Pahimam

We hold onto life so very hard.

White knuckling it until our hands hurt.

Our knuckles ache.

That spot between our shoulder blades …

as if someone drove a knife into it.

I’m in control of this.

I can control that.

This is mine.

That is mine, get away.

This is my rule.

Stop getting in my way.

This isn’t going as I planned.

God damn it…..STOP IT!

We hear ourselves yelling.

Feel our hearts beating fast.

The anxiety now in control.

And, yet, the paradox is …

We realize we are not in control of anything.

I’m filling my pill box again. Didn’t I just do this?

Making coffee again. How many times have I done this?

Getting the mail again.

Looking in the mirror. Who is that? When did this happen?

Heart racing. Ukraine. War. Climate. Heat. Friends dying. COVID.

Make it stop. Make it stop. I’m in control!! I’m in control!!

No…. take a deep deep breath and hold it.

Close your eyes. And exhale.

And on that exhale let go this concept of control.

Take another deep breath. Breathe in oxygen and calmness and nothingness.

Allow your closed eyes to float in your eye sockets. Attend to your relaxed eyes.

And on the exhale … let more tension exit with the breath.

Take in one more breath …feeling your chest expand … your brain oxygenated … your shoulders. relaxing.

hold it without tension … and slowly exhale noticing the difference between tension and relaxation.

And now, a difficult practice for those of us in the Dominant Culture. An important practice that will bring YOU peace and The Mother healing. It is the SECOND thing the spirits are asking you and me to do.

Just hear it as you breathe gently. And if we can …can we talk about it? Not just leave a teaching hanging? This is so difficult. Maybe it is time to stop writing and turn to interactive media.

Pahimam … ‘I offer myself completely to you, now I am no longer mine, I am yours.’

How beautiful and how frightening for our individualistic egos who believe in so little. Yet we are agitated and angry, filled with despair, sit alone, have trouble finding joy ….. I, we, my, me, self … a world of selfies and Facebook and what about me?

Pahimam is a word that implies surrender. In this case from an amazing song I play over and over and over again every morning. It is an exquisite song that if you listen to it on replay transports you out of this time and space. Have no expectation or desire. I love this practice at 4:00 AM in my space filled with candles and colorful spheres and statues of Juan Yin and Kali Maa and the Huichol masks and and and … all representing kindness and The Mother. Pahimam.

Bhagavan Das: The Howler at Dawn singing Rama Rhagava You will be stunned by the beauty of this simple song. You can purchase it on iTunes.

The Song

Rama Raghava,

Rama Raghava,

Rama Raghava Rakshamam

Krishna Keshava,

Krishna Keshava,

Krishna Keshava

Pahimam

Translation

Blissful One

Of dark complexion

like the most beautiful clouds of rain

full of sacred grace and blessing

always ready to shower auspicious grace upon us

Oh one with beautiful hair

Your divine beauty comes from within

This beauty shines and is so sweet

my mind is turned away from illusion and can only focus on divine beauty

You are my protection

I offer myself completely to you. I am no longer mine.

I am yours.

I am yours. Oooooooo. That is the rub isn’t it? For Americans now … we have no concept of surrender. Here is part of the problem. Look at the current synonyms for surrender: capitulate, give in, yield, concede, succumb, quit, and defer.

It is no wonder we have, as a dominant culture, difficulty in surrendering. We have turned surrender into a dirty word. Thrown it into the category of games and war … and white flags. Our American culture mutates important words and changes them to fit our culture of competition, greed, consumerism, black and white, war, individualism and violence. Losers surrender. Weaklings surrender. Sado-masochists surrender.

….. a Sun Dancer wears a cotton, ankle length, sun dance skirt that wraps around the waist. Often the skirt is red trimmed with ribbons of black, red, yellow and white. The dancer may wear moccasins or dance barefoot. The chest remains bare and the dancer wears a crown of sage upon his head.

If the dancer has decided to pierce to the tree they prepare by making a small circle of wase’, red powder paint on their chest. They have announced to the spirits … I am coming to offer my flesh. When it is time the dancer comes to the tree and lay on the buffalo hide.

I can only tell you of my experience. Placing the sage head piece into my mouth I stare up into the tree and repeat my prayer …why I am here. Though there are drums beating and people running everywhere and two men standing over me with scalpels and my wooden pegs … I have moved myself into a deep place of surrender.

Of surrender. (I’m smiling almost laughing here. Surely not a place of quitting or capitulation or sad-masochism, or yielding.) This surrender is a place of opening …of letting go of control. It is trusting God and the spirits so much that all tension leaves the body. My experience has been, when I have found this place of pure surrender, that I don’t feel anything and am suddenly standing. In surrender one has found a state of bliss where they don’t exist … in a manner of speaking … but have found another plane. It is when others may have witnessed a monk float, or an aura appear behind someone, of someones face changes when in deep meditation or prayer. I have witnessed such things … surrender is a miracle we can all find if we learn how to surrender. If we can just let go.

“I don’t believe in God, who should I surrender to?” My answer would be … to whomever you call out to or wish to call out to. When you knock down that wall and open the door you will find beauty will step through. Someone …something is there. You just have become an artist of control and disbelief … yet some part of you knows there is something and some part of you wants to meet that something. Those someone’s.

You don’t need a guru. Or a medicine man or woman. You don’t need to send 49.99 to someone on TV or a website. Begin by sitting in a chair and just listening to a piece of music that moves your soul. Begin to trust your intuition and to catch your monkey mind.

To surrender at that Sun Dance is to not worry about the heat of the sun, your thirst or hunger… your aching legs … but to look into the tree and see that it is the center of the universe. It IS the Mother. And as you dance in place for hours you then see her.

You see a tree. You see THE MOTHER. You see the tree

But now you can never see the tree the same way again. It is a relative. You have surrendered to it … and now it can speak to you. It is no longer afraid of you. You can become more and more part of the great conversation. Every day I’m up at 4:00 AM so that when the great conversation begins I’m there … listening … hearing their wisdom. Learning what they want. Hearing what it is they need so that we can all live. Do you understand? We are all in this together if we can surrender to one another.

Find love. Find kindness. Sun Dance together. Hold one another.

A morning practice.

Repeating the name of God or Mother … Ruby Heart Practice.

Eating Sacred Potato Chips …. ehhhhhh

This came very strong this morning …. I hope you understand. Please ask questions or comment. The altar is so ready. I guess it is time to VLOG. Writing leads to a few people reading and about zip feedback. Hard to keep going when the same 6 or 7 people write …

Not complaining just giving you my thought process.

Have a great day.

Rags