~Up, Up and Away~

This will be my final blog (unless its not), as I am shifting my blogging over to my professional page.  I am keeping this page up for a few reasons:

 1) I love it.  It is a wonderful place for me to see and integrate older versions of me

2) I don't know who might benefit by coming across the path of the DharmaFarmer and want to keep that possibility open

3) I may pick this back up after some time

Currently, there are several core projects on the table that I am developing as best I can.  They include:

~Building my coaching niche and practice

~Forming a successful teacher training program for my lineage of yoga

~Writing a book on personal empowerment

~Cultivating a healthy and fulfilling romantic relationship

~Working with yoga and dance studios to host my offerings

~Developing and executing various workshops

~Creating a community of sincere practitioners for this tradition

Whew.  So far, this has been a very humbling and self-awakening process.

I am being humbled by my own habits and conditioned ways of thinking.  I thought staying in a silent meditative retreat was a powerful way to reveal my inner machinations, but I see now that bringing this meditative reflection into an 'all-in' life move is even more powerful.  And, given how much I am taking on, it is requiring more and more of my total energy- what Don Juan called 'impeccability'.  Any energy I squander on negative thoughts, beliefs and behaviors is that much energy I don't have to fulfill my purposes.  So the edge of development is very sharp and immediate.  Cool stuff here.

And this leads to more rapid self-awakening.  As the conditioning is seen (with acceptance for what it is free from judgment), a power and clarity wakes up withing this.  It's been a wild ride so far, and I am super fulfilled in this process.

So, for those of you that want to continue with me along the next stage of this adventure, come and join me at my professional site: Empowered Journey Coaching and Training.  This site includes articles, blogs, and video blogs, all to support your on-going awaking into power, wisdom and love.

Thank you to each of you for the support you have given over the years- whether you shared somehow with me, or even if you just tuned in from time to time and got something valuable from this.  I know we are all taking part is something miraculous, and we are all together in this.  I am so happy to think of each of you as my companion on this mysterious journey.

In gratitude and community,

Eka

~A Cushion for Your Head~ 

Just Sit Right Now

Don't Do A Thing

Just Rest.

For Your Separation From God,

From Love

Is The Hardest Work

In This World.

Let Me Bring You

Trays of Food

And Something That

You Like To Drink.

You Can Use My Soft Words

As A Cushion For Your Head. 

~Hafiz, trans. Daniel Ladinski

~The Activity of Emptiness~

I have encountered many people working with awakening practices that hold a certain view of the realization of emptiness.  I have even watched my own mind hold on quite strongly to this same view.  It is the view that realizing emptiness (sunyata) or 'essential insubstantiality' would result in an ineffective and unmotivated bag of bones, unable to act in the world for the betterment of the world.

If we took the image of a bamboo flute, this view holds that once we clear blockages in the flute itself, fully surrendering attachments (even the attachment to play this instrument), the flute would become totally mute, dead, and ineffective- because there's no one there to blow through it, right?

But, what we find (and what the sages teach), is that once blockages are cleared from the flute (attachments and identifications are released), the flute plays of its own nature.  And it plays itself very, very well.  How could this be so?

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, awakened Tibetan master, says it this way: 

When you recognize the empty nature of phenomena, the energy to bring about the good of others dawns uncontrived and effortless.  Compassion is the activity of emptiness. 

The point is that emptiness has an active nature in relative reality (everyday life).  When we realize ourselves as inherently empty of anything definable, perceived separation drops away, and there is nothing to impede or obstruct the flow of emptiness, the flow of life living itself.  And when life is allowed to live itself free of egoic narrowness, what results could be called 'unsurpassed compassion and harmony'.  Pure examples of this are readily displayed in nature, in the stars, in the atom, and even in humanity- though we work very hard no to see this.

'Be aware, don't cling', says Joseph Goldstein.  The unattached, non-clinging heart-mind is where all traditions (that I have studied) converge.  Even in the writings of Rumi or Hafiz, beings aflame with love for the mysterious-intimate beloved, the practice woven throughout is uncompromising surrender into life itself.

 Love is the true activity of emptiness.  And emptiness is the true wisdom of love.

offered in humility,

eka

~Voices of Gaia~

A note written to myself, channeling the wisdom of Gaia-Earth-Mother, India 2006

~

Justin~

I am you- this is the first thing of importance.  I am not this and you are not that- we are It together.  To miss this point is separation anxiety in the most real sense.  You are me; we are of the same stuff.  To think that you are apart from me is to disconnect yourself from your source.

Try as hard as you can to get back to this source, to get back to me.  But realize, getting back to me does not involve 'getting' anything, for you already have it; you are already there.  All you can do is abide in this realization and act truly from it until you are firmly re-established in me...in yourself.

Thank you Justin for all you have done thus far to awaken to these truths.  Surely I know it is not easy in your culture, which prides itself in its disconnection from me.  Each effort- large or small- is felt by me and cherished as a son's gift to his mother.  Keep pressing, keep striving- find your way home.

I love you.

Gaia

~La Ilaha Illa Allah~ 

~God Alone Is~ 

~Aho~

~New Year's Revelations~ 

We are in a time of deep reflection and envisioning...the Winter Solstice, the celebration of the Tree of Life, and the coming of the New Year.  It is also, to me, the yearly rebirth of Christ Consciousness along our collective journey of spiritual evolution.

It is in this time of revelation and new beginnings that I share with you a great and beautiful shift in my life.  The shift is threefold: life, love, and location.

~

A short backstory:

Almost a year ago around mid-November, during a 3-month meditation retreat, something deep and powerful awoke in me.  Though I did not know the moment in which it occurred, I began soon after to see its effects.  In fact, the effects were everywhere, because this awakening had fundamentally shifted my cognitive experience.  One way I could put words to it (though inadequately) is to say that from that point on, my moment to moment experience of the world has been deeply intimate, inclusive, without separation.  To say it short: it's all one.

Though I know this process is not 'over' and continues to deepen and enrich over time, it awoke something in me that has fundamentally changed the way I move through the world.  Putting it in a question, 'If it and I and all are fundamentally always One, then does any essential change or growth occur?'  And, 'If no essential change occurs in the One, what is the motivating factor for being and acting in the world?'  To this, the clear and strong answer continues to ring out, 'To shine with true love for the upliftment and awakening of all beings!' 

Though this realization has been ripening and integrating more and more as time goes, this last year has been guided by an ease and a spaciousness and a freedom of heart and mind that I have never before known.  And because of this new realization, I have been moving through my own life in a totally unique way.  And life, reflecting this truth, has responded in its own unique and beautiful way.

~

And so to the New Year's Revelations.  In the course of this past year I have: 

(1) connected with a spiritual lineage and teacher that my heart can call guru without hesitation,

(2) seen with clarity my place and calling as a spiritual guide and mentor, and

(3) been blessed to find intimate kalyana mitta: a spiritual love and life partner. 

And what does this look like on the immediate level?  Well, by the end of January, I will be living with my partner in San Francisco, engaged in my vocation of personal mentoring and facilitating group practices and workshops.  I intend to offer myself to this service of mentoring as fully as possible, to all that seek it.  And I intend to sustain myself financially through this work.  Speaking of which, my new professional website is here, where I offer and explain my personal mentoring services.  Take a look!

All of this marks a new phase for me and my journey, and in every way it feels timely and aligned.  Life is asking me to jump, all in, and trust, and at this point in my process, I know I can and am doing so fully and joyfully.  There are absolutely no guarantees with any of this, yet how can I say no to the sincere guidance of my own heart?

~ 

And though there is no sadness or longing, there is also a part of me that recognizes and honors the paths not taken, especially in regard to my earlier plan of moving back to the Pioneer Valley and beginning my work there.  I have really been blessed with so many good friends over the years, truly lovely souls that have honored and supported my path, unconventional as it may be.  And I know a part of me stays in Northampton, as parts of me have stayed in India, Peru, Argentina, etc.  But it is also true that parts of these places and people live within me, and they inform and inspire me daily.

So thank you all for your friendship and support.  You are each an intimate part of my journey.

I will continue to keep this blog, bringing to you news of the west coast adventures.  Please stay in touch!  Also, the mentoring services I offer are direct and effective.  I mentor on a wide range of human experiences and processes, and I can definitely work over the phone, no matter where you are.  If you are interested to know more about these services, please check out my website, or simply email me at integralmentor (at) gmail (dot) com.  Entering into mentorship, clients not only receive essential understandings, techniques, and personal insights to evolve their own life situations, they also support me to continue this work of serving others. 

Light and Love to you my friends,

Eka Joti