Lord Shiva is calling

Slowing down. Letting the decision I have not made, but is made, flicker and pulse from my heart through my body. Feeling my inner body now, as I’ve not before, feeling relaxation, not inertia, but vibrant patient life, flowing, yes, flowing, finally, finally, finally. I am ready to begin.

The path of the yogi.

I can’t help but remember the same thing from, can it be true, from only a few months – go to India. And where was I given this idea? At a Breema intensive, the passion of my last 10 years. There, of all places, there, where I was closest to what I was looking for, there, it came. Go to India.

But at that time I knew of no other possibility than letting the mind run rampant. Isn’t that the very nature of mind? My path was one of acceptance, not control. And indeed, acceptance offers a rising above, an opportunity to see transparency, to see thought as only thought, but for a brief moment here and there. With gratitude though, sincere gratitude. But my heart’s doubts could not be silenced. Is this enough? Yes, thank you for a moment of self-remembering here and there. But God, can I be closer to you?

My life is not my own. From that first shock of certainity, but was it a shock? I was 19. I had dropped out of college to bum around New Orleans, giving myself hard and wonderful experiences as it appears to be my fate to do so. I’ve not tried, I’ve mostly been burdened by impulsive, compulsive risk taking combined with a dangerous dose of naivete. So there I was walking around a lake in the poor rural outskirts of New Orleans. I’d left the city itself to travel with a boy I’d fallen deeply in love with. What a romance for a few brief days. But he was on a different journey. Despite his youth, he’d just left a wife and a rich, important, demanding family and was headed into the jungle to find himself. I have to laugh as I write this which has never been written before. The details are lost to time and to the innocence of my youth. Did this really happen? What was he thinking? What was I thinking? All I know is I said yes, I’ll go with you for three days and then you go alone. I remember the joy of the setting off and the gradual withdrawal as he prepared himself, leaving me behind before he left. I learned about that then, but that hasn’t stopped it from happening a thousand times since.

And so he dropped me, by a lake, alone, and I found a toothless sharecropper with 2 kids to share a night’s trailer with. He served me pig’s feet stew and tried to have his way with me, but luckily gave up without a fight. That was good. But it was before that. I’d been dropped off by the lake and so I decided to walk around it. I was heartbroken, but as that flooded through my body, something else arose in me too. I won’t describe the experience, because any words would be false. But my life was forever changed and my path forever clear, even in all the confusion and meandering that’s come since. I would follow. It was decided. I knew.

The first question Mr. Titu, manager of the forest ashram I’ve just returned from, asked me was my age. When I told him he said “Lord Shiva is calling you.” That sentence has been reverberating through me a lot since. The American in me keeps saying, don’t be ridiculous – on multiple levels. But I do know, and I do not say this without great hesitation, embarrassment and some fear too, that it’s true. Lord Shiva is calling me. Why have I come to India? How did I meet Kaushal, friend of my soul? For what have I already gone through such trials and tribulations?

Lord Shiva is calling. The path of the yogi. Living in India. Again, a yes to the unknown. With a wish to know I'm saying yes to the moment.