Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Three Prayers of Real Power

Odilon Redon - Design for A Prayer Rug (1909)
I will share another Bodhisattvic secret with you. You won't find it in the 84,000 shlokas (at least not expressed so nakedly). There are three prayers of real power.

The most powerful of them is simply "Thine, not mine, be done." This prayer is impeccable.

It is the way of the Tao. It is appropriate in all circumstances. It inherently acknowledges the irrelevancy of our own notions, and flawlessly aligns us with the inexorable turning of the great wheel. It is inviolate and infallible. 

There are two other prayers of power (although the first prayer underlies them both). 

There is a prayer for those who do harm, and a prayer for those who are lost in their own dreams. For those who do harm, simply pray that they get what they need. Not what they imagine they need, but what they actually need -- at the soul level. Because what a harmful person needs most is to encounter justice, i.e., to be confronted by the consequences. For the harmful person, the reckoning is the quickening. This prayer is a formidable weapon. I have wielded it victoriously in battle. 

For those who are lost in their own dreams, simply pray that they get whatever they imagine they want. Not what they need, not even what they really want (often a mystery), but rather what they imagine they want. Consider the dreamer who is offered a choice between accepting the rare gift of real medicine or pursuing some dream-within-a-dream gift that promises so much more than it can deliver. Yes, the dreamer will almost invariably choose the futile pursuit of the dream-within-a-dream over accepting the rare but tangible gift of real medicine.

So simply pray that the dreamer achieves what she or he dream-desires most. If attained, it will turn out to be very different than what she or he had imagined, and the bitter experience will hasten that person's arrival at the place of great disillusionment. And for those who are lost in their own dreams, that great disillusionment is the quickening. 

Yes, yes, "May all beings be well, may all beings be happy" is THE bodhisattva prayer (the one you will find in the 84,000 shlokas). But think of it as the exoteric version, and think of these three prayers as the esoteric versions, the tantric versions. 

There is, of course, a dimension of prayer beyond both the exoteric and the esoteric, but its nature is unspeakable. These are Bodhisattvic secrets. They are open secrets. There is no need to hide them. Only those with eyes to hear and ears to see will understand. As for the others, well, let us pray. 

-- Richard Power, Author, Speaker, Yoga Teacher (RYT500)

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Sunday, June 28, 2015

Almost Unspeakable

New York Botanical Garden, Summer Solstice, June 2015.
The longer I live the deeper my experience of this universe's almost unspeakable beauty. But this ever-intensifying revelation does not blind me to the profound suffering with which all of it is infused. The gasp of ecstasy does not mute the cry of woe. Likewise, the tragic chorus of our collective dysfunction does not drown out the tremulous song of a single tiny tree frog.

To hear the #musicofthespheres you must open up your inner and outer senses to all of it. You must see, smell, touch and taste all of it in both form and formlessness. This is an encounter that is available to you moment by moment 24 x 7 x 365 x #weknownotthehour

You are this #savagebeauty, you are this #wildmagic, you are this #shamanicpower, you are this #tavernofruin ...

-- Richard Power, Author, Speaker, Yoga Teacher (RYT500)
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See Also

Richard Power's Primal Reality Quadrilogy Available Now from Amazon.com

#tantrikaknows #lifeofayogi #passionofthepoet #psyche #gaia #greatgoddess #bodhisattva

Saturday, June 27, 2015

At the Edge of the World

San Francisco, June 2015

To stand guard at the edge of the world with all of life behind him, for however long time unwinds, is not a sacrifice for this #lionofjudah; it is what he was shaped to do, it is what he was meant to become. Do not mistake the stillness for inaction. Do not mistake the silence for surrender. How many beings, passing by, fail to comprehend the truth of it all. 

#kingofthebeasts #savagebeauty #tavernofruin #lifeofayogi #passionofthepoet #pathlesspath #psyche #strangerinastrangeland #troubadourskilledbeforetheyreachBombay #notruthoutsidethegatesofeden #notacaravanofdespair #tantrikaknows

If you resonate with the content of this site, and would like to support my work, all four volumes of my Primal Reality quadrilogy (listed here in reverse chronological order) are available from Amazon.com in both soft cover and Kindle editions:
-- Richard Power, Author, Speaker, Yoga Teacher (RYT500)
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See Also

Richard Power's Primal Reality Quadrilogy Available Now from Amazon.com

Great Song: Life and Teachings of Joe Miller - Available Now Via Kindle (Amazon) and Nook (Barnes and Noble)

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

What the Redwoods Said

Mt. Tamalpais, June 2015
From within the perfect triangle of this Sakti Yantra formed by the growth of three redwoods, on a fire trail in the Tamalpais watershed, I will tell you the story of my first encounter with their kind.

Decades ago. I stretched out to meditate in a redwood grove in Muir Woods. I soon fell asleep (i.e. into that state deeper, purer and more direct than what we imagine we are doing in "seated meditation"). And then as I came back into "waking" consciousness, in the space in between, the Redwoods spoke to me. 

They said that long ago they were going to learn "human language" but that they only went as far as the vowels. They said the vowels were powerful and sacred to them. But that they chose to go no further. Because the consonants and all that stretched out beyond them only lead to madness. 

So they showed me how to speak with them. Aaaaaaaa. Eeeeeee. Iiiiiiiiii. Oooooo. Uuuuuuuu. 

And they have traveled with me ever since. 

Some years later, I met their elder sisters the Giant Sequoia, and ....

-- Richard Power, Author, Speaker, Yoga Teacher (RYT500)

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 #notruthoutsidethegatesofeden #Gaia #greenflame #greatgoddess #lifeofayogi #passionofthepoet #shamanicpower #psyche #tantrikaknows

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Held Tenderly Within the Vastness

Ocean Beach. San Franciso, June 2015.
This ocean has been in uninterrupted Sahaja Samadhi for countless eons. Undulating ceaselessly, she invites you into her primordial dance. You don't have to journey to her shore, although of course that door is always open. In this next moment, with this next breath, for the space of even a few heartbeats, whether in movement or relative stillness, feel for her surf inside of your own life, she is always surging there. You hold her indisputable vastness within your unacknowledged vastness, even if you have not yet consciously experienced the truth of it. You will, you will. And then you will consciously experience the truth that just as her vastness is held tenderly within the vastness of the true you, the vastness of the true you is held tenderly within the vastness of the universe, and then you will consciously experience that the vastness of the universe itself is held tenderly within the vastness of that which cannot be named in any tongue in any dimension on any planet, AND then ... 

-- Richard Power, Author, Speaker, Yoga Teacher (RYT-500)

https://soundcloud.com/wordsofpower/

See Also

Richard Power's Primal Reality Quadrilogy Available Now from Amazon.com

#Gaia #savagebeauty #tavernofruin #pathlesspath #psyche #pearlofgreatprice #lifeofayogi #passionofthepoet #notruthoutsidethegatesofeden #notacaravanofdespair #thegreatwheelturns #tantrikaknows