2009 05 31. Sunday.

2009 05 31. Sunday.

I helped out with the veggie chopping this morning and had a nice talk with a young French woman (Reneeya, about 26 years old I would guess) who was there. She hadn't yet received Amma darshan but was very excited about meeting Amma later this year in France. Reneeya told me about an Amma dream she had and how she's getting more and more interested in spiritual practice. She was really cute! Tall and willowy with dark hair, dark eyes and a really nice golden olive skin color. That combined with her French accent made her very attractive. I didn't let on about that (or at least tried not to). One very nice thing for me about getting older is my sexual energy seems to be fading away pretty significantly. Yea! I like that. Feels very nice not to have all that sexual shakti clogging up my system and messing with my mind. It can get awakened under the right circumstances, but I'm now happy for it to lie dormant and hopefully fade away even more. My mind is already discombobulated enough as it is.

Before coming to the vegging chopping seva, I was carrying a little story about how I didn't want to do seva around people who were doing a lot of chit chatting. We started the seva and internally I worked on shifting my attitude that if there's silence, then I can enjoy doing my mantra. If its in the flow to talk, then I can enjoy the conversation. I notice that I often create artificial boundaries around my sadhana that, in reality, aren't useful or helpful. I'm noticing that problems less and less exist "out there" but primarily exist when I have a contracted attitude about some situation. When I loosen up my attitude and practice just flowing with whatever is happening, then solutions arise naturally and "problems" fade away. The problem transforms into an opportunity to just be in harmony with reality. Which, I think, is one of the big lessons that Amma wants me to learn.

While we're working at the recycling area, some Indians like to come by and see if there's anything interesting in the trash. We find a lot of useful items that can be resold. When the Indian men come by, I get a feeling like they shouldn't be there and they're interfering with our work. When the ladies come by, I feel like I want to be helpful and help them find what they need. So very obviously I'm carrying around some old and useless story about this situation. I'll have to look at this story more closely so I can try to let it go. I think I've got some old gender stereotypes still active in my subconscious.

One thing I notice sometimes during my sadhana is that I'll have this background feeling that doing sadhana is something special and that I'm a special person for doing it. Its kind of like I'm taking my sadhana personally rather than just letting it flow with no expectations. I see that I have a story about sadhana that I carry around in my head. I think its connected to a deeper egoic need I have to feel special and to be seen as special (which is just a reflection of my insecurities). It seems this egoic need runs pretty deep and comes out in all kinds of ways. Some ways I can see. Others I probably can't see, but I'm sure others can see just fine! Thats scary.

One nice thing about ashram life is that many of the usual choices in life are taken care of for us. I don't have to think about what to fix for meals, when to eat, what to wear, what work to do, etc. For me that frees up a lot of mental space so I can concentrate more on my moment by moment mindfulness practice.

5:15pm: Bright bright sunshine pouring in through my window. Clear and hot but the ocean breeze and ceiling fan are more than sufficient to maintain comfort. Down the hall someone's tea kettle is whistling for a few seconds before they pull it off the flame. Right near the window some pigeons are cooing. Occasionally and with suddenness, their dark shapes with wings folded all the way in will drop like a stone falling outside the window. Mostly I hear just the sound of the ocean waves and car horns from the north-south beach road. Afternoon chai has settled in comfortably. I hear the sound of a door down the hall. Coming or going I can't tell. Absent is the usual sound of one of the ashram Indian ladies slapping laundry loudly and rapidly against a flat rock. Clothes aren't clean here unless they feel the pain. Perhaps she's all done for the day.

I was feeling out of sorts during my usual evening sadhana time. I had a nice meditation, but it seems that the energy of the meditation threw me off somehow. Afterwards my head felt foggy and slightly achy. I needed to take a break so I did some little tasks in the room when normally I would have been listening to my MP3 bhajans. Often when I meditate I'll feel nice concentration and settling down, but there'll be like a pressure at the top of my head. Like the meditation is generating some kind of difficult energy there. Don't know what it is, but I'll try to examine it more closely. Perhaps its telling me I need to adjust my sadhana in some way.