Ask Parvati Finale: The Miracle of Nature's Healing - Part 7: Nature's Masterful Healing

(Continued from Nature's Perfect Love)

 

Each moment, healthy or not, is constantly changing. Of that we can be sure. After this most intense year full of immense change, I am still in an ongoing healing process. My body is not the same as it was. In response to my life changes, and miraculous healing, I have had to modify my choreography in my shows. I have had to change my lifestyle and adopt new habits, ones that put my physical health at the same level of priority as my spiritual well-being. There is no doubt that before the injury, I overlooked my physical needs and took my physical vitality for granted.

 

Your question this week says, “The body was designed to be healthy.” I would agree that this is true. But it is also designed to change, grow and evolve. And our idea of health may be limited to what we think “healthy” means. When we live in balance and respect, the body changes so gracefully. Major physical changes, as I experienced, may be part of that. But the orchestration of my healing was masterful from beginning to end. I did nothing. Think about all the body did… the cellular repair and regeneration, the rewiring of the electrical system, the tissues being rebuilt, the nervous system integrating and organizing… it goes on and on! Mind-blowing.

 

Your question asks me about the power of genetics and DNA. Without the input of consciousness, I do not believe that genetics, on its own, really mean much. Cells are intelligent because of the memory they store. I would say that genetics store certain consciousness patterns that reflect what we have learned on our soul path. It is all perfect. These memories and patterns will draw to them other patterns that will support our evolution, be they painful or smooth. The painful stuff has to do with our resistances. The smoothness has to do with our willingness to surrender to a higher power.

 

We never know when we will die or when we will get sick. We do know that our true nature is eternal. We can manage our health as best we can, and be willing to see what happens in our life as a perfect teaching for what we need to learn now. If we try to figure it all out and control with our minds, we will suffer, because we cannot know the ways of the universe, until we too are fully enlightened and at one with it all. At that point, we have transcended the ego-mind and all notions of duality. We would have returned to the whole, the One, and be in flow.

 

What I do know, is that if we want to return to the One, we must be willing to let go of trying to know and trying to figure it all out. If we feel we have it figured out, then there is an “us and them”, an object/subject and we are not in a oneness state.

 

There is no such thing to me as something purely physical. All matter exists because of the play of consciousness through it. Consciousness determines form. Consciousness exists without form, but not the other way around.

 

There is always a metaphysical component to life. I saw that first-hand when my dad was taken off the life support machine, in ICU after a terrible fall down the stairs that cracked his skull and rendered him in a coma. After life support was gone, my dad’s heart pumped away, because he was an athlete, super fit, always taking great care of his body. His heart pumped for two days, without the help of the machine, before he died. Even though he was on his way out, and his heart pumped somewhat like a machine, there still was life force there. He still felt alive. But once his heart stopped, I saw his spirit – a palpable life force – float away through and out of the crown of his head. His body then lay there like pure matter without consciousness, inert, without intelligence. It was lifeless, less vital than a stone. I will never forget that image.

 

We must always see our state of health, whatever it may be, as grace. If we are breathing, even if we are ill in every other way, then life force is still present. Life force is Divine, not for us to control. The human form is visited by it. We pay it homage. We give thanks. We learn to embody it masterfully through surrendered grace. And we get on and enjoy every moment we have while in the miracle of this exquisite human form and while on this Eden we call planet Earth.

 

Again, thank you for being with me on this “Ask Parvati” blogging journey. I have felt very grateful for the opportunity to share. I will post something entirely new tomorrow for you to enjoy. Until then, be well!

 

Much love,

Parvati

 

PS: I am looking for a volunteer video editor to help create a documentary with the footage I have from the North Pole. If you know anyone, please pass this on. If you are interested, please contact me at Parvati@parvatimusic.com. Thank you!

Ask Parvati Finale: The Miracle of Nature's Healing - Part 6: Nature's Perfect Love

(Continued from “Everything Must Die to Be Reborn”)

 

We are the planet. When the Earth cries, so do we. When she moves, so do we. We are carried by an inexplicable force that moves through our cells, that animates our souls, that literally keeps us alive.

 

Nature loves us in a way we cannot comprehend. We cannot comprehend it because it is not of our ego-mind, which knows only to divide and separate. By surrendering to Nature’s intelligence, I was called on the North Pole journey. By surrendering to Nature, I was also healed and experienced what doctors call “a miracle”.

 

To walk: we take it for granted. But it is a miracle. Through the injury, I saw how even the impulse to move is grace, a force beyond our ego. We think we are the doers, but the “me” does nothing. Grace always is, moving through us, even when we don’t see it. We think ourselves as divided, but we are literally one.

 

Healing only happens in the state of absolute surrender. When we think “we” are healing, we interfere. There is no doing. Because of the grace of free will, we can be amplifiers or sludge in Nature’s communication pathways. Nature will keep on singing, creating and evolving with or without us. It does not need our “help”. It needs our respect and service. We must reverentially get out of Nature’s way in order to fully thrive as a spiritual being in this material world.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that the body is a miracle. Life is a miracle. The very fact that we breathe – really think about it! It is miraculous.

 

I completely agree with the question sent this week that the body is designed to be healthy. But we must remember that it is not up to us to “make it” that way. We do our best. We show up and tend to its needs then get out of the way. The showing up is like going the gym and eating healthy. The getting out of the way is remaining in balance at the gym and not overdoing it, and not being attached to looking a certain way, but trusting that feeling of wholeness that is unique to each one of us.

 

What I have understood through my studies in sound healing is that the universe is fundamentally resonant and moves towards harmony. It does not move towards dissonance. (Refer to The World is Sound: Nada Brahma: Music and the Landscape of Consciousness, by Joachim Ernst Berendt). Just as the universe seeks harmony, so does the micro-universe of the body. The body is in a perpetual state of seeking homeostasis, a form of balance in this moment, as it is. Balance may not be to us what it is to Nature. Nature holds the bigger picture. We think healing may look one way, when Nature has another plan. We do not know Nature’s plan. Perhaps what we perceive as illness is a gift. We are subject to force so much greater than our will. We cannot see the whole picture, which is why the best attitude is surrender and reverence.

 

People get sick, but it is not necessarily a “bad” thing. In a product-driven society, sickness is seen as a weakness. But I was technically sick through most of last year, yet was contributing socially and went through profound growth at all levels. I was not really “unwell”. In some ways, I was never better. Yes, I experienced immense pain and was not mobile. But my body/spirit alignment needed to be re-patterned into a new relationship. Something had to change in order for that to happen.

 

We must let go of the old to make way for the new. Death is the beginning of life, just as life ends with death. My injury was the breaking point of one way of being and the birth of a new way. At a micro level, that happens all the time in our body, cells dying, new ones being born. We are constantly shifting and evolving.

 

In a healing state, there is no judgment about what is good or bad or right or wrong. It all just is. As the bio-dynamic osteopath would say, we are being held perfectly within the whole. The illness is being held within the whole. Remain there. If we get into thinking this illness is good or bad, a punishment, a burden that we must move, change, shift… then we are playing God, thinking we can see the whole picture and becoming divided once again. We see so little. We know so little. It is not up to us to know these things. We show up and get out of the way.

 

Through my recovery, I continually returned to a knowing that to heal, “I” don't do the healing. Nor do others do the healing. Healing happens through grace and grace alone. I, or a healer I am working with, may be a vehicle for grace, but healing does not come from “me” or any person.

I also knew through my entire recovery, with absolute certainty, that reality is plastic and therefore malleable. Physical form would change if it was divine will for that to happen and if I were to get out of the way. The universe moves towards harmony and wholeness, and so does the very force of life, so why not now and in this body?

I stayed with that image of plasticity constantly. I did several focused meditations and visualizations daily, knowing that physical form is just a conglomerate of dancing molecules, held together by specific thought forms, “my” thought forms, attachments that “I” have that make up “my” karma. So physical form is not solid or fixed. If I could rest in that field of possibility, then matter could change shape and flow into fuller wholeness – however that would look.

Though the process of healing is about me being present for it, to witness its grace, it is simultaneously about getting out of the way. And beyond whatever ability “I” may have to show up or get out of the way, ultimately the Divine holds the trump card. It was all about Divine Will, what grace had in store for me.

I had to find a place in my heart and soul that knew that whatever would happen would be in my highest good - whatever. If I were meant to be the performer in a wheelchair (I told the universe that there was no way I would give up singing and performing) then so it would be. I had to be equally ok with it all, while holding the possibility, without attachment, that I would walk again.

 

(Continued tomorrow with “Nature’s Masterful Healing”)

Ask Parvati Finale: The Miracle of Nature's Healing - Part 5: Everything Must Die To Be Reborn

(Continued from “My Own Tsunami”)

 

What followed was a rearranging of everything I knew. On one level, I call the injury “karma fast forward”, where I was challenged to let go of that which no longer served and had to learn to absolutely trust a higher power for everything. When you realize that you may never walk again, may never even do the simplest things that we take for granted, your ego crashes and dies while something else is born. For me, what was being born was whatever that whale wanted me to become. It was all about the whale.

 

For those few months that I was immobilized in bed, I felt like the whale was taking over. I saw a blue light almost constantly, like a sphere that hovered over things, around things and within my inner eye as I closed my eyelids. I was being held by a blue bubble of light.

 

When I first realized I could not move my legs, I inwardly dove down, with my inner eye, to the root of my spine, and took a look there. I knew that whatever was preventing me from walking was at the base of my spine. My spine somehow had broken.

 

What I saw at my root was a whale, almost dead, with a heart rate I could only describe as nearly flatlining. My relationship with the whale, and its rhythm, guided my healing and all the work with the biodynamic osteopath who cared for me with unsurpassed skill and attention. All I knew is that to fully heal, whatever that meant, I needed to completely surrender to the intelligence within that whale and let it consume me.

 

As my healing progressed, I felt like that blue light, and the body of that whale, was moving up my legs towards my head. As the blue light progressed upward, I was able to wiggle my toes, then my ankles, then my legs. After a couple of months, as the light fully consumed me, I was able to roll slowly over onto my side, then my stomach. This took weeks of intensive meditative surrender and absolute trust in the higher consciousness beyond my ego. I knew nothing of what was happening, yet I knew exactly what was happening. I felt a oneness with something so much greater than “me”.  All I knew was THAT was all I needed to know. I might never walk again, but whatever was happening was totally OK.

 

With immense faith in pure consciousness and the power of that consciousness to heal, I let go. I was being challenged to surrender with absolute trust to the force of life that unconditionally loves and supports my highest good.

 

Through my healing, I also actively worked with a system called MAP: Medical Assistance Program, created by Machaelle Small Wright. It instructs us how to co-create with Nature Spirits, the Devic Realm and a group from the Cosmic Intelligence to assist and amplify our healing progress. I had been working with my MAP group for years. Now that working relationship was being taken to a whole new level.

 

As I connected to these unseen energies, I could feel that I was tapping into the very fabric of life, the vibrant intelligence that co-creates to manifest form, that weaves together the seen and unseen. I could feel Nature’s overwhelming sense of receptivity to my willingness to participate in the dance of life. It is staggering that we have at our disposal a resource of such power, all the while, Nature compassionately and patiently waits for our simple willingness to open and go there.

 

Through this process of healing, my body began to express itself as an infant’s would. An inner impulse to roll onto my tummy from my back came spontaneously from within. If ever I “tried” to move in any way, I was subjected to the most mind-altering electric shock treatment you could imagine – one I describe to my friends as “if you slowly cut off my arm, it would be less painful.”

 

The impulse then followed, once on my tummy, to gently press up on my arms and look around. Eventually I was able to press up onto all fours from my tummy. Then it was crawl, then reach up, then stand up, then walk. It was a rebirth. By June 1, 2011, I stood on my feet again for the first time.

 

In the months that followed through the summer of 2011, I had to learn to put one foot in front of the other, in a whole new way. The whale had guided me through a shamanic journey. I went from feeling at first inundated in a cosmic soup, like an ocean of consciousness, when the injury first struck. As the weeks progressed, somehow consciousness was taking a crystalline shape, like salt in the sea. I was part of those crystals. Then I became like a sea creature, like the whale in a fluid oneness with that oceanic purity. Then I became a land creature, like a lion, as I crawled around the floor as a baby would. As I grabbed onto things to pull myself up into standing, I was like a monkey. Then a new human body was born. None of this was anything I could figure out. It was a force so much greater than me. It was growing inside me, like life itself, enveloping me, consuming me, transforming my very cells. I did not understand how it was working. But it was working and that is all that mattered. And there was no bargaining with its omniscient power.

 

By the end of July, I was almost well enough to go see my spiritual teacher Amma, who was visiting from India. Not yet physically able to sit, I was able to lie in the back seat of a car, and then barely walk up to see Her. As She greeted me, I looked into Her eyes and bawled. I could not control my legs or spine. My body was a marionette controlled by a force other then my will. I saw there in the most visceral way that I am literally not the doer. This body is a beautiful and perfect vehicle for Divine Will. My job is to get out of the way and witness. Through my tears, I asked if I ever would dance and perform again. She said yes, "after some time".

 

By the end of October, 2011, I was headlining a festival in Florida, back on stage singing, dancing, in rapturous surrender. It WAS a miracle. And the cherry on top of the miracle, if there can be such a thing, was that the concert I gave was a benefit concert for Amma’s Embracing The World charity. Perfection of perfections.

 

(Continued tomorrow with “Nature’s Perfect Love”)

Ask Parvati Finale: The Miracle of Nature's Healing - Part 1: The Secret

Before we begin this week's topic, which will be the last Ask Parvati at this time, I offer you the opportunity for you to give a little support for a cause close to my heart: I would like to introduce you to Aymeric Maudous, founder of EcoXpo in Australia.

Aymeric is launching this fall the Arcadia International Environmental Film Festival, a non-for-profit, sharing tickets proceeds with like-minded NGOs around the world to support their great efforts in protecting our planet. Make sure that you watch the festival trailer and hit “like” on their FB page.

With Grace, perhaps some of the footage from my North Pole adventure will be shown at the festival and I may be able to support by performing for some of the international events. Ok, now to answering my last Ask Parvati!

QUESTION:

Dear Parvati,

I believe that the body is designed to be healthy. It amazes me how it can repair itself when we break a leg or cut ourselves. Yet, people do get sick; the body breaks down. When we get ill or when something in the body fails to function the way it was designed, is this simply a question of genetics and DNA or is there always an underlying metaphysical origin?

ANSWER:

Wow. Deep breaths. Becoming still… Here we go…

Even though I know it and often live it, moments like these make me feel awestruck in wonder by the Grace of life. Miracles are so often made up of the small things in life.

The “Ask Parvati” blog entries began just after I finished recounting my North Pole journey and when my life was about to radically change as the tsunami hit Japan. As I now prepare to shift gears from “Ask Parvati” to a different blog format, I receive a question for my last “Ask Parvati” that encourages me to share some of the deeper healing I have experienced over the past year, since “Ask Parvati” first started. The synchronicity of it is a real delight. Thank you for trusting your intuition to send me this question.

As I faced writing my last “Ask Parvati” post this week, I wondered if, in some way, I would share what I have been going through this year, to give readers more personal insight into my answers to your many wonderful questions over the last year. And then this question arrived - a confirmation that it is time for full transparency. For this reason, your question feels very fitting for my last “Ask Parvati” entry. As I answer it, I will take the liberty to fill you in on my year, to add more depth to my answer to your timely question.

In the spirit of candour, I would like to share that in some ways I have felt this year that I have been hiding a secret from you all. As I have written these weekly blog entries, I have been simultaneously going through nothing short of huge spiritual and physical transformation. Because of that, my blogging has been therapeutic for me, a way for me to channel the insights that were concurrent with my inner changes. I have loved this vehicle to share the expansive experiences during likely the most powerful, transformative and scary period of my life, in a way that also supported others to grow: a true win-win. Thank you for your willingness to read and support the process. And now, for the reveal…

(Continued tomorrow with “Following The Call to Nature Co-Creation”)

Ask Parvati 38: Finding Centre in the Busy Day - Part 4: Seeing All As A Reflection of The Divine

I believe that prayers are always answered, just not always the way we think they will be. We ask for help getting over our tendency to feel angry and have outbursts. Next thing you know, a really irritating person has arrived in your life and you repeatedly blow up. We think the Divine will just take away our problems, when in fact, we have to do the work. We get that irritating person to practice letting go of anger.

 

You may pray for a raise at work and instead of getting more money, you get fired, only to then find that you really did not like your job anyway and want to start your own company and end up earning far more than you had ever imagined. What first seemed like the opposite of what you wanted, ends up being better than what you had asked for.

 

Grace always is. It is everywhere, in everything. We can walk through our days, habitually numbed out, feeling hard done by and seeking love externally. Or we can open to the possibility of always being supported.

 

Today, when you practice, begin thankful for everything that happens. Grace is at work, even when you don't see or understand it. Stay open to what is and receive this moment. Miracles are everywhere.

 

More tips tomorrow.

Enjoy this day,

Parvati

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 4: The Healing Begins

THE HEALING BEGINS

 

(Continued from India: Meeting My Guru (The Doors Blow Open))

During my year in India, I ignorantly approached my desire for spiritual awakening with the fervour of an ambitious young architect. As a consequence, I blew open my psychic field and was challenged to find the balanced link (or yoga) between spirit and matter.

 

Nine months of intense burning fevers and long periods of spiritual bliss fuelled by intensive sadhana (spiritual practice) awoke subtle energies and connected me to "otherness". A neophyte along the path, I thought spirit and matter were separate. I wanted to meet God. And to me, God was "out there". I had been inadvertently telling my body that I no longer needed it, so off I went, higher and higher until a near death experience forced me back.

 

The fever that I had when I landed on Indian soil grew into an array of physical challenges. That, coupled with the intensity of my spiritual practices, culminated in an experience that changed everything. While traveling in the desert in Rajasthan, I collapsed and was brought by an inn-keeper on the back of his motorcycle to a hospital due to high fevers. A bed-ridden patient there, I had the classic NDE (near-death experience), traveled down the tunnel of light that led "to the other side". At the end of the tunnel of light, I was greeted by a group of beings, welcoming me to travel over. I remember vividly what happened next. As I went to merge with them, a voice I can only describe as the voice from the root of my soul said: “I want to live!”

 

Within every ounce of my being, a total redirection occurred. At that moment I very quickly found myself falling down that tube of light, landing into my body and waking up in a hospital bed unsure how I had gotten there. I had no idea whether I was at the hospital for a day, a week or a month. Meeting my guru Amma opened the doors to who I was. This NDE blew the doors wide open to the multiplicity of otherness. Now I see it was all Her anyway.

 

As I have shared in the past, I was a child sensitive to "otherness", skills I suppressed through high school and university. Well, our puny willpower is no match for the force of nature or the evolution of the soul. My natural gifts were now roaring with a vengeance. What followed was a period of extreme bliss and fierce psychic skills housed in a weakened body. Though my spiritual self had never been stronger, I needed to learn to befriend and heal the neglected body. Standing tall at 5'9", I was then barely 105 pounds. I had lost nearly 20 pounds over the year.

 

My year in India ended after I had an intense dream and gut sense that something was wrong at home. Following my instincts, I began the long journey towards my flight back. It took me almost a week to travel from the middle of the Rajasthani desert in northwest India to the southeastern city of Madras, where I would catch the plane back to Toronto. On Canadian soil at the Toronto airport, I was greeted by my father who looked pleased to see me, but also worried. He told me that my grandpa, his father, was in intensive care and was asking for me. My paternal grandfather died a day or so after I visited him in the hospital.

 

Suddenly back in the West, I felt like I had been catapulted from the Middle Ages right into the heart of the twenty-first century, in the space of a few hours on a trans-global flight. I understood that it was now my time to open to my healing. My mind had become quiet though the all-embracing year of intensive meditation practice. My yoga practice was deep, resounding in my cells. I was listening to nature and operating at a rhythm that was different from what I saw in the highways, concrete structures and speeding lights in the West. I needed to integrate the East I had found and loved with the West I was born into. Everything flowed in perfection while I was in India, so surely that same flow, or "golden thread" as I called it, existed in Toronto, or wherever I would be.

 

Stationed temporarily in my parents' home, I got rid of everything I could and slept on the floor. I meditated for hours every day and thought only to be a dedicated spiritual practitioner, create art and sing. These habits still form the foundation of my character and daily practices today.

 

At that time, my psychic senses were so alive that I could not take a bus or sit beside someone as I felt completely overwhelmed. I would know what happened to them when they were six or what would happen at 86. An Ayurvedic doctor said I was like a hi-fi stereo on volume ten. I had sensory overload and my dials were up too high. The psychic doors had blown open. I needed to learn how to turn down the volume and master the lock on the doors.

 

INSIDE OUTSIDE IN

 

The next years were just as full of amazing people, places and teachings as my time in India. The weak health in my body asked me to move my attention inward in a way I had not yet done. I had touched the expansiveness of the cosmos. It was now time to find that same expansion within, rooted in my being. The universe is immense outside, just as much as it is immense within. In fact, I found that the notion of outside and inside were illusions that did not need to confine me. The more rooted in my being I became, the more useful and practical the psychic skills were. Like anything in nature, the more grounded I was, the more broadly sky-bound I could be.

 

It was at this time that I opened a small yoga studio in Montreal and worked as an assistant minister at the United Church of Canada. I found that my awakening had very practical use. My call was to serve. This life clearly was a gift. I had been given a second chance to live. All I needed to do was love.

 

With subtle insight, I found that I could teach yoga and know where people's energies were blocked or stuck. People could call me from the other side of the world and I would know what was ailing them. I learned to walk down the street or take a bus and find a place (or asana) of balance within the whole flow. Life was becoming Yoga.

 

Over the years, my studies deepened and my practice flourished. I studied Chi Kung, Ayurveda, Thai Massage, Shamanic Soul Journeying, Sound Healing, Astrology and Nature Co-Creation. I offered these skills in treating people. My musical career also flourished with much greater meaning. I went deeper and deeper into various forms of yoga such as intensive work within the Iyengar method and completing another teacher training program with Esther Myers of the Vanda Scaravelli lineage. Healing, yoga, meditation, music, life… it all started to flow as part of one greater whole that I understood as Yoga.

 

These years were the formative years for YEM. Just as I listened intensely "out there" to find God, I listened intensely within to find the Divine and be guided. YEM flowered naturally, effortlessly.

 

Out of this vast array of experiences, I grew to see that all things are interconnected in ways our limited mind and senses cannot comprehend. We are not the body, but we temporarily inhabit it and are responsible for its well being. Like a temple for our spiritual practice, the body houses the spirit and also reflects it. It is a temporal housing of the infinite spirit we are. Just like Siva and Shakti, or Yin and Yang, the body and spirit are married, sharing the most exquisite balance.

 

(Continued tomorrow with My Practice Today)

 

Natamba

NATAMBA
Ok. I cannot help but offer a little shameless promotion about my up and coming show. I am just too happy not to share! This is the show synopsis:
"When the reptiles invade Avalon, Natamba, disturbed from deep meditation, leaves for planet Earth. Like a ray of liquid gold light, Natamba arrives on Earth to find it riddled with interference. While on Earth, Natamba explores the meaning of Yoga: to be one with all things. By embodying I AM consciousness and by seeing Yoga everywhere, even in the nightclub, Natamba transforms the desolate world back to a lush landscape. Natamba brings to life a message of hope, interconnection, love and celebration for all we have."

Fun, huh? It is kinda sci-fi meets spirituality, Cirque du Soleil meets Madonna. For those of you who don't know, Natamba is the character I become in my shows. She is a ray of gold light that recently downloaded to Earth from a planet she calls Avalon. She embodies Yoga, that is, our true human potential as a ray of gold light. Natamba is one with light and brings to life all that she encounters.

Natamba, the word, came about as I was living in India. I was by chance repeatedly called Natamba by two men from Brazil who were living in Japan. I have no idea why they called me Natamba. The name stuck. It became a sort of alter ego that entered into my creative journal writing and imagination. Natamba was born.

Interestingly, "nat" in Sanskrit is often seen in reference to "Nataraj" referring to dance. "Amba" means Mother or Goddess. So the name means Goddess of Dance. I often hear the name embedded within the chants of the 1000 Names of the Divine Mother. One of those mantras is "Om kumara gananathambayai namah" (Salutations to Devi who is the mother of Subrahmania and Ganesh. Parvati is that Devi.)

I AM CONSCIOUSNESS
The "Natamba" show (and all my work) supports the awakening of I AM consciousness in myself and in all beings. I have used the phrase I AM consciousness often in my blog, but what is I AM really?

I AM is the expansive experience of interconnection to all, through all, of all in each moment… pure consciousness arising. First though, must come the practice of rooting our life in the positive possibilities of being, a state in which we unequivocally know that our true nature is Love. In the positive possibilities we know and experience that we are loved in each moment, connected beyond the grasp of the limited mind to and within a vast, mysterious whole, of which we are an integral part. In this, there is a release of the impossibilities tendency to grasp, repulse, constrict and try to control the moment. In the positive possibilities we meet this moment, without resistance, and witness what is. In that space of what is, I AM arises, and so flows the expression of pure consciousness. The positive possibilities are the fertile soil for I AM consciousness to grow.

ART AS A VEHICLE FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH
My life focus is the realization of the One. Art is a vehicle through which I express and explore this journey. My performances, including my current show Natamba, are Grace for me. They provide me with opportunities to activate, live and share the spaciousness and release I practice in sitting meditation. They provide me with a playground in which to practice non-attachment, to witness what is, to expand and share the joy of being alive.

People have asked over the years about the title of my song Yoga In the Nightclub, thinking it was about doing yoga poses in a club setting. It is not. Yoga is so much more than a series of bendy exercises for physical health. These are only an aspect of Hatha Yoga, the Yoga that awakens pure consciousness through exercises that purify the body/mind. There are many branches of Yoga, from Hatha yoga, to Karma yoga, which focuses on self-realization through selfless service, seeing the love-light energy within all things, especially those in need. Yoga is a vast life science that explores and reveals to us our true selves, beyond the grasp of our limited ego and personal will.

My shows and music celebrate the non-duality of life, that we are indeed expressions of the divine. Through song, lights, sound and theatrical elements, we are brought through a journey of transformation, beginning in the desolate, interference ridden landscape of isolation and despair, to the lush expansion of Avalonian consciousness flowering on Earth. We begin to see the possibility that yoga is everywhere: each moment, be it in a nightclub or in a meditation hall. Each moment provides us with seeds to awaken to who we truly are.

AVALON
This is a word I use quite a bit in context of the show. I understand that it can be confused with other folklore words of the same name that may conjure up images of Sir Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
For me, this word references a place that existed in co-creation with Nature. Avalonians would be a group of beings who remember our inherent state of oneness with creation. Perhaps, some time long, long ago, Avalonians were in communication with humans. Perhaps there was a time Avalon was invaded, hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the gap between Nature and humans grew.
There are people on the planet now I would call Avalonians, those who remember the potency of this subtle and immense interconnection with Nature. With the influx of industrialization and the subsequent increase of greed, there is no doubt that Nature is suffering and so are the Avalonians and our connection with Nature. In denser energies, we lose the ability to experience the power of subtlety.
Natamba is from Avalon and embodies this Nature co-creative intelligence. She reminds us that we are part of it all, not separate.

So I invite your creative imagination to spark. Perhaps, contemplate the way in which you are Avalonian, like Natamba, connected to Nature, one with all. When we remember Avalon, we find heaven here on Earth.

Happy sparkling,
Parvati

PS: The next issue of Parvati Magazine will go live tonight or tomorrow!

Ask Parvati 32: Gratitude, The Action Of Grace - Part 4: Thanking Adversity

PART 4: THANKING ADVERSITY

(Continued from Thanking Illness)

We would all love our lives to flow. Experiencing green lights along our path feels smooth and effortless and can give us a sense of being on path. Yet we all have bumps along the way at some point. We often tend to see adversity through a black and white lens: seeing obstacles and challenges as a sign of failure, or seeing them as some mysterious blessing we yet have to uncover. We can may hope to learn from our mistakes but feel unsure how. We can also believe that there are no mistakes, that all is good, in denial of our responsibility in our happenings. But what if practicing gratitude for what is, shows us something beyond these polarities?

It is my belief that we are constantly supported by a much greater whole while our consciousness goes through a process of refinement. As I explored in my last blog entries on creating our reality, what we experience is a reflection of our thoughts. So if we do not like our life, we need to change our beliefs and refine our state of consciousness.

Many people can take a downer approach and berate their life and inwardly fight what is, in some frustrated effort to change. That kind of judgemental and tense attitude will create suffering. Others may take what I would call a bit more of a denial approach and say that all that happens is ok. What if what happens is a reflection of our thoughts, and is also grace? What if what we experience mirrors back to us our tendencies - and because of that mirror we have the grace to
see it? So, what is, is both a reflection of our distortions, our erroneous perceptions, and a reflection of the love that there is for us throughout the universe. If we see what is through the lens of gratitude, we can see that we are both learning and fully supported.

When we have this grateful attitude in each moment, we can meet what is as both an opportunity to see ourselves more clearly and full of all the loving guidance we need to help us grow. Both are true. It is not balanced to say that life is a cold mirror that reflects back to us a harsh reality in which we can punitively judge our skills. Nor is it balanced to see life as a gooey, all-accepting playing field. There
is personal responsibility and guidance. There is free will and grace. Grace is always holding our capacity for free will. We must open ourselves to see it. Even when our free will moves us in a direction that causes us pain, we have an opportunity, due to grace, to see that which is as lovingly guiding us to wholeness.

My guru Amma shares a story about a man who is running along a field at full speed. He steps on a thorn and curses it, wondering why God has punished him this way. What the man does not see is the cliff he was heading towards, where he would have come to an untimely death. The thorn he curses saved his life.

When we begin to feel grateful for all that is, we meet life in its fullest expression. We see that everything is part of a greater, loving whole, supporting us both to learn and to grow as we return back to the One state of pure undivided consciousness. We are both guided and personally responsible. We are rooted in our sense of self, vital to mobilize and interact with life, and expansive to meet what is as a reflection of who we are so we may embody our fullest potential.

When we meet adversity with humility and receptivity, we can find gratitude even there. Though our feeling of gratitude, we find an internal freedom that brings us all the wealth, joy and wonder we had been seeking all along.

May your life be full of such abundance, joy and blessings.

May you feel grateful for the life you have and share your unique gifts with the world.

Blessings,
Parvati



PS: Reminder that tomorrow is the last day for question submissions.
Please send yours to ask@parvatidevi.com.

Ask Parvati 32: Gratitude, The Action of Grace - Part 3: Thanking Illness

PART 3: THANKING ILLNESS

(Continued from It Is All Grace)

Colds. Flus. Injuries. Accidents. We have all suffered from various illnesses to varying degrees of severity. When we are met with something that challenges our health, many of us can feel irritable that our busy lives have come to a grinding halt. The illness can feel like it is in the way. Our body is no longer doing what "we" want "it" to do. We feel less in control, perhaps even powerless, and that can
bring up all sorts of deep emotions and possible spiritual awakenings. (I look at this more in depth in my blog entry Listen To Your Body Talk).

Many may choose to medicate their way through any discomfort until it has passed and they can resume their lives. There is nothing wrong with medication, as long as it is done with mindfulness, not as a means to move away from or numb our sense of personal connection, the voice of our soul. There is a time and place for everything.

If you are faced with an illness, perhaps try to thank the illness for the experience you are having. That may sound backwards, but perhaps it is not. If we give thanks for what we have, we begin to release resistance to it. When we release resistance, we let go of undue energy tied up in things that do not serve our highest good so we may return to flow. At the root of gratitude is non-resistance to what is. Gratitude is a state of receptivity. Gratitude is not born from a closed fist, a closed mind, a closed heart. When we open, we receive. When we give thanks, we feel abundant and tapped into the infinite.

Our tendency may be to push away pain and discomfort. We want it gone. It will pass eventually. What if instead of pushing, we thank the pain for the discomfort? What would happen? Does the pain or discomfort offer any wisdom? Is it simply an interference? Look again. I am quite sure that within the pain or discomfort there is guidance to your spiritual growth, the voice of your soul clamouring for your attention.

I have had many physical ups and downs over the course of my life, from the minor to very severe. Through first-hand experience, I have seen the frailty of the body, and the immense power it has. When I stopped fighting it and expecting it to do what I wanted it to do, I started to work with it. I started to see that my body offers my consciousness a direct link to Nature and helps me remain in balance
within a much greater whole. In this way, mindful connection to the body roots our spiritual evolution and keeps our ego in check.

Next time you get a cold, or are in a situation that asks you to slow down, practice seeing the situation and your body differently. Instead of resisting what is, give thanks. Give thanks for the situation so you may go deeper inside, get to know yourself better, learn to live with greater interconnection, to see this moment as grace.

I find thanking my body has become a part of my daily routine. When I do my yoga practice, I am listening to my body, not pushing. I thank the muscles for stretching. I thank my bones for bearing weight. I thank my organs for doing their work. I thank my body for being such an amazing vehicle for my spiritual journey while on Earth! Wow! I have also started to thank the very gift of breathing, the gift of
walking. These are things we take for granted. Bringing our attention to them helps us remain humble, open, honest and true.

So today, write a list of what you feel grateful for in terms of your health and physical self. If you are feeling poorly, approach your illness with gratitude rather than pushiness. Ask the illness what it is teaching you, and open to the wisdom there. You may just find a whole new you is ready to be born.

Then lie down in a quiet, uninterrupted setting. Place one hand on your tummy and one hand on your heart. Then feel your body touch back… your body is touching your hand. Feel the relationship there. Then send gratitude to your body. Allow gratitude to fill you up, like a liquid light quenching a deep soul thirst. You can sense or visualize all your various body parts in this way, such as thanking your brain, your eyes, your mouth, your heart, your lungs… You can go into as much detail as you wish. Give thanks. Receive the gratitude. Take as many opportunities as you can to sincerely thank your body for all the hard work it does… all so you may evolve while you are on this planet.


(Continued tomorrow with Thanking Adversity)

Ask Parvati 32: Gratitude, the Action of Grace - Part 2: It Is All Grace

PART 2: IT IS ALL GRACE

(Continued from Giving Thanks for All We Have)

I am from Montreal. In Quebec, Thanksgiving is called L'Action de
Grace, which literally means, the Act of Grace. I love that name. The
Act of Grace. Why would Thanksgiving be connected to the act of grace?
Perhaps it is that all we have in our lives is an act of grace.

We tend to think of the painful things as mistakes and the good stuff
as luck. Or perhaps we think of the stuff we like as grace, a gift
from beyond, and things we don't like as a curse. However we choose to
see the moment and understand our life, we must ask, what is grace? Do
we have any control over it? How can we amplify it? Where does it come
from?

Grace to me is an alignment between our Nature Body (the physical,
emotional, intellectual and spiritual bodies, or sheaths that create
our aura) and the Cosmic Intelligence Body (the etheric, astral,
causal, mental and alien realms). When our Nature Body and the Cosmic
Intelligence Body align, we have usually an "a-ha" moment, where all
seems to brighten and go from monochrome to technicolour. Somehow, our
field of perception just broadened. That alignment, I call Grace.

For the most part, many of us are walking around through our days
somewhat cockeyed, feeling disconnected, wanting life to be different,
wondering why it is not. There is tremendous unhappiness in the world
and we contribute to it through our disconnected states. A milky fog
can run through our mind and seep into our day, like somehow we are
just not quite there. In essence, we are not. We are lost in wanting,
in thoughts about what could be or what was, rather than what is. We
can resist what we feel and deny the happenings in our lives so our
feelings and lives go on as they are while we look another way.

To me, the above describes a disconnect, a way in which we have not
quite rooted into our being on the Earth, tapped into the vitality of
this moment, and expanded to meet what is. If we are going to give
thanks, we need to feel connected to this moment. If we are going to
connect to this moment, then we need to look at what this moment
brings.

If this moment brings tension, see it as grace. If this moment brings
expansion, see it as grace. See all as grace. When we see all as
grace, we stop resisting and begin to expand beyond the limited
confines of our ego and tap into the vastness of pure consciousness.
We begin to remember that we are not the doers, but vehicles for the
divine.

I have explored the notion of the illusion that we are the doers in
many blog entries. It is worthy of the repeat because the habit to think of
ourselves as in control is so very deep in our psyche. We think life
is happening "to" me and we are "in control". This leads to suffering.

When we begin to realize that all is grace, we begin to feel grateful
for what is. Think about it. You breathe. You are alive. You likely
can walk, even run. You likely can wiggle your fingers and toes. What
force is keeping your body alive? Really think about that. What force?
Is it not totally amazing?!

If ever I feel a bit down, I reconnect with that thought, the profound
WOW at being here at all - alive. This life provides us with such
riches, we can oversee them so easily because we are busy wanting
something from the future or the past. We miss the here and now.

We take the simplest things for granted, but they are there only
because of grace. Today, go for a walk. Fall colours are beautiful.
Take a look more closely at the immense complexity of life, the many
layers, intricacies. What force runs through all you see? Remember,
you are a part of it all! Now please, just let that blow your mind, at
least a wee bit. In that "wow" for this moment, there is the
tremendous power of gratitude just waiting for you to breathe it all
in. Breathe it all in and know you are loved.

(Continued tomorrow with Thanking Illness)

Ask Parvati 32: Gratitude, the Action of Grace - Part 1: Giving Thanks For All We Have

GRATITUDE

Dear Parvati,

I have learned that approaching circumstances with gratitude is a great catalyst for opening, transformation and healing. But sometimes it's really hard. I especially struggle to find gratitude in situations in which I perceive injustice. I also am not really all that happy with my own life. How do we feel gratitude when faced with personal dissatisfaction and with so much unrighteousness all over the world?

Thank you for this question. This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, so I presume that is partly what fuelled your question. Gratitude is a key that unlocks many riches and much joy. Let us explore the notion of gratitude this week. 

PART 1: GIVING THANKS FOR ALL WE HAVE

This is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Whether you celebrate with a turkey, contemplate grateful thoughts or prefer to skip it all together, this celebration is a true Canadian happening that can support your spiritual awakening if you so choose.

Like in the US, Canadian Thanksgiving blends the European and Native traditions to give thanks for the harvests. But in Canada, Thanksgiving also celebrates a homecoming. In 1578, the explorer Martin Frobisher held an official ceremony in Newfoundland to give thanks for his safe journey through the Arctic Ocean's Northwest Passage. A year ago, I echoed Frobisher's thanks during my Thanksgiving festivities around this time, feeling grateful for my safe return from the North Pole.  

Complaining is easy. Perhaps that is why so many do it. It has an entropic force that seems to pull us along. It can even be addictive, our ego getting high on our sorry stories, feeling we deserve more, leaving us endlessly wanting. 

Thanksgiving gives us a gentle reminder to practice gratitude. Yet, many can feel there is little to be grateful for. But when we look at the immensity of the world and all the people on it, we can quickly reconsider any feelings of being hard done by. 

If you live in Canada, North America, or Europe, you are blessed with a cornucopia of opportunities. We are not war-torn countries struggling with famine, drought, brutal dictatorships or tyrannical political regimes. We have free will. We have free mobility. We have freedom of speech. We have supportive health care. We have the means to make the life we choose to have. We are immensely blessed! So if you have a hard time finding gratitude in your life, then perhaps put yourself in someone else's shoes for a moment, such as someone living in Somalia, and consider what your life would be like. 

My year living in India taught me, in part, to see this way. I was brought up in a Christian home and taught to see the needs of others, collecting for Unicef and doing volunteer work at food banks as a child. These were important teachings that created a seedbed for my personality and spiritual being to blossom. But the reality of the blessings of my life did not hit home until I was living in the midst of tremendous poverty. 

When I was around people who had very little, I was shown the capacity to love. My inspiration to love did not spontaneously spring forth from my inner being, but grew in awe from experiencing the selflessness from others. I was living in a small village in Rajasthan, in the Northern part of India. It was amazing to see how people with so little would still have the sense to give. Whomever I was with, I was offered what food they had. If there was enough food in a meal for six hungry mouths, then they would divide what they had into seven to accommodate me. Even though people had so little, there was a feeling of internal space, and ultimately, wealth.

Watching the poor village women taught me about taking care of my body. We can take our physical selves for granted. We can bathe when we want to, buy whatever cleaning products we want, go to the beauty salon, buy new clothes, etc…Yet often fashion trends in wealthy countries can glamorize grunge styles, unwashed hair, unkempt clothes, tattered presence. Amazingly, in the tiny village in India, even the very poorest of women would wash their clothes and iron their saris. If they could not afford gold or silver jewelry, they would wear plastic bangles. If they could not afford fancy hair clips, they would keep clean, tidy hair and find a simple pin or flower to embellish their style. There was a sense of dignity and self-respect that I found mesmerizing and noble. Though a single life there was cheaply valued with mortality rates high, immense poverty, illness and tremendous political corruption, there was a sense of meeting the day with all they had to the best of their abilities. 

Of course, there is diversity everywhere. I mean not to make sweeping generalizations about cultures. I simply share what I witnessed, that perhaps having a lot is not a prerequisite to feelings of gratitude. 

It is possible that our wealth breeds complacency. Tempted by manufacturing abundance, we may want more and forget to feel contented with what we have. If we were not able to have more, due to our circumstance, would we still want? Or would we find a way to feel happy with what we have? Have we fallen prey to cultural greed?

From my experience, abundance comes from the feeling of enough, not from feeling not enough. If we want to feel fulfilled, we need to begin to practice gratitude for what we have. If we are going around saying, "I am not enough. I don't have enough. There is not enough…" consciously or unconsciously, we are in effect creating that reality, the reality of not enough. Is it any surprise then that we feel unfulfilled?

If we begin to meet this moment as it is, with all its colours, dark and light, we begin to see possibility in our lives. We let go of wanting things to be other than they are, and start to feel rooted, vital and expansive in this moment now. It is there that we find happiness. It is there we find abundance. It is there we find gratitude. When we feel grateful for what is, we begin to tap into a wealth of power and vitality that had been waiting all along. We were just too busy looking for fulfilment elsewhere. 

So this Thanksgiving weekend, do yourself and the world a favour. Write a list of all the things you feel grateful for, however small or large. It could be, "I like the colour of my eyes", or it could be, "I feel grateful that I paid off my credit card". Challenge yourself to go deeper than you usually would. Once you have your list, take a moment to breathe in the wealth of gratitude you already have. This is your life. Let it be one rooted in gratitude and grace. 

Throughout the week, I will be exploring in this blog the notion of gratitude in various aspect of our lives. May you feel grateful and abundant in all you do!

(Continued tomorrow with It Is All Grace)

Ask Parvati 31: Relationship Complications - Part 2, Faith And The Unfaithful

PART TWO: FAITH AND THE UNFAITHFUL

(Continued from Jealousy and the Ego)

Question: What relation is there between unfaithful and cheated on past experiences? 

My answer: I am not sure what you mean. If you mean what is the relationship between us cheating and then being cheated on, then I would say, you can call it instant karma. But I think you mean, why do we experience being cheated on? Is that some past karma of ours? I think we need to ask that question. That which happens in our life is a result of our karmas. This is a good thing. If we are willing to see life as a mirror, we will find life teaches us all we need to know.

I have had to go deeply into that question myself as I too have experienced that, as I am sure many have as well. Even recently, I experienced one of my closest friends deeply betraying me in a public setting. It was like being cheated on because we had had a sacred contract of love and trust as super close friends. In any intimate relationship, we have faith in the contract and bonds we have made. But not all people have the same relationship to their word.

People will do what they feel they must do. What they choose is not about us at all. My friend did what she felt she needed to do. At that level, her choice to be adharmic, to act in an unrighteous manner, had absolutely nothing to do with me. In fact, before she did what she did, I had asked her to reconsider, that what she was about to do was not in alignment with love. But she made her choice.

In the midst of my healing, my heart wounded, raw and cracked open, I had to ask myself, what is this experience teaching me? What is life mirroring back to me to witness, to learn and to let go? I realized that at some level, there was a play of ego I had with this friend, that was not balanced. She was in a lot of pain, and I realized that I was subtly trying to "help" her, do the work for her. I had unconsciously taken on some of her job of healing herself. That was subtly stroking my ego. She loved it. When I started to catch on that this was at play, I shared it with her. But she did not want to make the shift. She chose instead to feel victimized by my call for rebalance and personal responsibility. She did what she felt she needed to do. Again, I had nothing to do with that. 

Deeper still, I had to see that her betrayal of our bond was ultimately a gift to me to see the subtle ways I still betray myself. I was brought face to face with the questions: "Am I truly, fully, wholeheartedly in service to my soul voice?" I had to answer no, that I still sabotage myself. I still get in the way. I still betray my own magnificence. I wanted to say that the problem was all hers, but it was not. Her choice to betray our friendship was totally hers. But the gift in the experience was for me to see part of my own shadow and ultimately move beyond it. 

In the end, I feel grateful to her for being a catalyst in my growth. Sometimes life has big explosions to blow open parts of our ego that are in resistance, so we can see parts of our shadow that are in our blind spot. In that way, I feel the situation was Grace, a purification process, helping me be far more discerning with whom I share so deeply and teaching me to honour with much deeper reverence the voice of my soul.

To explore more deeply the ins and outs of relationships and how we can grow from them, I think you may find my blog entry Finding Balance In Relationships very helpful. 

(Continued tomorrow with Transcending Anger and Low Self-Esteem)

Ask Parvati 22: It's A Spiritual Life - Part 4, Commitment and Courage

COMMITMENT AND COURAGE

(Continued from “Living A Spiritual Life”)

To live a spiritual life, we must make that the goal of our life and commit to it. If we seek enlightenment, we must make our goal God-realization, so that we may experience the divine in everything.

God-realization ultimately only happens through grace. Yet commitment and courage are essential in helping us continue along the path, especially when the going gets tough.

Some people think that a spiritual life is supposed to feel like having rose petals showered under our feet. At times, it may be so. Perhaps when we become enlightened, we will be in a permanent state of bliss where everything feels like that. That I cannot yet say. But I do know that on the road to such freedom, we can feel supported by a force as sweet as a billion roses and yet often step on thorns that painfully hurt.

Especially when the going gets tough, we must remain even more focused on our goal and commitment to realize God. Tough times along the spiritual path are like rock tumblers that help to erode our rough edges. They help us break through the resistance we have to this moment and loosen our attachments to our ego. This is why is it essential that we see all that is as grace, even the stuff we don’t like. This open, non-judgmental attitude helps us remain receptive to the teachings each moment brings, whether the teaching may feel pleasant or not.

Spirituality is a medicine to cure the disease of ignorance. Sometimes medicine is sweet and sugary. Sometimes, it is bitter and makes you want to throw it away. On the spiritual path, we learn dispassion so that we may be non-reactive and keep focused on a bigger, divine picture, maintaining evenness of mind no matter what life brings. With such an attitude, the divine is always near.

(Continues tomorrow with “Spiritual Guidelines”)

Finding Light in the Dark (Practice during a Solar Eclipse)

After I posted my last blog entry, I noticed a comment asking me what "return to the One" meant. Thank you for the question. I loved and appreciated the interest and will happily answer what I do know of this in a blog post very soon. In this blog however, I feel it more apropos to contemplate what illuminated action means when transiting through a solar eclipse.

This past Sunday, our planet experienced a solar eclipse. This happens when our Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth. The Moon fully or partially eclipses our view of the Sun. The effect of an eclipse can be felt a few days on either side of the eclipse time, so we can still feel the effects right up until Wednesday of this week.

Traditionally it is considered an auspicious time for introspection, meditation, spiritual practice and soulful evolution, a time in which progress in these areas can be made. It is not considered a time where it is recommended to pursue worldly affairs and business. How come?

Most of us identify with our world through the lens of matter, form and physical substance, filtered by our field of emotions. We are attached to our egos, our will, our emotions, our bodies, our thoughts, our perceptions believing that they are who we are. For most, this is what we know to be real.

From a worldly perspective, the sun is the center of our universe. In this way, our ego and will is the center of our own personal universe, driven by our likes and dislikes. When we go through a solar eclipse, we lose sight of our common vantage point, the energy of the sun, which influences our personality, ego and individual will.
For this reason, it is not considered a favorable time for practical and business affairs. It is a dark time when our perception is obscured and things are more difficult to fully see, feel, understand and perceive. So it is not a good time to spontaneously buy what you think is your dream home. Somehow, something is eclipsed from view and will not come to light until after the sun has returned to illuminate areas that were in the dark.

Conversely, for a spiritual aspirant, an eclipse provides an optimal time for spiritual progress and work that is done in the light of selfless service. For precisely the reasons above, the darkening of the worldly tendencies dulls our attachment to our ego and will. In the dark of the eclipse we can access, with much greater ease, the light of pure consciousness that is animating the entire universe. Most of the time, the access point to that infinite light is overshadowed by our attachments to the temporal light of the sun, our physical universe, our limited perceptions and ego. In the darkness of the eclipse, we can see the spiritual light more clearly. The veil of illusion is thinner so that we may peer through it and gain insight into our true nature. In this way, an eclipse is a powerful time for profound and lasting release of our attachments to our ego and limited sense perceptions and open to that infinite light of pure consciousness.

If you have a guru, mantra or spiritual practice, it is an ideal time to dive much deeper. These are the days to "step it up", meditate longer, surrender more, open wider and then wider still. The progress made during the eclipsing of the ego drive, when one roots one's actions in selfless service, will then fuel the connection to that infinite source of light when the tempting attraction to the temporal light of the sun returns and that window into the mysteries of pure consciousness is harder to find.

If you don't have a mantra, guru or active meditation practice, how can you take advantage of this cosmic window into pure consciousness? Find a quiet time before the end of Wednesday. Allow yourself to sit quietly. Then consider the thought that you are in the dark. Consider that from the physical points of view. An eclipse is affecting the Earth. You are now in shadow more than ever. Your body casts a shadow. Your mind is full of shadows, shadows of dissatisfactions, unfulfilled desires, the nagging feeling of lack, and lingering, painful emotions. Consider that much of your life is driven by the desire to escape those feelings, a painful void within. Consider that much of what you think you want would not in fact bring you happiness, because there still would be shadow. There is shadow as long as life is driven by the ego and limited will. There will be suffering until we release our attachments to our perception that we are disconnected from Source.

Then consider the notion that you are part of a much greater picture. Consider this in relation to your place with those around you, then your place on the planet as a whole, then your place within the universe. See if you can open to the possibility that beyond the life you think you live, the likes and dislikes you believe you have, the things in your life that you feel define you, there is an infinite expanse of pure possibility. Allow yourself to expand and go beyond limiting self-perceptions. Surrender them to the light. Let them go into the darkness of the eclipse, like a cosmic recycling bin. Allow yourself to expand. Imagine, sense or feel that you are in fact an infinite ray of that infinite field of light. You always have been, but you have not seen it because of your attachments to your ego and limited perceptions. Allow yourself to expand more and then even more. If you are a visual person, sense yourself becoming that light. Stay in your body. Feel your body. This is not about leaving to find some other place. Allow this light of pure consciousness to fill you up. This is who you are. There is no need to try to go "out there" and find it. There is no "making" it happen. You are not the doer. The infinite field of light is. All you have to do is allow this expansion to unfold.

Whether or not you feel lighter, allow yourself to feel the possibly of something beyond, much bigger than your daily life, something so vast it is beyond reason, something so infinitely full of love and possibility, you are eternally loved and received. In this quiet place, allow your soul to flower and your mind to be. In beingness, there is expansion.

This is a time of possibility. We can allow pure consciousness to become the driver of our lives rather living in the shadow of a longer lasting eclipse than the one we are temporarily experiencing: the bondage to our attachments to that which obstructs our view of who we truly are. Let us awaken to the Reality that we are infinite beings of love and light.

May we all realize the infinite light of pure consciousness,

Jai Ma,
Parvati


Please free to visit me at www.parvatimusic.com or www.parvatihealth.com




































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I AM: Natamba

I AM: NATAMBA

In my last blog, I shared a bit about what I understand of the Impossibilities and the Positive Possibilities. Once we allow ourselves to choose life in the Positive Possibilities, I AM consciousness begins to arise and our lives flower.

As a continuation of my last entry, in this blog I share my understanding of I AM consciousness. I also share how I feel my current show and album "Natamba" are an expression of my I AM journey.

Please enjoy and feel free to post comments or ask questions.
May all beings everywhere be happy.
Lokah samasthah sukhino bhavantu.
Parvati

I AM

I AM: the expansive experience of interconnection to all, through all, of all in each moment…pure consciousness arising. There have been moments I have experienced this. First though, must come the practice of rooting my life in the positive possibilities of being, a state in which I unequivocally know that my true nature is Love. In the positive possibilities I know and experience that I am loved in each moment, connected beyond the grasp of the limited mind to and within a vast, mysterious whole, of which I am an integral part. In this, there is release of the impossibilities tendency to grasp, repulse, constrict and try to control the moment. In the Positive Possibilities I meet this moment, without resistance, and witness what is. In that space of what is, I AM arises, and so flows the expression of pure consciousness. The positive possibilities is the fertile soil for I AM consciousness to grow.

NATAMBA

My life focus is the realization of the One. Art is a vehicle through which I express and explore this journey. "Natamba" is Grace for me. It provides me with an opportunity to activate, live and share the spaciousness and release I practice in sitting meditation. It provides me with a playground in which to practice non-attachment, to witness what is, to expand and share the joy of being alive.

Yoga is so much more than a series of bendy exercises for physical health. These are only an aspect of Hatha Yoga, the yoga that awakens pure consciousness through exercises that purify the body/mind. There are many branches of Yoga, from Hatha yoga, to Karma yoga, which focuses on self-realization through selfless service, seeing the love-light energy within all things, especially those in need. Yoga is a vast life science that explores and reveals to us our true selves, beyond the grasp of our limited ego and personal will.

The show and album Natamba celebrate the non-duality of life, that we are indeed expressions of the divine. Through song, lights, sound and theatrical elements, we are brought through a journey of transformation, beginning in the desolate landscape of isolation and despair of reptilian interference, to the lush expansion of Avalonian consciousness flowering on Earth. Natamba teaches us that yoga is everywhere: each moment, be it in a nightclub or in a meditation hall, provides us with seeds to awaken to who we really are.


www.parvatimusic.com

Positive Possibilities and Impossibilities

Through my spiritual practice, I have come to understand that consciousness - is. Yet in each moment, we have the possibility, through deepening our awareness of what is, to co-create with the consciousness that arises in each moment. In this process, there are two primary directives or energy tendencies. One is a movement towards the Positive Possibilities, the other towards the impossibilities.

In this blog, I would like to share briefly what I understand it means to live in the Positive Possibilities and what it means to live in the impossibilities. I hope you find the information useful. I welcome your questions and comments.

May all beings everywhere be happy.
Lokah samastha sukhino bavanthu
Parvati

Living in the Positive Possibilities:

Living in the Positive Possibilities is not about "being positive", an attitude that willfully conjures up a state of mind to overcome, with effort, a sense of adversity. "I am feeling lousy but I will try to feel positive." A world based on the Positive Possibilities is a world where each one of us knows that we are a loved, welcomed and an integral part of a much greater intelligent whole. Our very essence is experienced as love, which is the essential energy of life itself.

What is meant by “love” is neither the common notion of sentimental romance nor the feeling of being attached to things, but the expansive, ever present reality of wisdom-compassion. A person who is fully resonant in the Positive Possibilities knows within each cell that he or she is wisely interconnected to all things in a way that the limited mind, or ego, cannot grasp or comprehend. A person resonant in the Positive Possibilities understands that to love oneself unconditionally is to love all things equally.

I wrote about this in my song “Precious” after an awakening experience I had when I lived for a year in India. (You can take a listen, if you feel so moved, through the audio player on my website: http://www.parvatimusic.com/media/audio/). I realized “As I love myself, I love all things equally”. The only reality is love and love is all things. There is no separation. There is only a continuum of love that expands through all time and space. That is reality. A person resonant in the Positive Possibilities lives these truths moment to moment and understands that to do that which is respectful and loving to oneself is good for all. The Positive Possibilities is a connected and interconnected state of being.

The Illusion of the Impossibilities: 

Living in the impossibilities is like living life in a box, with walls built out of fear and disconnect. The ruler of that domain is a distorted sense of self, based on struggle, suffering and the belief in separation. This distorted self is determined to control and manipulate reality to suit its belief that there is no love, that one is not welcome on the planet.

The notion that the impossibilities are real is based on an erroneous perceptions of reality. How could this perception be real when all of Nature, all of existence is pure consciousness arising? Like an eddy stuck on the side of a beautiful, strong, flowing river, the impossibilities swirl around within itself, in an effort to self-perpetuate. One perceives daily events as against oneself. Life is experienced as a continual struggle, which perpetuates the sense of disconnect, loneliness and fear.

Consciousness stuck in the impossibilities is at the root of human suffering. In this state, one feels disconnected from love and therefore from life itself. The perception of this disconnect takes on a life of its own. One consciously or unconsciously attempts to prove that the disconnect is real and further the notion of disconnect. There is no evolution in that state, as the impossibilities keep one stuck, out of flow and out of the experience of eternal love. In the impossibilities, painful emotions such as judgment, loneliness, loss, guilt and shame, are born.

The Path of Possibility:

The way out of impossibilities is to fully realize that it is an illusion, perpetuated by our own attachment to an erroneous perception of reality. When we notice we are feeling mired and stuck, we can challenge the impossibilities by asking our self: “Is it true that I am not loved?” When we are open, ready and willing to release attachments to the impossibilities, the answer becomes: “No! The very essence of life itself is love. And I am of life. I am of Nature. I too am the stuff that is Nature. I am connected to everything, everywhere, always. I am love!”

The way out of the impossibilities is to fully under-stand -- to stand under, to be rooted in the Knowing that the impossibilities are not real. It is to see what a trip we are putting on our self! Life in the impossibilities is like staying stuck in a box, wondering where all the love has gone, when the love is in fact everywhere, all around and within. When we begin to understand that the impossibilities are not real, that they are an illusion, we no longer cling to them. They have no power, because the only power they had was the power we gave them. So we begin to let go of our attachment to them.

When we fully realize that the impossibilities are illusion, we let go and begin to be open, ready and willing. In that release, there is space, an ability to witness that which is. In that space of witnessing, possibility arises. In that moment, the Positive Possibilities are born. In that moment one can see that all along the sun was shinning. It was I who was standing under the rain cloud, wondering why life was so dark.