.
I am not inspired to write about it probably because it feels like an overwhelming tasks, so I will just suggest to see it for yourself.
In the end, India is the largest country in the world with the most ancient traditions alive, roaming the streets of mega slums and largely overpopulated noisy town, coming crashing into the 21st century and creating moutains of something I can only suspect to be the grandiose BLAH...
On the other hand, there is something that is happening to me on the mind level and on the spiritual level. On the mind level, well, it is clear that the mind can not comprehend this mind blasting culture and dislikes and likes can not really go too far. So my mind seems to have quit trying to figure it out. Which in turn, when blasted with pure light from the Guru, leave the road open to enjoy pure consciousness and bliss. Bliss is the only state of mind that can sustain living in those conditions. You could say it makes sense that India has sprouted the most spiritual advances creating Buddha and Krishna, Gurus, Lamas, ect...The mind of India probably carries the biggest suffering scale wise in the whole word with one something BILLION people.
This spiritual state is the eternal peace, a space that is unchanging, eternal, free and pure forever and that is permeating all my perception. It slowly clears out the last bits of resistance my mind offers. I love my mind, I just don't want it to be the boss. I am not my mind, I am the Tao. I am my mind, but I am not. I am aware of that fact. Awareness is the number one friend to have to make it on the road to SELF and climb (or expand) the laders to Heavens' Peaches.
We are peace, we are love, we are harmony, we are pure and free forever.

Birthday and Oneness

It was my birthday yesterday. I was invited to my birthday party and received beautiful gifts and had a great time with people here. Brian organized this gathering as a token of his care and sweet heart. He offered me a beautiful shawl made here in Kullu. I was in the presence of many 'meditator extraordinaire' and the energy was so palpably sweet, it was like swimming in a bath of baby oil and being nurtured by the nectar of life itself. It was sweeter than honey and softer than peach. There is something real and true among all of us and I felt very much at home and like myself. I felt free to be me. I felt loved. I felt happy. I felt silly too. We were joking around, and not taking ourselves seriously at all. Which is so great cause many people who have been so devoted to their practice can be very obnoxious. We are talking about people who have been here for 20 or 30 years. Here being the Himalayas. They started living in tents with no amenities whatsoever. And now they are living in modern Indian standards which is still a challenge. They have put up with so much crap and yet they remember that they are pure and free forever and they are that. They are that light and that oneness and their mind has little grasps on who they are. One could say their mind casts very little shadow on who they truly are, the source, the way, the space, the pure, the free, the eternal. It is so nice that they can be in that awareness and yet be so funny and totally present and positive.
Here are the words of truth: Pure Free Forever, the wisdom of the Tao in 3 simple words.
Pure Free Forever...My mantra for now...

What else is there to add?

I just read a post I wrote back in october called "what do we know about anything?". I love that piece cause it was written without any form of editing and it was coming from that place of the kwnower, which is what I am learning about with this Guru here in India. I am amazed how much we individually know if we only tap intellectually and with the heart into who we really are and create from that space. There is such a deep sense of knowing, a sense that it is all perfect and that when I dare looking up to that space, it is there, has always been there and will always be there. The only thing that is not there, meaning not turned to this deeper brighter reality is our mind that has created a time and space in order to survive in the world of physical reality. But the minute the mind turns itself to that which we are, even though it can not speak about it, it will know it and know itself as a mind and kind of give us a break for a bit. In that moment, where the mind still is the mind, analyzing and building, and creating concept, it also sees itself as just that and our higher consciousness finally is seen and we go: ohhhhh yeahhhhh blissful I am.....But like the Taoist say, The way that can be explained is not the way...That is because the way that comes thru the mind explanation is not the actually experience of the mind looking at the Self, the knower, the ultimate soul. Anyway, I feel so blessed that as a human being, or at least inhabiting this body, I get to evolve and depart from the duality of the mind to add another dimension of SELF, the way,the oneness as part of my being. It is funny to think it has always been there and we never really acknowledge it. And there is for me a deeper sense of that which is my true SELF. Everytime I take on a journey to discover it, I have a deeper relationship with it. And I can say that meditation does help, especially with a Guru. And of course, there are many more to say about the SELF but I am going to stop here.

The Shampoo and Toilet paper incident

First I must say this blog is like India. It is chaotic, there is seemingly no order, lots of undone ideas, mistakes, unedited writing, unfinished nor meticulous writing, paragraph that may lead you somewhere and then somewhere else unexpectedly, and it all is only meant to be funny and inspiring at the same time. However and you will understand why after reading this post, there is a mysterious work at hand here, just like there is underneath the chaotic life in India.
Also, in order to understand this post, you must read the one before about the Army Navy Store.

Kullu - November 21st.

As I am reading my first post now that I am in India, I am laughing out loud. Little did I know that this shopping experience was a precursor to my experience here in India. Never underestimate anything in life cause you don't always know why things are what they are until later. And This is why.
I realize now that the first post I wrote on the Army Navy Store was actually a pretty good boot camp style preparation for going shopping. The exact things I was bothered by in that store, are what is the most challenging thing here in India (Ie: smell an chaos) Oh my goodness, I will spare you a lot of details cause I could be writing for hours and hours on how yaaacccccky it can be but there is nothing like the smelly dusty dark messy crowded cheap looking chaotic gloomy stores of India.
Anyhow, I have been here for about 10 days now and I am just starting to see and discern what stores sells amongst the chaos they display. The only thing I can say is that I was looking for shampoo and it took me two days to find some in a store even though it was just down the street I live on and I had gone there already once to buy some tea. Truth behold, I might brain might not be a genius brain but I am not that dumb. But, I got to say, the chaos in India offers a great challenge and humbling experience to my great intelligent mind. And I am not the only one who has gone thru this very same experience. The front stores are totally chaotic and the inside of the store are even more chaotic. Not speaking or understanding the Indian accent, I don't dare asking and well, it took me two days to locate a shampoo bottle in a store I had already visited that is as big as a large closet. Thank goodness the same did not happen when I needed to desperately buy toilet paper. I was in that situation the first time I was in Kullu, just few days ago. The day I arrived, I got sick with the usual stomach ache and diarea. I had just settled in my little Indian style flat, and all of a sudden, there it is, I find myself squatting on the toilet when I realized there was no paper. I had just assumed there would be some since these apartments get rented to westerner. But no, and no where in India do you find toilet paper in the bathroom. The only thing you have is a cold water hose and a bucket of water in front of you. Yeah right, good luck with that...and so with no paper, well, yes I dare to say (since I just learned this expression not too long ago), you are literally shit out of luck. Luckily for me, I was not alone and instead of reaching out with my hands, I yelled at Brian who came to my rescue after running down to the store and buying me a roll of toilet paper. Needless to say now I carry it every where I go and I have found the store that sells toilet paper very quickly. I got to say, I also find a store with window and a nice organized selection of imported goods like Nutella, cans peaches and pinapple, pesto sauce and pasta. So I am cooking my first meal tonight!! Yeah, Celebrate!!
Anyway, if you find yourself wanted to get a little piece of India, (even though I am afraid it is total luxury in Indian standards), go to the Army Navy Store. And I will humbly say, I am grateful to the Army Navy Store for this precursor experience to shopping in India.

The Army Navy Store

Before leaving the U.S.A - I am out shopping for a long list of items I need to travel to India. I will be in the cold weather for a while and the hot weather for another while. Money is an issue and some of the stuff I need is extremely expensive. So I thought I might as well start where I know there are better prices: the Army Navy Store. Well, as I am loving their prices for certain items. But you have to be ready for the smell, chaotic organization and overwhelming stacks of things, and the homeless looking fellows that roam around the store. As the smell of the store is already a slightly challenging experience for your senses, the body odors of some of the people in the store just add to your already stressed self. So I got out of the store feeling like the more I try to get ready for this, the less I feel ready.

Transitions and Following your Dream

Transitions are never too easy but they are simple: you watch, you choose and you take action all in the moment, with love for yourself and others. The main block to change is usually that we don't let it happen or we don't recognize that, really, we need to change cause we are not paying attention. Imagine yourself on a sailboat. You are the sailboat and the equipage. If you don't recognize that the weather has changed and the cap has changed, how can you choose the next manoeuver to sail your boat? So the boat will get into funky places and may be even crash. In our lives, because we are not mindful, not in the present, not loving ourselves enough, we create aches and pain and blockages - we crash, we get miserable - until we don't have a choice but to change. Of course, a change can be very small or very big but the creative process or the process of change must start with:

1- recognize that you or something in your life (relationship for example) are in a transition, a change, a metamorphosis.

2 - Not be afraid to step into the unknown and let the transition happens while making new choices.

3 - Stay aware of where you steer the boat depending on where you are going, watch the weather and circumstances and be responsible (ie: respond with love (not judgement, not fear) and care for yourself and others) in the moment, in the now.

At least, this is what I have tried to do in my life. Sometime I am right on, sometime I am tired to have to steer the boat, to have to change the sail, to have to sail big waves or no waves...but in the end I know that if I keep on doing it with love and care and in the moment, I will get where I chose to go! ...My Dream!

What do we know about anything?

I read a quote today that I love: " Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." For many reasons, some that are just coming to pass, I have felt like my life has been an unfolding of who I am truly, from the inside and out, and what I have to really show are my creations.  Do I really know the impact I have had on life itself? Do I really know when I actually am finding myself, finding others, creating myself, creating others? No I don't because nothing is truly knowable. But to be the one who knows is a creative action in itself.  The being and the action coming together is the life creating ourselves. And, if I don't know, then it is the unknown: a space where life creates us, and where we are creating from the perspective of the Knower, the Soul - not the mind and yet the mind being part of the Soul - the one who we are but really don't know quite the magnificence of it and therefore, we create ourselves to discover who we are. Isn't that what many religions and spiritual traditions are about. Isn't that the quote "know thyself and you will know God" means. So life is about creating in order to realize who we are (ie: in order to know the knower, the soul). We need both creation and finding ourselves to know that we are the one who Knows....It is a cycle, a circle, an ever evolving spiral of evolution and expansion. The one who knows, the knower, the soul knows it is evolving, it is progressing and is constantly present guiding us to create in order to live and discover who it/we are as one. This phenomenon might be something completely obvious and known for many minds (many people) on a spiritual journey and it might be completely new for others.  And yet, time is irrelevant. What is new for you and old for others is just an illusion of time. What  is real is when we have the experience and then the understanding that Life is really about creating ourselves first and then finding ourselves.  And what matters is that we know we are the knower, the soul. 

Annissa, upon a stream of consciousness.

WATCH SOUL MASTERS and Understand the power of the Soul and the universal relationship of service – and discover Master Sha and Master Guo, two universal servant.

I was introduced to Master Sha's "Soul Masters" documentary movie thru a dear teacher Delphi Amritam . I saw the movie 4 times. I just could not believe how incredible and dedicated Master Guo and Master Sha, two incredibly and extraordinary healers, are in the world and how their message was so simple. Heal the soul first, then the mind and the body will follow. The other message Master Sha talks about in his book: Living a Divine Relationship is that we are all universal servant. And in essence, we are the universe! The soul can heal and transform the universe. It’s about the soul over matter, not mind over matter. I had heard this from my very first blessed teacher Dan Daughtery, and I knew what he meant. And I had never seen the application of this simple truth in such a powerful way. The movie's idea started in itself by the healing of the father of the filmmaker, who I met recently and who is so dedicated to the mission of transforming consciousness. After Master Sha healed her father miraculously, she decided to follow him to China and meet his teacher. Little by little, you realize that the movie is not just about Chinese Traditional Medicine but about the Divine work of two great spiritual Masters. The truth, the knowledge, the upliftmment and the wisdom permeates the movies and is quite uplifting. I strongly suggest to anyone to see this movie.