LIVING IN THE PRESENCE OF DIVINE MOTHER
Thanks to a wonderful gathering organized by Gilles Asselin I am going to share a transcript of wisdom we discussed, about the presence of the divine feminine in our lives.
And today in Japan is ‘Tanabata’ the 7th day of the 7th month, known as the Star Festival when the deities and star consciousness of Altair and Vega meet. It is the day when the wish-fulfiling power of your heart is at its mystical best, so wish with wisdom knowing that what you can conceive of will manifest in full.
EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 4 OF PORTALS OF PRESENCE
KOYA-SAN – YOGA OF ACTION – PART 1
Let’s talk together about awareness.
This is a dialogue, shared wisdom, a collective experience.
What I am about to share with you is a Chintamani Stone, an Oracle, a Sign, a meditation.
We are all divine beings, Source Messengers, bodhisattvas and earth angels.
So what we share here is a collective wisdom of our divinity.
You have heard it before, you have absorbed it, you know it.
But until you practice it, it is not wisdom.
You can feel it already, this flow of wisdom, because right now we are practicing, in the Shared Heart, together.
The alchemy, the Grail, is that opening and glowing in the Heart.
So rest in that presence.
Surrender and allow space for the silence.
As we listen, deeply, together.
Before we begin let us consider our awareness, here and now in the present.
When we consider it carefully we see that all is not as it seems.
Look around you now at your surroundings.
The chairs and table and space that surrounds you is filled with energy and consciousness. It is alive.
The body you exist in is also filled with that energy and consciousness and information.
You sense that.
Yet you are not the chairs or table, nor are you the body.
We all know at some point in time, our body will cease to exist, just as the chairs and table will.
Yet right now there is a witness, an observer, a divine presence within you that knows.
That you are awake.
It is because you are becoming still.
Be still and know I AM Presence.
We are so conditioned to our body and our surroundings that we believe they are our reality, that they define us.
Yet there is something greater, a power, a knowing within.
You feel it. That is why we are here, gathered together on this planet.
Let us experiment together.
THE DIVINE FEMININE – BEING AND THE MIND
Go into the body now, feel.
Generally speaking it is easier for a woman to feel and be in her body than a man, so she is naturally closer to Being and the Divine Feminine Presence. We all know that many ancient cultures chose female figures like Isis or Guan Yin to represent the formless transcendental reality.
The Tao in the Tao Te Ching is described as the infinite eternally present mother of the universe and Prajnaparamita in the Heart Sutra is described as the Mother of All Buddhas.
Women embody the unmanifested, the Goddess, Divine Mother.
When the mind took over it started to think of Source or God as male and as we see today much of society is male dominated. The God of authority and control is a male projection.
To connect with Being or Source requires surrender, non-judgment, openness and compassion, the divine feminine.
Mind energy runs our planet’s society whereas Being energy is in charge of everything else. However most men and women are still in the grip of their mind, constant thoughts and suffering through the pain body.
THE 7 POINT CHECK FOR AWAKENED AWARENESS
So let’s check for divine awareness, for being.
I call it the 7 point check for awakened awareness.
- First close your eyes.
- Take your attention to the breath.
- Breathe and become aware of the in breath as you breathe in and the out breath as you breathe out.
- Then become aware of the entire inner field of energy.
- Visualize yourself surrounded by light and that you are immersed in this sea of consciousness.
- Then breathe in the light. Breathe in the light. Breathe out the light. Feel the light filling up your body. Making it glow. Feel it. Feel the being-ness of this energy field.
- Become one with it. Merge with it. Stay in the realm of Pure Being. When you open your eyes look at your surroundings again.
Your awareness has shifted.You are now aware of the formless timeless nameless realm of Being, deep stillness, deep joy. When you surrender like this, you open to the Light within, you allow the Light to enter you, you realize you are not separate from the Light and that it is in fact your very essence.
When I was very young, just after I had the dream of being a Tibetan monk from age 2 to 3 I used to practice breathing in and out the light. I would say it to myself whenever I got ill.
“Breathe in the Light, Breathe out the Light.”
When I did the Kalachakra Tantra with the Dalai Lama this was my experience for 3 days, pure pristine bliss and peace, initiated by a blinding flash of Light from the Divine Feminine Essence of Guan Yin and the Divine Masculine Essence of the Archangel Metatron.
A SIMPLE GUIDE TO DAILY PRACTICE OF AWAKENED AWARENESS IN 7 LINES
1) Pray to your teacher guide or guru within daily
2) With the help of a qualified teacher or the guru within gain a clear understanding of the best path for you for liberation
3) Make the path the heart of your practice and meditate diligently
4) Meditate on the teacher guide or guru within visualising him or her above the crown of your head with streams of amrita flowing down through the central channel cleansing away all impurities and suffering of body speech heart and mind
5) Meditate on our body as the luminous Light Body of the deity, teacher guide or guru within descending from our crown into the eight petaled lotus of our heart and mingling with the indestructible essence drop in a single taste.
6) After meditation consider visualise and feel that everything that appears is a pure buddhafield or christgrid peopled by buddhas and christs or deities.
7) Use the activities of eating walking sitting and washing the dishes as the Buddha washing Buddha’s bowl considering them as offerings to all for their liberation. Even in bed and going to sleep practice visualising the teacher guide or inner guru in the center of our hearts so that practice becomes a continuous uninterrupted stream of nectar and virtue in everything we do.
DIVINE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT AND NEEDS, FEELINGS, THOUGHTS
When we consider deeply.
We arrive on this planet with pristine pure awareness, divine children.
We arrive with an awareness of the face before we were born, whether it be angelic or master, bodhisattva or Elder, so we have a need to know. To remember.
Needs, feelings, thoughts.
These become critical in our development of awakened awareness.
We have a face at birth.
Depending on our choice of parent our arrival into the physical body can be somewhat of a shock.
So our mother, the one who gives birth to us, opens the energies of the Divine Mother for all of us initially. She meets our need to connect with the divine feminine in form. She meets our need to belong. She reminds us, as the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama says, that we have all been mothers in some life or other, for each other. In that sense we are all each other’s children. We belong to each other.
OUR DESIRE TO BELONG
We all feel this desire to belong. We look for it in various forms, forms we recognize from previous lives or other worlds and dimensions, forms like art or music or dance, or spiritual teachings, healing, businesses that promote wellbeing or connection. Lovers that ignite the flame in our hearts. Children that awaken our joy of being.
So there is this presence of Divine Mother, the divine feminine, awake and in our awareness to varying degrees throughout our life.
I was fortunate to have a Mother Superior guiding me into the heart of Mother Mary from birth and then Guan Yin guiding me into her heart through the manifestation of a pearl from her heart around 20 years ago. After my own mother’s death Guan Yin and Divine Mother guided me into the Light through an experience of the Kalachakra Tantra with the Dalai Lama.
The level to which this awareness of the divine feminine develops is to a large extent dependent on us developing awareness of our needs and feelings and thoughts.
Most of us operate in a mode of backwards by design.
We think and therefore we think we are our thoughts with the mass of confusion and judgments and challenges.
We have very little awareness of our true feelings.
We do not know how to express our needs.
And we are not aware, moment to moment, that we are an awakened human, an earth angel, with the power of the flame and Light of God alive and flowing in our hearts.
ACTION IN THE HEART OF DIVINE MOTHER
So how can we act with presence and awakening?
To bring the divine feminine?
Be still and know God, I AM Presence
“Surrender is creating spaces for stillness”
As I came to write this chapter about how to live, how to act, I turned again and again to my own mother, who set for me countless examples of kindness and generosity. Together with my father, she served the Cambodian refugees for many years and received a Queen’s Medal for her service to the community in placing and supporting more than 300 families and their relatives for over 20 years.
Both Yogananda and the Dalai Lama were tremendously fond of their own mothers. The death of his own mother led Yogananda in his search for Divine Mother and the Dalai Lama constantly refers to the world needing the care and affection of mothers for their children in order to understand true compassion.
When God created this universe, there were two aspects which held all energies in balance, the divine masculine and the feminine.
Yogananda also referred to mothers being God as Divine Mother, watching over humanity, through the caring heart of a mother. No matter what a child has done a mother always forgives, and it is with that caring heart that we compassionately interact with all human beings.
How can we do this practically? How can we create spaces for stillness?
Divine Mother does not judge. She looks to our needs.
We can be Divine Mothers for others in a similar way.
BEING DIVINE MOTHER – COMPASSION AND NON-JUDGEMENT
A simple example is by looking at our judgements. Through compassion we can translate our judgments into needs and then connections. This is like the deep listening of our Mother Guan Yin. The listening power of deep empathy. Let’s take an example. Most of our agitation in life comes from a need for deeper connection. Lets say someone says something we really don’t like. They might talk about someone else as stupid or impulsive or something else. Our dislike creates a reaction and often we drop into judgment too. Yeah you’re right! Or How could you think that? Now when we feel that energy of judgement which is usually preceded by agitation or discomfort, if we are aware enough we can notice the agitated energy which is a signal we are disconnecting from our compassion. It happens to me quite often, especially when I am driving! However I am getting better at checking in with myself. I want more connection and understanding. In a conversation with someone, rather than dropping into judgement I can focus on my needs for connection and understanding and ask the person why they don’t understand. Recently I had a situation in business where I wanted more inclusion and clarity so I was very direct with the person. When we are aware we can slow the conversation and our own thoughts down, moving towards stillness and let the thoughts ideas and judgments drop away so that clarity insight and inclusion can arise.
This is the power of empathy, the deep listening of Guan Yin and the caring and kindness of Divine Mother.
In the split second we are able to notice our judgements and shift our focus to our needs for connection and clarity, great insight, an AHA, can arise and the whole situation can be transformed and life can be deeply wonderful.
You become the watcher, the witness, the observing presence, the I AM Presence in the Light of Consciousness.
If you can practice this you can bring all your unconscious judgments into the Light of Consciousness. This is the lamp, the portal into presence. Stillness in action.
Try this. Take your focus away from me and into your self, into what is going on inside of yourself right this moment. Ask yourself, what is going on inside of me? Now watch. Don’t try to analyze it, let your attention rest within. Breathe, breathing calmly helps. Feel the energy of the body, the emotions. Become very present. Open yourself to the inner energy field of presence within the body. Be very still. This is the portal of presence, the doorway into being.
Divine Mother’s Presence is this beauty joy and grace of Being. She is the Presence of stillness in your life, the gap of stillness and presence that speaks to us of wisdom. The Buddha called this the Mother of All Buddhas, prajnaparamita, perfect wisdom. If you meditate on the Heart Sutra you begin to understand the stillness of the heart. This is the greatest gift, the Chintamani Stone of meditation. When you meditate the silence speaks to you. Spirit manifests in form as the Divine Mother. That was my experience of Her in the Zen garden, the wind became Her Voice, the petals Her Skin, the light Her Face, the water Her Tears.
So give all your burdens to Divine Mother. Let Her take all your suffering. A baby has complete trust in her Mother. Let the blessing as She reaches out to you bring you closer with every breath.
KRIYA YOGA – THE PATH TO THE INFINITE
Let us meditate. Try practicing Kriya Yoga or simple breathing of light up and down the astral spine, followed by yearning for Divine Mother at the third eye followed by stillness and presence.
Close your eyes, think of God, Source, Being and give Divine Mother a call from your soul. You can do this at any time. You are my Mother, my Father my friend, I want to come Home, I want to come back to You. Then see in every face the Mother and in every eye Her eyes and in every breath Her breath. Let the world be transformed in front of your eyes. Visualise and feel that everything that appears around you is a pure buddhafield or christgrid peopled by buddhas and christs, Divine Mothers and deities.
I will leave you with the Dalai Lama’s story. He was the youngest child and as such was doted on and spoilt by his mother. She used to carry him on her shoulders. When he wanted to go somewhere he pulled her ears in the direction he wanted to go. If she didn’t obey he would kick and scream.
Such is the grace of Divine Mother. If we think we know best then she will take us where we will. Only when we learn how to surrender to the Divine Will, found in the spaces in our stillness, will we truly find the path home is as simple as riding on Her shoulders.
“Have you not noticed that love is silence? It may be while holding the hand of another, or looking lovingly at a child, or taking in the beauty of an evening. Love has no past or future, and it is with this extraordinary state of silence.” (Krishnamurti)
Love and blessings
Altair and Mother
