Mooji and Returning to “I”

(started on 28-Jan-2010) Feeling very fragile right now. Very easily irritated and annoyed. I just want to be settled in somewhere that feels comfortable and like home. It’s been an ordeal trying to find a place to stay which feels comfortable and where I could stay for the length of my time here, and people have given away rooms they’ve promised to hold for me, and I’ve passed up decent enough rooms expecting those others to come through. I just want to stop. To be somewhere. To be able to collapse and relax at the same time, and it just hasn’t happened. I just accepted a room – an apartment really, which feels more like a prison as I settle in to it, barren new construction with only a bed and a plastic chair and a makeshift table. 3 rooms and a deck which is nice. Actually, the details aren’t important but the point is simply that I want to be able to rest somewhere and I’m afraid this isn’t the place. Perhaps I’ll feel better after a shower and maybe another good night’s sleep.

I went to see Mooji at his satsang today(see last year’s post for a better flavor of him) but he’s wonderful and it was a real treat to see him again and be in his presence. It didn’t take long at all for me to start dropping in and feel much more grounded, much more connected to a truer me than I’ve been feeling lately. It was surprising almost how easily it came, and shocking almost how quickly it can go away. That’s the fragility I’m talking about really – how easily I can lose my connection to my core being, and retreat into irritability or isolation.I just want to rest. Can I say that any more clearly? I want to rest.

(Next day)
Woke up this morning with my head where my feet should have been, and that’s a good feat since it’s not a very wide bed. Long night of tossing and turning. I went to see Mooji again in the morning and had an amazing experience. I sat through the satsang with him where he fielded questions. In my opinion, he truly appears to me as an enlightened being, defined in this case as one who does not take himself to be any flavor of his mind or body, but recognizes himself as something deeper, something beyond mind and body, and also lives from that place of recognition. He was truly brilliant. It was also his birthday and at the end he walked through the group in attendance, maybe 180 people and gave a piece of candy and a moment of recognition to everyone there. He was beaming with love and presence. When he came to me he said, “Oh, I remember you” which made my little ego happy. Afterward, he went downstairs and simply sat quietly for about 15 minutes as others sat and stood around him. As he did so he looked around the room and fully embodied the love and the beyond-mind presence that he teaches. It was stunning really and personally it was as if he were reflecting back to me the contents of my own soul, and I finally cracked open and started to cry. As you know, something in me has been deeply struggling these past few weeks, physically (getting sick) and emotionally going through my frustration, hatred and sadness periods, and that all simply vanished. In part is was his teaching during the satsang that we are not our emotions and mind (and lately I’ve been very identified with my mind and my emotions), and in even greater part though it was simply his reminding me through the clarity of his own presence the true depth of my own. It is the first time in my memory that I’ve had such an experience where I was moved to a shift in my own consciousness, my own awareness, simply by the presence of another person. He’s a special one. I recognized his specialness almost instantly last year upon being in his presence, but this year, either he has deepened even more or I’ve deepened more to yet be better capable of recognizing his presence and teaching and being receptive to it.

(Next day)
It definitely seems to be holding.I’m feeling very centered and grounded.Very still actually, with what seems like almost no excess mental activity happening. Whatever is in front of me is all that is really seeming to matter. As an update to my living situation, I stayed in the place that I mentioned renting and it no longer feels like a prison but actually feels like a wonderful home. Clearly, my internal state of affairs was affecting my perception of my external world. I even have a roof deck where I go in the mornings to do yoga as the sun rises and illuminates a nearly full perfect view of the mountain Arunachala. It’s very beautiful and I am so happy to be here and this is exactly where I need to be. What I saw in Mooji’s eyes was actually what I had seen in Camille’s eyes at the airport, and I was so right to follow that instinct that knew there was something here which I needed to reclaim.

It’s nice to be home.