Fresh from the Well
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Puri, Orissa,
India
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Hello Everyone,
As ice, snow and hurricane force winds batter many of you, I am falling into a state semi-blissful peace and calm in Puri, a small coastal town on the Bay of Bengal that is considered a major focal point of spiritual energy in India. It was an 11 hour train ride south from Kolkata. I took the night train from Howrah (across the Ganges from Kolkata), in an A/C sleeper car. (That sounds a lot more upscale than it actually is.) From the moment the train started its gentle rocking and steady, rhythmic track clatter, I was letting go, letting go, letting go, of all the busy-ness of the last 17 months. Baba and I had finished the slightly expanded re-edit of Making Your Mind Your Best Friend the night before I left, so I had nothing on my plate, nothing to do or think about, except to allow myself be rocked in what felt like a floating womb. It was so soothing, I couldn't bear to go to sleep. I just laid there in the quiet while everyone else was asleep, savoring the gray and blue shadows of the cabin and the curtain swaying in the faint glow of a distant halogen light at the far end of the aisle.
The train and the cabin were humble and worn, as are all Indian trains, depressed and beaten up by 4-6 decades of heavy use, but hanging in there, serviceable, and with a destiny of, no doubt, many more decades to come. (My strong advice to anyone riding an Indian train: drink little water and definitely DO NOT EAT much prior to or during the trip so that you will not have to use the squatting toilet that merely drops into an open hole to the tracks below! I was aghast!) The cabin, however was clean, and so were the sheets, the heavy wool blanket, and the small, thin pillow provided. The pillow had a slight musty odor, but it was subtle enough to be insignificant. I drifted into a long overdue state of prolonged prayer, feeling more and more like a fetus, sublimely, safely, oh-so-quietly floating in a tenderly loving and nourishing Cosmic womb.
Understand that much of my time here in Kolkata has been paradoxical. Here I am, working with a living saint, meeting with him twice a day. In the spontaneity of the moment, wondrous, fresh and living distillations of ancient truths and insights pour from his mind and heart. Yet, my mind and emotions have, for the most part, remained entombed in a persistent, death-like numbness.
I have felt like such a clod. At the same moment I am peering into higher realities, being stirred by the subtleties of the Divine Presence, or being mystified by the unending flow of Baba's numinous energy, I am also painfully removed from it, unable to absorb it beyond the most basic surface level.
It has been a haunting, perplexing, stubborn conundrum. Knowing that these moments will never come again, knowing how rare this kind of privilege is to work directly with someone with Baba's rarified consciousness, I have felt unripe and utterly unprepared to receive the grace that is available -- all of which has only added to my distress. Talk about a monkey mind!
Last night I was finally able to let go of my stinking, toxic, self-critical mind. Floating in that berth on the Howrah to Puri Express, I relaxed enough to get real and honest with my prayers rather being formulaic and dutiful. And God responded. I can only describe it as if I was drinking directly from the living well of the heart of God. I was finally able to sit with my own opened heart at the energetic well of Baba's heart and the endless river of grace that has been flowing out to me through it.
For the first time, I got the tiniest inkling of understanding about the paradox of the Self-Realized master. It has stumped me for years, this phenomenon of the union of God and human being. I never could quite see beyond Baba the man and the mystery of his Presence, however often I have experienced heaven pouring sweetly and brilliantly through virtually everything he said and did over the past 12 years of knowing him.
It dawned on me, more as an energetic experience of revelation than a thought, that those who are enlightened become a living well, a well through which the Divine continually pours its heart and life and blessings, directly and undistorted, into the human dimension. Through every luminous action, teaching, insight or gesture that he or she shares, the enlightened human being simply serves as a well, the vessel, through which the Ecstatic Wisdom of Infinite Life can make its visitation, directly speak to and touch those of us who are more earth and illusion bound. The wisdom, the energy that comes is always particular, specific to the unique circumstances and human beings present at that moment. What comes is always utterly new, freshly arising from the Source, carrying the dynamic vibrance of the Divine Source and Essence of Life. To sit at that well is to drink and to be washed in the jubilant waters of Infinite Being.
For now, I am happy to be sending you my love, fresh from the well,
Ann
