This is a very strange thing to be writing about on the Intertubes; so strange, in fact, that I’m not exactly sure how to go about it. It’s what I’d really like to write about though, so it’ll be good to see if I can figure it out.

I’ve always had a have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too approach to spirituality: namely, that I resist being saddled with one of those outré monotheisms because they’re just so darn unfashionable, and plus, what if I want to do something that my codifed faith doesn’t let me do? Don’t want to get caught in a lie, or get in trouble, or live a life of denial, so I hedge my bets. However, I have always prayed since I was very young, and in spite of a high-school relationship with a Dead Kennedys fan I haven’t been much of a vocal atheist. I acknowledge the softheadedness of the foregoing; I’m just saying.

As I grow I see both the logical errors of religion, its perils and disasters, AND its relevance, with more clarity. High school kids who fancy themselves clever [pedants in training, presumably] love to rile up their Catholic-school teachers or fundamentalist parents with the raw numbers of how many have been killed sorting out God’s various iterations, and it’s a pleasing gotcha for the kid but it never seems to have the intended effect [“Really? Well, shoot, let's just forget about the whole thing then”]. In spite of those clever, clever kids, the darn spiritual world just keeps turning up like a bad penny: Pema Chodron, Hildegard von Bingen CDs, Eckhart Tolle and the whole Oprah contingent, Rumi calendars at the stationery store. And of course Madonna and the Beastie Boys [viz. “Bodhisattva Vow”], &c. &c. I know and have read a whole whack of people who are contented to consign this entire branch of humanity to the Idiot Pile, even the Dangerous Idiot Pile. I think it’s fascinating in the same way that I think watching television and noticing what shows like “Fringe” tell us about what is common societal currency [Massive Dynamic is MASSIVE! and Dynamic!]

I lack the skillz and the knowledge to get into even rudimentary theology here; all I can really do is pay attention to what these people and their related products and services think are important. Turns out it’s a bunch of things that I think are important, like cultivating virtues towards those who challenge you, becoming more aware and mindful of your actions and choices, and infusing the moments in your life with a deeper consciousness. Like Tolle, I see the common misstep made by those of faith when they stop listening and start blowing things up; I don’t think it’s that they BELIEVE, it’s just that they stopped paying attention. Their belief is sort of a red-herring, which yer more virulent brand of atheists likes to find and poke with a sharp stick. Like I said above, satisfying for the adolescent atheist, full of sound and fury, signifying a fight between family members or a D-grade on an exam.

Anyway, with all of that going on in the old cranium I thought I’d left the idea of God as Bearded Sky Dude behind a long time ago. He’s so very unfashionable, that Sky Dude. Hard to find people in my particular demographic who will cop to believing in a God like that! So when I began to grow in my yoga practice and started a more devotional form of meditation, it was interesting when the mantra that came to me was “Not my will, but Thy will be done”. Hmm. Paging Richard Dawkins, Richard Dawkins to the white courtesy phone.

The divine, as manifested in Gary Larson

This mantra helped me through a bummer time in my life, and also helped me through some incredibly challenging yoga classes also. “Thy will” took on the form of whatever teacher I had, and it just made sense [esp. reinforced by various pop-yoga short forms that deride The Ego [TM]…poor ego, always getting the short end of the stick] to set aside what I wanted to do [“my will” being: leave this incredibly hot room, or come out of Natarajasana] and just do as I was told instead.

What I hadn’t bargained for was the hidden premise in the poetry of this little mantra of mine. Sure, I was seated in lotus and there were murtis of Ganesh here and there, and we chanted OM &c., but my God was still Bearded Sky Dude and I was the lowest mortal worm. “My will” and “Thy will” were OPPOSITES, and He could see my desires and they were WRONG WRONG WRONG, BAD NAUGHTY. Come out of Natarajasana? Puny human, I shall smite thee with guilt at having not sufficiently transcended The Ego [TM]. Not do the ENTIRE Ashtanga primary series? Why, are you not feeling well?

I had what you might term a philosophical restructuring during my Anusara immersion, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as Bearded Sky Dude was set aside. He did not go quietly. He still shows up from time to time to say things like, “Well, just because you wish it doesn’t make it so!” and “You WOULD want to bail on Hanumanasana, lazy sod”. The philosophy that I am now cultivating is that wishing it can indeed make it so, and that I can come out of Hanumanasana whenever I please, because I was made in His image and although cursed with a thin beard I have a spark of the Creator in me. [See Tantra for more details; I certainly am] Let me be clear, since I suspect I haven’t been: I’m saying funny, mean things about my perception of God because before I felt like we were separate, and opposites. The voice is obviously not that harsh all the time [although it can be], it’s just that the premise it operates on is that my desires need to be set aside because that is Thy Will. As opposed to: It is Thy Will that I desire what I desire, and I will serve your intention best by getting quiet, figuring that out, and working towards a better world. Ya dig?

Okay. So. Right around this time I stopped my longer seated meditation, especially mantra practice. There was no need for this; nobody told me to. It just kind of…happened. I’d still do shorter, centering sits, and if we were asked to sit for a long time in class I didn’t have a problem with it or get fussy or fidgety or anxious. I just wasn’t doing it on my own. I usually ended up in the lobby before class, talking with my friends and students and teachers. This was a shift. I lost my mala [again, not on purpose, it just happened]. And lately I’ve been missing that practice, so I decided I’d give it a shot.

I tried my old mantra, and it was like a dial tone: nobody home. Bearded Sky Dude did not show up to berate me. I tried some other faces of deities, Hindu and otherwise, hoping something would resonate. Nothing. They all just seemed too limited. But then when I got very diffuse and theoretical I lost the heart component of what I was meditating on [braham nirguna, without aspects, is very tough to ensnare with my puny synapses]

I am looking for a God-face that I can see clearly when I sit. S/he has grown on me, too big to be compassed by my old techniques, too big to be battled, too big to be kept in a little linguistic or historical box. I’ve been out in the world, doing what I believe to be her work, trying to get a handle on the enormity of the divine that I have welcomed into my mind and heart…but it’s bigger than I thought, and in some ways I miss the familiar faces of the limited divine that takes on these aspects so that we might see it more clearly. I just can’t FEEL those right now. I’m not sad; it’s really interesting to me. The best part is that I no longer perceive myself in opposition to the currents of the divine’s will. I am, as my teacher John Friend says, flowing with grace; I am the fish who can’t see the water she swims in. Not bad for a years’ work.

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December 10th, 2008 Yoga Lectures: What Is Yoga Says:

[...] at Harbin Hot Springs : Sustai.. Language Reveals Our Inner Beauty | Freemeditation.ca | BLOG My sweet lord « Heavy Metta It is a time for a change | shakti’s blog Spiritual Liberation by Rev Michael Bernard Beckwith | [...]

January 25th, 2009 My sweet lord « Yoga Bin Blog Says:

[...] View original here: My sweet lord [...]

April 5th, 2009 New project | Heavy Metta Says:

[...] My teacher John says that mantra is one of the most effective ways to raise one’s vibration and overall consciousness, since what you’re essentially doing is taking out the broken-record/corrupted-mp3-file of thoughts that are in your head and replacing them with the name of the divine, or a concept that is more useful than the usual monologue.  Mantra practice takes you from the dark and cloaked to the light and free in a very efficient path, with minimal self-censure.  My personal experience definitely bears this out.  But I did bail on mantra for a while, because I couldn’t personify the divine in the way that I used to. [...]

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