mp3 brahmin

i am emailing back and forth with a brahmin in an indian village. he is from a lineage of at least fourteen generations. he specializes in yajur vedas, a major branch in the four vedas. the vedas are what i think of as the hindu equivalent of torah. directly revealed scriptures. what is my point here? i am so fortunate. until as recent as a decade or so you have to travel far and wide, go deep into india and you have to know what to look for. it's a pilgrimage itself just to find a real brahmin, not to mention a great one. and here i am, sipping mango lassi, tweedling my thumbs in oakland, california, downloading an ancient mantra sent by this real deal brahmin on mp3. it is hilarious to watch him working my vedic charts. in traditional white brahmin garbs, in full lotus, entering my data into a laptop. i have forgotten to mention he is on facebook. hwubby and i are fortunate off the charts to be able to have him read our stars and planets face to face. but i understand he skypes. meet the twenty-first century brahmin.

all these delightful things aside the reason i have a sense he is for real is this. i don't like astrologers doing astro speak to me, like, mars is in retrograde, venus is moving into your eighth house, jupiter is not aligned...blah blah blah. all i want to know is whether i should fire my literary agent who has not made a sale yet. i can't grasp any of these astro-techno talk. in fact they confuse me. my brain becomes a mush. but this is not the way this brahmin works. he takes my birth data, enters into this software, and in a few moments he begins to speak, describing what stars and planets and so on are there. but it is obvious to me that he is not speaking to me so much as he is entering all this data into him. this goes on a couple of minutes. then he looks at me and says, in his accented but clear and direct english, this is your chart in general, now we can discuss, what questions you have? from then on he speaks in plain and simple language to me. his voice is bright and light. the timbre is metallic. the color is crystalline. it is suffused with authority steeped in a lifetime of rigorous learning and discipline.

as i reflect on being in his presence, i recall i have an experience in the past that is as close as can be to this. my younger sister is in the hospital. they tell me her liver is failing rapidly. it's in the eighties in hong kong. the doctor says, there's nothing we can do. i remember vividly how i feel deep within. i say to myself, no, i'm not going to let her die. i pull out all of my connections. i am given to call this person in taiwan. his name. dai ge. big brother in mandarin. all i know he is a practitioner of a secretive and exclusive branch of tibetan buddhism. supposedly he is elusive and hard to reach. but i get him just like that. i dial the number. he picks up. i tell him who sends me and say, my sister is very sick. he asks a simple question and puts me on hold. i don't think he is away for long. anyway when he returns he says, i have borrowed life for your sister, here's a mantra that she should repeat. i say, what's your fee? he says, no. i return to the hospital. before i can enter the ward a nurse greets me at the door. she says, your sister's liver function is much better. i go to my sister's bed. she's sitting up. i say, muimui, what happens? she says, last night i am sleeping... suddenly the room turns very bright, i see this man at the door, he says, come with me...i say, no, my big sister tells me not to go with anyone...he says again, come with me...i say, no, big sister tells me not to go with anyone... he says it the third time...i say the same thing...and he goes away... and the brightness disappears.

gee, why am i rambling all this ancient history? o, yes, the brahmin. i ask a question, or state my particular situation. he goes quiet for a moment. it is evident that his attention and gaze are turning within. who knows what worlds he is consciously watching. but all the time i have no doubt that he is present with me. in a couple of instances he asks a simple but totally unrelated question. and then he goes quiet again. i can sense that he is going through some scanning and computation within. and then he would give a direct answer to my question or remedy to the situation at hand.

hwubby says, a lot of the things he says are really what i feel deeply inside but the mind kicks into doubt, like, really, no, this can't be, it doesn't make sense. no, not to the physical senses. my inner self and the self of hwubby and the self of all are the same in essence. my inner self is no different from the self of the sun, moon, jupiter, mars and the stars and planets in the hundreds of billions of galaxies that the physical eyes can and cannot see. in fact i would go so far as to say my inner self is the same as the self that creates the entire physical universe.

i am listening and chanting along to the ancient mantra that the facebook brahmin mp3 me. the beautiful and bright vibrations fill me up. there's no room for negativity and doubt in the mind. and this is precisely the purpose of this mantra. take away negativity and doubt.

a basketball dream

great dream. a widely watched basketball final game is about to take place. i just finished speaking my mind in a direct and straightforward way to hwubby and muimui, my younger sister who died young. then the captains of both teams come to ask my blessings. i give each man a gemstone, one yellow-gold, one saffron-gold. what happens next in the dream is i find myself on my own getting to the game. i have to go through a long, narrow, dark alleyway of sorts. the moment i step onto the path i see rivers and floods of cockroaches along the wire fence running down the lane as far as eyes can see. the passageway is narrow. i have to get onto the fence, hang onto it with hands and feet and inch forward. out of nowhere wild dogs with sharp teeth get up close on the other side of the fence. but i don't feel like giving up at all. i just keep going. in the final scene i'm outside the ballpark. a nice guy from my university days comes up and says, you'll sit on the uppermost bench but, don't worry, you'll see. i nod but, within myself, i know i have a front row seat waiting for me.

i wake up. a few sparks come, one for a specific sentence, another for adding story to the upcoming plot twist, yet another is how to streamline the first chapter.

i feel really nice. very settling. i think i'm moving into a rhythm.

the body is a garment that the soul wears

two days ago i was taking care of a situation when i suddenly caught myself head under water in sad feelings. the whole thing involved elderly relatives going through physical deterioration. i knew enough by now not to brush it aside, ignore it, nor indulge in it. it took quite a bit of willpower to shift attention to the steady pace and sound in the ocean of the breath. gradually i moved into the stance of being aware of the sadness rather than being it.

in this morning's meditation i see the message from my inner self. there is a place of pure joy within you. go there. indeed it is the truth. the body is a garment. all garments go through wear and tear. on this note my meditation silk pants are so worn out and yet it's just hard to let it go. in a silly way part of me says, you can't meditate as well in other pants. in a sort of similar way i am attached to the body, equating it with existence, with life itself.

my first wake-up moment along this line was when i was dressing the body of my muimui (younger sister) for her funeral. my mind was preoccupied with one thought, this looks like my muimui, her skin is as fair as ever, but where is she? i had no word for it but it was clear that something left her body.

the body is a garment that the soul wears. i have to take care of it. but the essence of me is the inner self. this is the truth. this is the truth. this is the truth.

my god-sis. 38 m + 21 m

on one hand the holy-day season is marvelous and wonderful. on another hand it is so very sweet and settling to return to the calming and calm rhythms of day-to-day life.

as the easeful breath flows ever more freely through the body and mind i have this keen awareness of a soft whiff of sadness nudging my heart.

i know what it is about. i miss my muimui.