Dancing with Shiva - Sai Maa

From 9pm Wednesday night until 7am Thursday morning we had Lord Shiva night. We began and ended with sacred ceremonies, and in between we invoked Shiva, pure space.

Before we entered the hall, each participant received 3 stripes of holy ash from a sacred fire, and a dot of cum cum (I don't know if I'm spelling that correctly - it's the powder used to make the red dot) on the forehead.

Here's me and my daughter before we went in the hall (the ash was still wet):



When we entered the hall, we did so after Maharaji (Shri Satuwa Baba). We passed by Maharaji single file as he gave his darshan (blessing) to each of us. He is such a sweet, beautiful soul!

This is totally off the topic of Shiva night, but at the end of the week as I waited for an elevator I was digging in my bag for lip balm. I had loose dollar bills and a wallet in my hand, and my Burt's Bees Lip Balm and my bag in the other hand. The elevator doors opened and Maharaji stepped out. I was so surprised! I dropped everything in my hands to the floor and I hit my knees with great respect and honor, hands together at my heart. Maharaji broke out in a huge, delighted grin as if it was as much an honor to see me as it was for me to see him, and he placed his hand on my head and offered me a blessing.

I have to say that I am really glad this resort has so many big, comfy chairs in the elevator lobbies! I stood and gathered my things when Maharaji moved on, but standing was brief. I had to sit again quickly as the energy hit the brain. Whoo! Good stuff! :) I sure was not concerned with catching the elevator after that. I could have sat there all day and been perfectly content.

I can still feel the burning intensity of Maharaji's hand on my head. In fact, it was Maharaji's blessing that helped me finally stop crying. I think he must have stabilized the emotional body enough for me to function with grace. Bless him for that! I might still be crying, you never know.

Shiva night... So all night long we chanted and said mantras to Shiva, invoking the qualities of Shiva from deep within ourselves to become manifest. At one point we were on about the 600-700th non-stop 'Om Namah Shivaya' and I was in a rhythm that was chanting me. Eyes open, the meditation of the mantra was meditating me. Shiva is known as the destroyer, the great transformer, and is known for pure space, nothingness (and, to me, everythingness - as pure potential exists in that). Think of him as a great recycler, ridding creation of that which is no longer useful to free us up for new creation. Brahma creates, Vishnu maintains and preserves, Shiva destroyes or purifies. I can't explain what happened to me after those several hundred rounds, and continued for a few hundred more, but something very deep inside me shifted. My throat was already raw from chanting continuously with such force, and I pushed past physical discomfort, past my perceived physical breaking point until I broke through emotionally. I experienced a great release and transmutation of old energy. Huge release. I don't even know what it was. It doesn't matter either. It felt like the Universe was opening up inside me.

Mataji (Sai Maa) kept saying this night reminded her of being in the Himalayas with the great masters. She said she was going to bring the Himalayas to us, she was going to bring snow so we could be in the Himalayas together. When we came out in the early morning it had gone from the mid-60's to this:


The snow continued all day and night and gave us about 2 feet of glorious, fluffy white purity. A shuttle driver from the Vail airport said it was not snowing over there. How odd. ;) Hahaha.

So before we left in the morning, Mataji put us in silence for the day so we would not miss what was going on inside of us. As I waited for breakfast I sat by the window overlooking the river, watching the snow fall. I felt brand new, and also I felt a great union with everything. It was as if the snow was falling through me, and as if I was the snow falling. I was the water rushing, and the rock and the tall pines and the wind, and yet I was here, in the body.

Be here and be there. I am here. I am there. I am.

Here is a photo my roommate snapped of me in the peace I was experiencing sitting by that window BEing:



The only word that comes to mind when I look at this picture is 'purity'.

A kind of funny thing did happen toward the end of our Shiva night... We were chanting one last mantra, a Maha Mantra, and it was kind of long and I was starting to feel beside myself in the energy that was breaking through me. I felt like the sacral chakra was going to explode. I wanted to scream and just give birth to whatever this was that was pressing out from within me, but instead I squirmed in my seat. It was about 5am at this point, maybe a bit later.

So I memorized this long-ish mantra and then closed my burning eyes to go within. The moment I closed the eyes, though, I was dreaming. But I was still chanting. But I was dreaming. So strange! In the dream a phone was ringing and I was just looking at it. I realized as I heard myself still chanting that I was starting to chant what was happening in the dream instead of the Maha Mantra. I could hear myself chant, "the phone is ringing..." and that snapped me back. Pretty funny that I could chant and dream at the same time.

It seems I must have been really tired, but I stayed up, wide awake, for several more hours after that. Maybe the dream was a vision. Maybe I should have answered the phone. Maybe God was calling.