PBP-ish: G for…several words starting with “g.”

Again I’ve neglected this journal, after swearing myself to achieve more in the future – quite the egotistical promise, that. The long winter here has been draining; it’s still quite frigid here, and even snowed on Beltane. Everyone around me seems sick at heart, so at least I’ve the cold (ha) comfort of knowing it isn’t only me.

I have been writing a great deal lately, but nothing even remotely serious, as if my mind is determined to enjoy a reprieve from intelligent thought. So, in the spirit of not-thinking-all-that-much, I present my muddled “G” entry, featuring several words that begin with said letter and are tangentially related to each other, though not really relevant to anything.

Swami Shivananda, from “Practice of Yoga.”

I’ve held onto these intensely inspiring quotes for a while and decided to share them today. They are from Śivananda’s Practice of Yoga:

pp. 64-65: “‘As water from a tank may flow through a channel into a plot of land and assume its shape (square, triangular or any other form), so the radiant mind (Taijasa Antahkarana) goes out through the eye or any other sense-organ to the place where an object is and becomes transformed into the shape of that object. This modification of the Antahkarana-stuff is called Vritti.’ Professor P.N. Mukopadhyaya observes: ‘Western psychology gives us a one-sided view of perception: an external stimulus acting upon a sense-organ, e.g. an ether-wave acting on the retina. The mind goes out as a radiant energy and takes the shape of the object. The Antahkarana is believed to be a stuff that being Sattvic (consciousness-revealing) and Taijasa (radiant) can go out and invade the Tamasic (veiling crust of consciousness in the form of object, Vishaya Chaitanya), envelope and infuse it by its own luminosity (somewhat like the X-rays which are themselves ordinarily invisible, but make opaque things transparent) and thereby discover the essential identity between itself and the object; it is finding out of this essential identity between consciousness as knower (Pramatri Chaitanya) and consciousness as the known (Vishaya Chaitanya) and that between consciousness as knowing (Pramana Chaitanya) and consciousness as object (Vishaya Chaitanya) which makes the substance of perception according to Vedanta.’”

pp. 65-66: “Just as camphor in the presence of fire is turned into fire and absorbed in fire when burnt, so also a mind when purified becomes of the nature of Brahman. Just as water in the presence of salt, when a lump is placed in a basin of water, becomes saltish, so also mind in the presence of Brahman, when purified, becomes of the nature of Brahman.

Mind, when purified by the removal of six passions, becomes your Guru. There is a voice from the mind for every doubt that occurs in your Buddhi. Train yourself to hear minutely with care the subtle, silent voice. All knowledge comes from within.”

pp. 66: “…[the mind, which] constantly meditates on this picture and becomes that picture, Brahman, according to this analogy. As he thinks, so he becomes. The mind becomes that on which it intensely meditates. It infinitely expands and merges in Brahman.”

PBP-ish: F for female.

Edited, 9 April, to add: There were two posts, from other blogs, which inspired me to consider and write this one. Both are infinitely more interesting and better-written than mine, so if “gender in worship” is a topic that intrigues you, then seek out these two related resources: Beth’s Beyond Goddess: Female Devotees of Male Deities and Lykeia’s Ares and Feminists.

Indra is famed as a hyper-masculine warrior god, but like any deity worth his crown, he takes whatever forms He pleases, by whatever designs He conceives – including female figures and traditional female roles (like Mother). He manifests Divine Will; He acts by Truth, and the Divine is ultimately transcendent, or encompassing, of gender.

However, most embodied beings in this world – except maybe some random exclusions like certain lizard species and phosphorescent deep-ocean bacteria – are subject to a classification of gender, based upon genetic material as expressed in genitalia and/or reproductive capacity. Among humans, especially, this question of gender is a complex one and causes a great number of messy arguments.

Now, in case you’ve missed this in the last hundred blog entries, I am classified as “female.” Years of contemplating this simple fact has led me to a conclusion that disturbs me: I can’t decide what being “female” actually is, nor how it’s supposed to express itself in my life.

PBP-ish: E, ego, extremes.

I still can’t entirely define the ego, but I know it in part as special-snowflake separateness, the error of feeling that I alone am engulfed in despair, while the rest of the world is light and joy. The greatest antidote I have found so far to this mistake is to be grateful. It’s deceptively simple; there’s no elabourate practice in it, no injunction to self-flagellation, no scolding myself to always improve, no jumping to any grandiose extremes of austerity and practice as I’m all too “skilled” in doing. God, but simplicity is difficult.

Today I simply try to be grateful because there is joy and rightness in it, and I fix my heart for a moment upon Him.

I bow to you, beloved Indra, who is the maddening, marvelous axis mundi of myself, who embraces me as wordless reply to my anger and struggle. I have no doubt that You will eventually snap every bond of “sanity” that I think remain, and I will love You all the more even as I protest rage and scorn, for I cannot be indifferent to You. May I fight to reach You, passionate one, bright, brave, and beautiful, who has always battled for me.

PBP-ish: D for depression.

I’ve delayed in writing my second post for the letter “D,” due to a delaying factor which I will now discuss in this delayed post that was delayed due to said delaying factor. Amazingly, though, D is not for “delay,” but for “depression,” which sucks significantly more than tardiness.

PBP-ish: D for donation.

Most religions have a tradition of giving to others, so I’m not really going to write anything earth-shatteringly novel here. In Hinduism, generosity or dāna takes many forms. I quite appreciate that states of mind and existence are counted among these – such as with the sharing of knowledge (vidya-dāna) – since giving and receiving is indeed not limited to the material only.

It is part of my chosen spiritual path to treat this form, this life, as donation. The obvious manifestation of this thinking is in blood donation (‘raktha-dāna’), an action that can benefit a person with excess Pitta doṣa (NOT THAT I HAVE ANGER ISSUES OR ANYTHING, WHY DO YOU ASK). It’s a serene, life-saving sort of occupation, one that moves me to contemplate my own femality via a vaguely-related teaching from my past mentor, that men bleed for death, women bleed for life. I sit, do quiet japa, think on Indra as warrior and giver of vitality, and pray for the vigour and health of the eventual recipient(s). I’m also registered as an organ donor and typed on the bone marrow registry, which I find an amusing sort of “giving”; by essentially volunteering to be harvested for spare parts in case of some future disaster, I receive a sobering yet oddly hilarious reminder that the body forms a collection of tissues worn by the soul.

I choose to discuss those donations because many people are eligible for blood donation and the donor registries, but are frightened or intimidated by the processes. Talking about those activities can give reassurance and encouragement to folks who are considering undertaking them. However, if I do any other kind of donation, I choose to guard it as private.

About a year ago, I read a book about different approaches to sādhana; it was not a traditional Hindu text, but I found its offerings useful nonetheless, particularly one suggestion: the idea of “royalty” as simply being “worthy of a crown.” To undertake the so-called “royal sādhana” was to comprehend one’s life as an offering by living as such, to practice generosity in secret without any expectation of recognition or reward, to learn why the highest must be the lowest. This spoke to me deeply, and led me to examine myself more closely. How much of my generosity was tainted by a desire for acknowledgment or praise, to be seen as noble and pure and kind? What would I do, or give, when no-one was watching; what would be the measure of my heart in dark silence?

In the last year, I’ve of course kept Indra in my thoughts while pondering those questions – Indra, the King, the highest position fallen to the lowest esteem, crowned yet unrecognised. And so far, I’ve come to doubt strongly that the Strong, the Vigorous, the Ruler, occupies any position that he doesn’t choose, or that his “fall” was an accidental event without any lessons to offer us. The very word “donation” implies a hierarchy, the ability to give by virtue of having something which someone else lacks – but truly, who occupies what place in the rankings?

Algernon Charles Swinburne, from “Dolores.”

“When, with flame all around him aspirant,
Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,
The implacable beautiful tyrant,
Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;
And a sound as the sound of loud water
Smote far through the flight of the fires,
And mixed with the lightning of slaughter
A thunder of lyres.”

PBP-ish: C for coincidences.

It was twenty years ago that I was riding my bike in my neighbourhood, and felt a sudden, odd urge to park the cycle and walk down the alley of a certain house. Being a fairly new Wiccan then, I wanted to pay respectful attention to bumps of intuition and other “witchy” inklings, so I curiously – if warily, understanding that a trespassing charge wouldn’t benefit pagan PR – obliged.

I could smell the rosebush even before I saw it, its flowers exuding a heady, perfume-sweet fragrance that I’d never experienced before or since, a scent which brought romance-laden words like “damask” to mind. The leaves were glossy and bright, the blooms dark red and velvet to touch, and I stood there like an intoxicated fool for some time, quaffing the aroma (for this was a delight too pervasive to be sniffed only).

This is the closest match I’ve found to that flower, for I never did discover exactly what it was. But it was a time that I remember clearly experiencing the sensation that I would later identify as Indra. And I recall standing hidden in the night-dark shade of someone else’s home, feeling content and secure in a tiny rose-scented world. That little alley became a refuge at a time that I truly needed one.

I once asked why on earth Lord would bother with such small directives. His response, and the reason that I think of him with bemusement as the Lord of Details, was along the lines of Why would I not?

PBP-ish: C for Conversations.

Each person has a different route of communication with the Divine, and over the years I’ve found that each God I’ve worshipped has His/Her own particular preferences in responding, as well. It’s difficult and discomfiting to describe experiences so intimate, however, and up until now I’ve never really talked about how I experience Lord.

This post describes a little of the strange mixture of riddle, dream, and parley that marks my-self-and-life as Indra’s. It also alludes to my knack of journeying around the truth in gradually-decreasing circles, and discloses my Indra-specific habit of having silent thought-conversations which could be manifest insanity or divinity or something in-between. (“Divinity,” He sniffs.)

I would invite you to “enjoy,” but honestly, even I’m not sure what to make of this post – and I (partially) wrote it!

PBP-ish: B for bhakti.

~*in which I produce a jaded rant about devotion, love, and lack*~

“La Victime.”

“Veis-tu l’s écllaers, os-tu l’tounère?
Lé vent érage et la née a tché!
Les douits saont g’laïs, la gnièt est nère -
Ah, s’tu m’ôimes ouvre l’hus – ch’est mé!”

Do you see the lightning, do you hear the thunder?
The wind is raging and the snow has fallen!
The brooks are frozen, the night is dark -
Ah, if you love me open the door – it’s me!

–George Métivier

Pagan Blog Project-ish: A for Appetites.

“To say that I ‘lost’ my appetite during those years would be a joke. On the contrary, I ate, slept, and breathed appetite. . . . I had appetites the size of Mack trucks — driving and insistent longings for food and connection and bodily pleasure — but I found their very power too daunting and fearsome to contend with.”
–Carolyn Knapp, from Appetites: Why Women Want.

Pagan Blog Project-ish.

I don’t know if I’d call Hinduism a “pagan” faith – except in the word’s popular sense of “non-Christian” – though it does share several characteristics with many pagan religions, like the absence of central authority and proselytization, and the presence of many gods or god-forms. I came to Hinduism from Wicca and then Vodou, so the most I can claim is to be a “former-pagan blogger.” But I’m enduring some cacophonous inner turmoil lately – the culmination of many months of smaller problems, made worse by lots of optimistic procrastination – and I need impetus and motivation to keep writing, before this blog becomes a dead relic.

The Pagan Blog Project is a fantastic idea, and I’ve decided to follow its instructions without actually registering as a participant. That way, I can benefit from its structure, without stealing thunder from the actual pagan writers and this wonderful opportunity they have for education and discussion. And you can all benefit (read: giggle) by watching me dissect myself, with the same fervour that I formerly reserved for novels I didn’t like.

When I first asked for blogpost inspiration back in November, a friend gave me this request:
“I know we have touched on that journey in conversation, but I would love to hear the full version.”
That journey refers to my stumble from other faiths into Hinduism, and from the service of other gods to Indra’s. This isn’t easy for me to write about, because there are two traps for me in describing spiritual experiences:

–Getting caught up in the wonderment and terrificality of story-telling, exaggerating slightly for powerful effect and/or starting to feel all Special-Chosen-One-ish and Hinduier-than-thou.
–Feeling nakedly humiliated and embarrassed because a lot of my stories reveal me as a complete doink; there’s a strong temptation to later delete the entries in a fit of bruised-ego pique.

Nowhere is this dichotomy of “I’m awesome! Wait, no, I’m not!” illustrated more clearly than with the letter “A.” This first entry is difficult but necessary, and fortuitously, it coincides with the very beginning of the alphabet:

A is for Alcohol.

In which I dissect “Thundergod”: A book review.

I admit, I was starting to feel left out by the mass media’s modern massacre of mythology. Worshippers of Greek gods have Xena: Warrior Princess to hate. Kemetians probably loathe Stargate SG-1, and Odinists can weep into their hands (albeit peeking between their fingers) while watching Thor. But there wasn’t really anything Indra-centric in the entertainment world, so there was nothing to put me into a grumpy rotten temper and cause me to get annoyed and flail about in irritation–

Until now. Readers, I present to you Thundergod: The Ascendance of Indra (ISBN 9381626979).

From the jacket blurb:
“One day a prince from one of the four great tribes will unite the sons of Aditi and he will sow the seeds of an empire that will rule the world. Born of a prophetic union between the Earth Goddess Gaia and Daeyus, chief of the Devas, comes the story of a child recounted by history to have become a king and retold by legend to have transcended into a god. Indra, destiny’s orphan, finds himself growing up in a vortex of treachery and tribal incumbency. Shielded from the usurpers of his birthright only by the watchful eye of the warrior sage Mitra, he first sets out to conquer the hearts of his tribesmen, and then the kingdoms of the unmapped world. Aligning forces with his brothers by blood oath and divine intervention Agni, Vayu, Varuna and Soma, Indra embarks on a military campaign of epic proportions, stretching from the Euphrates in Asia Minor to Harappa on the Indian subcontinent, encountering formidable armies, demonic beings and powerful goddesses, and losing the only woman he really loves. Will he get her to love him again? Will he avenge the death of his father? Will he assume his place in the pantheon of the gods? In a compelling saga, blended by history, spiced by legend and mutated by myth, Rajiv G. Menon transforms ten years of research into a lightning rod of an action adventure that streaks into your consciousness with the speed of Indra’s thunderbolt.”

If you’re thinking, “well, that sounds ridiculous,” then here’s some sparkly CGI to hypnotise you into forgetting what you just read:

THE TRAILER, unlike the world has ever seen!

Of course, this is a novel about Indra, so the publishers had me by the proverbial balls from the moment they announced the title. I bought the book, I suffered through it, and now I’m going to review it as a public service.

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The short version:
Meet Indra, the child of a prophecy so weighty that he’s one manger short of his own religion.
He’s got mad Deva skillz and is just so gosh-darned handsome…laaaaadies.

His muscles are many, his thoughts few.

Then he does some “love” things:

And some imbibing things:

And WAY TOO MANY murder things:

And transforms into a megalomaniacal psychotic man-god who’s very, very angry.

THE END.

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The really, really, really short version:
When you combine:

with:

then you get:

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Want to read a slightly longer recap? Just click the part with the clickie.

Offerings to Indra (part 4 of 4).

The Vedic religion of the fourfold godhead – Agni, Soma, Sūrya, Indra – embodies the understanding of everything as yajña; the outer ritual, of offering substances into the sacred fire, is the material form of a process which occurs at every level of existence. A human birth gives a tremendous opportunity to awaken the soul’s inner fire and to aspire to bliss, light, and truth, to walk among Devas as equal and to realise the underlying Godhead, Brahman, beyond all.

Each person can become as Indra, not through the literal action of undertaking a set number of ceremonies and earning a heavenly crown, but through the understanding of every breath, moment, and action as sacrifice of one into the next, and through the awakening of that wild, noble, heroic spirit within, which seeks for Truth alone.

The Vedic yajña-rite is rarely performed now, but the ideal of life-as-sacrifice continues:

“Every single act of one who would lead a life of purity should be in the nature of yajña. Yajña having come to us with our birth, we are debtors all our lives, and thus for ever bound to serve the universe. And even as a bond slave receives food, clothing and so on from the master whom he serves, so should we gratefully accept such gifts as may be assigned to us by the Lord of the universe. What we receive must be called a gift; for as debtors we are entitled to no consideration for the discharge of our obligations. Therefore, we may not blame the Master, if we fail to get it. Our body is His to be cherished or cast away according to His will.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

This is what we praise of that Indra called Śatayajña: not one who has earned a position by pouring substances into a hundred fires, but one who, as an embodied Deva, shines with the merit of immeasurable generosity, one whose very being is sacrifice and who, thus, is able to rightly say of Himself that He is Truth, Life, and Light.

When I write here about offering to Indra, I write not with the thought of the complex Vedic rituals, rites from which I am excluded anyway, but with the thought of yajña in my mind, and of feeding the fire of my own yearning for Him.

“Invoking him, the more recent ones
Have reached out to your former ancient deeds of fame, Indra.
Just in as much as we understand,
So do we praise you, hero brought by prayer, mighty one.”
Ṛgveda VI.21.6.

Offerings to Indra (part 3 of 4).

“Lay on the yokes, and fasten well the traces: formed is the furrow, sow the seed within it.
Through song may we find bearing fraught with plenty: near to the ripened grain approach the sickle.”
Ṛgveda X.101.3

Offerings to Indra (part 2 of 4).

“Here in the garden, fountain of life
Here in the garden, arcane delights
Are born from the womb.
Down here the seed will rise,
from dark earth to the light,
to kiss the sun again.”
–Brendan Perry, Crescent

Sometimes the Devas’ gifts are inadvertent, or at least made to seem so. I begin this section with five plants created by “clumsiness.”

Offerings to Indra (part 1 of 4).

Without temple worship or other devotees to guide me, I had no idea how to please Lord Indra, no knowledge of what specific offerings were His and what He might like best. Of course the Lord of Life sanctifies all beings; on a higher level, we know that there is no-one with whom He is not associated, no life where He is not. But on the earthly plane, this knowledge of special gifts is like the wish to prepare the favourite foods of a visiting family member – something one discovers with anticipation and delight – and is also essential information, both for understanding a God’s essence and for avoiding inadvertent ineptitude (for there are some items which are specifically not given to certain Hindu Gods). While I have not found any “taboos” regarding Indra, there are some growing things which possess qualities that resemble His deeds, attributes, or names, and these gifts of the Earth are especially sacred to Him.

Offenses of Indra: Pāna and Soma, inebriation and intoxication.

While the imbibing of intoxicants (pāna) is a relatively minor “crime” in Hindu śāstra, the texts mostly agree in recommending that a spiritual seeker avoid alcohol. The substance is considered to derange the senses, damage the body, and promote negative actions by weakening self-control. From what I have read, also, Hindu culture looks down upon the drinking of alcohol, and especially drunkenness, as a decadent and dirty Western deed.

In Ayurvedic medicine no substance is outright rejected. Rather, the truth of the Guṇas (qualities or principles) is taught, with all manifest conditions being Sattvik (pure, clear), Rajasik (aggressive, active), or Tamasik (inert, ignorant); the practitioner is taught to understand these properties and then select treatments according to desired effects. Alcohol is classified as a Tamasik beverage, promoting darkness in the mind and wreaking damage upon the channel-systems (srotamsi) within the body. Yet alcohol also has a medicinal utility, because it possesses a subtle, penetrating effect that can carry healing herbal essences to the deepest tissues, and an herbal tincture or medicinal wine (called drakṣa) may be administered to alleviate certain conditions. However, even Ayurveda’s approach to liquor as a double-edged sword never extends to a tolerance of dissipation.

Personally, I love the translation of somarasa as “Soma-wine,” the word “wine” bringing to my mind such delightful associations as the sacred frenzy of Bacchantes, the sharing of the ritual-cup, and the pouring of libations. But others understand Soma as mere liquor, and translate Vedic hymns to describe the Devas – Indra chief among them – as besotted with booze.

Now accepting inspiration.

I try not to talk about myself or my personal journey on this blog, because there’s so much ego on the Internet, and too little Indra. However, my personal life explains my blog’s long gaps between posts: I’ve been working 80 hours a week since April, and I am tired, y’all.

There are tons of lengthy posts I have on the back-burner, but I’m flagging in energy and willpower to write my lengthy monologues. Since I do my best and most enthusiastic work when someone else requests it, I’m asking for help with motivation.

Do you have a question, thought, or idea about Indra? Do you want to know something about me, my religious past or my present as a Western Hindu? Did you come to this site with a question that hasn’t yet been answered by the blog?

Please ask, in the comments. I’ll try to answer anything I can. Thanks in advance – I hope!

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