Ammachi, popularly known as the “hugging saint,” is one of the world’s top religious/spiritual leaders, alongside the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Grand Rabbi of Israel, the Grand Ayatollah, and the Dalai Lama. Her international ashram in Kerala, India, is home to more than 3,000 people, and her humanitarian organization, Embracing the World, serves the poor and suffering in India and around the world. Twice each year, Amma tours the U.S., where her main center is located just outside of San Ramon, California. (www.amma.org)

In June, 2006, I began seeing Amma and receiving her darshan ~ literally the word “darshan” means a vision of a holy person, and with Amma it also means a hug!

Over the course of the eight pilgrimages I have made to receive Amma’s darshan and blessings, I have noticed a cumulative effect with her hugs, with her spiritual teachings, and with her Grace appearing in my life.

It is difficult for me to explain my relationship with Amma. By now I have many darshan stories to share, but for this blog post, I will just tell one story. Of all the meaningful embraces with Amma, this one really blew me open.

It was during the Devi Bhava night, the special night when Amma dresses as the Divine Mother and many people stay up all night watching her give hugs until the morning light. At midnight I sat in the snack shop drinking coffee and laughing with other devotees. Then at 3:30am, it was time for my darshan, so I got in the line heading up to the small Indian woman adorned in a purple, gold, and orange sari. (Usually Amma wears white, but on Devi Bhava nights she wears a colorful shimmering sari.)

When I first got into the darshan line I didn’t feel at all nervous. I was enjoying the bhajans (devotional songs with traditional Indian instruments), and I felt really connected to everything and everyone. But, as I got closer to the stage, my hands got sweaty and my heart was beating faster, and I was shaking. I felt like the force of Amma’s Shakti (spiritual power) could blow me off the stage into outer space! I suspected that there would be some special shakti in this particular darshan experience, and I was right.

As they plunged me into the fragrant carnation garland around her chest, I heard Amma saying into my ear, “My daughter, my daughter, my daughter,” and then it all happened so fast: Amma gave me an apple, and the attendants rushed me to take the prasad (a blessed chocolate kiss and rose petals) from Amma, and then all of a sudden, without planning to, I looked at Amma and said, “Can I touch your feet?” Amma said, “Okay,” in the cute voice that an innocent child might use, and I delighted in the sound of her voice in English. (Usually she speaks Malayalam and the Swamis translate into English.)

I went to the side and bowed, then sat down to eat the chocolate kiss. Still shaking, I kept thinking, ‘Amma gave me an apple! Amma gave me an apple!’ And then a flood of other thoughts: ‘Why did she give me an apple? Can I really receive an apple from the Mother of the Universe? Do I really deserve this apple?’ and so on… Later a friend told me that Amma probably gave me the apple as a way to recognize all of my hard work.

It took me a couple of days to eat that apple. Sitting in the sunshine by the pond, I slowly ate the apple. I saved the seeds to plant someday.

As I continue my daily spiritual practices, I feel hugely boosted by that time with Amma. Though I don’t understand yet fully with my mind, I sense that she gave me a whole lot more than just a piece of fruit when she placed that apple in my hand. I am so grateful for all that I have received, and all that I continue to receive from Amma.

Ten percent of every sale and donation on this website store goes to Amma’s charitable organizations. With the dozens of humanitarian projects of Embracing the World, there are no paid staff members, so all of the money goes directly to help the poor and suffering.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of Teja with apple from Amma by Teja Shankara.

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As I was driving into Ammachi’s Castro Valley ashram (the M.A. Center) in June, 2008, I was singing along with a Krishna Das chant to Sita-Ram-Hanuman, and with the passion of a red-hot fire, I said firmly, out loud, “I want to live inside the chant.” Those words startled me, for a few reasons, and I immediately burst into tears.

The tears flowed as I parked my car in the meadow and headed up the hill to see Amma. I was crying because it was such a relief to admit out loud what it was that I really wanted for my life. I was also crying because I knew that it meant the end of my current relationship, because that was not the same kind of life that he wanted. For weeks I had been wrestling with the question: ‘are we spiritually aligned to stay together?’ The part of me that was really in love with him wanted to find the yes answer, so that part of me grieved when it heard me say definitively, “I want to live inside the chant.”

What does living inside the chant mean? For me, it means putting my spiritual practices at the top of my daily list. Meditation, mantra japa, and chanting (singing) are my pathways to Bliss. They are what bring me into a state of Union with my own beloved heart. So when I said that I wanted to live inside the chant, I meant that I could no longer put anything else before my connection with God. That is my primary connection, and when I keep that connection sacred at the top of my priority list, then everything else magically and effortlessly falls into place.

The knowingness that I realized about living inside the chant stems from a deep lifelong devotion. Last summer a friend told me that I had the same chocolate center of devotion as Bhagavan Das. At the time, I felt touched by my friend saying that, but I didn’t fully understand it. Recently though, I contemplated the thread of my lifelong devotion, and I understood what my friend was saying. Like Bhagavan Das, I have journeyed through several spiritual paths this lifetime. I was Catholic until age 23, and I totally loved it – all that fragrant incense, and colorful stained glass images, and a quiet place to pray – I never once complained about going to church!

My second path was Judaism for ten years, during which time I also studied Native American, Buddhist, Daoist, and Muslim traditions. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about them all. Then, at age 33, I suddenly felt drawn to India, Hinduism, and the Yoga Path. I met an American spiritual teacher, who taught me so much during our brief six years together (he died July 21, 2009), and through him I learned much about the pathways to Bliss. While studying with him I was drawn to Neem Karoli Baba and to Amma, and took them both as my Gurus.

The thread that has been consistent through all of the paths is the same thread that has been consistent through Bhagavan Das’ paths, and that thread is an intensity of devotion. From a little Catholic girl in the church pew to a yogini in Amma’s arms, I am ever intensely devoted to nurturing my connection with God.

This connection with the Divine (or whatever you call that Something Greater) manifests in billions of ways here on this beautiful planet earth. Whatever ways it manifests for you, may they be blessed.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of bee on flower by Richard Broderick – CC license

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A necessary component in achieving happiness is learning to accept everything as it is arising in each moment. This means embracing sorrow when it passes through us.

In the Ramayana (the legendary epic tale composed in ancient India by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki), when Sita is kidnapped by the demon king Ravana, she is greatly pained in that separation from her beloved husband Rama. She cries out, “This body of mine was created only for sorrow.” (Ramayana: A Tale of Gods and Demons by Ranchor Prime, Mandala Publishing, San Rafael, CA, 2001, 2004.)

Yet, throughout all her sorrows, Sita never once stops calling out to Rama in her heart. The symbolic meaning behind this is quite lovely. Bhagavan Das writes, “Sita represents the human soul, captured by the demon of egotism… though she’s held captive in the demon’s garden, the soul never forgets her true husband, Rama — God himself.” Bhagavan Das continues, with the yogic meaning of the story: “God loves the soul more than anything, but he can’t rescue her alone. He needs the help of the son of the wind (Hanuman) — the breath. When God and the breath become allies, they’re able to free the soul. Calming the breath makes the body calm down, and then the mind becomes calm. When the mind is calm, you are able to sense God’s presence in your heart.” (It’s Here Now (Are You?), by Bhagavan Das, Broadway Books, New York, 1997.)

I love that image of the human soul calling out to the Great Soul. When sorrows pass through us, we can practice cultivating the witness by tuning in to that part of ourselves that objectively watches everything as it arises. When we witness and accept sorrow, we can focus on our breathing to calm our body-mind system, and that will help us settle into the Pure Love Energy that is always pulsing within our hearts. The word “yoga” means union, and it is the Union with our own beloved heart that we seek. So, the yogic practice is to watch the sorrows, and then keep returning to the breath and to the heart.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of blue flower by Richard Broderick – CC license

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The ONLY true Bliss channel is inside.

The key word in that statement is only. When we seek comfort, pleasure, and bliss outside of ourselves, we inevitably feel disappointed, again and again and again. The reason for this cycle of seeking external happiness and then feeling disappointed is our collective spiritual amnesia. We have forgotten who we truly are. When we take the time to go inside our own beings, we remember that we truly are pure Bliss.

Pure Bliss is our true essential nature… and this is true for each and every one of us. So we have to turn away from the external dials, and tune in to the frequency of the Bliss channel inside our beings.

Daily spiritual practices, such as sitting meditation and cultivating the witness, help us to regularly remember our true nature. Throughout the day, if we practice witnessing our thoughts, our emotions, our speech, and our actions, then gradually the witness part of ourselves expands. As the witness consciousness expands, we identify less with all the stories passing through us, and we begin to self-coach ourselves. For me, this self-coaching process is such a gift. Now, anytime my little mind starts reacting negatively, my higher witness mind automatically starts “talking” to the little mind.

For example, anytime I feel the slightest disappointment arising about anything external to my own inner being, the self-coaching witness mind says, “The only true Bliss channel is inside.” Then, if I continue feeling sad, the witness voice gets louder, saying, “Didn’t you hear what I just said? The ONLY true Bliss channel is inside.”

Because most of us are under this collective spiritual amnesia spell, we have to continually remind ourselves that we are, in essence, pure Bliss. Daily spiritual practices are so important. If you need inspiration for your practices – or help beginning some new practices – please read my easy-to-read pocket book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living, available on this website store in print and by e-book.

May we all remember to tune in to the inner Bliss channel. It is a frequency that is always there, waiting for us to tune in to it.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of Flowers by Altair – CC license

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A few days ago, while walking along the sidewalk in the spring sunshine, I came upon a garden of purple irises. My first thought was, ‘i am the Iris!’  I giggled to myself all the way back to my cottage, as that thought continuously replayed in my mind: ‘i am the Iris! i am the Iris! i am the Iris!’

Yesterday I looked up the lyrics for the Beatles’ song “I am the Walrus.” The very first stanza struck a strong chord in my being:

I am here as you are here
as you are me
and we are all together

Even though the rest of the words in that song are quite strange, that first bit really says it all. We are each other. We are all together, here on this beautiful planet earth. We are all connected in one continuous web of energy and vibration. We think that we are separate because we are in separate bodies, but the energy that runs through each of us is the same energy! There is not even one tiny break in the one energy that pulses through everything and everyone.

Indeed, i am the Iris! And so are you, and you, and you! We are the rocks, we are the trees, we are the sunsets, we are everything. We are the one energy that is Pure Love. When we remember that we are part of that one energy, we experience incredible Self-Love.

Regular, daily spiritual practices help us to keep remembering who we truly are. Sitting in silent meditation and cultivating the witness part of ourselves is the most important thing we can do each day. To learn more about spiritual practices, check out my easy-to-read pocket book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living, available on this website store in print or by e-book.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of purple iris by Teja Shankara.

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Today I woke up feeling exhausted like I had pulled a team of heavy horses through the sky on my back last night. Though I am usually a tea drinker, this morning I brewed a strong cup of coffee and sat down to read The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic, by Ramesh Menon. I am only 205 pages into this 686 page volume, and already I can honestly say that it is the best book I have ever read. After reading a section, I sat down to chant the 1,000 Names of the Divine Mother, a 45-minute chanting practice that I learned from Ammachi, that I do every Friday. Today this practice filled me with incredible Love and Bliss Shakti, and it renewed my inspiration for my creative work in the world.

So it is in this state of feeling really full of my true Self, in that deep place of the Heart, that I begin writing this blog entry, which is a continuation of the last blog post about the inside story on the Buzz for Bliss Campaign. (www.buzz-for-bliss.com) One week ago today my friend Pete and I conceived of the idea, and already more than 5,000 people have viewed my buzz cut video! (www.youtube.com/user/16Tejaswini)

The word is spreading fast and soon thousands of people will be getting their buzz cuts for bliss…

… But that is the story for a future blog. Today I will continue sharing my personal process since getting the buzz cut for bliss. I buzzed my hair to remind me to let go of attachments. Primarily, I was concerned about my attachment to Pete, my dear yogi friend who was visiting me for almost 3 weeks. After a really fun visit, the time came to take him to the airport, so he could fly to England to visit his family. Not knowing if or when we would see each other again, I cried as his plane flew away… But when I got home, I was fine for the rest of the day.

That evening, at the Radiance Rising Circle, I called in Gratitude to help me stay focused on the positive – gratitude for a great visit with Pete – rather than the negative – “poor me, he left.” The circle was particularly sweet that evening, with eleven of us sharing in a good discussion about how we navigate painful emotional states. One guy shared that he hadn’t thought about the spiritual process of expanding and contracting as a concept until he read about it in my new book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living. (This pocket book is available on this website store in print and by e-book.) I then talked about the importance of cultivating the witness to help us remain detached throughout the ups and downs of our days and nights…

That night I went to sleep feeling inspired and fulfilled, so I wasn’t expecting to feel how I felt the next morning: I awoke feeling as though my body had been cut down the middle and someone had taken one half and put it on a plane headed for another part of the world… I sat in disbelief at how strange the remaining half of me felt… As I went through my morning routine, I felt numb and dazed, as though half of me was touring some distant galaxy, while the other half struggled to understand what was happening here and now.

At the time, I could not have explained it this well, but the Witness part of my mind was actively witnessing, and it was saying a few things to me, such as: “You are just adjusting to Pete leaving… that’s why you feel so strange. Just keep focusing your attention on God and on your work in the world.” I listened to that voice as I carried on with sitting still in meditation practice and chanting the Hanuman Chalisa and sipping hot tea while reading The Ramayana…

… But every time I tried to work on the computer (promoting the creative child we had birthed at the end of Pete’s visit: www.buzz-for-bliss.com), I felt worse and worse. Finally I realized that I needed to get away from the computer and the cottage (which were both reminding me of Pete’s visit)… I needed to bust out of my regular routine and do something else for a while…

… So I walked my buzzcut self (which still only felt half embodied), downtown, and took my half-self on a hike along the trail by the creek. The flowing, bubbling water combined with the heavy scent of the towering trees soothed my nerves, but still something felt wrong – very wrong.

So, I tuned in again to the Witness Consciousness, that part of my being that I have been actively cultivating for more than 6 ½ years… And, gratefully, the Witness gave me a fine little report:

“Your Consciousness is wide-open in Blissful Expansion, and your mind is doing really well. You are not creating suffering for yourself with negative thought patterns like you have repeatedly done in the past. What feels ‘wrong’ to you is not at the spirit or mental levels, but rather you are experiencing the pain of separation on a very physical, primal level. You are in the agony – physical agony – that a bird or other creature might experience when separated from their mate. This is an adjustment of screeching sorrow that you just have to go through – don’t try to run from it. Allow it, and give it plenty of space. Cry if tears come… Don’t judge yourself for feeling this way – this feeling is as natural as the birdsong of this planet. Allow yourself to feel, feel, and feel again. This too shall shift.”

Of course the tears flowed then, and they flowed on into the evening as I ate a nourishing vegan meal, repeated my mantra 108 times, sat in evening dhyana (meditation), and lay my head upon the pillow…

Earlier that day I had emailed Pete telling him about how strange I was feeling, and in his reply he had reminded me to be in Shiva Consciousness and to touch my head… That helped. Each time I touched my head and looked at my buzz cut in the mirror, I remembered my goal to release external attachments and to live in the internal Bliss of Union with Lord Shiva, the Hindu aspect of the Divine that represents Pure Consciousness.

The next day I awoke feeling somewhat better, but by afternoon the physical pain in my heart and gut propelled me to call my dear healer friend, Britt. She tuned in and agreed that I was doing well at the spirit and mental levels, but that I needed some help at the physical level. She said that I needed to clear Pete’s energy from my physical space. She instructed me to do the following exercise:

Sitting on my meditation cushion, I called in the spiritual help of Amma, Neem Karoli Baba, and the Reiki Guides. Then I visualized two bright red roses: one out in front of my heart chakra, and the other out in front of my solar plexus chakra – the two areas where I was experiencing seering energetic pain sensations. I put all of Pete’s energies that were in me out into those roses… then I took them outside and exploded them, letting them dissolve out into the sky and the clouds and beyond…

… Sitting again, I visualized two more bright red roses out in front of my heart and solar plexus chakras, and this time I called back all of my energies that were in Pete and put them in the roses as I pulled those roses into my heart and gut. Immediately I felt an energetic shift. What I had been experiencing as painful physical sensations (heart aching and gut feeling kicked) dissolved instantly, and the pain transmuted into feeling Blissful Union with Shiva. In that state of Remembrance, I placed a bright red dot bindi on my third eye, and doused my buzzed crown with Amma’s rose oil. I felt most grateful that my friend Britt had given me that simple yet potent exercise to do. It only took a few minutes, and it had a profound effect on my whole being.

Britt Magadini is available for psychic readings and energy healings. Her website will be live in a few days: www.wakingbeauties.com.

The following day I felt better, although I still had moments in which I experienced the pain of separation… But that is a natural part of the spiritual process of expanding and contracting. The more we engage in cultivating the witness, the easier this process becomes. I am so thrilled to see my progress and to experience the transformational power we can gain through the spiritual practice of cultivating the witness.

I know that my teacher Basil is proud of me as he shines Light upon me from some distant star. Oh, dear Basil, who I now call Yogi Shambho, I miss you as I type these words. Thank you for all that you taught me during those brief years we had together this lifetime.

May we all know the inner Bliss that comes from shedding our external attachments. Thank you, Pete, for showing up to help me learn more detachment. You’re a good yogi.

May all beings everywhere know the Bliss of Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

May Day photo of Pete & Teja by Howie Morningstar.

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My friend Pete is visiting for a few weeks, and last week I was feeling sad at the thought of our visit ending, so I asked him if he would give me a buzzcut, to help me release my attachments. At first he didn’t think it was a good idea, as he thought I should just be able to let go of my attachments by strengthening my mind. With a stronger mind, I would not let myself think the thoughts that cause me grief. While that sounds great in theory, I still felt like I needed some outside help. A buzzcut would be a great visual reminder that I am capable of letting go of the things that I am attached to… And I was definitely attached to my hair…

So I placed the hair cutting scissors on the bathroom counter, to let Pete know I was serious about my idea… but the next time I went to the bathroom, the scissors were gone! For a few days we played hide-and-seek with the scissors, with me finding them and setting them back on the counter, and him hiding them again.

While I was mostly laughing at our rascally antics, I also felt a bit frustrated by the situation… So, I took out my journal and wrote the following:

O Tejaswini, what can you say about your long hair? ~

~ It feels heavy, like it’s weighing down my head.

~ It makes me attractive to men.

~ It symbolizes femininity.

~ It is so cute and curly.

~ It takes too much time to manage now.

~ I’m attached to it because it is so cute.

~ It makes me feel protected. I can hide in it.

O Tejaswini, what does cutting your hair represent? ~

~ Burning karma: Letting go of the old and creating fresh new space for what wants to emerge next.

~ Re-committing to the goal: Shiva Union is Primary, and connections with earthly men come after Union with Lord Shiva, who is Pure Consciousness and Bliss

~ Releasing attachments: attachments to looks, to men, to projections of how I want things to unfold, to fantasies and to disappointments.

~ Shifting focus from spending time on external looks TO spending more time on internal practices and on serving others.

I then wrote a small poem:

letting the curly locks
fall away,
i rest within Shiva,
the very Bliss
at my core.

Tejaswini says this buzzcut
brings the bliss
of Remembrance.

After I read the above journal entry to Pete, he agreed to cut my hair. I thought that the next day we would buy a clipper set for the buzzcut, but that night we couldn’t sleep, and at 3:30am he cut my hair with those hide-and-seek scissors! We took a video of the process, and the video turned out to be quite hilarious, so I posted it on my YouTube channel under the comedy category! (http://www.youtube.com/user/16Tejaswini) Here is the video. Please share it far and wide!

While editing the Buzz for Bliss video, we got the idea to challenge others to also buzz their hair to release attachments and experience the bliss of inner peace. Also, Pete (a.k.a. Yogi Sinzapatos) will donate $1 for every haircut done in the name of Peace to Common Passion, a non-profit organization that is working to raise awareness of Unity Consciousness. http://www.commonpassion.org. If you decide to cut YOUR hair for the Bliss of Peace, after you cut your hair, you can post a photo of your buzzcut, along with a story about the haircut, at http://www.buzz-for-bliss.com.

We all have the ability to let go of our attachments. Sometimes giving something up – like our hair, for example – can help us to give other things up. The more we let go of our external attachments, the more we experience the bliss of internal peace… And the more we each experience inner peace, the more we radiate that out and help to create Peace in the whole world.

May we each release whatever attachments are blocking our peace and joy. Cheers to buzzcuts for bliss, and any other releases that radiate more Light!

May all beings everywhere know the Bliss of Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

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Greetings everyone! Here is my current news in brief ~ 

~ I will be teaching a few workshops at the Mystic Garden Party festival in Corning, California this July 21-26. To view my workshop descriptions, go to http://www.mysticgardenparty.com ~ then go to "Workshops, All Bios" and scroll down to the Devotional Dome section. If you can make it to this festival, it will be fun to see you there!

~ My friend Pete is visiting Ashland, and we have been making and uploading videos to my YouTube channel, Yogini Bliss. My user name is 16Tejaswini. To view interviews and chants with me, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/16Tejaswini. (There are now 5 videos on my channel, and there are more good ones on Pete's channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/YogiSinzapatos.)

~ Pete also helped me convert my new book Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living into an e-book, which is now available on this website store for $4.99. If you order the e-book, it will be e-mailed to you within 24 hours. 

That's all for today.... sending lots of Spring Blossom Bliss to you all!

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

a.k.a. Teja Shankara

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In this material realm, change is the only constant. When we remember this eternal truth, we experience detachment and peace. When the spiritual principle of impermanence is so obviously true, why is it so hard for us to remember it? Somehow the physical realm deludes us into believing that it is permanent, even though over and over we experience the truth of impermanence.

We need to accept that the nature of the world is change, but it is challenging to find acceptance when we can’t even remember the principle! So what can we do to help ourselves remember? First, it is important to understand the reason why we suffer when we forget the truth of impermanence. We suffer because of the attachments and expectations that we create in our minds when we forget that things will inevitably keep changing.

Once we understand why we suffer from our forgetfulness, next we need to take actions to continually help ourselves remember. Daily spiritual practices give us regular opportunities for remembrance. One of my favorite spiritual practices is chanting. For over six years I have been singing along with the CDs of popular chant artists such as Krishna Das and Jai Uttal. In my new book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living (available on this website store in print or by e-book), I describe the transformative practice of chanting.

Daily chanting helps me to remember that change is the nature of the world. When I am feeling particularly attached to something, I chant to Shiva, the Hindu aspect of destruction. Inherent in the dissolution principle of Shiva is also the creation principle, because when one thing dissolves, it creates the space for something new to emerge. So when we consciously release our attachments, that opens up the space for detachment to grow within us.

There is an image of Lord Shiva dancing in ecstasy over the cremation grounds. He is ecstatic because when the bodies are burned, the attachments that go along with the bodies also burn, thereby freeing the souls to be in Bliss. In her book The Eternal Truth, Ammachi describes this image of Shiva dancing in bliss, and then she says, “The meaning of this is not that bliss comes to us only after death. Everything is within us. We and the universe are one. Both are equally complete. When the attachment to the body dies in the fire of Self-awareness, we are automatically filled with bliss… Shiva is called ‘the detached one’ (vairagi). Detachment (vairagya) means absence of attachment.” (The Eternal Truth, by Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Mata Amritanandamayi Mission Trust, Amritapuri, India, 2006 & 2007.)

So the ability to let go of attachments exists within each of us. It is important that we each take the time to cultivate this ability… in whatever ways help us to achieve more detachment. In addition to chanting along with CDs, I also attend evenings of live kirtan (call and response chanting) whenever possible.

Inspired by my love of kirtan, last June I bought myself a harmonium and asked Amma to bless me to be able to sing and play harmonium. Slowly I am learning this new art form, after a lifetime of believing that I could not sing! At the weekly Radiance Rising Circles, I am even starting to lead simple chants. Last weekend a friend and I recorded a Shiva chant and posted it on my YouTube Channel, www.youtube.com/16Tejaswini. That video is also posted at the top of this blog post.

May we all remember that change is the nature of the world. May we all find ways to release our attachments. May we all experience the bliss of detachment.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

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“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” Richard Hooper shares this quote from modern Buddhist wisdom in his beautiful book, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings. (Sanctuary Publications, Inc., Sedona, AZ, 2007.) Hooper continues with this insight into suffering:

“For most of us, most of the time, it’s hard to remember that pleasure and pain always go hand in hand. We forget that we cannot have one without the other. So we seek to maximize pleasure and do our best to avoid pain. But the great masters knew that life doesn’t work that way. Everything in our universe comes to us in pairs of opposites, and the opposites are always changing from one to the other. Pain replaces pleasure, pleasure replaces pain, over and over again, endlessly. Nothing in the material universe ever remains the same for long. But when we finally understand this truth at the most profound level, we have a chance to change the rules of the game. Buddha taught that there is a way out of suffering, and that way is to eliminate desire. If we can retrain the mind so that it no longer craves, so that it no longer prefers one thing over another – so that good and bad, pleasure and pain, hot and cold, love and hate are all the same to us, then suffering ceases of its own accord.”

So how do we retrain our minds? How do we unlearn our tendency to prefer one thing over another? Take a moment to reflect on your preferences. Then reflect on how you respond when you feel pain on any level – physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Do you run from the pain? Do you reach for ice cream or turn on the television?

When we avoid our pains, we actually prolong them. When we face and embrace our pains, with willingness to go through them, we heal ourselves on all levels. But since most of us have learned to avoid pain, we have to retrain our minds. We retrain our minds through regular, daily spiritual practices. In my new book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living, I describe the daily practices that have helped me to retrain my mind. Written from my perspective as a raja yogini, this pocket book describes basic practices that anyone – of any faith – could apply to their own life. The most important practice that I explain in the book is cultivating the witness.

We can practice cultivating the witness during our sitting meditation sessions and also throughout our busy daily lives. When we cultivate the witness, that objective part of ourselves that simply watches everything we think, say, and do, we learn to accept ourselves exactly as we are in each moment. We learn to accept the full spectrum of all of our emotions. This acceptance teaches us to fully love ourselves when we are experiencing joy and when we are experiencing sorrow. As our witnessing capacity expands, our self-love grows, and as our self-love grows, we identify less with our pains, so we suffer less.

The more we practice witnessing everything that is arising in our beings, the more we begin to remember who we truly are, underneath all the layers of who we aren’t! This is a choice. We choose to keep remembering who we truly are. And we can choose to be happy no matter what temporary state is passing through us.

Happiness is not just something that “happens” to us if we are lucky. We can decide to be happy, and if we put for the effort to be happy, then we will gradually become more and more happy.

What effort are you willing to put forth to achieve happiness? Are you willing to sit in meditation at least once each day for twenty minutes or longer? Are you willing to watch your thoughts as an ongoing practice? Are you willing to love yourself no matter what pains you are going through?

These are important questions for us all to ask ourselves. In this time of rapid change on our sweet planet earth, we can each do our small part to help raise the consciousness of our human species. Since we are all connected in one continuous web of energy and vibration, the choices we make for ourselves really do affect everyone else. Let us each choose to be happy through all the joys and sorrows of life. Let us each spread that happiness to all the beings in all the worlds.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace), 

Yogini Tejaswini

Buddha statue photo by beggs – CC license

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