Hello friends, It is another packed week as we prepare some new treats for you to see and hear. In the meantime, for those of you who are in North America or who may be travelling there in the coming months, I wanted to make sure you were aware of the upcoming North American tour of Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Amma, who is often referred to as the “Hugging Saint” and who is my Guru. As I have written in the past, I feel very blessed by the Grace of a satguru in my life. They say the teacher comes when the student is ready. I stumbled upon and met Mata Amritanandamayi Devi in Kerala, South India in 1993 when I was internally called to go to India to deepen my yoga practice. Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, lovingly known as Amma, or Mother, is the embodiment of unconditional love, the primordial shakti, or divine life force. Her teachings are clear and simple, practically relevant to our busy, modern lives. Her focus on selfless service as a means of God-realization provides straightforward guidelines on spiritual living. She says, “Fill your hearts with love and express it in all you do.” […] The ancient Sanskrit word “guru” comes from two root words “gu” (darkness) and “ru” (removal of such). The classical…
Hello friends, I am back in Toronto after a wonderful visit to the UK to share my workshops and music. I so enjoyed getting to meet all of you who came to my workshops or my performance and look forward to seeing you again when I return to the UK in 2014. By grace, I was able to see my guru Amma in London at the beginning of my UK tour. Now that I am back in Toronto, by grace, I will be able to see her again in Detroit, MI beginning tomorrow. If you are able to get to Detroit this week, I encourage you to consider experiencing Amma’s presence for yourself. As I have mentioned previously, “Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, lovingly known as Amma, or Mother, is the embodiment of unconditional love, the primordial shakti, or divine life force. Her teachings are clear and simple, practically relevant to our busy, modern lives. Her focus on selfless service as a means of God-realization provides straightforward guidelines on spiritual living. She says, ‘Fill your hearts with love and express it in all you do.'” I am busy at work in my studio today, but I would like to share with you a blog entry I wrote two years ago about the gift of having a guru in one’s…
(Continued from Hatha Yoga, Sex Rituals and Tantra’s Shadow) “Wow,” you may be thinking. “A spiritual path where sex is seen as a path to the divine! Sign me up!” But here’s the catch. Firstly, Tantra as a whole does not support the actual practice of sexual rituals. Only one offshoot branch of Tantra does, and that is a branch not generally condoned as a viable path by Tantrism as a whole due to its inherent spiritual dangers. These dangers are part of the second catch. Secondly, when a spiritual aspirant begins to look at matter and the body as vehicles for spiritual evolution and personal transformation, he begins to walk the razor’s edge journey to spiritual enlightenment. He must learn to discern between the ego’s tricky wanting and expansive evolution. He must learn to balance the relationship between Nature’s involutionary tendency, that is, the rootedness of being in form, and the evolutionary cosmic play as it unfolds spiritually. A Tantric aspirant can easily either become overly mired in the pleasures of the physical and lose spiritual expansion, or he can become overly lofty, detached and ungrounded by the spiritual and lose the presence of the physical. Like a gracious balancing act, the Tantric yogi walks an extremely potent path that is both…
(Continued from Duality and Denial) The ancient Sanskrit word “guru” comes from two root words “gu” (darkness) and “ru” (removal of such). The classical Hindu text called the Guru Gita refers to the meaning of the word “guru” as being the one who leads us from the darkness of ignorance to the true light of pure consciousness. How easy it is for our limited ego-mind to project a wish for such liberation upon a human being who is not fully realized, and as such, cannot support our spiritual journey through its perils and promises. Because of our projections, we end up disappointed, feeling misled, coming to believe that the word “guru” refers to one who abuses power or behaves scandalously. A Satguru, however (“sat” in Sanskrit meaning true), refers to a fully awakened master. The Guru Gita says that a true guru is one who is neither bound by his senses nor limited by form, as “gu” refers to “beyond the qualities” and “ru” to “devoid of form”. Anyone who truly seeks true guidance on the spiritual path must be sure that the person in whom they place their trust in is indeed a fully awakened master. We are taught through sacred texts that those who are fully realized are those who love all beings equally…
Every day I sit in meditation with the intention to simply be present with my guru Amma. I sit quietly, breathing Her name, feeling gratitude, knowing She is there, everywhere, even if I cannot see. Moving deeper into silence, often I can feel Her, as though She is actually in the room. It does not feel like my imagination or a fantasy, which would feel vaporous and ungrounded. Nor does it feel like a mental projection in which I have left my body, wanting to be somewhere other than I am. It feels like the opposite. It seems as I deepen my ability to be present, settling in further still, I find Her. She was always there, only I was unable to see with my five senses. It is as though I become so deeply rooted, vital and expansive that my energy body opens to be in Her physical location, wherever She may be at that time, perhaps in a meditation hall sharing the infinite love She is by receiving thousands of seekers in one sit. At times, I feel Her so close, it is as though I were having Her darshan, held in Her Divine embrace. I can smell Her fragrance, as sweet as a thousand roses. I can see Her white sari…
PART 5: THE GIFT OF THE GURU We don’t think twice about going to a doctor when we have aches and pains, or consulting a lawyer or an accountant when we need financial or legal advice. We need specialists to help with specific areas of our lives and support our overall well-being. A spiritual teacher, or guru, is someone who knows the ways of the spiritual path and can lead us to wholeness. Just as we would like to have the most educated and experienced medical doctor take care of our physical health, so too, it is best to find the most evolved being to guide us on our spiritual path. There are many people who claim to be realized beings and are ever willing to hang up a shingle as a self-proclaimed guru. From my experience, those who make claims of being realized are most definitely not. Having a spiritual teacher to me is the most profound relationship one can have, almost deeper than marriage. A master highlights our strengths and weaknesses and gives us tools to grow into the fullness of who we are. Just as with a doctor, we must do our own healing work, but we are guided by an expert in the field. Some spiritual teachers would…
INDIA: MEETING MY GURU (THE DOOR BLOWS OPEN) (Continued from Steps Towards Yoga) THE CALL I was only 23, fresh off the plane from Canada. It was my first time in India. Though I felt like I was right side up for the first time in my life, I had no idea what was in store for me. They say the guru appears when the student is ready. I suppose I was ready. A guru is not just a teacher. A guru-disciple bond is a profound relationship, as deep or deeper than marriage. It holds an intimacy within its embrace that speaks to the furthest corners of the soul and carries one through an inner landscape we never knew existed. The body of the guru is not bound by the finite, but extends through time and through all things. At least, so it has been for me. Going to India was a true calling. I told my parents, much to their chagrin, that I was not doing my master in architecture and to not expect me back for five years. I would call when I could. (I now realize how painfully scary that must have been for them!) I was going to the other side of the world fuelled by the deep desire to meet my…
STEPS TOWARDS YOGA (continued from Early Beginnings) At 16 years of age, I took my first yoga class when I was enrolled as a student at McGill University. It was taught, little did I know at the time, by a Sivananda-trained yoga teacher. (I would love to thank him today for helping to spark my path). I adored the class. It felt both physically charged and spiritually inspired. I distinctly remember how the world seemed richer, fully and brighter after the class. I attended it religiously. Each week, the class felt like a homecoming. I would experience a feeling inside of me awaken, something I felt I had always known and also knew I was missing. Without understanding the fullness of what was happening, I sensed something deep within me growing through this weekly practice. Yoga became a love affair. My practice has continued from the day of my first class on. However, I only stayed at McGill for a year. I did not feel personally fulfilled in the Arts and Art History program I was studying, so I chose to switch to Architecture at Waterloo University. At Waterloo, I continued my yoga classes with an Iyengar teacher, and went deeper into understanding postural alignment. Yoga and meditation kept me sane in architecture school. The architecture…
