On August 17^th, 2010, I posted a blog article entitled “My Experience with the Tanran Reiki Relationship Healing Symbols” with a link to my Reiki Teacher William Bagley’s blog that contains visual images of the symbols. Now one of my beloved Reiki healer sisters has sent me her artistic renditions of those symbols. I just love Art and Beauty, so I am thrilled to share her gorgeous artwork here with you today. To order these prints, and others, by D. M’Chelle, go to: www.yessy.com/verbalimagery or www.cafepress.com/verbalimagery.

Hope you all enjoy these images…

May all beings give the Universe permission to deeply heal them on all levels.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Tanran Reiki Relationship Healing Symbols by D. M’Chelle:

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Several months ago, a group of nineteen women gathered and created a vision for a Goddess Temple... and now, that intention is manifesting!!! Tomorrow please join us - in body and/or in spirit - for the Grand Opening of the Goddess Temple of Ashland! Saturday, March 19th, 1:30pm at the Jackson WellSprings. See you there in Gratitude...

May all beings everywhere know the Radiance of the Divine Mother.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

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Last night at the Radiance Rising Circle, after chanting to Sri Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god who removes all obstacles, we shared in a lively discussion about many topics. One such topic was the differences between the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine. In this blog, I will highlight my sense of their attributes, and I invite you to comment here with any further characteristics that you see.

The Divine Feminine is receptive, nourishing, holding space, allowing, and inviting. The Divine Masculine is focused on solar purpose, discerning, concentrating, holding form, and acting. At the highest level of Consciousness, the two are in constant Union. Like fire and its power to burn, they are inseparable.

So how does this apply to those of us who are not yet living at the highest level of Consciousness? Well, first we need to understand that all of us – men and women – have both the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine within us. Next, we can look to see if those attributes (listed above) are in balance within us. When we look inside, we might notice some imbalances. If the Divine Feminine is not in balance we might feel irritable, whiny, needy, and/or grasping. If the Divine Masculine is not in balance we might feel impatient, aggressive, forceful, and/or intolerant.

Once we begin to cultivate the witness and get to know our internal feminine and masculine aspects more intimately, then we can gradually heal those elements and bring them into harmony within. That internal mystical union is truly the goal of “tantra”.  Today there is much focus on the sexual union aspect of tantric yoga, but at the highest level, the tantric union of Shakti and Shiva is not meant to be acted out on the physical level. Rather, it is symbolic of the internal union of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine.

When I witnessed the dance between the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine within me, I noticed that I have tended towards easily accepting and forgiving the Feminine element within, but I have not been so easy on the Masculine element within! I have often expected my internal masculine to be perfect all the time! This explains why I have expected the men in my life to be perfect all the time, since we often project our internal experience out onto our beloveds.

What do you see when you look within at these elements? I welcome your comments here below.

May all beings everywhere know Balance within.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

See my new video (about my Love Soups cookbook) here: Yogini-Bliss on YouTube

Photo of Mt. Shasta through car window taken by Teja Shankara while driving on I-5!

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Photo by Ashley Marie - CC license

We create our realities with our thoughts. Cultivating the witness, that part of our minds that objectively watches everything we are, allows us to clearly see all of our thoughts. Through the power of watching our thoughts, we gradually change the way we perceive the world. We shift from viewing the world as a serious court of justice to seeing this universe as a joyous playground. Like gleeful children, we get to play and celebrate during this lifetime we've been given. On the playground we enjoy ourselves fully, even if sometimes we scrape our knees or get our hearts broken! No matter what pains we go through, we can't let the heartbreaks keep us from opening up and having a good time on the playground.

Here is a bit of news from the fun I'm having lately on the Tejaswini Playground ~

~ Last weekend I attended a Reiki intensive with my teacher, Reiki Master William Bagley, and it was very inspiring and got me all charged up with healing energies. I have posted two blog articles (here on the Teja Blog) highlighting some of the information we learned, along with my personal emotional experiences during the training. Those articles are entitled “Merging with the Compassion of Green Tara,” and “My Experience with the Tanran Reiki Relationship Healing Symbols.” 

The former article offers ways to work with emotions, and the latter post describes a really great map (that came to Will in dreamtime) for creating a healthy romantic relationship. That article is a must-read for all couples and for all people who want to be in relationships. It contains very insightful information on the inevitable process that unfolds once sexual energies are merged.

~ A few days after the training weekend, Will and I met for tea to go over my essay test, session reports, and so on, and I am happy to say that I am now a Certified Reiki Practitioner.

~ The weekly Radiance Rising Circles continue to be the highlight of my life. Sitting in a circle sharing spiritual practices is definitely my favorite playground. Although I am very much a beginner at playing harmonium and leading chanting (singing), I really enjoy it, and the attendees sing along so beautifully. I anticipate that soon I will begin to offer more circles in other places. Some of those circles will also be for sharing spiritual practices, and others will be for healing work based on the curriculum I learned at the training through Insight Prison Project. I am inspired to facilitate healing circles at rehabilitation centers, youth centers, and anywhere else that might be open to my offerings.

~ At the beginning of this summer, I predicted that it was going to be fun, intense, and fast, and that has all been true. My personal healing journey has been about releasing expectations of the masculine, both the external and the internal masculine; forgiving myself and others; releasing judgments and accepting everyone’s choices; and relaxing into loving all beings Unconditionally. If you’re interested in reading more about all of that, I’ve written some blog articles about my processes along the way. Soon I will also post an article about my experience with taking the brahmacharya celibacy vow.

~ I really enjoy writing the articles for this Teja Blog, and I consider it as one of the ways that I am serving others. I intend that the writings here are an offering of Light for those that read them. If you know anyone who might enjoy this Teja Blog, please forward the link to them… http://yogini-bliss.com/Teja-Blog.html

~ My second favorite playground is Facebook. I have so much fun meeting new people there. It feels like a big matrix of international pen pals connecting energies and points of light all around the world. I especially feel inspired by all the great quotes that people post there. If you’d like to meet me there, go to http://www.facebook.com/tejashankara and you can also join (“like”) my Teja Shankara Books page.

~ Another favorite playground is where I connect with all my guys! My two sons are now 10 and 13, and they love to show me the hot new hip hop videos. Fortunately, I also really love hip hop. I especially love this video that they showed me by Michael Franti & Spearhead, “Say Hey (I Love You).

~ A few weeks ago my dear friend Thomas and I went up to Mt. Ashland for an evening picnic, hot cocoa and stargazing. It was one of my happiest moments all summer, and I posted a blog about it called “Happy Teja.” After that article, I posted three articles with the vegan recipes from that picnic dinner.

~ Well, I finally finished reading the Ramayana! What a journey that was. It brought up a lot of issues for me, and I wrote a detailed blog about it, called “Issues with Rama.”  It was a soul-cleansing experience for me, for sure. I am still integrating it all on the vibrational level. Soon I plan to begin reading the book again, because it was such a good spiritual practice.

~ I’ll end this month’s newsletter with a quote from my Reiki teacher, William Bagley:

“Let go, let go, really let go, totally let go, awake, and rejoice!”

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

http://www.facebook.com/tejashankara

Photo of Playground by Ashley Marie - CC license. Photo of harmonium by Teja Shankara. Photo of Happy Teja by Thomas Stekkinger.

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In my last blog article, “Merging with the Compassion of Green Tara,” I gave a general overview of Reiki healing and highlighted some things I learned at a Reiki intensive last weekend with my teacher, Reiki Master William Bagley. In this blog post I will share my personal experience with receiving the Tanran Reiki relationship healing symbols.

The first evening, Will gave us an overview of the relationship healing symbols, and then we sat in meditation while he guided us to visualize and receive those symbols. During the lecture I thought to myself, ‘This will be good information for me to know for when I work with couples. I don’t really need this right now personally, since I just took the brahmacharya celibacy vow for at least six months, and I’m not planning on being in a relationship any time soon.’ So, without feeling any emotions, I took the following notes on the meanings and actions of the relationship healing symbols:

The five Tanran Reiki relationship healing symbols support the cycle of a healthy romantic relationship. The first four symbols are in a circle, with the fifth symbol placed in the center of the circle. To view the symbols and read more extensive information than I will offer here, go to the Tanran Reiki Blog at http://tanranreiki.blogspot.com/ 

The first symbol is Toh Noh Men, and it supports the honeymoon phase when male and female are resting in each other. When male and female relax into each other, their muscles relax, and that releases all the repressed emotions that were stored in their muscle tissues. The tendency is then to blame the other person for how bad they’re feeling, rather than seeing that those emotions are releasing because of the Love. When Love brings up the repressed emotions, then that means it is meant to be a healing relationship.

The second symbol is Teh Gah, which supports the processing phase of the relationship. The key to this phase is both people committing to holding the container of the relationship. For talking to be productive, couples need to process energetically first. So, when an issue arises, rather than verbally arguing about it, the first thing to do is to get the energies back into harmony. Breathing is the key for getting the energies right. Once the energies are back in harmony, then the talking level communication can be productive.

Will taught us two breathing exercises for harmonizing the energies. One is to sit facing each other and cross your arms and hold hands. One person exhales while the other person inhales. Eye contact isn’t necessary. It is easiest to watch your partner’s mouth so you can get the breathing flowing correctly. Then you can add eye contact if you wish, by looking into each other’s left eyes. The other exercise is to sit back-to-back with arms locked on the sides, and then one person exhales while the other person inhales. Whichever way you choose, you need to breath like that for at least 42 minutes in order for the energies to really shift.

I know 42 minutes sounds like a really long time, but a good argument can go on for much longer than that, so this is definitely worth a try!

The third symbol is Neh Tah Ru, and it supports the process that unfolds when the male and female are merging their energies more and more in sexual union. With sexual union, there is a surge of energies: sexual union relaxes the tension in the muscles, so all the repressed emotions that were stored in the muscles get released, AND the karmas that were stored in the sacrum get released. The more the hearts unite, the more the energies rise up. As soon as you merge sexual energies, the natural process is that the karmas get released. If you know that this is going to happen, then you are prepared, and you can work consciously with the released energies.

This symbol is about being aware of the inevitable process that gets activated by the merging of sexual energies. There is a lot more than pleasure going on during sexual union: the Kundalini Energy is actually doing quite a lot of work, because the sacred action of sexual union is the healing of karmas. Love will bring up anything that needs to be healed. The key to this phase is both partners being committed to staying PRESENT with whatever is arising. If both partners surrender to the Energy, then they can go deeper because that mutual surrender to the Energy resolves the power struggles.

The fourth symbol is Teh Mah Lah, and it supports the whole Energy Field created by the couple. Male and female are the same, but different: here they process in a mirror image way, and they commit to being aware of the atmosphere that they are creating with each other. They commit to balancing their energies in the shared space of the breath, so that the atmosphere becomes charged by them breathing loving energy in and out of the energetic field around them.

The fifth symbol is Sakarah, and it supports the couple in unifying all dualities and floating in all of Life. When each person resolves all dualities within, then “male and female resting in each other becomes each person resting and floating in all of life.”

Again, for more information on these symbols and to see the symbols drawn, go to the Tanran Reiki Blog at http://tanranreiki.blogspot.com/ 

After the lecture, Will guided us to open and receive these symbols in meditation, and that’s when I emotionally fell apart. During the first symbol, I started crying, and with each symbol I cried harder, until we reached the fifth symbol. The first four symbols brought up all my grief that my romantic relationships haven’t been so healthy. During the fourth symbol I was crying so hard that I wanted to run away, but I made myself stay with the process, which was good, because once he started talking about the Wisdom and Divine Grace associated with the fifth symbol, Sakarah, then I immediately connected with Divine Love and my system relaxed.

As the last tears streamed down my cheeks, I had a big “Ah-HA” moment in which I understood all of the pain and suffering that I’ve gone through in romantic relationships. I saw clearly how my choosing to participate in connections that did not have healthy energetic containers inevitably led to all the dramas that played out in the stories of my life. In some of my romantic lilas (Sanskrit word for “divine plays or divine sports”), I behaved in ways that I did not like, and I regret some of my words and actions. However, in that meditation I was able to forgive myself because I understood what caused my reactions. Simply put, intense karmas arose within connections that did not have the proper containers to hold them.

Will echoed my own inclination when he said that it really works best to go deep with just one person. Due to my past propensity to attract males of the polyamorous persuasion, I have had many heated conversations on this topic. Because of the inevitable release of karmas, sharing sexual energies with more than one person at a time is like jumping into a huge fire. It is delusional to think that you won’t get burned by all those karmas.

Due to some not-so-good choices on my part, I’ve been burned a few times too many this past year, so I’m taking a “time-out” with the option to not go back in! Strangely, as I am typing about fires, a huge wind is bringing the smell of smoke into the valley, and now I hear a helicopter overhead. I pray for all the beings affected by all fires: all the actual fires and all the metaphorical fires!

Soon I will write a blog about this brahmacharya vow I’ve taken…

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of Oregon Coast by Teja Shankara.

August 18, 2010... My Reiki teacher William Bagley's response to the above article:

Dear Teja, thank you for posting all this and sharing your experience with the symbols on your blog. You definitely get the living sense of how they are meant to work. What I would like to add is that I received these symbols in dreamtime... from the Reiki Guides. It was wonderful to receive them and feel the truth behind them, and they form a kind of mandala where each of their energies is constantly interacting with each other, and there are four other heart symbols that surround them. The meaning behind the other four being there (transmuting love, trusting love, radiant love, and forgiving/processing love) is that we need the foundation of love in all our relations in order to support the more focused love of a romantic union, that both need to be committed to their spiritual path, their healing, their emotional growth, and, hopefully, even meditation practice on their solo path before they meet someone to do a "dual vehicle" journey with. The Tibetan Buddhists call this "karma mudra" to emphasize what kind of process one enters into. The relationship journey can be the easiest, more rapid, and most peaceful path to healing and enlightenment, a natural place to deeply learn what love is. Meditating on top of a mountain may give deep peace, but love is partly interpersonal and is meant to grow in relationship. There is something beautiful and deep to evolving as humans that can be learned there. It has to do with trusting the larger energy of life that brings the two beings together. The Reiki Guides said that they released the symbols into this world at this time to help something that is meant to grow and appear in human life. It is behind all the focus on relationships and healing them. Deep down we know that love in relationships can be more than it sometimes has been. Blessings, Will

May 22, 2011... My dear Reiki healer sister D. M'Chelle sent me her artistic renditions of the Tanran Reiki Relationship Healing Symbols. Please enjoy them in my blog posted today, "Tanran Reiki Relationship Healing Symbols by D. M'Chelle"

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On June 26^th, I posted a blog article (“Release!”) about my process of releasing all expectations and griefs that I have placed on any forms of the masculine. Very soon after writing that article, I became aware that I needed to not only release expectations and griefs that I had placed on external forms of the masculine, but I also needed to release all the expectations that I had put on my internal masculine. I reflected on how much I expected of my own masculine, and I saw that while my masculine side completely bowed to my feminine side, it was not a reciprocal bowing! My feminine side was completely frustrated with my masculine side and refused to bow to it.

In one of her teachings, Amma says the following about the unity of the masculine and feminine:

“By the merging of man and woman, Mother doesn’t mean on the physical level….Women and men contain both elements…. The woman is unaware of the masculinity within her and searches for it on the outside, in a man. Likewise, the man doesn’t try to nourish the qualities of forgiveness, compassion, and affection that lie hidden within him. He imagines they are to be found only in a woman. Both men and women should awaken the complementary powers and capacities within themselves. Completeness is the union of the masculine and feminine elements within ourselves…. Only through this inner union can we experience limitless bliss. The aim of brahmacharya is to realize that both the male and female aspects are contained within us, and that the nature of our true Self transcends any such duality.”

(Lead Us to the Light: A Collection of the Teachings of Mata Amritanandamayi, Compiled by Swami Jnanamritananda, M.A. Center, San Ramon, CA, 2002.)

After realizing that I was seeking union with the masculine outside of myself largely because I was unhappy with the masculine element within myself, I set the intention to seek harmony and balance with my inner masculine and feminine elements. Taking the brahmacharya celibacy vow for at least six months, I endeavor to focus within and find the true Bliss that comes from uniting Shiva and Shakti internally. Lalla, naked mystic of medieval Kashmir, sang of that internal Union:

I, Lalla, entered the jasmine garden,
where Shiva and Shakti were making love.

I dissolved into them,
and what is this
to me, now?

I seem to be here,
but really I’m walking
in the jasmine garden.

(Lalla: Naked Song, translations by Coleman Barks, Maypop Publishing.)

May all beings know the Bliss of Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

The Lovers image by Mara~ earth light, CC license

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