Notes on Darshan August 5th 2024
Celebrating giving my first official darshan today spontaneously. I stood on a tree stump, as I often do on our walks, and Drum and the dogs sat down at my feet looking up at me. So I sat on the stump and began to speak...
"Imagine... a time before time and before anything existed... total silence," I began. "No movement. no sound, nothing to see and no organs of sight to see it with."
I went on to tell the first origin story of The Goddess of All and the serpent - my favorite place to start. And I explained the origin of ego, and the purpose of the masculine. When I was done, Drum asked questions about reincarnation, and I explained how it is not like most people describe it. I told him our ultimate reason for being.
At the end he said he wished he'd recorded the whole thing because he would want to listen to it again to fully grasp what I'm saying. And so I've decided that when the mood strikes again I will record it and share it.
I am sure now that I must begin a kind of ministry. I think it is much needed. Perhaps something on YouTube once a week. OR perhaps something more private here. I need to sit with it and figure out my next steps.
I ponder whether to name this project with Sanskrit words - something like Devi Spanda Mandir. OR should I make it something more widely accessible with an English title so it won't be assumed to be just of interest to Yogis and Hindus? Hm. Devi Spanda Mandir is just Goddess Vibration Temple in English, and I feel it loses something in translation.
Questions from the Discord:
alyosha00 — Yesterday at 2:08 PM
For those of us who are called to true devotion, should we be focused on the afterlife and the ethereal for our morality, or should we just focus on the here and now? Some have are predisposed to perseverate on death, what about humiliation? Who is that an affair with? And, I think if you choose an English name it may help gain more traction online. Just my two cents.What’s your definition of nirvana?
ANSWERS:
Circling back to the origin story - From the silence, a subtle vibration split the water from the air to create a medium for vibration. That vibration is Devi herself. Nirvana is having the experience of the vibration that makes up all matter and thought until you can experience it with such acuity of perception, thought, and emotion that you become conscious of the most subtle vibration -that almost imperceptible vibration just before reaching the still, formless, motionless silence of
"that which is not." It is experiencing that very first tiny vibration of existence and being able to allow the experience of that to be the lens through which you perceive everything around you.Nirvana, bliss, unity consciousness... it has many names.
The afterlife is just a dispersion of the energy that made up you as this individual experience and individual consciousness. Energy does not die, it just becomes something else - thus the idea of reincarnation. It is not that your individual personality or consciousness goes on to be born again. It is that you return to being raw energy that then can take on new forms, mixed with all the other raw energy.
The reason our ego is so active is to maintain this feeling of individuation, yes? It is a tool for separation, to make sure you are distinct from the divine, for example, and from other people,and other creatures. It is necessary for the feeling of "I." And it is useful because you are here to be a unique sensing apparatus and answer Devi's question, "What am I?" as a distinct perspective held by no other being. But since it's the job of the ego to separate you, in order to become vulnerable and to meld and feel close to and even at one with Devi, you need the ego to step aside and allow for that separation to pause. The ego is fiercely protective against losing your unique POV and melding with another. But in order to understand your own nature, you cannot maintain that line of separation all the time. To reach that subtlest vibration, you can't hold yourself apart from it.
Back to the question. We are here to very simply experience life. That's really it. I cannot explain it any plainer than that. But you have to feel the depth and awe of that simplicity. You are the sensing apparatus of Devi! You are one of her sets of eyes, ears, skin, and taste buds. She is experiencing life THROUGH YOU! And you exist THROUGH HER! And when you go to a movie, do you want the protagonist to only have a good time and nothing to ever stress him out or challenge him. Of course not!
This life is Lila - it is a play, and in plays, there are dramas and tragedies, and things happen that are joyful and scary and heart-wrenching... So the whole point of all of this is to experience all you can and be aware of what's all around you. And when you realize it, you're like that guy in the TikTok video. You become amazed by life. You are in awe that a sunset is just PROVIDED! You don't have to do anything but be there to see it! Life becomes ecstatic knowing that you are the device through which the divine knows herself!
So, no afterlife could compare to this amazing laboratory we are living in.
QUESTION
alyosha00:
Can we reach true nirvana leading everyday lives? Or do some of us have to go deeper and dedicate more of themselves than the average person? When I was catholic, some used to say monks and religious officials have to give their lives to keep the institution going so others can experience the faith and live their lives. Will Devi require that of some of us?
ANSWER
This is where the role of desire comes in. Some people will feel a desire to dive into a life that gets you closer to experiencing your essential nature. Some will have a deep desire to play music, or to understand the mechanism of biology or physics. Desire comes THROUGH you not from you. The nature of Devi is to create infinite variations in infinite combinations: "I am this,and I am this, and I am this and...." If you feel that genuine desire, then the best thing to do is to pursue that and learn how to dedicate yourself to it.
QUESTION
alyosha00:
So I have to live my life for Devi so She can experience things and Her energy doesn’t go to waste? And I feel like my ego wants me to hold on to my trauma since it was so unique and isolating, how do I let go and what can replace it?
ANSWER
Trauma is just like a physical injury, but in your energy body and your psyche. As a memory, it will remain with you, but it should not continue to cause you pain your whole life. It can and should heal. There are things that can help you heal. Some traumas are like broken bones that need to be reset. It may take some proactive pain to put yourself back in the right place. Some traumas need more tender care and the proper nutrients so that nature can best take its course over time.
Final bits from the darshan today that I don't want to escape unnoticed: Being that the feminine is the vibration of all creation, it does not have an equal opposite. However, the Feminine can be very wild. Remember, the drive of Devi is to have infinite variations in infinite combinations and that can get very complex. And so the masculine exists with the impulse to provide containment and structure. Like Ophion, the serpent who came into existence as a witness to the reality of Devi at the beginning of time. She needed something that she could separate from her unified self in order to have the ability to explore herself - the serpent wrapping around her, dancing with her, and making love with her... The result of which was the egg of the universe, which held the potential for all known life. And so you'll notice the masculine impulse tends toward the analytical.
The masculine wants to order thought and matter into categories and to dissect things into pieces in order to understand how all the parts work. It wants to witness nature, record it, and give it repeatable shapes. Devi needed a witness, and so the masculine came into being. And when the masculine is active rather than just a witness, it wants to reach out and provide support for the feminine. The trellis to the flowering vine is always my example. But it can also be the cup to gently hold the water, the greenhouse to shield delicate seedlings from the elements. It facilitates, supports, and protects ever-growing life. It also allows for new kinds of varieties. Watch how a chemist takes basic elements and makes whole new substances, how the inventor harnesses electricity from the ether, and how analytic minds were able to figure out how to split an atom. Devi is the why and the what. The masculine wants to know the how.
And my final note is on language. In order to really understand the essential nature of Devi,analytic and literal language cannot really describe Her. Analytical language is best used for taking things apart into more easily understandable pieces. It dissects. Such language can only describe discreet parts. The only way to fully describe Devi in a holistic way is through metaphor and mythology. And the only way to know Her is through the experience of Her. She is something words will never be able to contain. We can only come close and evoke the feeling of Her.
QUESTION
alyosha00
Can Devi use us as vessels to protect her delicate seedlings so they grow into something? How can we be a vessel for Devi?
ANSWER
Be protective of beauty as it emerges. Nurture it, feed it, and try to shield it from interruption.
LATER...
I've written about this before, but I want to talk more about gods - as in the deities worshiped by humans across millennia. These are all thought-forms. Collective creations of human thought. And they are very, very real, and they take on a life of their own and have real and lasting effects on people, politics, and world events. They absolutely do exist. Anything that affects the actions of the world and its inhabitants definitely exists, and it would be disingenuous to say that they are not real. They only die when they are completely forgotten and can be resurrected when remembered again.
They take on a life of their own. Through worship by multitudes, they can develop their own laws and desires. Yahweh is one of the most widely worshiped gods right now. He is quite violent and a trickster. He pits those who follow him against one another, and he has done so since the beginning of his creation. His way to play is through conflict and war. And the promise he makes to those who keep his worship alive is one of heaven.
Heaven is a cruel trick. If you make a covenant with Yahweh, you can maintain your individual consciousness (or soul) indefinitely rather than dispersing it into raw energy as would normally happen. But the catch is that it remains with Yahweh and exists only to praise him. In other words, it's stuck. You become nothing but a constant repetitive thought of Yahweh and what Yahweh wants. This is painted as blissful. It prevents him from being forgotten (and thereby dying), but it prevents you from returning to your essential state of raw, unshaped energy. It keeps you from going home, so to speak. Heaven is a trap of the individual conscious awareness in the moment of death. And, of course, to scare you away from thinking about how absolutely horrifying an eternity in constant prayer to Yahweh would be, hell was invented. I feel so sad for those in Abrahamic religions who think they have only two choices. But because of that clever trick, Yahweh is remembered and spread over generations. And a clever thought-form being prone to so much violence does a lot of harm to this planet. Even thought-forms are supposed to have a finite lifespan and come to an end to make room for whatever follows.
In the Bible, Yahweh created a law against eating from the Tree of Knowledge because knowledge is his biggest nemesis. The Christians in Alexandria destroyed the library there,preventing worlds of knowledge from being passed down. Even some Christians today make a ritual of burning books in his name. Knowledge is the ultimate threat. The more knowledge one gains, the less of a pull his promises and threats have. The more knowledge one has the less sense he makes. Luckily, the nature of Devi is to discover, collect, and expand infinite amounts of knowledge. Again, her entire desire is to know. She is the drive to knowledge. Knowledge is the fruit of Her desire. And knowledge of Devi, no matter how many times or with how much force it is repressed by those in service to Yahweh, cannot be erased because it is in our very DNA.
QUESTION
alyosha00 — Yesterday at 4:44 PM
How does Devi ensure her followers don’t take over Her religion?
ANSWER
I'm not sure what you mean. Religions collect around aspects of Her, or avatars of Her. For example, those who worship Kali or Durga create specific rituals and rules around how to worship. The very interesting story of Ramakrishna demonstrates how a passionate devotee made a thought form of Kali. And he became known as a great guru.Religion is made for humans, not really for Devi.
QUESTION
alyosha00
I guess. How can we make sure we don’t start practices that would be antithetical to Her teachings? And not just make stuff up for ourselves to benefit ourselves?
ANSWER
Religion is supposed to be a way for humans to find meaning and to explore the nature of their existence. Worship itself is a mechanism by which humans seek to open themselves to experiences of the divine and the source of their creation without ego in the way. To bow and see the wonder in the immenseness of it all...
Antithetical to Her would be to murder and cut short the precious and finite life of another unique consciousness for no reason. Antithetical to Her would be to stand in the way of another's autonomy in a way that prevents Her desire from expressing itself through them.
But it's also important to remember that she is the animating vibration of all existence, so there's no way to destroy Her or harm Her. No way to offend Her. We can only harm one another and the planet we live on.
This is why I say you need only remember Her and She is there.
It's for our own sake that we need to remember Her and remember who we are, and for the sake of the future of our species.
Ms. Viola Voltairine
