Sunday, February 21, 2010

Upside-down/Backwards Bliss



Drop a beat!
Mmmmmmmmm...
"what to do?"


Melting rose petals,
on my tongue,
freedom tastes so sweet!

Yamaha sings and hums,
crushing vibrations
as I cling to your heart-
beat.

Pizza contests
and ipod chargers.
You stall, she stalls,
we all-

stall.

Blue and not blue,
your infinite lotus pond,
the Indian ocean,
overflowing from the soles
of my feet!

Quiet healing,
feeling-
chakra opening hammocks,
sweetness
bliss
like rosella from your lips.

"Do I know you?"
Do I know me?!
Float, flow, let is go.
Divine light swallows me whole;
the jealousy of rock and roll.

The perfect fit,
leaning through time.
Fly, Margaret, fly-
rhythm your crime.

No crust for curmudgeons!

Buckets of showers,
no longer shy.
Healing is the feeling
keep the flow-
my Conundrum.

Oh, how the ragamuffins glow!

skin wakes first
rising with the sun.

Drop an Afro-
beat!

~Vanya



Friday, February 19, 2010

Saturday, February 13, 2010

In case it has reached international news I just wanted to tell everyone that I am safe and sound. There was a bomb blast in a cafe near the ashram that I am staying at here in Pune. People are quite shaken up here and we don't really know the real story. BBC has a few details (below) but there are a lot of speculations and they are trying to connect it to the India/Pakistan talks coming up in Mumbai.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Blast-rips-Punes-German-Bakery-9-dead-45-wounded/articleshow/5570692.cms


I'm okay, my friends are okay and I am leaving for Chennai on Tuesday.

***

Big love to everyone on Valentines Day!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The Apple Star



A juicy ruby,
sweet and red,
Don't slice down,
Carve through instead.

Right inside it you will see,
a star as precious as can be!
~ Vanya



***


“Once you start rejoicing whatever you are, life takes such psychedelic colors, your each moment becomes so juicy, your whole life becomes a celebration.” ~ Osho



***


"The final mystery is oneself." ~ Oscar Wilde

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Vanya


Sannyas is a ceremony where you choose a symbolic name to guide you on the path as a truth-seeker.
Osho describes a person who has taken sannayas as a sannayasin and continues, "Sannyas is basically a rebellion about all structures, hence the difficulty
to define. Sannyas is a way of living life unstructured. Sannyas is to
have a character which is characterless. By 'characterless' I mean you don't
depend anymore on the past. Character means the past, the way you have lived
in the past, the way you have become habituated to living -- all your habits
and conditionings and beliefs and your experiences -- that's what your
character is. A sannyasin is one who no longer lives in the past or through
the past; who lives in the moment, hence, is unpredictable."

Last Friday, January 29th, there was a beautiful ceremony here at the ashram and I was surrounded by a loving community, great music and a celebration so full of life I thought I would burst!

With this initiation you commit yourself to the path of meditation and the name change is a reminder that we are not fixed to a certain personality or definition of self. I have not changed my name in the government document sense. Instead, I have chosen a name that resonates with something deeper, as a reminder to my self of who I am and what I am longing for. This name is a symbolic gesture and I am not asking you to call me by this symbol.

Within this community and along the spiritual path I have chosen and am connected to the name Prem Vanya Tarangita.

yeah, yeah, it's a mouthful but Vanya (pronounced vawn-ya) is the focal point, the other two are a combination of reminders I need to carry with me. Many women chose the word Prem, meaning "love", in front of their sannyasin identity because whole-hearted love is very much the feminine connection to self.

Vanya means a wild forest and it has many layers of importance and beauty to me, hard to put into words. Tarangita means inspired/zestful/river- a metaphor and an inspiration I love having in my life.

This may seem really confusing and I had doubts about posting this as a blog. You can read more about Sannyas at: http://www.neosannyas.org

I will finish with a few quotes by Osho to further explain the unexplainable:

“Sannyas simply means they have accepted a way of meditation and a life of joy and rejoicing. It is accepting to create your life into a blissfulness."

“The ancient meaning of the word was, one who leaves the world in search of truth. My own meaning is, one who lives in the world and yet goes on searching for truth. Because where can you go? Everywhere is the world."

" ‘…but why should I change my name?’ Why not? The changing of the name simply means you are dropping the whole old personality that was indicated by the old name, that you are beginning afresh with a new name. It is symbolic. You were not born with a name. The name was given by your father, by your mother, by your people. Now you have dropped all conditionings, why not drop the name those conditionings gave to you?"

"An open heart, a loving heart, a deep trust in oneself and nothing else is needed. You don't have to surrender to some master, you don't have to worship some God, and you don't have to do some prayer to some hypothetical deity. You don't have to go to man-made temples and churches to find that which is hidden within you."

Just open.

8 Days


Every day is a whole year of emotions, lessons and encounters...


I spent 8 days in an intensive course here at the Osho ashram and while I cannot put the experience into words, I can share with you some feelings and lessons that I took away from this incredible experience.

DAY 1:
I learned how to cry, with every ounce of my being, in front of others.

DAY 2:
I learned how to really scream! So cathartic.

DAY 3:
I released what I needed to say from the bottom of my heart and I was exhausted from sobbing.
I learned that I have let other people's judgments control how I live my life and its a waste of energy and precious time.

DAY 4:
I learned how to ROAR! (then I lost my voice...)

DAY 5:
I realized this was the hardest, yet most enlivening process of my life! I have never had such bad skin, so much garbage in my body is surfacing and being released.

DAY 6:
Home is inside.
I held hands with a part of me that I hadn't seen in a long time.
I learned that when you feel you have no energy you still have great amounts left!

DAY 7:
I created a beautiful tree and other people where welcome to live there.
CREATE!
I learned how to buzz, how to glow from inside, from a life force so great.

DAY 8:
Things are not what they seem. There are so many layers and this is just the beginning.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Randomness Con't


Wisdom and Rocks

I recently had a huge argument, possibly one of the most frustrating ones I've ever experienced, with a dear friend (we'll call her CM) after a beautiful dinner. There was three of us enjoying a delicious meal and my friend CM and I had proposed a beautiful idea when the plan suddenly backfired.
Humans seem to ride a wave of emotions and being here I've really learned about being present, speaking the truth and being true to ones feelings. CM and I got caught up in our own emotions and needs and together we destroyed a wonderful opportunity. 3 hours of arguing just made us feel more frustrated and I feared our friendship was slipping away. We felt stuck and all three of us parted ways.

I was walking back to my rented room feeling so helpless, angry and lonely. I replayed the nights events in my mind and all I could feel was a deep sadness. Subconsciously I started repeating, "I don't want to be alone, I don't want to be alone." Head down, completely overwhelmed, I continued to march towards the hotel. Suddenly, I heard someone call my name! My stomach dropped, thinking it was one of my two dinner friends back for more interrogation.

Instead it was my friend D (whom I had just finished an intensive group course with at the ashram), who came running up to me to ask me if I was okay. Something switched inside and I acted like all was well, I asked him how his day had been and what he was doing in the street at this late hour. He told me he had befriended a local shop keeper and each night he was coming to the shop at 10 pm to help him close up and then later to have a chat and sometimes dinner with his family! Okay...odd, I thought, but intriguing. I wished him a good evening and continued trudging towards the hotel.

After a few minutes I froze, "what am I doing?!", I screamed in my head. I had just repeated that I didn't want to be alone and a friend appeared out of nowhere to ask me how I was doing and I turned away from the opportunity to be helped, consoled? WTF? So I turned around, ran back and said, "David, I'm not alright, can you sit with me for awhile when you're done closing up the shop?"
He said he would be happy to keep me company. Then, the shop keeper Jahan approached me, asked me to sit down and immediately took my hand, looked into my eyes and said, "I fear there is a storm going on inside you!" He then took me to his back room where all of his crystals and gems were kept and told me to sit down. I was in shock but felt I could trust Jahan because I trusted my friend D with my life and they seemed like dear friends.

Jahan grabbed a pink stone in the shape of a heart and rubbed it with both hands while breathing deeply. Then he told me to hold the stone and breathe deeply while he put his hands on my head. OMG I felt instantly relaxed, like a wave of relief had come over me! He told me to keep the rose quartz heart and then we talked for awhile and he told me, that "life is like a river, sometimes bad water rushes in but it is always washed away clean, always changing, and we must flow with the river, allowing, watching and not letting the dirty water soil us!"

For the next 15 minutes he told me some very great words of wisdom...that I really needed to hear. And when D was finished cleaning up he came and sat with us and Jahan gave me a beautiful hug that literally lifted me up, he told me to keep the heart shaped stone to remind myself that I need self love. He also invited me to dinner with his family for the following evening!
The beginning of the night had been a triangle of disaster and frustration, but I had been blessed with this new amazing triangle of supportive kindness and inner peace.

The dinner was out of this world! Jahan and his family are Kashmiri, they live in a simple home and he has three kids ages 1-12, who all have the same birthday! I had so much fun playing with the little one.
We ate on the ground, with our hands and Jahan said, "why did men invent the fork, look very closely. The fork has 4 prongs, we have 4 fingers, we didn't need to create forks, God gave us natural forks and a thumb to push the food into our mouths!"
We had a lovely evening with the best food I've had since my arrival and great conversation with his wife, D and the rest of the family.
Before I left he asked me to lie on the ground and he did more energy work on my head and belly, this time with D's purple stone (that looks like an eyeball). Again, a wondrous, peaceful wave came over me and I melted into the floor.

I've been visiting with Jahan on my way home every day and he can always read right through me. He's helped me pinpoint some bad patterns I've acquired. His words of wisdom are always exactly what I need to hear and I feel very grateful for our random meeting.

whoa...only in India!