[Uma]

I have to say that Day 7 is my favourite talk so far - it has cleared up a lot of confusion for me about this "enjoying the play of life" business my teacher talks so much about. He's been trying to get through to me for years. I think finally I "get it". (I'm always amazed how blind I can be to the obvious!)

The MP3 and video can still be accessed for free for a few days (see the links I gave in earlier posts).

This was a remarkable talk for me because of the way he guided the meditation as an example of how what we can do in meditation is what we can practice when we are not in sitting meditation, just out in the world doing our thing. (As within so without principle.) He is always doing this, but this talk made it really really clear to me (or maybe my head and heart were more clear this morning). It's one I'm going to have to listen to a few times, there is so much wisdom in it. I'm sure you would find something there that touches you, that is meaningful for you.

I'm fascinated at how he explains so much highly technical stuff in the simplest way (what scripture and learned people can make sound so complicated and boring). In this one meditation he went through a whole string of highly advanced yogic tools, making them all accessible/easy to grasp. This is, to me, one of the signs of a highly advanced master teacher, a teacher's-teacher.

I couldn't do justice to this talk by trying to condense it here so I'm not gonna, so there!

What I'm joyfully taking away from it for the moment is how non-doership removes my burdens and allows me to sport in the play of life. I'm going to practice this a lot! Yup yup yup! Now I understand how to do it.

Now I understand, more fully, why meditation is like weight-lifting building the spiritual muscle, or like learning a new language, building new neuro-pathways in the brain because, as Sri Vasudeva illustrated so beautifully, I get it how God plays hide and seek with us. The game of life (as in meditation) is to spot and capture Him (that is all the doer-ship that is required). (Okay don't get hung up on the "God" word - "Him" is just a convenient metaphor for my own Essence, your own Essence - That which is supreme and unknowable)... So, in essence (in ESSENCE), I try to find That and try to capture That and hold on to That. In this game, if I let go my attention even for a moment, He disappears, vanishes into thin air, and I need to look for Him and capture Him all over again. That is the sporting in the play, the fun part.

Oh God, it's been too long since I had any fun in this world! I really needed this talk...

This "Good" Friday I was thinking "What's so good about it?" especially when Christians the world over mourn the brutal and wrongful execution of a beautiful and innocent messenger of the Divine, Jesus? How fitting that on this day I should discover this particular teaching about how to find and grow the Light in the midst of darkness! Hallelujah!

So to me, this teaching goes to the heart of living in surrender, to the heart of attaining the most beautiful energies and qualities in meditation and keeping them throughout the day and night... to live in bliss, to feel carried in every moment by the Divine and to enjoy whatever life throws at me (like playing a video game but a million times more orgasmic) because this talk enables me to see the play...or to understand how I can build the spiritual eyes to see the play better...and to dance in the light...or tiptoe through the tulips...

No earthly/materialistic goal I could ever conjure up myself (as doer) could compare with this (doing the non-doership work).

To face my karmas without fear, to boldly go where no one has gone before, is one of the promises of enlightened perception:

"There is a web of karma that pulls you into the play, but when it pulls you, because you will have already been placed in it, just let it be, be carried in the play, and you will have the most wonderful experience of working through the past karmas in freedom."
~ Sri Vasudeva

Enough talk... time to go have fun!