My dear friend Jill accompanied me for the drive home from Amma’s ashram in June… Before leaving Amma’s Field, I had set an intention to be happy as I returned home, because when I returned home from Amma’s in November, I was quite unhappy since I was feeling really “done” with living in Ashland, Oregon (after 18 years here!), but I can’t move away just yet since my boys have seven more years of schooling in this town… As I drove into town that cold November night, I was overcome by a long, uncontrollable sobbing cry… But this time, after a totally amazing time of transformation with Amma, I was feeling happy and strong in my center again.

As we drove over the mountain pass and into the sunny town, I told Jill that I felt as though the time with Amma, and that happy drive home, were like a “reset” button. I felt as though I got myself back, and I felt ready to begin this final Ashland chapter with a much better attitude. With deep Gratitude, I cultivated the witness and saw all this Bliss and Love surrounding me and my family. Energized to share all that Love with others, I joyfully returned to Ashland… And I am grateful to report that after being home for over one month now, I am still feeling the Amma Love and still feeling quite happy and centered inside my own being.

Jai MA! Victory to the Divine Mother!

May all beings everywhere know Happiness and Peace.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of Teja Blissful with Mt. Shasta behind her taken by Jill Rothman. Photo of Teja’s feet heading home taken by Teja Shankara.

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In my blog article, “Happy Yogini in Warm ShivaRatri Field”, I shared how I found a silver snake ring that I knew I would wear until my gold snake ring arrived… I had ordered a gold cobra snake ring to wear on my wedding finger, as a reminder that I, Teja Shankara, intend to be married to Lord Shiva Shankara!

When I got to Amma’s ashram in June, I showed my new wedding ring to a friend, and he said, “Ahhh… Mrs. Shankara!” Then I ran into another friend from Mt. Shasta, and we joked that my husband was off meditating in the Himalayas, and as we parted, she said, “You married well!”

Then, the day after Kate and I experienced our very long hugs with Amma (“Amma filled me with a sense of Okayness!”), I went up to Amma for my most amazing darshan ever! As I advanced up the darshan line, I decided to show Amma my snake ring. After making that decision, I became very nervous: I was shaking and feeling like I might throw up… But I thought about my intention to be married to Lord Shiva first (no matter what is happening with earthguy lilas), and somehow I mustered up the courage… So when it was my turn, I told Gita, Amma’s attendant, that I wanted to show Amma my ring… Amma hugged me first, and as she started to say “My daughter, my daughter, my daughter” into my ear, I spontaneously began saying “Om Namah Shivaya” quite loudly into her chest, and as I did that, she switched to saying “Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma” into my ear… and then, as I came out of the hug, I showed her my ring, and she smiled so Big – a huge sparkling-like-diamonds-shimmering smile – and she kissed the gold cobra snake ring on my wedding ring finger! 

After that darshan, I did danda pranam (full-body prostration on the floor), and cried with Infinite Gratitude! I felt so in love with everyone and everything, and I knew that everything is allright in all the worlds.

May all beings experience Infinite Gratitude and Love!

Om Namah Shivaya ~ I bow to my Beloved Husband, Shiva Shankara, who is Pure Consciousness and Bliss! 

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photos of Teja’s wedding ring and of Teja Sun-Blessed in Amma’s Field taken by Teja Shankara.

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Today is my Grandma’s 96^th birthday. I celebrate her birth and I joyfully acknowledge all the wonderful ways she has enriched my life with her humor, enthusiasm, brightness, and love. I attribute my positive attitude and cheerfulness to her example and guidance.

A few months ago, I had a dream that something intense would happen on October 10^th. The next day, as I reflected on the dream, I realized that the date to look for intensities would be 10-10-10… So when that date arrived, I watched for intensities, but nothing happened… or so I thought. Then, a few days later, I received an email from my parents saying that my Grandma had fallen down on 10-10-10. She didn’t break any bones, but she injured her hip and had to be in a wheelchair for a few weeks, which required family members to stay with her around the clock.

During that time, I began focusing on death at the Monday evening Radiance Rising Circles. I gave a writing assignment on the topic, and it was very touching to hear what people wrote about death.

Inspired by a dream I had, in which my Grandma was holding me, I wrote and shared the following poem with the circle:

held in warm embrace
by living grandmother.
resting in deep love
yet witnessing underlying fear –
what if she dies this night
and i awaken
in the cold arms of death?

as her soul reaches mine
through dream space,
i realize i am more
afraid of her death
than my own –
what would death be for me
when it’s All Shiva, here or there….

but when she leaves
i won’t hear her living voice anymore
and I will have to once again
endure the grief
of parting.

Tejaswini says have faith!
Kali will cut through
all these attachments
and Shiva will burn them
to ashes.

I often talk with my sons (ages 10 and 13) about the delicate balance between really, really, really loving people, places, and things, AND not being too attached to those people, places, and things. As I celebrate my Grandma’s birth and life, I also witness myself fearing her death. There is such a bittersweet beauty here on this earth.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of Teja in park by Teja Shankara.

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Balance. That is the angel card I picked for this week, as I am juggling many balls: my parents visiting for my cousin’s wedding; taking care of boys and household chores; cooking vegan meals, giving Reiki sessions, writing blog articles, doing spiritual practices… and so on! I am continually amazed at how I pick the perfect card each week. (Angel cards, by Kathy Tyler and Joy Drake, Narada Productions, Inc., Milwaukee, WI, 1981.)

Tuning into the perfection of the Universe is a good practice when one is trying to balance so many things. However, even though in the big picture I ‘get’ that everything is happening perfectly, there are so many things occurring on Earth that don’t seem so perfect. For example, a few days ago, while I was buying pink nailpolish to wear on my toenails to the wedding, a fire was raging near the store and several Ashland homes caught on fire that night. And in the news they were saying that the flood situation in Pakistan is worse than the Haiti earthquake. And somehow I’m supposed to just keep enjoying my life, when so many people are suffering? How to balance the feelings of despair and compassion with the need to just keep doing our own lives, where-ever we are? I understand that giving in to despair won’t help anyone, and that by continuing to evolve myself through spiritual practices, I can help others by radiating Love out in all directions… but it’s still sometimes difficult to embrace this beautiful life I’m in, while others are suffering.

Somehow I continue to – more or less – keep it all in balance. Sometimes I do forget things though… Like last week, when my dear friend Thomas and I took another evening picnic up to Mt. Ashland, I forgot the plates and forks! We laughed heartily as we ate the delicious vegan meal on the lids, using the big serving spoons as utensils. But again, in the big scheme of things, when almost one billion people are starving on the planet, it doesn’t really matter that I forgot the plates and forks. With humility, I offer incredible gratitude for all of the blessings and abundance in my simple, yet joyous, yogini life.

May all beings everywhere have food to eat each day. May all beings know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of Teja by Thomas Stekkinger. Photo of vegan sunset picnic on Mt. Ashland by Teja Shankara.

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Spring blossoms remind me of change. Actually, everything reminds me of change, because everything is changing all the time. The seasons are changing, the creatures are changing, the Earth itself is changing. Who are we? What are we doing here on this strange, yet amazing planet? Why are we constantly trying to hold onto things that we can't really hold onto?

At the heart of all existence there are some spiritual principles that contain self-evident Truths. When we hear these truths, they resonate with us simply because they are true, and yet we can't seem to remember them for very long! Most of us need daily, if not hourly, reminders of who we truly are. We need constant reminders to go within and align with our true nature. We continually forget that we are spiritual beings who have been born into human bodies. It is like we have Collective Amnesia!  I find this situation to be both absurdly hilarious and insanely sorrowful. It reminds me of hearing a beautiful song that makes the heart ache.

We humans have so many aches and pains, on all levels: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. All these aches and pains arise from our forgetfulness. When we forget who we truly are, we experience pain and sorrow, but the converse is also true: when we remember who we truly are, we experience healing and contentment. Regular, daily spiritual practices help us to remember who we truly are. One spiritual practice is studying the spiritual principles. I describe this practice in my new pocketbook, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living. (This book is now at the printer. Pre-orders of this book will be discounted on this website store through April 10th.)

Spring blossoms reflect the most important spiritual principle: Change is the nature of the world. Most of us have heard this countless times, and we know the inherent truth of it, but because of our spiritual amnesia, we continually forget that everything in the physical realm is impermanent and changing. All of our expectations and disappointments stem from this forgetfulness.

Fortunately, the universe is naturally in a state of balance. The very fact that our amnesia exists means that our capacity for remembrance also exists. What is it that we need to remember and how do we remember it? We need to remember that we are spirits temporarily having a human experience. We cultivate this remembrance through regular, daily spiritual practices. When we regularly go inside our own beings, we experience a connection with Something Greater. Some call this God, others call it the Divine, and still others call it our Greater Nature. There are so many names for this Beloved Universe. However we conceive of That Great Mystery, when we go deeply inside our own beings, most of us experience and understand that That Something Greater is unchanging.

It is up to each of us to choose to direct our attention toward That which opens our hearts to the truth of who we are. To help myself remember, I regularly chant (sing) along with CDs, and I go to live kirtans whenever possible. Last night I attended a beautiful kirtan (call and response group chanting) with an amazing bhakti yogini who radiates pure sweetness: Prema Mayi Dasi. We sang traditional Sanskrit mantras to Krishna and Radha, as well as a lively chant to Shiva (led by Prema's son, Krishnadeva), that took me into a high state of devotion. (To read more about the Bhakti Yoga Path, check out my new book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living.) Between chants, Prema shared from the wisdom she has gained through many years of doing spiritual practices. She said, "We humans are so out of alignment now. We are out of alignment with Nature, and we are also out of alignment with our inner nature. We need to come back into alignment with our inner divinity. Through transcendental sound vibration, we will find ourselves in alignment." (www.premamayi.com)

We choose where to put our attention. Wherever we put our attention, our energy follows. When we practice cultivating the witness, we gain a greater understanding of where we put our attention and why we put it there. Once we see where we put our attention, then we can discern whether or not that is really where we want to place our attention. We can practice this in our daily lives, by asking ourselves this question throughout the day:

Am I keeping my attention on things that expand me and help me to remember who I truly am?

May we all commit to daily remembrance of who we truly are: spiritual beings who are connected with everyone and everything in one continuous web of energy and vibration. We are the seeds, we are the sunshine, we are the water, we are the spring blossoms.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini


Photo of spring blossoms by Pink Sherbet Photography - CC license

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In preparation for my next Radiance Rising Circle, I am reading a section in Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings, a beautiful book edited and with an introduction by Richard Hooper, Sanctuary Publications, Inc., Sedona, AZ, 2007. The section is entitled “Cutting the Ties That Bind – The Path of Renunciation.” One of the author’s spiritual heroes is Mahatma Gandhi. Hooper writes, “For Gandhi, the search for truth required that he follow the path of renunciation – being in the world, without being of it.”

I especially like the following paragraph: “Nevertheless, Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha and Lao Tzu all considered renunciation a necessary part of the spiritual path that cannot be avoided if one wishes to achieve enlightenment in this lifetime. But the path of the renunciate is a path that only a few will ever take in any age. Such a journey is even harder to contemplate for those of us who live in a materialistic culture that places little value on spiritual pursuits.”

As materialistic as our culture has become, there IS hope for it changing. Gandhi-ji said that first you have to change yourself and BE the change you wish to see in the world. As more and more people realize the importance of changing themselves through spiritual practices, our culture will gradually become less materialistic and more spiritual. (If you know someone who needs guidance on how to begin doing regular spiritual practices, tell them to check out my new book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living.)

Since very few people are destined to renounce everything and go to meditate in a Himalayan cave, how can we apply the teaching of renunciation to our busy, modern, daily lives? Jesus said, “Be in the world but not of it,” and so many other spiritual masters also stress the importance of renouncing the world, but how can we practically renounce the world when we are so in it?

We can gradually learn how to renounce through understanding spiritual principles and dedicating ourselves to doing daily spiritual practices. One of the most important spiritual principles to understand is that expectation causes suffering. If we practice renouncing expectations and accepting what IS, then we minimize the disappointments which cause anger and stress.

Releasing expectations and accepting what IS sounds great in concept, but how do we actually practice that in our daily lives? We have so many expectations: of ourselves, of others, of our computers, of our holidays, and on and on… It is not so easy to release even one of our expectations, so the spiritual practice of releasing expectations is something we gradually become skilled at doing.

Before I began doing regular, daily spiritual practices, I often experienced bouts of anger. Very soon after beginning the spiritual practices, I noticed that I hardly ever got angry anymore. (To learn how to begin doing regular spiritual practices yourself, check out my new book, Radiance Rising: Spiritual Practices for Daily Living.)

Although I have healed myself a lot through spiritual practices, I am not perfectly calm all the time… I do still experience anger at times, but it is different now because I am more skilled at witnessing the anger and allowing it to move through.

Even so, this week I became quite angry about a situation, and it took me a while to calm down. As I witnessed the anger, I thought about how it used to be popular to encourage people to really get their anger out, but now current research shows that anger releases the dreaded hormone cortisol into our bodies. Cortisol is the stress hormone that causes a lot of harm to the body. Once released, it remains active for up to 6-8 hours. Even talking about an incident that made us angry can release cortisol.

This current research validates what the spiritual masters of India have long since been teaching: that getting angry is not good for us.

Anandamayi Ma, a blissful mystic who lived in India 1896-1982, said the following on anger, “When anger arises in your heart try to cast it away… At the slightest indication of anger drink a sufficient quantity of cold water. Anger harms a human being in every respect. It produces the action of poison in the body. Pray to God to preserve you from this mood.” (Women of Power and Grace: Nine Astonishing, Inspiring Luminaries of Our Time, by Timothy Conway, Ph.D., the Wake Up Press, Santa Barbara, CA, 1995.)

Neem Karoli Baba, the Guru of Ram Dass, Bhagavan Das, Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, and myself, also encouraged people to let go of anger. One devotee said the following, “Whenever I would get very angry, Maharajji would have someone bring me warm milk, or sweets, or some cardamom pods to chew. He said these things soften anger.” (Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba, by Ram Dass, A Dutton Paperback, E.P. Dutton, NY, 1979.)

So, when I got really angry this week, did I remember to drink cold water and chew on cardamom pods? No, unfortunately, I did not remember to do those things. However, I did manage to accept that I am not perfect and to know that I am doing the best that I can. I also managed to keep focused on witnessing the anger, rather than becoming the anger.

I also understood how I could have prevented the anger in the first place – by not having the expectations that I had in that situation. Much of the time now, I do really well with releasing expectations and accepting what IS, and when I ‘fail’ at this practice, it is not really a failure because it is an opportunity for me to learn something which will help me to do better the next time.

Each time we release an expectation and accept what IS, we prevent ourselves from having to experience disappointment which leads to anger and stress. So we can each practice renunciation in this way in our busy daily lives here and now. We can practice releasing expectations and accepting what IS in each moment of each day. This practice will gradually change us so that we can enjoy the peace of the path of renunciation right here in the midst of this living world.

May all beings everywhere know peace and happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Himalayas photo by ilkerender - CC license

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