Random Thoughts

Not the most focused day of my life. Lots of new elements forming up to change my daily routine have created a wider lens for me. Can't be sure how long it will last but it is a refreshing change.

Getting ready for Winter by installing replacement windows. This is so satisfying on many levels; savings on energy, feeling warmer in the rooms and just the sheer sense of accomplishment in working with tools and wood and getting something done. There is much to be said for simple jobs where you can see, feel and appreciate the change quickly.

Yoga classes are going well and I've been holding more now that my Mother is doing better. She is up and doing exercises most days and I just signed her up for a comprehensive program that will keep her in the home longer. There will be a team of health care providers reviewing everything and coming to the house several times a day to make sure she is doing well. A big relief for me.

There are lots of requests for me to bring up a regular schedule of classes, and I can tell from this weekend that people are anxious to re-connect. Probably will set a new schedule for November.

The grapes at my house in Schenectady, NY, are fantastic. They always are juicy and sweeter after the first frost. Right now they are the best although I've been eating them for about a month. Mostly concord grapes with seeds, unlike the watery seedless varieties sold in stores. The taste is absorbing when you bite into them - hard to ignore that grape flavor! The quantity of grapes has risen over the last few years once I learned the art of pruning. Now, every spring before the sap runs I cut off vines and shape the growth. It has paid off well with lots of healthy bunches of tasty grapes in the Fall.

Chanting Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

You may have done some chanting in a yoga class, or at a Kirtan, which is a concert where lots of chants are sung. Quite a rush isn't it? Really gets the prana moving...

Well, it's meant to do that. Chanting is a whole body, spirit, mind work that fits really well into Bhakti Yoga.

Everything we are, everything that is, is vibration. The entire cosmos is a vibrational continuum, and embodied life is the material expression of vibrational flow. When this vibrational flow is disrupted, imbalances result creating disharmony in the environment or dis-ease in the physiology.

Vibration through speech is a big deal in this tradition. Chanting helps to put us back into balance.

Mantra is a Sanskrit word with many shades of meaning: "tool of the mind," "divine speech." Another, more poetic way of looking at chanting mantra is:

The practice of mantra actually kneads the flesh of the body with sound. The delicate cells of the elaborate bundles of nerves are subjected to a constant hammering, a seizure of the flesh by the vibrations of divine sound.

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya is known as a Mukti, or liberation, Mantra. It is a potent spiritual formula for attaining freedom. Consistent use of this mantra will eventually, even if over many incarnations, free us from the cycles of rebirth. In this way it mitigates Karma so we are free to make true choices in our lives. True choices, not simply reacting to desire and aversion.

Om is a seed sound for the sixth, or brow, chakra and is the name of the state of existence in which the Indweller (jiva, atman, or soul) has united with the spirit of the all-pervading consciousness.

Namo here means name.

Bhagavate is one who is becoming divine.

Vasudevaya is "the Indweller".

A 'fairly' literal translation would be: "Om and salutations to the Indwelling One, substance of the Divine."

Check out the link to Krishna Das and listen to him bring the full vibrational aspect of this practice to life.
http://www.krishnadas.com/chanting.cfm

Namaste

P.S. For literalists, I include the following:

om--O my Lord; namah--my respectful obeisances unto You; bhagavate--unto the Personality of Godhead; vasudevaya--unto Lord Krsna, the son of Vasudeva.

TRANSLATION

O my Lord, the all-pervading Personality of Godhead, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You.

Taking Time Out

"...we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when 
instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual 
techniques.  This fundamental distortion may be referred to as 
spiritual materialism."

Chogyam Trungpa

Last week I was answering questions after a meditation class and it became clear that several people came to learn new techniques. I led an open meditation that evening where I brought up the question "Is what I'm doing meditation." In the conversation that followed the half hour meditation, one woman admitted that she was expecting guidance and had a difficult time when we were silent.

Isn't this a basic problem when we begin our meditation? Are we moving into memory to recreate the past or moving forward into planning to build a better present. How difficult it is to be present in this fast paced, results oriented, nano second controlled culture.

I have recently taken a major Time Out in my life to take care of my Mother who had a sudden and sharp downturn in her health. One of the first obstacles to confront me was my sense that I would loose momentum in my job, teaching and relationships. Many of the constructs that define me were called into question immediately by simply stopping my routine and taking care of what was in front of me. Of course, this translated into a whole set of logical, practical and well intentioned rationalizations.

In fact, a sense of spaciousness and ease flooded me in the weeks that followed as I immersed myself in the moment to moment work of taking care of 'activities of daily living.' The freedom of doing the next right thing took hold. What evolved was less focus on 'me' and a growing absorption in the reality of not being separate from this person.

But my spiritual practices fell off at first. That is, the routines I had come to label as spiritual, when the real spiritual work of service to others was filling my life. It's so easy to be diverted into high profile service when the real meaning of life is usually looking at us with a familiar face.

Meditation and Yoga

As I begin this Blog, a lot of thoughts have been going through my mind about where this all began in my life।
In 1975 I was working in the Genesee Hospital in Rochester, NY, and had just bought a house in a residential area near Cobbs Hill Park. Just up Monroe Avenue I had a dancewear shop on a block filled with trendy shops and restaurants. Many of the shop owners had moved to Rochester because of the Zen Center, started by Roshi Philip Kapleau.

My studies their were fanned by an intense desire to know more about myself and gradually I began to see how my actions in the world were having rippling effects। All did not go smoothly for me, more on that later, but I developed a real affinity with Toni Packer who was to take over the Zen Center when Roshi retired. The Law of Unintended Consequences would play with that move as it did in my life personal life for several years...

Richard Squailia in morning Surya Namaskar

I continued with 7 and 10 day silent retreats with Toni, Thich Nhat Hanh and others for many years. The solitude of meditation was so inviting to me that being silent for that period refreshed me and always gave me fresh insights into how I operated as a human being. Still does.

When I moved to Pennsylvania in the lat 1980's I began to sit, meditate and study with Quakers. I found it a wonderful experience and reconciled many issues from my Christian religious training early in life. Most of that healing came through my 2 year participation in the School of the Spirit, a Quaker school of spiritual direction. I became a recorded Quaker Minister and worked for several years in and around Philadelphia bringing meditation and yoga to communities and health care organizations. I presented programs and workshops on Nurturing the Spirit in Recovery and Mindfulness in Recovery for 12-step communities and institutions, Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction programs in hospitals, as well as Spiritual Direction for many members of Quaker Meetings and 12-step groups.

Around the early 1990's my physical condition deteriorated from many accidents skiing, motorcycling and horseback riding.; knees, back and shoulders were not functioning well. It's at that point that Iyengar Yoga came into my life. While I had done Yoga for meditation for many years, I never looked to it for therapuetic aid. Once I began, I saw big changes in my levels of daily pain and suffering. As an active person, this was a great combination of contemplation and action. The movement and focus on alignment gave me a missing link for my spiritual life.

Today I'm not as active in community building as I was, but take an interest in helping others in a low key way. My teaching has attracted an intense student group who practice as hard as I ever did. The saying, "there are no coincidences" certainly applies to the coming together of the current teacher/student pairing at Bella Grazia - my studio in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.

Together with my partner, Donna, I practice Yoga and Meditation and look for ways to help others bring the practice into daily life.

It's a good life.