An Anchient Ritual

For the first time in a long time I participated in Pradosham tonight. This is a ritual I have always really loved and felt connected to in the Hindu tradition. I was asked to be on the team for the temple, but I turned the offer down (much as I hate to say it a large part of it was teenage spite) But tonight for the first time since last summer I helped again. For some background Pradosham (although I am sorry if that is not the correct spelling) is the day to honor Nandi, Shiva's pet bull, or vehicle. When Lord Shiva was giving Pavaarti the Shiva Sutras Nandi guarded the door so no one would bother them. Which doesn't sound lie much but the only way human kind could have the sutras was through Pavaarthi, and if they where interrupted Shiva said he would stop, and so twice a Month, one day before the full and new moons (or maybe it's just full, I can't quite remember) we honor Nandi.
I love this ritual for two reasons, one I love animals, cows being one of my favorites, and so I think it is really cool that there is a day to honor a cow, sorry bull. Second in India Bidadi Ashram resides real Nandi, I mean living in flesh that was born almost two months early ON Swamiji's birthday. He is a giant black and white bull who only will listen to two people, his caretaker and Swamiji. He also LOVES bananas I would bring him one every day. And he acts like a prince, although he has the right. Anyhow Why I wanted to write this is because I was sitting today helping pass kalashas or pots full of water, milk, and other substances so Nandi could have a bath (that is what we do for Pradosham, Nandi abishakam or a bath for him) I had this amazed realization that the rudram chanting we where listening to and the motions we where acting out and the stone (although he is living) bull in front of us where the same as they had in India even thousands of years ago, doing the same ritual. It was an amazing and humbling realization. Of course it was a different stone, our chants where on a cd and different water was being poured, but people had been doing this EXACT thing for thousands of years the same devotion towards god. It was just really really cool. To say the least. Well gotta get to bed, Sundays are always busy! Please comment!
The picture, I got it off the Bidadi website, is the stone Nandi in Bidadi and Swamiji doing Pancha Tapas or sitting in a circle of fire. I was talking about

Ninth Grader Speculations

These are just some things I was thinking about an history class today, although if you are wondering they really have nothing to do with history class. Delaware the town I live in, and the place where the temple is is considered to be one of the poorest areas around. Now when I say poor please don't go thinking of Indian slums or anything, it's just poor compared to the surrounding towns. On top of that it has a very low income neighborhood (actually a few). Because of this the high school is poor, on top of that Delaware has a really high teenage pregnancy rate and... it's just not nice. Because of all that, my school is called The Dirty D by surrounding schools. We had a little talk about this in class today, history class, someone just randomly asked the teacher "how do you feel about this school being called The Dirty D. That's when I started thinking, out of all the places a temple could possibly be in Ohio, Columbus, even Delaware county it came to be IN Delaware. Swamiji is doing all these Wealth programs, and we are doing all this stuff for the community, and most of all what is the temple for? It's a giant battery to radiate out positive energy, energy people can come and absorb. So if they are radiating energy won't that go out into Delaware? Into the community? I feel like there is a huge current, an under laying force out there planning something huge, and right now it's just waiting to burst out. I don't mean to say this sounding like an evil villain from some movie. It would be a positive force that would help. But these are just speculations from the brain of a girl in a ninth grade history class, so take it as you will.

Running

Inspired by my friend who started doing 5k races and by the big workout schem my mum is now on, I have decided to start my own kind of workout. I have started to run. Now your probably thinking ok.... A lot of people run for excursive, but for me it is a big deal. I despise excersie. I am very competitive though and as running is becoming more popular I decided to try it out. I have always liked running I am sure part of it is my love of horses. I always played horse games in which I would run around the playground. Anyhow I have done my running four times each time going farther then the time before. We shall see where this goes for me maybe I will get board and forget like so many things, but maybe I will become fit, stronger! So we'll see how it goes.

New Temple Respect

Living by the temple for over two years now I have gotten very comfortable being there and relaxed. Especially in the past 6 months with no real important people coming, just going about life... I mean there was one day when I wore my P.J. bottoms when I went for dinner there. Coming home from school directly to the temple is one thing, I mean I dress if not nice, respectable for school. There are times though when I would go directly to the barn from the temple and sit in the temple in my dirt covered jeans, slobber, (Thanks to Mac the huge grey gelding who has made his life's goal to lick me up) hay in my hair. Yeah kinda gross but I would just waltz into the temple, I mean I've said it's like my home there, but I was getting to comfortable. After Bhakta Swami left its like I just snapped out of a dream and was like "Hey! what am I doing?!" and now I am braiding my hair nicely, carefully applying my bindi, making sure I was wearing a sari, salvaar, and at least nice skirt. Now when I go I feel much better.
When I was at Gurukul in 2008, the summer, we would wake up, take bath and get ready helping each other, go to temple for meditation, then go about our classes with a few juice breaks, and school would let out at 4:30. We would play games, read, hang out in the dorms or what not and at 6:00 get ready to go to the temple washing up, changing into nice, white clothing instead of regular everyday clothes.... That time was so nice, brushing away the day and making the temple a truly sacred place. But I had forgotten and was taking advantage of it. But now I am making it sacred again and even though it's work to retie my sari, wash my face and redo my hair, it's really nice sort of liking checking in with myself at the end, or middle of a long day.

Teaching Through Dreams

Teaching through dreams? This is going to be a long story, so sit back, relax and read. This past weekend I had a dream with Swamiji in it. Let me back up, to say something. Many people ask Swamiji if he comes in people's dreams and if so is it really him ect. I have heard him answer this question so many time with the words
"If I am in full color in the dream, it is really me." He is in the dream if HE is in full color. OK continuing on
Night before last I had a dream of Swamiji I have had up to date five I think, and all of them where strange in a sense, but this one topped them all. The dream had many parts but the one I remember most vividly was I was sitting with Swamiji and asked him to fix my hair, and he did! (if you care to know he started to french braid it) anyhow I was telling my mom about the dream. I couldn't get it out of my head and kept replaying it over and over in my mind, I mean who did I think I was asking him to do my hair?! I was telling her that everyone seems to get these dreams where Swamiji instructs them, and I on the other hand just get nice, but all the same really strange dreams of him. Then we changed the subject, but I thought about what I had just told her. Was that really true? Did I just have weird dreams? And the answer was no. Thinking over the past two years I realized every dream I have had of Swamiji he taught me something. I realized every dream was quite odd nothing like my regular dreams and I spent days pondering it. If my dreams where just sitting with Swamiji in some room and him teaching me, I probably wouldn't totally digest the teaching, but by appearing to me in very strange dreams or doing unique things with me I really took in and digested whatever teaching he was trying to convey to me. It's like if I cannot come physically to Swamiji he will come in dreamland to me.
All of the dreams I am talking about where in full color so I know it WAS him. OK so the last dream I had, I don't want to go into detail about, but after the whole hair thing, where he fussed over me and started to french braid my hair, but I told him it was OK because it took to long ... anyway in the dream after that Swamiji was in "his room" (in my dream) and I was skyping with him. He told me to learn his words, I think he meant teachings, and later on indirectly told me to listen to his words. That was my last dream 2 days ago.
The previous one a couple months back was much shorter. There is a trampoline a good sized one, behind my house. In the dream Swamiji and I where jumping on it together. My mom came out of the house and saw us jumping and got this really shocked expression of her face. (either cause I was jumping on a trampoline with Swamiji or cause he was at our house I don't know) but I clearly remember he had full bright orange kavi on. After a while we flopped down of the trampoline and he told me that every time I was not in school I should go to India. I interpreted that to mean I should be at the temple, cause it's like a little piece of India That was it. I have had quite a few more of these kinds of dreams but these two are good to show what I mean. Swamiji said write a blog of my experiences, and I think this is a pretty big experience. At first I didn't want to write it at all thinking what will people say?! But then I decided to share. Hope you enjoyed!!

Seeing through new eyes

My main job at the temple is taking pictures and videos, processing them and posting website, sending to India and other stuff. Because of this I look at a lot of the temple just through a camera lens and always thinking about the right angle and how to get the best possible shot for the website. This past weekend a senior disiple of Swamiji and the spiritual head of North America came to Ogio and Volunteers got to meet with him. At one point when he was talking to us (I don't remember the context though) he talked about how we see each other through our eyeballsvand really how intelligent and amazing eyes are. I looked at the the people sitting accross from me and was hit with the feeling, the understanding how vivid bright and spectacular they and their surroundings. It was like I was so used to seeing things through the veiwfinder or lence of a camera I totally forgot what real things look like. Maybe that seems strange, but it was an interesting. For the rest of that day everything just seemed so fresh, like when you have horrible eyesight and you get glasses.
P.S. I wanted to post this a week ago, but forgot!

P.P.S. This picture was taken by someone from Toronto on their visit to the temple. If you look closely at it you can see Anandaswara face in the shadow.

Perfectionism

Let me start out by saying outright that I am a perfectionist. I used to really deny it, but I am stating right here that I am, or rather was. Being a perfectionist means your Anya chakra is closed. Until it is open the spontaneous will not happen to you easily. I like to have everything just perfect, it might also be a bit of a control thing as I like to have things my way or I become someone you don't want to be around. This weekend though I had a huge breakthrough from this. First thing that really helped was the play another kid from the temple and I did. I had everything planned out down to the costumes, but it totally did not work out the way I wanted it to. During practices I started being fussy about how the Narrator said the lines, but I realized if we where to get anything done I would just have to let go, so I stopped. Then I was fussy about how "Swamiji" should be dressed but it was already on him, and no would change it.
OK so as not to bore you with details lets suffice to say not one thing planned this weekend went how I wanted or planned. I am not saying I am like amazingly unclutched or anything, but I am definitely on the road to recover from this problem. If I didn't let go in those situation I would have gone crazy, so I learned the hard way, I just had to let go. There was no other option!! So go me, I am learning, breaking from a cycle I have long suffered from.

Wow. That's pretty how I can describe the past three days. Its been very busy here at the temple the past three days Sri Bhaktananda Swami who is the spiritual head of the North American dyanapeetam flew in and has been staying in Ohio, at the temple the past few days. The main reason is April 14 and the days following we have been celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Ohio Vedic Temple. There so many things I want to write to you, but as we are having our next event (Kumba Abishakum) is happening in a few hours and we have to set but I want to tell you the most amazing thing I have discovered the past few days. I have discovered this before but not to the level I am experiencing now. Over the past few days so many times I have felt sooooo tired like I couldn't move, I mean we are working practically non-stop and only getting three or four hours of sleep. But every time I get that feeling I am some able to go past it. Get up, keep going, and feel as energetic and blissful as ever.
That's the other thing I have seen is I am so blissful, so happy the past week. I just have this feeling of overflowing bliss and joy it so nice. The last thing is everything is just working out in its own way. Although NOTHING is going the way we planned it. I am going to write about this more in my next entry so check back in soon!!!

My Continued Pooja Learning

For the past week, and on the weekends I go to the temple for Swamiji's morning message. I used to go ever day, but because of the time change it doesn't end until Midnight. Anyhow I wrote before about how I really enjoyed chanting and all that, but here is my chanting update. So at this point I am able to chant not using the paper, and at some subconcious level I no all the mantras. When I hear them I can chant without using notes or a paper, but for example here typing this I am able to come up with one or two of the stanzas.
I have been testing myself though I see how many words I can remember right before I have to officaly chant it. At this point I can remember pretty much every word then right before I chant it, so it is in my memory. Yep wanted to write that!!!