Sublime teachings of Douglas Brooks

Tantra

* Tantra can be defined as "looming together weaving together."  Tan - means "to stretch" or "to expand," while - tra means "to integrate."  This definition of tantra can be used as a metaphor for discussing spiritual community.  Each member of the kula might be seen as a thread, that when woven together becomes tapestry.  Thread alone  has very little function.  It can even be lost or broken quire easily.  The value of thread is found in its functioning together with other threads.  Thread can be used to mend and it can be used to attach things together.  When thread is woven into cloth, the cloth becomes infinitely more useful than a handful of single threads.  It is the same for us within a sangha or community - we have the opportunity to be woven into a beautiful cloth.  As we bring our individual skills to the group, the group becomes stronger and more functional for service.  We, in turn, have function, purpose, strength and stability when bounded in such a way.  This bounding creates a continuity of support even when we are not physically surrounded by the ones with whom we practice.  This support becomes an internal sanctuary that backs us up and gives us strength to live in the world with values of a spiritual practitioner.

* Don't worry about being perfect. Step into your Beauty

* In your vulnerable moments you are held by the current, floating. In your empowered moments you swim with the current. In your ultimate moments you and the current are one. You don’t feel the difference between you and the current. That's Anusara.

* Kali says Stop asking what is not being offered, and to return to the realm of what is being offered.

* Truth is a plural narrative

* People aren't factual truths so much as what they can create as their narrative: people are the stories they tell about themselves and about others.

* Who’s credible? Now that’s a word about having heart. Credo, credential, .... all cognate words, words about the heart, like courage of course. What counts as creds? We always need to ask.

* When conditional love and unconditional love meet - that's intimacy

* the beauty of the Self is that it advances and progresses

* When you are truly given a gift, gratitude is the only possible response. A gift is not a transaction or a wager. As such, it's not earned, deserved, nor is a gift possible to pay back.* Shri is the unyoked potential of abundance, the certain prospect of creating value and maintaining worth, and the ultimate claim that hope will always fill the future with possibilities as yet undreamt.

* Receive it all and now you can step fully into it all.

* Certainty is more dangerous than ignorance.

Essence
The beauty of Anusara is that the essence is moving. The moving is essential.

Embracing that paradox is realizing that it wants to be mahadeva, the one who creates the world out of the choices that try to make the right choice. The optimal choice. While at the same time you have to defer. You have to give up to other peoples choices. Because you can become greater for that not lesser.

What do you want?
Learning to ask for what we want is at the very heart of a Tantric yogi. And if you can't know to ask for it you can't possibly know you can have it.

Nonduality
'Appa said, "you know what God says in the Bible?"

My ears all perk up. Because Appa talked about the bible like three times.

God said, "vengeance is mine".

And I said, "Appa why is that a good idea?

And he said, "Because it's not yours. Because it doesn't belong to anyone but god. In which case you don't get to have it."

So... I kinda like that, i thought OK i can live with that kind of god.

But what the tantra invites us to is the process of value that necessarily invites comparison.
Because there is no experience, the Tantrika says, that invites otherness.

Because one of the other things that the Tantrika's want to tell you about dualists is that if they are right there would be nothing we could do about it anyway.

So even if they are right we're not going to pay much attention to what they have to say because, swaha... i mean into the fire, gotta let go fo that. he's in charge - you're not. So... quit it. Get onto some other kind of yoga because even if that is your yoga the best you can do is stand up, sing, sit down and hope for the best.'
~~~~~~~~

Hanuman
When Hanuman rips open his heart Sita and Ram are already there.
He doesn't do it to hurt himself.
He does it to show you what could be in your heart if you are willing to open it.
How far are you willing to go?
That's all he wants to know.

~~D. Brks~~

Srividyalaya
Rajanaka QOTD (Dec. 29/11): We do not seek our freedom; freedom is our very nature. We seek to bind ourselves exquisitely, to hold and to be held in the very arms of Grace as she chooses to become us.

Shaktipata-anusarena Shishyonugraham Arahati

By entering into the current of the Divine Shakt's decent into the heart,
the true disciple becomes capable of receiving Grace.

~Kulamava Tantra 14.38~


Here is one of the most elegant and subtle statements about yogic practice made anywhere, we are offered a powerful and practical insight: The sincere practitioner of yoga, the true disciple, gains access to the Divine's own creative energy by entering into the Divine's own creative energy by entering into the Divine's presence which has descended into his or her own heart.  By touching the current of Divine grace flowing through our bodies, minds and hearts, we gain access to an entirely new, awakened and joyous experience of life.  What is required of the yogin is to open the heart in odder to experience this freely given gift of grace, which naturally flows through our being.  To open our hearts to this grace is to experience directly that Divine presence.

~D.Brks

Brooks is reminding us that yoga is not an intellectual process-it is a love affair, born in the heart of the true practitioner.  We must open our hearts in order to be capable of experiencing grace and to discover out true worth.  We are essentially good.  We are, by our nature, worthy of receiving grace.  In fact, our truest self is ever immersed in the flow of grace.  It is only the myth of separation that blinds us to this knowledge and direct experience.

Interestingly, this verse from the Kulamava Tantra could also read: "By entering the current of the Divine Shakti's decent into the heart, the true disciple becomes worthy of receiving grace."  In Sanskrit, worthy and capable are the same word, telling us that essentially there is no distinction between these two states.  Therefore our practices are not about proving ourselves worthy or even about making us capable.  The practices are about revealing to us what is essentially true about ourselves in our most natural state, outside of how we feel about ourselves in any moment and untouched by our conditioning and out psychological strategies.  Our true worth is not about the Sleeping World's demands and expectations.  Our original state of essential goodness is not even affected by our behaviour.  Our spiritual practice allows us to glimpse beyond our false perceptions of ourselves by assisting us to open our hearts to what is true in each moment.  The present moment then reveals to us our Divinity where both worthiness and capability come together as one.

(from Yoga from the Inside Out - Christina Sell)

http://infinitelila.blogspot.com/2011/05/sleeping-world.html