This blog, which began as a piece I started writing around the end of 2009, is meant for those who already know me. I wanted to be able to speak with my own voice, rather than to spend a lot of time and effort trying to create an appropriately beautiful and felicitous expression. I didn’t think I could do it anyway, so what you will get is my regular voice with its sometimes pompous dissertations on my favorite ideas, its sometimes self-deprecating emotional pieces and its jumping around from one thing to another without proper transitions. I have given up on the idea of “writing a book” in favor of just telling my story. Hopefully it will convey the sense of process, since it is the inner process of spiritual unfolding that interests me.

I have received some feedback from old friends who take exception to some of my characterizations of Siddha Yoga and the Buddhist teachings. I do not claim to be right - it is just my story.

I wanted to show how an apparently inexplicable set of events in an apparently inexplicable order can somehow end up with a happy outcome. I believe that the mystery of life, present always and in all things, is ever working its divine magic in our lives, however ordinary they may appear.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Introduction

An Inexplicable Life

One of the Shiva Sutras, an ancient Kashmir Shaivite tantric text, says, “Mysterious are the ways of karma.” Mysterious is one way I might describe my current life. I find myself living in a Hindu ashram in Australia run by an American swami who is the guru here and also happens to be my former husband. I was also a swami before I left Siddha Yoga, the yoga founded by my first guru, Swami Muktananda. I then moved into a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center and followed a vajrayana/dzogchen path for 12 years before moving to Australia. It would appear that I wear a few different hats. At least I dress up in different outfits such as an orange sari, a maroon chuba skirt with a Tibetan shirt or jeans with a black turtleneck. When people ask me “What are you?” I often explain that I dress for the occasion.

One of my favorite Sufi tales is called “The Man with the Inexplicable Life”. Idries Shah tells the story of a man of great faith who works as a small official in a provincial village and who thinks he will probably end his days there. One day while walking in a garden he meets Khidr, the mysterious guide of the Sufis, who tells him to leave his job and meet him at the river. When he immediately quits his job, people think he has gone mad. At the river, Khidr tells him to tear off his clothes and throw himself into the stream, saying, “Perhaps someone will save you.”

Eventually a fisherman fishes him out asking him what he was trying to do. He replied that he did not know. The kindly fisherman took him home and, discovering that he could read and write, engaged him to teach him. He received food from the fisherman, helped him with his work and taught him how to read and write. One day Khidr again appeared and said, “Get up and leave this fisherman. You will be provided for.” He immediately left and began wandering.

On the road he met a farmer with a donkey on his way to market with produce, who asked him if he wanted work, because he needed someone to help him bring back his purchases. He worked for the farmer for two years when again Khidr appeared and told him to walk to the city of Mosel and use his savings to become a skin merchant. He complied and worked as a skin merchant for three years, accumulating a tidy nest egg, when again Khidr appeared saying, “Give me your money, walk out of this town as far a distant Samarkand and work for a grocer there.”

Again he immediately followed the instructions. In Samarkand, working as a grocer, he began to show signs of illumination. He healed the sick, served his fellow man in the shop and began to gain deeper understanding of the mysteries, as the story goes.

Later, when he had established a following, people asked him with whom he had studied. He replied that it was difficult to say. When they asked if he had given up his life as a small official to pursue austerities and self mortification, he said, “No, I just gave it up.” They did not understand.

When he was approached to write the story of his life, he told them the truth - that he had jumped into a river, become a fisherman, walked out of his hut and become a farmhand. Then he went to Mosel, became a skin merchant, saved some money, gave it away, then walked to Samarkand and became a grocer which is where he currently was. The people remonstrated that this life shed no light on his gifts and wisdom. The man replied, “That is so.”

So the people constructed a wonderful and exciting life story for him. The tale ends thus, “… all saints must have their story and the story must be in accordance with the appetite of the listener, not with reality. And nobody is permitted to speak of Khidr directly which is why this tale is not true.” It is said to be the representation of a life, in fact the life of a great Sufi.

I liked the idea of an inexplicable life, a life without a formula. I found it very liberating, probably because I had followed so many formulas in my life, always hoping to find the right one. When I despaired because it appeared that my spiritual journey was not going in the correct direction nor bearing fruit, I was always relieved by the thought of this story. It gave me hope that something good can come from any kind of life. And now it gives me comfort that although being a strange amalgam, a kind of Buddhist swami, which makes no sense at all, it might be OK.

I am not in any way like the hero of this story. For one thing, the man in the story, in his wisdom, allowed people to invent whatever story of his life suited them. I have chosen to attempt the folly of telling a “true” story of my spiritual journey. I daresay that if the truth be told, most people’s real spiritual journeys are inexplicable. But we are story-telling creatures and even though I realize that I am inevitably inventing myself, I hope that there will be some benefit in it.

Life Story: Lightning Version

After vague and amorphous spiritual experiences in my youth, which never fully reached the outer part of my consciousness, I spent my teens and early twenties covering up anxiety by having a good time. At the same time I was studious and read voraciously. One of my favorite topics was various spiritual traditions. I especially loved the lives of saints and seekers - Christian, Hassidic, Sufi, Zen – whatever.

Now a lightning version of my life until my formal spiritual life began: I graduated from the College of Wooster as an English major with a minor in philosophy, went to New York City where I had various jobs in insurance and publishing, took a 5 month trip to Europe with my sister, served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia as an English teacher, then went back to school at the University of Michigan and got a Masters in anthropology. While pursuing my doctorate, I got married, took LSD and went to India with my husband to look for a guru. We met a few saints and ended up in an ashram, where I spent the next 22 years.

Even as I lay out the bare bones of what I did in chronological order, I realize that all the meat is left out. This list of outer events does not add up to a person or a meaningful story - but it is not really the story that I want to tell.

The story I do want to tell is about the healing and inner change that took place during my time with the Buddhists. When I left the ashram after more than two decades, I was in despair. Although I am generally an optimistic person, there was a deep subterranean sense of defeat. I had not yet become enlightened and there didn’t seem to be any way I could remedy that. I had been forced out of what I had thought would be my lifetime home by some inner impulse and, in a strong feeling of reaction, I felt that I just wanted to be an ordinary person and live a regular life.

It soon became clear, however, that I could not be satisfied with that and before long I met a Tibetan Buddhist master and moved into his gonpa in 1996. This began a 12 year period of healing, during which I came to feel positively about myself, my past, and almost all of the people in my past.

At the end of this cycle in 2008, I moved to Australia where I wanted to share what I had gained from my time with the Buddhists, but there was no audience to listen to it, so I began to write. I sincerely hope that it may be of benefit to others. In any case, it seems to be of benefit to me to express it.

When I decided to leave the ashram after 22 years and in the succeeding years, I felt that I was being guided by an inner inspiration that I could not resist, which is another reason that I relate to the story of the Sufi with the inexplicable life.

Hinduism and Buddhism: A Non Issue

I have followed two different paths from different traditions. The first was the essentially Hindu path of Siddha Yoga and later, the path of Tibetan Buddhism. While I was in Siddha Yoga, with Baba Muktananda and later with Gurumayi, I was never told that we were Hindus, nor did I ever think of myself as one.

So it came as a bit of a shock to me to discover that Swami Shankarananda, whose Australian ashram I moved to in 2008, championed the cause of bringing together ethnic or Indian Hindus and western Hindus who were yogis of all stripes. I have come to understand his point of view. One of his issues was that whereas western Buddhists easily refer to themselves as Buddhists, almost no western yogis or teachers who have been influenced by any Hindu path will refer to themselves as Hindus. It is true. I have never called myself a Hindu, but often refer to myself as a Buddhist.

Actually I am as much a Christian as I am a Hindu or a Buddhist. And if resonance and sympathy are taken into consideration, I am also a Sufi, a Hasid and a Taoist. I am also comfortable with no affiliation.

More Life Story

Back in 1970 Swami Shankarananda was known as Russell Kruckman and was my husband. Shortly after we met, we experimented with psychedelics, began reading about Baba Ram Dass, finally met him and, to make a long story short, decided to go to India to find a guru and get enlightened. After meeting Ananda Mayi Ma and Neem Karoli Baba we settled down with Swami Muktananda in Ganeshpuri, where we spent three years doing intense sadhana. During Baba’s second world tour in 1974, he sent us off to found an ashram in Ann Arbor.

My husband took sanyass initiation in 1977 becoming Swami Shankarananda. At that time Baba told me to wear white and take the name Mother Girija. He told the swamis to call me Mother. This felt very comfortable to me with one possible exception. After my father died, my own mother moved into the ashram. From time to time, while answering phones for instance, she too began calling me Mother, which was decidedly odd to say the least.

Although there was a part of me that felt honored with the role of ashram mother, I also had a strong ambition to be a swami and teacher. I burned with this until I received sanyass initiation from Baba in 1980, becoming Swami Girijananda.

After Baba died in 1982, I stayed with his successor, Gurumayi, for the next ten years. I became increasingly dissatisfied with my spiritual progress during this time. I finally left in 1992 and lived in New York City for two years. My job at God’s Love We Deliver – the gift of my old friend and fellow Siddha Yogi, Ganga Stone - ended in 1994 and I decided to relocate to Berkeley. While driving there in a truck loaded with my possessions, I hit some black ice in Cheyenne, Wyoming, turned over the truck and broke my back. I spent the next year in a brace and mostly on my back, recovering.

It was actually my first long retreat. I did a lot of meditation and watched the entire OJ Simpson trial. As I began to recover, there was a sense of meaninglessness that oppressed me. What emerged from this enforced retreat was the conviction that I missed the spiritual life, and so as I became fairly functional, I began to look around for a new spiritual connection.

Connnecting with the Buddhists

I went to see Gangaji and Ammachi, but it was not until I met Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche that there was any chemistry. I knew immediately that this was my next thing. I met him in May, 1996, at Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael and visited his gonpa or retreat center in northern California a few weeks later. At that time, during a private meeting with him, I asked him to be my teacher. He spoke to me for two hours after which he told me that he had given me “essence instruction for ngondro.”

The ngondro is a set of 5 preliminary practices that are traditionally required to be completed before receiving initiation into dzogchen, the mysterious nondual teaching of the nyingmapas, which is the pinnacle of that particular Buddhist path.

A month later in August, I took a ngondro retreat with Lama Drimed, who was Chagdud Rinpoche’s lineage holder and who became the director of the gonpa when Rinpoche moved to Brazil. Although I took refuge with Chagdud Rinpoche and he was my initial connection, Lama Drimed became my teacher when I took my first dzogchen retreat with him. Dzogchen, the path of “great perfection,” is said to be the quickest path to enlightenment.

After the ngondro retreat in August, I went back to Berkeley, resigned from my part-time job there, packed up and moved to the gonpa in October. Twelve years after meeting Rinpoche, one complete Jupiter cycle, I moved to Australia. I had been with Baba for twelve years also, from 1970 until he passed on in 1982.

When I left the gonpa, it had been undergoing a major transformation. After Lama Drimed’s three year retreat, he found that he was no longer content or even able to continue with business as usual. He had changed in a fundamental way and was unclear about the direction that he and the gonpa would take.

He began a program which came to be called Open Space. At the beginning all gonpa residents met daily for many hours to hear what Lama Drimed had to share about his experiences and also to hear what everyone else had to say about their own situations. For me, this was a wonderful opportunity to solidify in my own mind and to honestly express my situation and aspirations.

During the last year or so of Lama Drimed’s retreat, I had begun listening to audio tapes of Adyashanti. His non-traditional and radical approach provoked me to question deeply what it was that I really wanted. It was clear that I did not want to continue doing ritual practices, which although not the primary aspect of my life at the gonpa, were an integral part of the traditional Tibetan Buddhist path there.

I was impressed with and even deeply loved many of the ritual and cultural aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, but it felt dishonest to pretend they were part of my identity. In a word, I did not fully resonate with a traditional path at the deepest level of my being.

There had been a temptation to pursue retreat as a goal, but I discovered while contemplating it, that I really was drawn to sharing with people. Often during retreat I would suddenly notice the question form in my mind, “What is the point of this?”

Teaching Again

During the last year and a half of my stay at the gonpa, I facilitated a group in Arcata based on the Bodhisattva Peace Training, which Chagdud Rinpoche has created as a non-traditional or secular way of teaching the path of the bodhisattva to anyone. This was a deeply satisfying experience.

As it went on, it became clear that I was not completely in line with the design of the course and was veering off into my own way of teaching. In fact, I was teaching, rather than merely following a formula which had already been laid out. For example, I was answering questions, even though this was not considered part of my role. The guidelines for facilitating the group were codified and did not include “teaching.”

I did not feel in any way unqualified to answer questions from this mostly beginners group about meditation and the path. It felt natural and comfortable. Furthermore, I was drawn to meditation which was also not meant to be a major part of the course. I did not want to disrespect the structure, while at the same time, I was moved to lead the group in my own way. My direction was well received and it seemed that it was what I was meant to be doing.

Once again in my life, there was a conflict between outer forces and inner inspiration. For most of my life I had gone the way of conformity and people-pleasing, but I was gaining confidence and moving in the direction of following my inner inspiration.

During the last year or two of my time at the gonpa, my focus was changing. Rather than focusing on enlightenment, which had always been my goal, I was beginning to see my goal as authenticity. I didn’t see how I could authentically be myself, and offer my value in the environment of the gonpa. I wanted to teach, but could not do that without ordination, which I knew would never happen, since I wasn’t in any way proceeding along that path.

Moving Down Under

The invitation to move to Australia seemed perfect – practically, personally, spiritually. I had been invited by Swami Shankarananda and Devi Ma to move into their Shiva Ashram and take the Chair of Buddhist Studies. The understanding was that I would teach at the ashram. It seemed perfect to me to be able to present what I had gleaned from the Buddhists as well as what I have learned from Baba.

The first course I taught was an astrology course and the second one was a course in Jin Shin Jyutsu. These were successful and satisfying. I had just assumed that I would be able to continue along the lines I had been following in teaching as I had with the Arcata group, but there was a conflict about what and how I would be teaching. At first I was upset and disappointed. I continued to push for what I felt I needed.

Again, a major physical setback provided the impetus for a big change. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in June of 2009, had surgery on my 70th birthday, July 14. This began another period of enforced “retreat” as I needed time for recovery.

During this period, which I called my cancer retreat, I began to meditate a lot. I decided that I did not want to undergo chemotherapy or radiation and would instead rely on a multitude of alternative remedies, which included ayurvedic herbs, homeopathy, naturopathic remedies, raw food, etc. I also began to consider my life and mortality in a deep way. It was time to decide what I wanted to accomplish in this life and move clearly in that direction.

Self Expression

What began to emerge from this cancer retreat was the certain knowledge that I wanted to share what I gained during the time I had spent at the gonpa. I realized I had to do it for myself and not rely on others to provide me with what I needed. Pushing and trying to accomplish this was a terrifying prospect, but I realized again and again that all I had to do was to focus on my highest aspiration and to follow my inner inspiration.

The transition from the gonpa to Australia had been relatively easy. There was great generosity on the part of Swamiji and Devi, who told me they wanted to provide for me, which they did very beautifully. When I saw clearly that I could not teach Swamiji’s students a different path right in his ashram, I asked myself what it was that I wanted to do about this. Somehow, I had to move in the direction of my own work.

I decided to work with Joy, an old fellow swami from the Ganeshpuri days, who was now a student of Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist lama. I asked her if I could lead a meditation group at her home. At the same time I began to clarify what it was that I wanted to share.

During this time I felt a lot of frustration and knew that I had to deal with it using all the tools I had recently learned. Pushing and trying are never good for me and here I was again, striving and wanting. I needed to relax, let go and let it unfold.

I realized that a lot of my frustration had to do with not being able to express myself. So, one day I sat down at the computer and typed in “What I Got From the Buddhists.” As I wrote, I had in my mind both groups with whom I had spent time, but there was more energy from the Siddha Yoga side. I think it was because of the problems which had been associated with that path.

After Baba’s death, the two successors he had named, Swami Nityananda and Swami Chidvilasananda (Gurumayi), had a very intense split. I had been traumatized by my participation in the ensuing war and knew that so many others had also been wounded in various ways by many aspects of life in Siddha Yoga. I felt this wound deeply and just as deeply, an urge to help with healing.

Swamiji, Devi and I had many long conversations about this during the period when Swamiji’s new website on Bhagawan Nityananda was being formed. One of his aspirations, and one with which I was in total accord, was the desire to provide healing and inspiration for all our guru brothers and sisters from Siddha Yoga.

There had been, similarly, a trauma for some during the big change at the gonpa. Many were confused by Lama Drimed’s new direction. During the period of Open Space which started at the end of his retreat, many people moved out and this was destabilizing for those who remained. It was a period of ferment and introspection. For me it was a liberation and was totally in sync with my own movement. I felt inspired and uplifted by Lama Drimed’s focus on psychological work, which I feel is necessary for westerners.

As I began to write this, I realized that I did not have anything to offer to those who are part of that sangha. My insights and experiences may be of some passing interest, but I don’t feel there is any need that my sharing could meet. I have the highest regard, respect and love for Lama Drimed and have faith in his ability to lead people forward. There are also abundant resources in the greater sangha, including so many lamas and centers that Rinpoche created, all of which seem to be flourishing and offering a variety of approaches.

For those who are or who become uncomfortable with the “foreign culture” or more traditional aspect of spirituality and want something less religious, less foreign, and more psychological, there are many Western teachers, such as Adyashanti, for example, who offer teachings and an approach to enlightenment that bypass this particular stumbling block.

I was so drawn to Adyashanti’s teachings that if he had had a gonpa or residential center, I may have been tempted to move in. I seem to have strong “monastic” karma in this lifetime, since I have now lived for more than 35 years in some ashram or gonpa. As a Cancerian, it seems that the spiritual community serves as the family for me. I also love practicing in a group.

There are elements of each of the different paths I have walked that appeal to me. I loved the chanting, the energy and excitement, and the sense of belonging and momentousness which I found with Baba and which also are present at Swamiji’s Shiva Ashram. I loved the kindness, sanity, peace and humility I found with Lama Drimed at the gonpa. I loved Adyashanti’s cutting to the essence, his simplicity, honesty and radical approach. I feel fortunate to have received so much of great value from all of the great beings and paths I have encountered, whether through books or in person.

I left Siddha Yoga somewhat emotionally traumatized, but I cannot place the blame on anything outside myself. I cannot place the blame on Siddha Yoga, nor even on my dysfunctional family life. It was all due to my karma – myself – my own ignorance and habitual tendencies. Likewise, I cannot really say that it was the Buddhists who healed my traumas. I can only say that it was while I was studying and practicing with the Buddhists that I became healed. The teachings fell on fertile soil, took root and flourished.

The points that stood out were: the need for self effort, rigpa or Awareness, retreat, the idea of no self and emptiness, the way of the bodhisattva or the teachings on motivation and compassion, and the path of dzogchen. All of these served me very well. I came to a point of satisfaction, of no longer seeking, the sense of a chapter ending. I now wanted to share with others.