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    330 Million Gods (Mas o Menos)

    ByElizabeth

    In which I encounter some more of the 330 million gods (mas o menos).

    (Notes:  (1) Hindu philosophy speaks of 330 million gods, i.e.  a bigger number than we can actually get our minds around, one for every person, giving room for a complete diversity of belief.  While I don’t believe in “God,” I have no problem with the idea of 330 million gods, none more exclusive or correct than any other, with no permission to use of the concept of “God” as justification for murder, physical harm, repression, or suppression of expression because of societal or family of origin privileging any particular belief.  (2) “Maya,” which in Sanskrit not Spanish, literally means to measure, is the tattva that is the bridge between the universal and the manifest.  The “universal” is immeasurable; what we think of as manifest is always measured in space and time.  The distinction between how the tantrikas and other yoga philosophies interpret the concept of maya is for your own research or another day.  (3) The number 108 refers to Shiva.)

    330 million 1a 330 million 1b 330 million 1c 330 million 1d 330 million 1e 330 million 1f 330 million 1g 330 million 1h 330 million 1i 330 million 1j 330 million 1k 330 million 1l

     

     

     

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    Rain in the Night (and the four states of consciousness)

    ByElizabeth

    This morning when I woke, my first thought was that I thought it had rained in the night. My second thought was that I felt well-rested for having slept through the night — not having had my sleep disrupted by thunder or the earthquake, as was the case for recent nights — perhaps I had just dreamed about the sound of rain..

    The yoga teachings say that there are four states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, deep (dreamless) sleep, and the fourth or turya state. The fourth state is both beyond the other states and also encompasses the others. It is where we find in meditation the merger of the individual consciousness with universal consciousness. The better we are able to access the fourth state, the more the other three states, and how we think and act in them, are illuminated by the very light of being.

    The more I meditate, the more aware I am of what is going on around me while I am in a non-waking state. I am also finding that waking and dreaming are more luminous.

    My awareness of the rain without knowing whether the awareness came while I was awake or asleep show both that I am finding more awareness in the different states and that I have a long way to go and much to discover.

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    Petting the Temple Cows

    ByElizabeth

    After a day of teaching and more discussion and emails regarding the upheaval, I had a memory of petting one of the temple cows at Chidambaram.  I was jetlagged and in sensory overload, and then I petted a most wonderful cow.  I dropped into a space where I was perfectly at peace and unaware of the time and all the things going on around me.  This space is always there for us, even in the absence of a sacred cow, and we practice so that we can find it more and more consistently, especially when we are being challenged.

    I did not photograph the Chidambaram temple cow, although a nice Indian lady asked me if her husband could photograph the two of us with the cow, so she has a photograph of herself with the strange American lady in a sari who was petting the cow.  I stopped to pet many cows after that.  In one town, a man told me, as I was scritching a cow between ears and horns, that the cow would enjoy a banana.

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