Rishikesh, 28 January 2007

Dear friends and loved ones,

Most of this letter was written in my mind in the second half of January. To keep to the illusion of two letters a month (for the time being), I put end of January by way of date, though February has already started… I have little time to write but really want to keep it up. The more so because I have received an encouraging reaction from the first publisher I approached, though we are not anywhere near to publishing anything. They really liked the letters, but only publish in Dutch. I think they would also be more interested in other topics than meditation… I am still waiting for a reply from a second publishing house (that I approached much later), that publishes in English (and French and Spanish) and specializes in spiritual stuff. But they have not yet confirmed receiving my mail…

Anyway, here comes the letter I mentally wrote about ten days ago:

I have been writing about many things, but hardly about Swami Veda. Odd, because his presence pervades our lives, even if we do not always get to see him often, and in fact he has been lecturing quite a lot. Also, I have had the privilege of working directly with him on some issues. Perhaps it is because I sometimes feel uncomfortable with the way some people interpret everything he says to have some deep and hidden meaning. They think he picks up every thought they have, and is ‘working on them’ in mysterious ways. I have a resistance to that, and quite regularly think they are interpreting things that are not there. Yet, I have in my own experience a number of examples of just this kind of ‘clairvoyance’.

I remember vividly the international conference in Burkina Faso in 2001 on “African traditions and Yoga – Bringing together Indian and African Spirituality”. I sat in on the last half hour of a particular conference, and felt the speaker was creating confusion. I longed for Swami Veda to shed some light on the issue, but it was not his topic. Besides, he would not know what the previous speaker had been saying and I had no way of communicating it to him before he spoke. So how was he going to correct anything? Well, I don’t know how, but he did. He heard the last two or three minutes of the previous conference. When given the floor, he systematically addressed all the points I had wished he would until only 15 minutes were left for the topic that he had been assigned.

In the same way, he has (quite often by now) answered questions I had not yet asked. The first time that this poignantly happened was during a European silence retreat in Holland a few years ago. A question had been tossing around in my mind for a number of days before it took shape. I don’t remember what it was now, it was not particularly profound but somehow the phrasing had been elusive. When it became clear I wrote it on a piece of paper that I carried with me, waiting for an opportunity to give it to Swami Veda directly or pass through one of his assistants. Halfway during the next lecture he held me in his gaze and answered my question. The slip of paper was still in my pocket. I had not mentioned my question to anyone.

Of late it has happened a number of times that we are sitting in a meeting (forget about the schedule I sent in one of my earlier letters: I am spending my time working: attending meetings, making minutes, writing messages, drafting letters, organizing all sorts of things. There is very little time left for ‘practice’ in the narrow sense of sitting for meditation and doing hatha. Though I obviously do some of those I am a long shot from the intensive practice I had in mind. But I realize that this is my practice: to have a day filled to the brim with activities and yet manage to find – or make – space and time for the practice. It is not easy and I don’t always manage. I will probably come back to this in a future letter), [so: we are sitting in a meeting] and come to a point where we need Swami Veda’s opinion on something. (Almost) as often as not, at that exact moment he will call one of the participants to the meeting on their mobile to give his suggestions on the point we are discussing.

I am observing the ambiguity in my mind: having the direct experience of Swami Veda’s “intuition”, and at the same time resisting interpretations that this is the rule rather than the exception. I am watching without judging. Perhaps it’s rule, perhaps it’s exception, I don’t (need to) know.

In one of my earlier letters, I mentioned the full moon meditations, when Swami Veda sits with people around the world at fixed times (I had missed the meditation at that time, and fed myself to the mosquitoes in an attempt at redemption). My experiences with those meditations are mixed. Sometimes I go very deep. Once in Cotonou we were doing hatha yoga prior to the world group meditation, and my mind was so still and inwardly oriented that it was a real effort to speak. It was as if I had to pull my voice forth from deep down within. When the time for the meditation came I was ‘back to normal’. Next day I found out that I had made a mistake about the time (related to a switch to summer or winter time in Europe) and we had sat one hour late… But more often than not, even when sitting in the same space, I have not consciously felt any deepening of my meditation.

Last week, Swami Veda went over to ‘the other ashram’, Sadhana Mandir, to do an intensive practice of his own. We went every day to sit with him. On the first day, I had a wonderful and deep meditation. Finally learning... On the second day, my mind was all over the place. I know that I should not be happy or sad about that, but I was decidedly not happy. I mentioned it to someone, and her reaction changed my perspective. She said “yes, I noticed it too. So I thought I would let it happen and see where he was taking me…” I had perceived it as a kind of failure in my meditation, but if she was right I might actually have been responsive to something Swami Veda wanted us to explore.

Consistently during that week, while sitting with Swami Veda I would alternately have a ‘good’ meditation with a peaceful mind, and be sitting with my mind all over the place, going from distraction to distraction and refusing to settle down. But I think my friend was right when she said that it was focussing on people and relations. Perhaps it really was a preparation for the work of the coming weeks (which we are now in; more in a future letter), which is about knitting our spiritual family and building our organisation.

On the sixteenth of February, two people will take Sanyasa, the vows of renunciation. In the yoga tradition you do not (usually) take the full vows immediately, but start taking them for a period of two or three years. I think you can even renew that period before you move into lifelong vows. On the third day we were over at Sadhana Mandir and sitting with Swami Veda (an odd day, so it was a ‘good meditation’), when a thought arose in my mind very clearly: “you should take vows on the 16th”. I immediately dismissed the idea, saying to myself that I am not ready. The answer came instantly and clearly: “Think about it”. Again I dismissed the idea, with the same argument: I am not ready. And again the answer came, louder this time: THINK ABOUT IT! So I said: OK, and have been turning it over in my mind since. I am quite used to my mind talking back and forth – I suppose we all are – but this somehow felt different. So I have wondered if Swami Veda was probing me (and encouraging me???), or if it was just my own mind.

For a few days I moved towards the thought that perhaps I will. I was remembering something someone said recently while Swami Veda was lecturing on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. I don’t remember which sutra it was (we were on chapter 2), but there was a practice I believed I would eventually come to do but not in the near future. My neighbour in the classroom was already practicing it. The simple, matter of fact way in which he said it made me ponder how incongruous it is to believe that I will (eventually) be doing something, and yet postpone it. Till when am I going to postpone then? And why exactly? What does that mean, ‘not ready yet’?

So from clear rejection in the first few days (‘ not ready yet’), I started thinking that if I think I will eventually take vows of renunciation then why not do it now? After all, I am single and have no bondage. Just as I has started moving in this direction - about a week after the ‘probing meditation’ - Swami Veda invited people to come forward if they wanted to take vows. He held an inspiring talk i.a. about the opportunity of turning the fact of being single into a blessing (but he said it much more beautifully), and I though: why not? And if it’s a yes, then why not now?

Well, because I do not feel ready. More precisely: because I enjoy indulging the senses and do not wish to give that up. I want to enjoy a glass of good wine one in a while. I have a few good friends that I occasionally sleep with. I enjoy that, and do not wish to give it up. Most of all, I do not (yet?) see and feel that this should be given up. So only a few days later I have again moved back to thinking that I will not do anything quite so rash…

Now that I am sharing some of the inner recesses of my heart and mind, I will take one step further and open up on something that for different reasons I wish to keep to myself. That in itself is a reason to share.

I have always felt quite happy being single, seeing disadvantages but many more advantages (freedom, the opportunity to do what I want like going to India for six months…). I felt that though it might be attractive to have someone to share your life with, it was not likely that I would find someone that I liked enough to make a serious change in my life and loose my freedom.

But more or less recently the desire to find a partner grew, and all of a sudden I found myself sizing up all the unmarried males I encountered. I did not know what was happening to me, it perplexed me and I did not like it. But it did not last long, because I pretty soon found one that seemed like a perfect candidate. I asked some very cautious questions to see if he might be available, misunderstood his answers and allowed myself to fall in love in a big way. (In fact, I do not know if there was as much choice as these words suggest, but I think there was some).

It took a little while before I realised the object of my affection was firmly on a path of renunciation, and NOT interested. By the time this became clear I had gone in so deep that it was not so easy to draw out emotionally. It was a painful experience, but it was interesting – I guess - to observe the stories my mind was running.

The first story was simply that he’d change his mind (you know: realize that after all he really loved me or something like that from a cheap romantic novel or film). But I knew quite well that he wouldn’t. When I began accepting that he would not change his mind, I started running the story of how his spiritual teacher would tell him that for karmic reasons he was not yet ready for renunciation but would still have to live a householder’s life in this life…. In those conditions there was obviously no one else but… I knew equally well that it was nonsense, but my mind ran the story anyway, repeatedly. Then I started realizing how horrible it was to (i) want him to be blocked in what he has decided he wants with his life (that can’t be love!), and even worse: (ii) to be the instrument of blocking… I realised that I would much rather support him, even if it seemed to be counter to my perceived direct interest or wishes. Fortunately, I was able to drop all the stories and my mind is clear again (well, clear on this point that is. There is still enough murkiness that needs to be cleared away).

Having gone through this process and through the writing down of it, I suddenly felt that I am ready for renunciation the moment I want it. I don’t think I want it (now), because there are some pleasures of the senses that I do not want to give up (yet). Actually, while living at the ashram I think much of the required lifestyle would come quite naturally, but back out in the world it would not and I do not at this time wish to make those changes which would (appear to) be rather extreme.

On the other hand, the pleasures of meditation are more easily felt when you restrain the senses, and they bring a deeper joy than wine… So I think I will keep you all in suspense, my friends, while my mind moves back and forth. I will let you know the outcome when the ceremonies of the sixteenth of February are over.

Wising you love and peace (I myself have more of that than you would think from this letter!),
Sonia

P.s. This morning I spoke with one of the Swami’s who had been suggested to talk with, and he was very decided: you are still out in the world; do not consider renouncing. If you wish, you can make personal resolves.

This made sense. Also because I think there is a contradiction between formally renouncing and holding a salaried job.

But then someone sent me the following:

Renunciation can also be seen as a gain, as a graduation from something inferior to something better. In fact, in the tantric perspective, one only leaves behind the little pleasures that the world can offer for something much more sublime and fulfilling—inner bliss. Anyone who is after pleasure is really looking for inner bliss. But only a few realize that inner bliss does not come from indulging in the senses while holding your ego alive, but rather from dying to yourself, to your attachment, while surrendering to the eternal bliss of the universe, which is ego-free. Bliss is the essence of the universe and is available to all beings alike. It is not necessary to unite with another body or soul to attain bliss. Only if you are trapped in the ego-perspective that you are separate or different from others, females different from males, and so forth, can you fall for the trap of wishing another body and soul to access greater bliss. You don’t need anything external. All the elements for unsurpassable, eternal bliss are already in you. You just need to combine them in the right proportions and let them ripe… I think you may benefit from taking some vows… listen to that voice inside you… it might be your Inner Guru.