Holy Trinity as Our Own Identity

 

Holy Trinity as Our Own Identity

Since 37 years ago I have studied Eastern methods and practices. For over 20 years I have spent my life in full time practice and the past 15 years teaching professionally. I have understood and figured out everything there is to know about buddhist and hindu practices and paths and none of it is no longer a mystery to me.

Recently I have felt the calling of God, not christianity but God and the Holy Trinity. I feel and hear this calling because just like buddhism and hinduism there is much mistaken in christianity that has spread into people's minds and lives with the outcome that they don't really get relief and spiritual benefits from the christian religion.

I know it from my own experience. I was baptized into orthodox christian church as a baby, went to church as a child, went to literally at 14 and discussed the doubts and questions I had about life and existence with priests, church workers and teachers of religion but was left with same doubts, and actually even added contradiction because of the way some priests talked about God and Jesus. Those unanswered questions and contradicted atmosphere lead me to look into Eastern ways and so I have spent my life practicing.

Through those years of studying and practicing buddhism and hinduism, and becoming more and more awake, I intuitively understood that Jesus was a yogi and that he has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted for the past two thousand years. I learned from some fine works from christian contemplatives, supported by my own experience of yogic meditation, that there are basic mistakes in the way christianity and its practices are presented and taught. This is the main problem that has created the gap between people and church and thus also between people and God and Jesus which is greatly regrettable. Because of this people, whole nations and cultures, have lost the light of their very own life and being so disillusioned about religion they want nothing to do with it. This is only understandable to me because the way how God, Jesus and prayer is taught feels so wrong.

About the Holy Trinity

God is the spirit in all beings. God is the spirit which is always pure and good. God is our own heart and soul. There is no God sitting somewhere on the clouds commanding people to eternal damnation and hellfire. God neither judges us. God is the pure good in everyone of us. This is no different what awakened nature or buddhanature is. God is purity, love and utter kindness in us. If you asked me to choose a pronoun for God, I'd call Him "He". From analytical perspective when you pray to God and feel Him in your body and bone marrow, He feels exactly the same as the masculine principle and archetypal deities of buddhism and hinduism, namely Samantabhadra (lit. basic goodness) and Shiva. I've spent more than 30 000 hours in meditation analyzing these things so I know, and I teach people practices how they can verify these things for themselves. That's what I've always done.

Holy Spirit is the pure energy of God. When you pray for God to bless, heal or come to you, He himself comes as pure presence but also as Holy Spirit, as pure energy that flushes through your mind and body to shift your energies from confusion and pain to clarity and ease. Holy Spirit is God's active side and if I had to choose a pronoun for Her, it's be "She". Again, the same principle applies to both buddhism and hinduism, through Samantabhadri (lit. feminine basic goodness) and Shakti (lit. feminine power). Alternative way to adress Holy Spirit is to call Her the Divine Mother.

Son of God is embodied by Jesus Christ in the christian doctrine and he is presented as the only one who is the son of God but to think that way is incorrect because all of us has been made in the image of God, meaning that each one of us has the same potential of God, Holy Spirit and Divine Child in us, it just hasn't been tapped yet. Jesus is just one example, one embodied person and a master who tapped His innate potential.

One big problem with christian doctrine that affects countless people of the world is that with its basic views it condemns us to stay deluded and in pain, though it tells us to turn to God. The thing is that the closer one gets to Holy Trinity, the clearer it becomes that the Trinity is in us and is us. Through direct experience we can and need to grow to understand that God and the Trinity are not separate things, that we are not in dualistic position with it. Actually, we can realize and experience without any weird ideas or weird features that the Spirit of God is our very own essence and that there is no separation between oneself and God.

Again, there are very weird views about God that he judges and condemns sinners but we should forget all these and start fresh,accompanied by our first hand experience. Union of oneself with God means that one is no longer bound by the delusional belief of believing oneself as a separately existing entity called "me" or "I" but understands that the original purity, kindness and love which is selfless is what and who God is. It is the selfless pure nature of God that flows through our whole being which is what God and God's nature is.

May the Pure Spirit of God descend on you to show you the light that is in you,

Baba, 2 9 23

Amrita Mandala

 

 

Jesus and Maranatha, the Guru of Jesus By Amrita Baba

 

Jesus and Maranatha, the Guru of Jesus

 

By Amrita Baba

If we look with the eyes of a yogi at Jesus' resurrection, we understand that he attained the so called lightbody or rainbow body that has been attained by many male and female masters of buddhism, hinduism, christianity and taoism, and is still attained by yogis today.

Despite of Jesus or Ishanatha, like we call him, having been a central master behind Amrita Mandala mission since 2008, it has taken me many years to come to this point when the whole mystery of Jesus and his attainment has become the centerpoint of my study and teaching but finally this time has arrived. This was preceded by making sense and explaining of the whole buddhist system which I think is a necessary foundation for understanding anything else.

Since couple of years years ago I have written about the lightbody or rainbow body phenomenon that has happened widely across esoteric traditions. It can be said that this phenomenon is universal. If one understands what full enlightenment is and how it works, it becomes apparent that like many others who have attained lightbody, Jesus also attained it through esoteric or tantric practices. This cannot be attained without in-depth study with a tantric master or a guru. Then the question arises who was his guru, what did he practice and what happened during the time that have been removed from the history of christian religion.

After many years of studying yogic engineering and making sense of hindu and buddhist training systems, I feel not only very fortunate but also ready to arrive to Jesus and his lineage because he is the most famous yogi in the whole world, though people don't really know him as a yogi. Without the slightest doubt it is Jesus out of all masters, and his living presence that has had the greatest impact on humanity. So I feel priviledged to be in this position and to be able to explain who he was, how he became the great master he is and offer answers to the most basic questions about him, that have been denied from humanity by the religious establishment but most importantly it is Jesus' and His Guru's, Maranatha's living blessings that matter the most. Inviting the masters to us for support, guidance, protection and enlightenment and feeling their presence in our bodies, hearts and minds, is Guru Yoga.

Maranatha's name is mentioned in two places in the Bible. For all this time the christian tradition thought the name was an aramean word, and yet there was no certainty what it meant because it can be read in two different ways. There are different interpretations of its meaning but apparently no one ever thought that it is not aramean, nor greek but sanskrit. 

Jesus’ or Ishanatha's as he is known among the tantric natha yogis or nathas, biography and his longtime study in India has been completely removed from approved christian literature, like a lot of other very important teachings, so it is not a surprise why no one ever thought about the possibility that the word everyone thought was aramean is actually sanskrit. I read the name from the Bible long time ago and knowing about a certain tantric tradition instantly thought, ”Well, that’s interesting…'

I want to introduce Jesus' guru properly like I have introduced my students to other gurus. I want to put him into context and explain the things one's needs to know to have right view about him and to approach him in right way through Guru Yoga. A book about Maranatha is in the making but will take several months to finish. In the meantime our monthly retreats in August, September, October and December-January will focus on him. You are welcome to join us.

One unique feature of Jesus’ Guru, is that he was born fully enlightened and never needed to practice. He took rebirth just to be an example of full and perfect enlightenment for people around him. He had a lot of impact on the local community in Kashmir and was widely known among yogis in the area. To merely be and live with such a perfect avatara is like being in the immediate presence of a spiritual sun of immense power and constant blessings. 

 

Jesus came into the world with very special karma and purpose but he was not born perfect, most who have the karma to become Gurus don’t which is why Jesus’ Guru was very unique. Jesus reaped great benefits of living with his Guru or Father as he was affectionately called by his disciples, who was actually few years younger than Jesus was. It is fascinating how great masters take rebirth and keep working for the liberation of beings from one era to the next.

The essential purpose of all masters is to help those who turn to them to recognize and realize their innate enlightened nature. The purpose of gurus is not that their followers lift them on high thrones and give their own responsibility to them. There is Christ, fully enlightened nature within everyone of us. It is Jesus' and His Gurus gift to each one of us to show and reveal it to us through practice until we become Christs ourselves.

 

Amrita Mandala, https://www.amritamandala.com/

Lightbody and the Internal Arts of China and Japan

 

Lightbody and the Internal Arts 

of China and Japan

(email exchange with an indoor student)

Simha: Been making some wonderful personal discoveries lately with regard to Amrita Asana and its relationship to inner martial arts/inner hatha yoga.

A few weeks ago when traveling to Finland I practiced standing meditation at the airport. As I stood past the first minutes, I started naturally applying the principles of Amrita Asana to the standing posture. More specifically, I understood the importance of "expanding" in all directions (up/down, front/back, left/right). At first, I was thinking of it as kinda pushing to fill the whole frame but soon realized I might as well just allow myself to be pulled.

Whichever perspective you take, what I am describing is sort of intentional settling into the whole "frame" of the posture. This very quickly unifies the whole body in the standing posture and thus activates the meridian field.

This week I made the same discovery with regard to various aspects of pranayama. I've always loved breathing techniques, and have regularly practiced Bellows Breath (bhastrika) and Shining Skull (kapalbhati), combined with breath retention and yogic locks (bhandas).

First I connected the actual inhalation and exhalation with the "expanding" in all directions. This wasn't entirely new, of course, as it's how Vajra Breath is taught in RBY, but I felt a deepening in the sense of the whole body breathing 360 degrees regardless of intensity. This feels effortless (and very empowering!) when all muscles are working in unison.

Then, with regards to yogic locks, more specifically root lock (mula bhanda), abdominal lock (uddijayana bhanda), and chin lock (jalandhara bandha), I realized that I have been doing these three locks separately from one another. This has caused unnecessary effort required in holding the locks. When applying the principles of Amrita Asana, on the other hand, the body (and thus the locks) become united, revealing the great lock (mahabhanda), which again instantly forces open the meridian system. It's a subtle point but makes all the difference.

The above discoveries have also led me to experiment deeper with the basic posture in sitting meditation. It seems obvious when I say it, but of course, the very same principles apply to just sitting as well. By intentionally filling the frame of the seated posture, the meridian body is forced open and sitting becomes effortless.

I know Baba has been talking about these things for a long time, and I've had glimpses of it myself too. Nevertheless, the practice of Amrita Asana has propelled the maturation of this understanding like nothing else. It feels like it has naturally opened up a whole nother dimension to the practices I've been doing for years. Very much looking forward to exploring this further. Thank you!

Baba: I remember when I first taught you standing practice (c. zhan zhuang) in Tammisaari in 2016-2017. We've come back to it every now and then at retreats and when hanging out. I've also lead qigong and zhan zhuang sessions at retreats for years and years but I saw a problem there: that it was too hard (unpleasant) and too difficult to people to understand what the practice was about. I've done that work when I began internal martial arts 25 years ago and it took me years to even get the basics right, even with lineage teachers, and it was just uncomfortable to grind all those hours. So seeing this problem with my students I wanted and needed to find a way to make the training much more enjoyable than the grind or die-traditional training style so that you'd even get interested in internal arts and their principles as they are taught in East-Asia, namely China and Japan.

After having learned a wide variety of internal practices it took me a number of years to come up with a sensible structure that my students could learn and start practicing. So I took some bits that I had learned from internal martial arts, such as Yi Jin Jing, Second Course Yiquan of Han Jingyu and hard Shaolin qi gong, Indian yoga postures, basic elements of yoga tantra (prayer and mantra) and subtle centers that have long been forgotten by the yogic culture and put them all together as the first level of Amrita Asana Yoga (abr. AAY). I've gotten so many positive comments about the practice, people really love it but the thing is that if I had taught under the name of "internal martial training", people would have had no interest, I am certain. So I tricked all of you, ha, but as you know the results are great. There is no yoga or qigong style that puts all these elements together but I suspect there might have been in ancient China in the days of the ancient immortals.

What you describe about realizing how to activate the frame (after just 6 months of regular Amrita Asana practice) took me years of traditional internal martial arts practice to understand. I got glimpses of it and of many other things but I didn't really understand it but after a number of years. Through your AAY practice you have now developed a connected physical frame that you can apply your intent (c. yi/意) on, to affect changes and transformation in the meridian field. Adding yi to AAY is taught on level 2 but you already got it.

I have made quite a few posts about yi recently because it is one of the key practices to transform the meridian field which condition as you know is the ground of immortality/lightbody/rainbow body. Yi is physicalized concentration. Being able to focus one's mind mentally is one thing but to focus (yi) with one's whole body mass, the whole skeletal structure, muscles and tissues harnessed behind it, like a pack of horses in reigns, is entirely different thing. The principle of yi is entirely unknown in Indian and Tibetan yogas and their traditions but developed into a key principle in China and Japan, and their many arts and traditions.

From the perspective of hatha yoga, without yi you're just doing a physical workout with moments of mental focus here and there through dristhis, bandhas and so on but what is typical is that even highly regarded professional of hatha yoga never develop a frame as it is understood in China and Japan. If you don't have a connected internal frame, even if you could put yourself into very complex and advanced postures, the effect on the meridians that makes a great part of our psyche will be very limited. With a built frame, yoga asanas will immediately take a different gear because the frame allows one to not only work on the physical field but also the meridian field which is really really important from the common perspectives of health and wellbeing, but also from the point of view of trauma healing and preparation of the lightbody. In Amrita Asana Yoga you start with postures but through the tensing of all muscles at once in each posture, you actually start building that frame effectively from the start and work out the whole meridian field. It makes the body very strong very fast because you're doing a gym workout (without weights) through the tensing and flushing the whole system with prana/chi that is spiritually charged because of the preparation in the beginning of practice and during through mantras or whatever techniques from RBY you might be using. The difference between level 1 and 2 of AAY is that it just becomes subtler and with yi-without yi is given more emphasis.

That phrase "with yi - without yi" is something that I could say a few words. It is written all over the Taoist classics, this thing about "marvellous alive non-doing" or wu wei and it has been extensively written by zen artists of Japan during the past over 1000 years. My master Terayama Roshi dedicated his life to studying and writing about it, as did the masters before him in the lineages. But just like on the side of dharma or spirituality this principle is vastly misinterpreted in various ways. Not having to do anything about it for one to realize or to successfully wu wei just like the immortals or that if you just sat immovably like the Buddha that'd be the same as being a buddha are two of them.

One great gift that mahamudra and dzogchen texts by Tibetan masters such as Gampopa and Longchenpa have to give us is the clear definition about the most fundamental spiritual part of us. It does not matter whether we discuss of the Tao, Christ, God, buddhanature or whatever, it makes sense that regardless of beliefs and opinions we are all built the same way and have the same basic nature of mind. Understanding this was made into science by the master yogis and while I can see many others from other traditions speak about it sometimes identically or similarly, I think it is because of the unreligious pragmatic nature of buddhadharma that makes it more understandable and therefore better accessible than any other system I know about. Poetic, mystical and glorificational sources definitely give as much benefits as they do harm because of the option of (mistaken) interpretation. My point is that without knowing the ground of all beings or the mind common to all beings, it is impossible to understand without yi (c. 無 意) but you know all this already.

So, next in your practice, now that you have grasped all three: the frame, yi and without yi; next step is to play with them. Form doesn't matter. I stand, do yoga, sit, dance, walk, do crossfit and lift weights applying "physicalized intention together with basic awareness" and "basic awareness together with movement but without intention". This strikes the main teaching of Garab Dorje.

Rainbow-light blessings,

-Baba, 30 March 23

How emotional trauma dislocated my spine and joints for decades

 

How emotional trauma dislocated my spine and joints for decades

Over the past few days I've realized that the effect of trauma on the body is much more physical than I ever thought it could be. I've gone to bone setters for over 10 years to have my facet locks cracked open. Over the last several years Karl and Kaisa have done that to me on regular basis, last time yesterday. All of you have seen me crack the locks open from my chest when I am teaching by applying pressure on my sternum with my both hands. I just feel that the plates are no longer in place, it feels off and I have to crack it back into its right place. I've had to do this few times a day for many years and get my back cracked about few times per week. Exercise or the lack of it affects it but it has never completely gone away. I have assumed that it is just something that happens in my body, that for no real reason these areas/bones/joints get dislocated. What I realized is that it is the tailbone trauma that via the meridians pulls the small spinal facets as well as the chest plates out from their place.

This realization came to me after I figured out how completely without a physical cause (injury or movement) my right shoulder got partially dislocated last September by the trauma. I've had numbness of fingers on my right hand that tingles like migraine aura in the head does (which I've had since 2011). It took mea long time and many dead end experiments with foods, drinks like coffee, sleep, exercise etc. until last year I saw directly that the root cause of my migraines are in developmental trauma that has been a large energetic knot in my tailbone for four decades now. Since I was a teenager I remember having cracked or popped the finger joints of my right index, middle and sometimes ring fingers. 

It blew my mind to directly see that my psychological trauma is actually dislocating the joints in my fingers, recently in my shoulder and subtly dislocates the whole spine. The meridians have such an energy in them that it simply pulls the physical parts out of from their places. 

It is common sensical that psychological trauma has an effect on one's mind, emotions and perceptions that leads to coping strategies, difficulties in living a normal life or difficulties with work but that nonphysical trauma and fear has such a power that it dislocates bones... is mindblowing.

Baba, 13 March 23

Is it possible to heal trauma fully? Yes!

 

Is it possible to heal trauma fully? Yes!

Mani: Hi! I wanted to share this channel on youtube, she has some great videos for people who has trauma from childhood/teenage years. It's always good hearing someone talk about something they themselves have been through/worked through, and so has solid advice. Be it trauma in the form of neglect, ongoing stress over years, episodes at school, illness etc. She speaks mostly from a psychological and physiological perspective, and not so much spiritual, but it still has been super helpful. For the longest time, as I wrote many times in my log thread here in the group, I genuinely thought I had autism or some other mental/neurological duagnosis. ? Turned out it was childhood traumas, which I am working through with the wonderful practices Baba has taught us.
Now she says in one of her videos that childhood trauma can never fully 100% heal, which I don't think is true, but that just seems to be the general perception for mental health, that it is difficult or impossible to fully heal.


Baba: I never bought that you'd be autistic. Misdiagnoses have been a nuisance in your family...


Mani: Yeah, I am so glad I didn’t settle for that diagnosis and know what the cause is now. It makes all the difference. My sister also got a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, but it turned out to be PTSD from childhood and of being failed by the medical community.
I am so glad to know now about the subtle bodies and how tantra can heal...

Baba: We had a discussion with Amrita Uma (who is a psychologist) at the recent retreat about the common perception about the heal-ability of trauma among professionals of psychology. Gabor Mate who is a very influential trauma specialist said what I've heard from a number of others (the ones I've listened to) that "you can learn to live with trauma but you can't (fully) heal it". But Uma enlightened me by saying that that is not a prevalent opinion, that some psychologists and psychoterapists have the opposite view, that it is possible to heal it fully.


Even without the methods to heal it fully I find it very problematic and disempowering to say to patients that it can't be healed. We all probably know someone with trauma or some other illness who's been said that they can't heal and that they just have to suffer with it for the rest of their lives. Of course if we are talking about tetraplegia it is a different matter but my point is that just like in dharma you have teachers who give really poor, insufficient and actually completely wrong instructions backed up by a lineage, the same happens in medicine where doctors go too far in their statements and diagnoses.


Having worked my a*s off with my own trauma with very specific energetic practices, I am highly doubtful if it is even possible to become fully aware of one's early trauma by psychological means (that are basically sutric/non-tantric) and consequentially if psychology really even understands what full healing of trauma means. That might sound like a very arrogant thing to say and I am happy to be told/proven otherwise but having seen the regular shallowness of non-tantric methods I am doubtful, though really hope that there'd be tons of efficient methods and techniques out there available to humanity. But even for those few who have the priviledge to live in wealthy circumstances and have the access to psychotherapy, that extremely few in the world have, the actual results don't look too good, even after years of regular therapy. Little benefit is much better than no benefit at all but just like in dharma, it's just not good enough.


Childhood trauma being misdiagnosed as bipolar or as a million other things doesn't surprise me at all, though it is of course quite tragic. The understanding of trauma and how thoroughly it affects people is very poor among medical professionals from what I know.
All people should go back to their religions to find answers to these problems. Not the dogmatic belief rubbish but the practices; prayers, chanting, meditation, service, contemplation and above all to receive the grace that heals. You know, being healed by the spirit that dwells in all of us is not a fairytale, it is real.


Linking a short documentary from Finnish tv (swedish with finnish subtitles) from 2019 that testifies about the power of prayer. It's very impressive, especially the testimony given by the doctor. https://areena.yle.fi/1-4598175

Practices of Emptiness and the Lightbody

 

Practice of Emptiness, Practice of the Lightbody

(from a facebook post)

Dealing with trauma ain't no funny business. That's what you're left with after purifying bhumis, (if one has proper trauma). It can make one feel infested with strong negativity, just very negative world view. And the difficulty is not that you can't "purify" it but because the whole way of seeing the world is distorted. This means that the energy system where the trauma is stored is broken. That's psychic injury or trauma.

I am not sure if the past generations of masters understood trauma the way our generation experiences it. It is logical that they did and there are many central practices like smiling meditation, shamatha, loving-kindness or jhanas (skt. dhyana) that are excellent for healing trauma and have been practiced for millennia but I'm still not sure. I've met a few lineage holders who had no clue about trauma though. They just thought it was a form of compelling self-delusion.

In Amrita Mandala we dive deep into the world of emptiness insight (skt shunyata) from the beginning. We do this because our primary concern is to remove self-delusion that gives brth to existential confusion (skt duhkha). Our method is built to get one from ignorance to wisdom (skt prajna) very quickly because the priority of dharma is to awaken. We don't have a period of shamatha/calm abiding meditation to prepare and no mandatory preliminaries, apart from doing 1 year of Rainbow Body Yoga Lite before taking up the full version of Rainbow Body Yoga. In traditional systems, new students would practice simple calm abiding or do preliminaries at least for one year before even giving them empowerments and practices like RBYL/RBY.

Amrita Sundari

I have built the method in this way purposefully because removing of dukkha needs to be a priority. You can't get true relief from shamatha if you're very much troubled by the sense of self. I know that from experience, having started with lots of shamatha practice leading to a dead end of sorts where I was existentially as miserable as I was before I started practicing. Same happened to Shakyamuni who practiced jhanas for 6 years. My point is that from the purely dharmic perspective the sense of self with all its friends and buddies needs to go first, i.e. emptiness or wisdom needs to be established first.

Traditional methods start differently. They start with calm abiding (skt shamatha), preliminaries, jhanas or such and usually don't give instructions of emptiness insight from the start. There are exceptions but this is how it usually is. The reason why these kind of practices can be extremely frustrating to someone whose hair is on fire due to existential discomfort is because shamatha and jhana meditations work on the subtle body made of meridians which is not where self-delusion is even located. The good side of these practices is that one purifies the meridian system but the bad side is that one's existential issues remain intact.

I think that most lineages and traditions don't even know that there are two different types of subtle bodies: 1. one made of nadis and 2. other made of meridians. These two systems are closely related but are different and have different laws.

If we practice shamatha or jhanas, the cultivation happens in the body or field of meridians which is the subtle system closest to the physical body and its organs. The sense of self as defined in buddhadharma and doctrines of awakening is not there so from the perspective of wisdom awakening these practices are utterly pointless and useless. They just prolong one's existential pain. But, and this is very important, from the perspective of healing of trauma these practices can be golden. I say can be because I also know many people who practiced shamatha for years and still had huge traumas. 

 

Something that I do not understand and do not agree is when shamatha or jhanas are marketed as techniques that develop concentration. I don't think developing concentration is that important when compared to healing. In my zen days I developed concentration to very high degree that I could burn holes into sheets of paper, figuratively speaking, but that skill is quite useless. I wish shamatha had been presented to me as a way to heal but because it wasn't I missed a huge opportunity to heal my traumas because my teachers didn't even know that sphere of human issues and I also didn't even get awakened which is what I had come for. What a miserable sorry ass pancake. 

 

If we look at the human subtle bodies from a different perspective after one has purified the body of nadis (bhumis), which is where the self-delusion is stored, one can be fully and completely awake and yet still have lots of trauma stored in the body of meridians. In traditional systems this doesn't happen, or ideally shouldn't happen because the meridian system should by that time be already purified. But in our system it is the opposite way, the traumas and echoes of the former samsaric mind are still there because the body of meridians hasn't yet been adressed.

During the past few years I have given empowerments and teachings of the Ten Wisdom Goddesses (skt Dasha Mahavidya) and various hingu guru yogas that adress the meridian system but I am just now about to really get the engines started regarding this matter.

I have been working on this question in my lab day and night for over a year now and I am glad to say that my work has produced results. I have given trauma healing teachings before but the best is yet to come. I found that an excellently effective way to adress the meridian system and get the traumas washed out from there is in my old old friend - kriya yoga. For those who don't know I used to teach a form of kriya yoga called Sundara Kriya Yoga until about 10 years ago before switching over to buddhist tantra.

These years and the constant experimenting with various tantric practices have been both very fruitful but to me also very frustrating at times because I haven't been given ready-made answers by my gurus. I had to dive deep into my system and contemplate my butt off to come with solutions and results. An example of this is figuring out whatboth myself and my students were experiencing after bhumi perfection stage when they started feeling distant echoes of the former samsaric mind or still had the same psychic injury they had before. It took me a while to figure out that they are coming from a *different energy system*. Then I had to find out *how to adress* them effectively. This investigation has been a massive undertaking but I am finished with the processing now and have everything my students need. 

 

So just to be clear when it comes to wisdom we have RBYL and RBY, guru yoga with Yeshe Tsogyal and Guru Rinpoche, vipashyana instructions, bodhicitta, basic prayers and so on. No change there. I will, however, introduce a different set of hindu tantric exercises side of these buddhist tantric exercises. The name for this set of exercises of Amrita Kriya Yoga.

Our sangha members have seen glimpses of this already. Few weeks ago I posted an image of Amrita Sundari, which is a form of Tripura Sundari given by mahasiddha Agastya. Amrita Sundari is the main deity of Amrita Kriya Yoga. There are other supplementary practices such as Amrita Sundari Astottara Shata Namavali or 108 names of Amrita Sundari. Like Rainbow Body Yoga, Amrita Kriya Yoga is a program that consists of different yogic exercises.

When Rainbow Body Yoga results in realization of emptiness of all phenomena, Amrita Kriya Yoga results in lightbody, healing traumas and removing old samsaric imprints from the meridians along the way.

Monsoon blessings your way,

Baba, 23 Jan 23

Full healing of trauma

 

Full healing of trauma

(unedited excerpt from my upcoming article Immortality and Internal Arts of China and Japan)

The second category of psychic injury or trauma requires specific tools, specific instructions and endless of patience. If one has been traumatized in childhood and lived with the trauma for decades for it to become embedded with one's moment to moment psyche, it is logical that one can't just pull it out and be done with it just like that. However, I am certain it is possible to heal all and any traumas when the above needs are met.


As a side remark, I have always found it puzzling from the professionals of psychology and psychotherapy that one could learn to live with one's traumas but not heal them or get rid of them entirely. This is understandable from the point of view of their methods but makes no sense in the context of tantric yoga according to which anyone with perfect inner nature can reach and tap that potential in full in a single lifetime. In my ears it sounds exactly like dharma teachers stating that there wouldn't be practices to directly generate awakenings. It might be true from the perspective of the systems and traditions known to them personally but it is mistaken and misleading from the perspective of dharma universally. There are practices to generate awakenings, one after the next and there are practices to heal traumas completely and perfectly. I know this from firsthand experience. In the light of the traumatic history of the mankind it is logical to assume that people of the ancient times, many of who attained lightbody, were traumatized prior to their yogic training and attainments. Returning to the basic state actually heals both the mind and the body. It is real. 

 

Baba, 13 Jan 23 

My Experience with Tinnitus

 

My Experience with Tinnitus

Dear Rick,

Thank you for telling about your tinnitus and how it has affected you over the last 10 years.

I was a musician and a music producer until 2002 until few reasons put an end to my music career, one of those was slight hear loss and tinnitus. Since then, I've had permanent slight hear loss (that would make it impossible to work professionally in a production studio) and occasional tinnitus that at times have lasted up to few days at once, and completely scared the heck out of me.

I left my career in music 20 years ago to pursue another career, that of yoga and meditation. Over the last two decades I have practiced lots of meditation (roughly 30 000 hours of sitting meditation) and the so called yogic practices that involved doing physical postures, breathing practices and mantras, that are kind of prayers chanted or recited in Sanskrit, Tibetan, English or my native Finnish languages.

The Eastern view of the human body and its energy system is I would say radically different from the view of Western allopathic medicine. To someone unfamiliar with Eastern medicine or healing arts or meditation it is easy to brush it off as woo-woo or belief-based but the fact is that these arts and really, sciences, have been practiced for thousands of years at a very high level in systems such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to cure or to help people with all the same ailments and illnesses that people everywhere around the world suffer of. I'm saying this just to point out that there are age old traditions behind these basic ideas and ways how the body and the mind is looked at in Eastern view.

I've done quite extensive training in various traditions of meditation, yoga and mantra, and have made many discoveries about the human body, mind and psyche, including tinnitus. I could describe and explain exactly what tinnitus is and why it causes the ringing in the ears but for now to save some time, I'll just say that, in my experience the ringing is caused by overstimulated energy currents in the head. I say this based on microscopic meditational study and occasional ringing of the ears over the past 20 years. It is logical that musicians who use ears as their main working instrument can get too much stimulation in the ears and in the energies flowing through the head, to then develop these health problems. What is unfortunate that many musicians are forced to stop making music and yet the imbalance in the energies doesn't go away. That it doesn't (necessarily) go away is kind of like when shoelaces that have been tied too tightly, don't unwind by themselves. This situation requires tools that can fix the situation, and in my own case I have been able to do that.

So, in my experience, it is possible to fix this. I have been a professional yoga and meditation teacher fo the past 15 years and I have never worked with anyone with tinnitus problems but like I've said several times by now, in my own experience, it is possible to fix this.

Feel free to contact me if you'd like to know more.

Kim Rinpoche,1.7.2022

It's the Same Mind, Be It Day or Night

 

It's the Same Mind, Be It Day or Night

Your issue is with emptiness realization not being complete. Besides, as you know I don't emphasize sleep and dream yoga exactly because, like you and many other students tell me their lifestyles are way too hectic, they often have too little sleep and develop insomnia. Our city lifestyle is not suitable for sleep yoga and this is why I don't emphasize it. It is perfectly possible to come to buddhahood without ever practicing sleep and dream yoga because when emptiness realization is complete it covers the whole mind. Both, the mind during the day and the mind during the night is the same mind! Having lucid dreams is great but from the point of view of the main practice, which is sunyata meditation, they aren't more beneficial or useful than being lucid during thoughts and daydreams. Only if some of my students had perfectly balanced and healthy lifestyle, I can recommend dream and sleep yoga but otherwise my advice is to perfect it all from the waking state.

KR

Importance of Physical Fitness

 

Importance of Physical Fitness

In late 2019, I found myself in a lousy physical shape. After having two kids, 3½ years of bad burnout and 6 years of bad insomnia had prevented me from working out and this resulted in weak muscles throughout the body and lots of overweight. I was 115 kg/250 pounds then.

In early 2020 I had rested a bit after my second divorce and felt like I both wanted and needed to start working out again. I had been, I would say, a pro athlete at points in my earlier life when I was practicing lots of martial arts and marathons so I felt bad being so out of shape. I started strengthening my body with basic exercises like push ups, sit ups, squats and dips, combined with stretching. I also started walking outdoors, from 45 minutes and increasing little by little up to 90-100 minutes. I kept that daily routine for about 6 months during which I lost a lot of weight and felt a lot better.

But then in late 2020, I lost my motivation. It felt strange because I knew I wanted to stay in shape but somehow I hit a wall. One affecting factor was the Winter that was much more severe than the previous one. It isn't much fun to walk in icy slush that soaks your shoes in minutes or walk on icy surface where you're slipping every second step. I loved severe conditions as a 20+ year old and ran half marathons in freezing temperatures without a shirt but at 40+ you're just too old for that shit. Several months passed by during which I kept practicing Vajra Body/Physical Dynamic Concentration exercises, which is an isometric workout but didn't do any cardio and therefore my weight began to rise again.

Then, the very day I finished my purification, March 15^th 2021, I went out for a walk again but had to turn back after a kilometer because my back and legs were so stiff that it felt like they were made of bricks. I had to use all my mental and physical power to take a step and it wasn't fun. This is the point when a struggle that would last almost a year started.

Despite of icy slush, occasional sleeping problems or problems in my personal life I kept trying to take walks a few times a week for months but it was as if my body didn't want to do that. Every time when I started out for a walk, after 200-300 meters, it felt as if my body shut down saying, ”No, I'm not doing this”. My back and legs were not only hard as bricks but also painful, especially my lower back. I was both puzzled and very frustrated about the situation, and tried everything in my toolbox to get going. It was extremely frustrating for 10 months.

During this time I often thought about few of my students who had told me they had similar problems that prevented them not only from exercising but living a normal life when, for example, one can walk a short distance to a supermarket without any difficulties. Particularly I remember a male student who lost his ability to walk for some period of time due to an illness. I didn't loose my ability to walk altogether but if you had seen me walk at home from my kitchen to the living room, you'd have thought that I walked like an old man. It's alarming to experience that at 42 years of age.

Finally, this January I had enough of it. I booked an apointment to my trusted masseur who I knew could help with the all around stiffness in my body and started to do daily sessions with a Ryobi R18B-0 polishing machine to release those deeply ingrained tensions that would enable me to start moving more normally again. The polishing machine is made for polishing cars but it is basically the same as massage guns you can get nowadays. Massage and Ryobi helped!

Having defeated the stiffness, and already having strong muscles since 2 years back, I've gotten back into proper workouts, this time with much clearer motivation to take care of my body fo the rest of my life. I am grateful that this struggle is now behind me and despite of last year being one son of a bitch, I see meaning in this series of challenging experiences.

I work as a dharma teacher and I think that to be a really good dharma teacher one needs to have a wide array of both positive and negative experiences in life so that one can understand and relate to students and their situations. For example, if I hadn't experienced depression, panic attacks, being poor, heavy drinking, getting married, getting divorced, having kids, having 29 different jobs, burnout, insomnia, obesity and other things, I wouldn't know the nature of those experiences and therefore I could not relate to these typical human experiences.

Sorting out this recent physical problem, it has made it diamond clear how important it is to take care of one's physical body, if we only are able to, until the day we die. Of course, our Western culture tells us to exercise but you really don't know that until you loose the ability to do normal things. That's what hit it home for me.

In Asian buddhism at large, apart from Japan where martial arts are an extension of buddhism, and the Chinese Shaolin tradition, there is no emphasis on physical fitness, even though health is considered important. In Indian, Tibetan or Far East Asian cultures at large there is no concept of exercising for fitness and this, I think is due to the fact that historically there was very little time for leisure in people's daily lives. However, the same applies for yogic cultures and apart from few exceptions, we can say that yogic traditions at large were not involved or interested in physical fitness.

For years I have seen youtube videos, often from China, sometimes from the West, where aged people from 70 to 90 years of age display amazing physical fitness, and most importantly don't look or feel at all as if they were old! On the contrary, they feel and look very young, with straight backs, strong body, robust vitality and bright eyes.

For these reasons, to be able to live a truly happy and healthy lives for as long as possible, as well as from the perspective of dharma, I want to emphasize physical fitness in my work.

Much blessings,

KR, 26.2.2022

Asana as Mudra

 

Asana as Mudra

When master yogis, mahasiddhas, go about their daily lives, they naturally manifest the yogic seal (skt. mudra) of the two awakened bodies. These two bodies are; mental body of empty phenomena (skt. dharmakaya) and mental body of playfulness (skt. sambhogakaya). Be it day or night, in peaceful or wrathful circumstances, the minds of mahasiddhas are in perfect harmony and balance. This is the great yogic seal, mahamudra, which entirely concerns nonphysical bodies of man. There is no question about the fact that the foundation of yogic accomplishment is the mind.

In human form, however, seals or mudras can take a further expression of physical postures or asanas. Before delving further into the meaning of asana, the reader should remember that the foundation of all and any type of yogic practice is the nature of mind, in other words, basic wakefulness-kindness-peacefulness. If asana yoga is exercised by practitioners who haven't yet established natural state as their default mode of being and remain in the samsaric state, this needs to be simultaneously adressed during asana yoga by appropriate techniques that enable the practitioner to resume recognition of the two awakened bodies whenever it is lost. Without this, the real meaning of asana as mudra will never be understood as mahasiddhas of the past understood them.

The real meaning of asana is mudra, and the real meaning of mudra is asana. Asanas, regardless of their simplicity or complexity, are physical expressions of the awakened nature of all sentient beings. Also, as is commonly said, asanas are a way to stay healthy and strong. From this perspective we could say that asana yoga is maintenance of our body instrument that we use to live in this world. What is interesting is that contrary to advancement in the yoga of mind*, which is irreversible, one can never achieve a state in physical yoga that would be irreversible. If one doesn't practice asana, be it on yoga mat or in any other form, the condition of the physical body begins to deteriorate.

*purification of mind, advancement in bhumis

Asana as Mudra

A common way that asanas are practiced, is to just do the movements and put one's body into some postures. One tenses, relaxes and stretches the muscles of the body and opens its joints through various applications. From the point of view of keeping the body healthy and strong, this is perfectly sufficient. From the point of view of practicing asana as mudra, however, this is incomplete.

For one to understand what asana as mudra means, one has to meet the following requirements,

1. have recognition of wakeful nature of one's mind

2. feel the spontaneous unification of the wakeful mind and the physical body

3. learn to move the body while recognising the wakeful mind

4. study the alternation of tensing, stretching and relaxing of muscles while recognising the wakeful mind

5. realise that there is no difference between tensing, stretching and relaxing of muscles while recognising the wakeful mind

6. realise that all postures and movements, both in and out the yoga mat, are asana as mudra

I have taught extensively on point 1. how to recognise the wakeful mind so I will simply refer to Pemako-website and youtube, and won't repeat anything here but to introduce this idea, asana as mudra, I will write a bit more on point number two because it is a decisive stage.

Unification of the Wakeful Mind and the Physical Body

All types of yogic physical practices begin from a simple standing posture, known as tadasana or samasthiti. Same is true in Chinese yogic traditions.

The real meaning of tadasana is to have wakeful mind and physical body unified, to study the connection and relation of the two, and to learn to adjust the muscles and joints in a subtle manner that enables staying in this posture for long durations (up to 30 minutes), if so wanted, without any discomfort.

To those who want to practice asanas purely for physical benefits, standing in stationery posture might sound pointless. However, in this stage one makes a wonderful discovery after the other about how the body becomes unified, in the midst of basic wakefulness. One's whole being becomes full of delightful light and subtlest of blisses (skt. sahajananda) often discussed in the writings of mahamudra masters. This stage of learning is demanding because it takes some time and effort to strengthen the internal muscles of the body and consequentially feel unification that can be described as sense of unified relaxed strength, that feels as if the body was weightless.

All right, I think this is enough for now. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. I'm happy to share my understanding of asanas.

KR, 19.1.2022

Sri Krishnamacharya's Early Astanga Yoga Blog

 

Sri Krishnamacharya's

Early Astanga Yoga Blog

This is a link to Anthony Grimm Hall's blog about the origins of ashtanga vinyasa yoga which is a form of physical yoga made popular by Krishna Pattabhi Jois. I am sharing the link to Hall's blog through my blog because Facebook doesn't allow posting the direct link.

The reason why I think Hall's blog is wonderful is because he has not only looked into the historical foundations of ashtanga yoga through Krishnamacharya's early presentations but also has brought a very creative and in a sense fearless presentation of asana and pranayama practice into the world of yoga postures and energy work.

This early, I would say original, spirit of ashtanga gives practitioners much more freedom to practice the postures in a way they want. This is according to the spirit of yoga because it is empowering.

-Kim Thubten Lingpa, 19.12.2021

http://grimmly1997.blogspot.com/

Grimmly2007-YouTube with hundreds of videos

Vinyasa Krama Yoga-blog

Anthony Grimm Hall's interview 

About Anthony Grimm Hall

After spending five years traveling and working my way around the world in my early twenties (see Susan Griffith's book Work your way around the world) I returned to the United Kingdom and studied Philosophy. After a few years as a Philosophy of Arts teaching assistant at Kent University I taught at a preparatory School before moving to Japan to teach English and work as a teacher trainer for five years. After taking up the Saxophone in Japan i returned to England to study as a Woodwind Instrument Repairer.

My 'Yoga story' is outlined in Kiri Miller's book, Playing Along published next month (Feb 2012) by OUP.

'Grimmly is an ashtanga (and later Vinyasa krama) student without a teacher--an impossible contradiction to many practitioners, but one that is getting more possible all the time. He lives in the United Kingdom and works as a repairer of woodwind instruments. In early 2007, Grimmly's flat was burgled and seven saxophones were stolen. This incident made him so angry, and then so irritated with his own anger, that he decided to take up some form of meditation. In the course of reading about meditation practices, he learned that "a lot of meditators were also doing yoga," so he looked for a yoga book at the library and found Tara Fraser's Total Astanga (Fraser 2006). As an overweight 43-year-old man, he was a bit embarrassed even bringing the book up to the circulation desk. On his blog, he wrote, "Going to a yoga class wasn't something I even considered. A guy here, outside London, might think about going to a gym to get in shape but not a Yoga class, probably not even an aerobic class".

Grimmly began learning the sequence of asana from the book, practicing every morning before work, and soon began to order instructional DVDs and search for YouTube videos to help him develop his practice. He started his yoga blog (Ashtanga Vinyasa krama at Home) in the summer of 2008, after about a year and a half of practicing at home alone six days a week. His posts often invoke a growing community of hidden "home ashtangis" like himself.

As Grimmly developed his home practice, some of his choices posed challenges to ashtanga orthodoxy. For instance, when Grimmly blogged about his decision to begin learning the second series of asana, one commenter told him that he should not be learning any intermediate asana before he could stand up from a backbend: "Then and only then you start to add intermediate to your existing primary. Your teacher would give you each new asana as he saw your progress. . . . Traditionally in India, yoga has been learned from teacher to student, not from a book or video. It's really not right to decide to give yourself postures".

After a year and a half of home practice, Grimmly finally decided to try attending an ashtanga class at a shala. He went two Sundays in a row and was "blown away" by the physical adjustments he received from the teachers there. But a week later, he explained that he doubted he'd go back: "All the time it's just been me on my mat, alone in a room early each morning, my practice...Somehow now, after visiting the Shala, it feels a little like I'm practicing for someone else...I feel more distant from my practice, less involved" (Grimmly 2008b). It's clear from other posts that Grimmly developed his practice using books, famous teachers' DVDs, YouTube videos, other students' blogs, and any other media resources he could find. He often writes about insights gleaned from these sources. Nevertheless, the "live" teaching at the shala somehow alienated him from his practice. While he benefited from the physical adjustments he received, he was willing to forego them in order to maintain a sense of agency and responsibility for his own development: practicing for himself instead of a teacher.

Grimmly and his fellow cybershala practitioners are creating new transmission modalities for ashtanga yoga, from reflective writing to side-by-side slideshows that might reveal hidden traces of corporeal knowledge".

from Playing Along, Kiri Miller (Oxford University press 2012)

In June 09 I came across Srivatsa Ramaswami's 'Complete book of Vinyasa Yoga' and spent the next year working out how best to combine Vinyasa Krama with my Ashtanga practice. I attended Ramaswami's 200 hour Vinyasa Krama Teacher Training course at LMU, Los Angeles July/Aug 2010. I now practice Ashtanga in the evenings and have an integrated Vinyasa Krama practice, asana (based on subroutines), Pranayama and Mediation in the morning. Last year I made home videos of each of Ramaswami's Subroutines and produced practice sheets. Over the last three months I revisited each subroutine, one each morning, writing up practice notes to accompany the subroutines in the evening. These subroutine practice sheets and practice notes form the core of my book, Vinyasa Yoga at Home Practice Book

 

Universal Dharma with Jesus, Padmasambhava and Krishna

Universal Dharma with Jesus,

Padmasambhava and Krishna

The last couple of days have been interesting to say the least.

I've been meditating some and found out that my memory is perfect. I can remember the smallest details of life events and places anywhere from my past, including past lives. For example, yesterday, as I was seeing my past life as a monk on Mt Koya in Japan, I could vividly remember the atmosphere and the scent of the four seasons. I can remember everything from my body and outlook, to the light of lanterns in the evening, to the footpaths, to the splendour of life itself, how it was back then, and how it is now... I looked at my hands and feet and the reflection of my face. They look different and yet I know it's me, the same man, the same person. A different lifetime, different place, but the same purpose. Also, my ability to visualise has become perfect. It is effortless and entirely without flaws or distractions. What a delight... What a stunning perfume arising from the wild strawberries!

From a bit different perspective, recent days have made me come a full circle, in a sense. I remember countless times as a little boy, sitting on the edge of my bed alone, praying for my family, the villagers and for all living beings. I remember when doing this by myself the room became filled with the radiance of pure light and the air became thick with blessings. Countless times Jesus and other masters* came to soothe and support me. I remember being a small boy, in my small body in the middle of people and circumstances where there was immense heartbreak and pain. My eyes become filled with tears knowing how my masters from past lives kept me afloat, above the surface that I wouldn't become heavy and sink into the depths of pain.

*those of the mahasiddha family

A number of Pemako Sangha members have told me about their meaningful experiences with Jesus recently. Few received healings from him, one devoted buddhist friend made a connection so strong with Jesus that it made him a bit startled, and he wasn't sure how to deal with it. To me personally, after hundreds of sessions of guru yoga transmission from him directly, Jesus Christ, is as much a master of dharma as Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra or any other of the mahasiddhas. Historically, Jesus lived in the time when the continent of India, from north to south, to east and west was abound with tantric temples - shakti peethas –, practitioners and masters. And then, after years in India, he brought the gifts of yoga to his home land. The rest is history, unfortunately.

Anyhow, my point was to say that I have made a full circle from my early childhood to this day, understanding the role and importance of Jesus in my personal life as well as in the life of my students, and our dharma work together. As you know I have contemplated Jesus-centered method for several years but it dawned on me now that the solution is not to shift from one master to another. What will be done though is to give JC his own place in the limelight, so to speak, together with Padmasambhava, as well as Krishna, to form a trio who've not only had great impact on me and our sangha but who are also known by the world and who are therefore masters who many can relate and feel close to. Also, as a dharma universalist, I love the fact that having these three masters together – Jesus, Guru Rinpoche and Krishna – who most people regard as ”a christian, buddhist and a hindu”, completely shatters religious dogmatism. And that is what the world needs now.

The history of human spirituality is that no matter how hard they tried to keep the teachings ”original and pure”, they always ended up creating narrow minded dogmatic religions. When our basic nature is that of freedom and free expression, the samsaric mind of men always end up making it a tight cage filled with rules and regulations. It is like the classical saying that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. This is what needs to change because, we, the humanity, can't keep fucking up every given opportunity to bringing true peace and harmony on Earth. We need to learn to distinquish between pragma and dogma, between yoga and religion, between practice and belief, and with the heartmind of clarity and true love, keep shedding unnecessary limitations. The mind of men needs to change from thinking in terms of ”us and them” to ”all of us together”. This is true bodhicitta. This is yoga and only yoga can be a true religion that gives freedom, rather than takes it away! So, I think that our little group, should become an example of this and actively practice guru yoga with Jesus, Padmasambhava and Krishna, all three.

Remember, you are the real deal. You are not less or more than all the buddhas and mahasiddhas of the past, present and future. Potentially, you have the mind, heart and vitality of all the enlightened ones! So, please, for the sake of all beings, crack your coconut, split it in half and let the perfume of natural love spread to your loved ones.

-Kim, 26.10.2021

Meeting Amma, the Hugging Saint

 

Meeting Amma, the Hugging Saint

Fb memories reminds me that 12 years ago I lived in a private house in Helsinki where Amma, the Hugging Saint, had stayed several times during her visits to Finland. I remember going to this house the first time and it felt like being imported to a different realm, that of incredible joy, clarity and bliss. I lived in that place for few months before going to India to her ashram.

Ah, I another thing I remember from that trip to Amma's ashram is that she gave a blessing to a method of yogic healing that I had learned from my gurus. I gave those yoga healings to clients as my volunteer work there in the ashram. Folks got rid of chronic pains in a single session and so on. Proper stuff.

I used to teach yoga healing too. I've had forms of healing and massage in my life since I was a little boy so all that is very natural to me but as I have focused solely on teaching and practicing tantric yoga for the past 10 years, I just haven't had time to do that. But I definitely want to transmit this art and set of skills to my students. It is a wonderful way to help others, practice active compassion and earn a living all at once.

So, Ammachi... I've spent hundreds if not thousands of hours in her physical presence, since 2003. I've received direct introductions into the nature of mind - darshans - from her from her through hugging countless times both at events and informal situations such as airports and I've sat next to her, literally 1 meter from her, many times until I could not sit no longer. I've had her bless objects to me that changed in energy in few seconds of her attention. I've received a mantra empowerment from her in 2006 and she has given me a spiritual name in 2009. I've had visions of her and I know perfectly well that she is a living and fully enlightened mahasiddha. Unique to her is her motherliness and embodiments of Devi, the Divine Mother. There is no doubt in my mind that she is one of few authentic masters alive in the world today.

I remember one time at her ashram when I went to get a hug from her. I had a shirt on that had a open collar so that part of my tattoos were visible. She started ripping my shirt off to see them better! For a moment I thought I had gotten into a wrestling match with the divine mother! LOL.

Thank you Amma for your compassion and for being there for me and for countless others. Your presence has been an indispensable source of yogic study for me during all these years.

-Kim Ashwin, 12.10.2021