Maya's Veils of Illusion
_______________________ & _____________________
The Truth Which Lies
Behind Them
Introduction
The photographs in this project were made in the early morning light of January 26 and 27, 2022, before a contractor arrived to construct a small utility closet for our sump pump which had recently been installed in the corner of our basement in a finished room which serves as a storage space for my archive of photographic prints, my collection of art books and music CDs, an exercise bike and a ping pong table. (Note: I wrote about the "sump pump ordeal" in my previously published blog project That Auspicious Interior Light.)
The person we hired to construct the closet (which now hides and protects the pump) began the job the evening before by covering everything in the room with thin sheets of plastic. He would be sanding plaster on the walls and wanted to protect everything possible from the dust. The next morning, when I went downstairs before he arrived, I was amazed to find that he had unwittingly transformed the familiar room into a fantastic world of veiled shapes and spaces. I spent about twenty minutes photographing in the "room of veils," then on the second (and final) morning of construction I photographed a second time.
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As a student of Siddha Yoga Meditation for over 34 years, I have often studied and contemplated the idea that the world is merely an appearance, an illusion due to the powers of Maya, the Hindu goddess and the limited vision of the human mind, the ego which is vulnerable to maya's creation of dark, shadowy realities. Indeed, while photographing the veils in our basement room I encountered many beautiful and several dark visionary spectacles which became the primary subjects of the photographs you will be seeing in this project.
Maya is defined in various Siddha Yoga publications as ". . . a term used in Vedanta for the power which veils the true nature of the [One, divine] Self and projects the experience of multiplicity and separation from God. The force of maya conceals the ultimate Truth creating the illusion that the real is unreal, the unreal is real . . . "
Swami Shantananda, a beloved teaching swami of Siddha Yoga, writes in his book The Splendor of Recognition about how "it is the nature of the mind to perceive and experience maya." He shared a personal meditation experience which was initiated by a deep feeling of sadness, a feeling he later realized was based in his feelings generated by the powers of Maya: being painfully separated from God, and the strong longing to know God. He writes: "I entered a space [during meditation] of profound silence, a space in which I could see a tender, sparkling blue light. I felt a quiet, tremulous pulsation--and perfect serenity."
Swamiji went on to explain in technical, yogic terms how the ego, and the veils of maya, connect us to the world of appearances and at the same time separates us from God. He says only the grace of a True Guru, or Sadguru, can purify--wash away--the ego, and the dark veils of maya, and get us connected to the light of the Self that exists within our own hearts--the light of the Oneness of Being which is our True, divine nature.
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I first began practicing Siddha Yoga Meditation in 1987 after experiencing the grace of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, a Sadguru, or True Guru in a meditation program. The Sadguru is the very heart of the Siddha Yoga Path which was founded by Gurumayi's teacher, Swami Muktananda upon the command of his teacher Bhagavan Nityananda. Such great beings, or True Gurus live in the constant and conscious awareness of their union or Oneness with God, the divine Self.
Gurumayi is the physical embodiment of the creative energy of the Universe, the divine power known in Siddha Yoga as shakti, or grace. My experience of her grace transformed my relationship to everything in my life. As I continued my yogic practices my experience with photography gradually became transformed into an entirely new and vitally alive Creative Process that eventually merged, became inseparable from my meditation practices. The project before you now is a good example of how my photography has become a form of meditation, a way for me to gain deeper insights into the yogic teachings, and most importantly stay connected to Gurumayi's grace and the grace of my own divine Self. (I invite you to visit the following link which offers the complete listing of my Sacred Art Photography Projects.)
Grace enables me to see with the "Eye of the Heart" rather than with the limited eye of the mind, the eye of the ego; and it is grace which transforms a photographic image from being a mechanical recording of appearances into an image radiant with grace which can unveil the ineffable, invisible Truth which lies behind appearances. I have termed those photographs which are the Imaginal embodiment of grace "True, living Symbols." Symbolic Photographs are visual equivalents for the Oneness of Being, the Truth of that which is most sacred, that which exists behind the illusionary nature of Maya's veils of illusion.
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Many of the photographs in this project function for me as True, living symbols. Interestingly, to me, I made the first image presented below, entitled Overview of the "room of veils," merely to describe where all the other twelve numbered photographs were made and some of the plastic veils I photographed. However, as I have grown to appreciate the formal elegance of that image I have also found metaphorical meaning in the way the large black space on the left side of the image block's the light coming through the window in the background. The "blocking of the light" is essentially the role of Maya, the ego, the "creator" of duality. The metaphor continues with the fact that the black space (which blocked the light) was created by one-half of our ping pong table which was raised to a vertical position in order to make space on the floor for the contractor's tools and materials.
The other, numbered photographs in the project are comparatively more abstract than the overview image. As I photographed I became attracted to the play of light and shadow on the surfaces and the way shapes and spaces behind the veils took on animated, strangely illuminated forms and sometimes figurative, fantastic presences.
After the presentation of the photographs, I have offered some key teachings about Maya from published talks given by Gurumayi and Swami Muktananda. Then I concluded the project with some commentaries I have written on selected images, and an Epilogue in which I share a personal meditation experience that occurred while I was working on the project.
(Note: I like to view my blog photographs, especially the darker ones, in a dark viewing environment. This is possible for me when I use my apple desktop or laptop computer with the Google Chrome browser. When I click on an image once, the default white background turns nearly black allowing me to see the really subtle tones in the image. When I click on the image the second time the image becomes magnified, allowing a closer look at detailed area in the image. I encourage you to try seeing these images in this way if your viewing device will allows it.)
The Photographs
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An overview of "the room of veils"
Image #1
Image #2
Image #3
Image #4 "The light behind Maya's veils"
Image #5
Image #6
Image #7
Image #8
Image #9
Image #10
Image #11
Image #12 Symmetrical Photograph : The Face of Maya, Goddess of Illusion
"Behind Illusion Lies the Truth"
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Excerpts from a talk given by Gurumayi Chidvilasananda,
published in: Transformation, Vol. III, On Tour With
Gurumayi, September 1986 - September 1987
The Lord said [in the Bhagavad Gita] "I have created both that which is real and that which is unreal."
Therefore [Gurumayi asks,] is God's creation a mirage or is it the truth? Which is it?
In a [yogic] scripture called Siddhant, it is said, "An illusion is a false appearance. But an appearance is necessarily based upon a reality, for no illusory thing can exist without a support. The reality of the support always remains, pervading the illusion. In worshiping the illusion or its manifestation, one worships the reality behind it, the unknowable immensity on which it rests." The ancient sages of India worshipped yogamaya, worshipped illusion, because they knew very well that behind the illusion of this body, behind maya, the truth exists. . . There is truth behind the illusion . . . and it is the truth that you seek, that you yearn for.
There is a beautiful question in Vedanta: "Is God in the universe or is the universe in God?" The sages say, "God is in the world; the world is in God. The world is God; the world and God are distinct. God is distinct from the world, but the world is not distinct from God. It cannot be said whether the world is distinct from God or not."
The experience of the truth is inseparable from us. It is not that we are going to have the experience of the truth; we are the experience of the truth. There is no difference. . . . I am that I am. I am the truth.
Illusion and the truth go hand in hand. Illusion is the shadow of the truth; they are inseparable.
The art of shadows is more tantalizing than the truth itself. Because shadow, depending on the angle of the light, has a different form. Your form is the same, your body is the same, but depending on what light you are under, your shadow assumes different forms. The incredible art of God: everything exists and yet does not exist; it is there and yet is not there. And if you do not attribute its existence to the ultimate truth itself, then you think you are the creator of this shadow, this illusion. This is still a greater illusion.
The truth is so close, but there are so many illusions, so many barriers.
The Veil
Behind the immediate surface appearance of the photographs I have presented above, I feel an invisible mysterious presence. Such is the transcendent nature of grace and the nature of photographs that function as True living symbols. Many of the images spontaneously reveal the Oneness of Being in ways that I cannot explain for the experience of grace is beyond the mind's limitations, beyond maya's power to veil, to separate everything into light and shadow.
Gurumayi's teachings come direct from her experience of union with God. Her vision of the world, as a Sadguru, is always filtered through the Eye of the Heart, the Eye of the divine Self rather than through the eyes of Maya. My best photographs are visionary expressions of my own momentary intuitive glimpses of the Truth, that which lies behind Maya's illusions.
Someone asked Swami Muktananda, Gurumayi's teacher, a question about maya: "What is the nature of maya and how can we deal with it?" Here is Muktananda's answer:
All of us are oceans of divine Consciousness, and yet we do not experience ourselves as such. This concealment is maya's most important function. Maya conceals your divinity and makes you experience yourself as a petty, limited being, and so she keeps you trapped.
You are supremely free. Your real nature is the Self and you are divine in your innermost nature. Everything in the outside world lies in the shakti [the creative energy of the universe], yet you are looking for satisfaction in the outer world. This is all due to maya. That is why the Lord says in the Bhagavad Gita, "Maya is mysterious. All those who join their hearts to Me, who are constantly thinking of Me and who see Me in others, all those who see not others but My manifestations, will be able to cross the ocean of maya." from Vol. II of From the Finite to the Infinite, a SYDA Foundation publication, which consists of a vast collections of responses to questions by Swami Muktananda.
The yogic sages tell us the Presence that lies behind maya's veils of illusion is closer to us than our own breath, and it is inseparable from us for it is the Truth of our innermost nature. One of the primary teachings of the saints, the Siddhas, the Sadgurus is that God pervades all created things. The inner radiance that gives symbolic photographs their presence, their feeling of deep unknowable meaning, is the grace of the divine Self that dwells within the image, the things photographed and the viewer of the photograph. The grace of the Self is the grace of God, the Oneness of Being:
"I am that I am. I am the Truth"
Commentary on Selected Images
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This project materialized out of the clear blue sky. I did not see it coming. After completing my last project The Splendor of That Auspicious Light in early December, I found it difficult to find a direction for a new project. I had been very preoccupied with getting the sump pump installed, then
I felt I had to protect the pump with a utility closet. I certainly was not expecting to have such an intense response to the transformation of our basement which spontaneously generated over fifty photographs of veils during the two days of construction of the closet. I wrote the text for this project after selecting, adjusting and then sequencing the twelve images included in this project. A powerful meditation experience occurred while I was writing the text which then helped put everything into its proper perspective.
When I quoted Swami Shantananda, in my Introductory text, from his book The Splendor of Recognition I was struck by how the meditation experience he wrote about related in such a direct
way visually to the picture (above) I used as the project's title image. Here is the quote again:
"[In meditation] I entered a space of profound silence, a
space in which I could see a tender, sparkling blue light.
I felt a quiet, tremulous pulsation--and perfect serenity."
The image, with its interior light functions for me as a True, living symbol, an image (literally) radiant with the blue light of grace. And, within the darker tones surrounding the light in the center of the image, there are many beautiful, subtle, "tremulous," "pulsating" tonalities and colors which require (and deserve) a closer, sustained viewing.
Note: this photograph is definitely a "Blue Pearl" image, and I am considering adding it to my project The Blue Pearl. I encourage you to visit the project. Also, because those subtleties of "tremulous" tones and colors may be difficult to see and appreciate when the image is viewed with the white border around it, I encourage you to try to zoom in close to the image to eliminate the white border, or try clicking on the image, once, twice.
You may have noticed that both of the quotes I presented from talks by Gurumayi and Swami Muktananda included references to the Bhagavad Gita. At the heart of that sacred story are many dialogues between Arjuna and Lord Krishna. The Lord tells Arjuna--who is a skilled archer--that he must do battle with his relatives, and Arjuna struggles with this moral dilemma. When Arjuna shoots his arrows--intentionally trying to miss his targets--the arrows somehow find their way to the hearts of his beloved enemies. Such is the power of grace. I mention this here because the image above looks like a bow. The blue tape which forms the "handle" of the "bow" is the same blue color as Lord Krishna's skin.
Clearly, Lord Krishna is doing the shooting of the arrows in the story; it only appears that Arjuna is (reluctantly) doing battle with his relatives. Though it is Arjuna's divine duty, his dharma to participate in the battle, it is Lord Krishna who is performing all the actions. The battle is a metaphor for what Swami Muktananda calls the Play of Consciousness, which is the title of Muktananda's remarkable spiritual autobiography. It is because of Maya's illusions that it appears we are the ones performing actions. The yogic teachings are very clear: "God dwells within us, as us;" it is God, the divine Self that takes the form of the apparent world and all the actors in the divine Play.
When I am in the flow of my Creative Process I can sometimes feel that I am not the one making the photographs; rather it is grace which is taking care of everything. My job, mostly, is just to "get out of the way," to "Let go; Let God." When I am photographing I work quickly, taking pictures very spontaneously, intuitively. I make a conscious effort to not think about what I am doing, what I am photographing, how I am photographing. After an exposure, I quickly move on to the next. The images made with grace, with the Eye of the Heart are always the most surprising, the most meaningful, the most attractive and yet the most difficult to understand and explain. Such is the nature of a True, living Symbolic Photographs. Such powerful, mysterious images must be
contemplated in order for me to most fully receive the gifts of "my" Creative Process.
Both of these nearly abstract images, with in-and-out-of-focus spaces, are very atmospheric and moody. I enjoy the interplay of the linear movements within each image, and the interaction of the lines between the two juxtaposed images. I am particularly taken by the dark vertical form in the center of the top image, and the dialogue that occurs between the dark shape and the ^ shape in the center of the lower image. I cannot say what the images or the interplay of the movements between the images "mean." It occurs to me that both images are excellent visual metaphors for the themes I am exploring in this project.
However, I was not consciously trying to make pictures that illustrate these thematic ideas; when I was making the photographs I was in an open, receptive state of mind, very close to meditation: I was conscious, but not thinking. I was immersed or "lost" in the intuitive creative act of finding (and perhaps more accurately, recognizing) images in the world that would make "interesting" visually coherent photographs.
Images like the two above do not explain themselves to viewers; rather they practically insist on being approached silently and then being respectfully "listened to." They do have something important they need to say to us. "Listening" occurs in the kind of meditative silence that allows "meaning" to emerge from the depths of our own innermost being. This essentially is what the process of contemplation is about. The meanings that emerge from within ourselves through the contemplation of symbolic photographs constitute a form of Self knowledge which comes in the form of intuitive ineffable understandings that bypass the intellect.
This image is pervaded by a feeling of pensive sadness, or melancholy. The gently luminous, blue tinged shape at the center of the image, which I associate with a teardrop, seems suspended in space, as if it has emerged from one dimension of reality into another. The "tear" is there and yet it is not there. In the vague, out of focus background, the shapes that can be seen are boxes, stacked on storage shelves, full of photographic prints I have made over many years . . . perhaps waiting patiently to be opened once again.
Tears, in Siddha Yoga Meditation, is usually a sign that grace as touched one's Heart. One begins to gently, quietly cry to one's Self because the heart's great longing for God has been--a least for the present moment--fully satisfied; the Truth has been unveiled, intimately perceived. The spontaneous "opening of the heart" has occurred; the Guru's grace has entered one's whole being. The tears are an expression of unsayable, overwhelming love . . . joy . . . gratitude.
(Note: I wrote this text several days before I had an experience on February 2, my dad's birthday, which I later wrote about in detail in my Epilogue to this project.)
Of course I had to write a comment on this final image in the series which I have titled Symmetrical Photograph : The Face of Maya, Goddess of Illusion. The image was constructed with four identical copies of the "straight" photograph, image #2 from this project (shown below). Each repeated image is conjoined to the others, at the very center of the symmetrical photograph, and each image mirrors itself both above and below, left and right. (For more information about "straight photographs" and the construction of symmetrical images, visit my blog link: "The Straight Photograph" & Constructing the Four-fold Symmetrical Photographs.)
Symmetrical images often appear with anthropomorphic features (two eyes, for example), and it is indeed interesting to think of this particular symmetrical photograph as a face--or perhaps a ritual mask--personifying the goddess Maya. There is certainly an aspect of ritual in the making and contemplation of photographs as well. Of course human beings have unique personalities that become reflected in their faces, their eyes, their body language; the outer reflects the inner. What is hidden inside shows up in the outside, and that is often what generates the impulse to make a photograph. What we see in the world as meaningful is most likely reflections of what is inside us which wants to be known and recognized.
When I look into a mirror and see my face, I am often a little surprised (and sometimes even startled) by what I see. When I looked at The Face of Maya the first time, after I constructed the image, I found it quite frightening. I think the image was reflecting the FEAR I have been carrying around within me . . . for who knows how long. In some ways every photograph I make is a self-portrait, and perhaps this particular image, with its pervading grace, will help me to recognize and transform some of those deep seated fears. I also know it will require some conscious effort on my part if real change is to come.
Maya takes the form of everything imaginable and unimaginable in this world. Everything is created (and uncreated, dissolved) by Maya which is the power of God to not only Create but also to Conceal, to hide, and to Destroy. I have been dealing with so many fears recently: the possible flooding of our basement; becoming ill with the Coronavirus; the emergence and intensification of the rise of Trumpisim, White Supremacism, Climate Change, Corruption (particularly in government and large corporations), Russia's threat of War . . . . . . I know these outer dramas and my inner fears are merely reflections of Maya's creation, God's Play of Consciousness. Only grace can reveal the Truth behind the illusions. The recent past has appeared very dark and stressful indeed, however in a recent live-stream video program, Gurumayi reminded the Siddha Yoga Global Community of an important yogic teaching:
Everything happens for the best.
Maya is not all bad; it is equally that which appears to us as beauty, or that which we perceive to be good. I know that when I take the time to get in touch with my heart; when I consciously direct my seeing through the The Eye of the Heart rather than the Eye of my Ego--the Eye of Fear--I can feel the divine Presence which lies both within me and behind the endless appearances of Maya. I simply have to remember to look within as I look outward at the world. And this is part of the beauty of my Creative Process in photography: when I am making and contemplating photographs I am simultaneously looking inward and outward at an Imaginal world. True, living symbolic photographs are the very embodiment of grace in Imaginal form. True, living symbols are the very embodiment of the Oneness of Being.
Epilogue
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I wrote the above commentary on the Face of Maya photograph during the afternoon of February 2, 2022. Later that afternoon my wife Gloria was looking at her list of family birthdays and deaths for the month of February and she mentioned to me that today (February 2) was my dad's birthdate.
(My dad passed away in July 1955, at the age of 39 from complications associated with a broken back. I was about to turn ten years old in September.)
Gloria suggested perhaps we should spend some time later that day honoring my dad's birthday. It is something we have never done before and she felt it was long overdue!
I agreed, and I felt the best way to honor my dad's birth, and his short life, would be to chant the Siddha Yoga mantra with Gurumayi and send my dad blessings of love and gratitude. And that's what we did. Immediately after we ate supper and cleaned up the kitchen that same night we chanted for about 20 minutes with a Cd recording of Gurumayi and then we sat in silent remembrance for about ten minutes.
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The Siddha Yoga mantra is very powerful. It contains the name of God, and most importantly, the words of the mantra have been made "alive" (chaitanya) by the grace of the Sadgurus of the Siddha Yoga lineage. I can vouch for the mantra's aliveness, for chanting the mantra on my dad's birthday with Gurumayi was an extraordinarily powerful, meaningful experience for me.
As Gloria and I chanted I asked Gurumayi to bless my dad with her grace, and even as I was asking her, I started to cry. Indeed, I cried gently, sweetly, quietly throughout the entire chanting period and the period of silence that followed.
The crying was not about the loss of my dad. It was about love and gratitude. However, when I turned ten years old I did feel very sad: my dad was not there for my birthday. And later, I became very angry about not having a dad and about having to become "the man of the house" (which is one of the things my Aunt Betty told me at my dad's funeral). And more surprisingly, much later I realized I was angry at my dad for leaving me and my sister and my mom. My mom was terribly devastated by my dad's death and the responsibility that fell on her, alone, to care for me and my younger sister.
I also realized, later, I was angry at God. A few years after my dad's death my mom re-married to a man nicknamed "Blacky," a salesman who lived in Portland, Indiana sixty miles away from where we lived, in Piqua, Ohio. My Aunt (the one who told me I was "the man of the house") had decided to play matchmaker and introduced "Blacky" to my mom. He was a charmer, a great dancer (my mom loved to dance) . . . and . . . later we discovered Blacky was addicted to gambling and drinking. Things got pretty depressing for my mom, and me, during my high school years in Portland, Indiana because of the degrading situation of their marriage. Blacky did things when he was drunk that I thought I would never be able to forgive. The sign in my room, hanging over the doorway to my closet, that said "Trust in God" was not giving me any comfort.
I think my Mom knew Blacky was a drinker, but she married him anyways. She probably felt she had no choice at that point in her life. (Blacky did try to be a dad, but he just couldn't handle the stresses of step-family life and the power of his addictions.) Their marriage ceremony was held in Piqua, in the little house which my mom and dad had bought and lived in happily for many years before my dad's passing. After my mom sold the house in Piqua we moved to Portland, Indiana where Blacky worked and cared for his ailing mother.
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During the chant, as the tears were flowing and flowing, there was a brief moment in which I remembered my mom and Blacky during their marriage ceremony. A bolt of anger flared up and filled me with feelings of old resentments and heartbreaks. But practically as soon as those negative memories and feelings began to surface in my mind they began to gently dissolve into deep feelings of love, feelings of acceptance, feelings that transcended me personally, for the love I experienced was a form of grace and it transformed my entire sense of being!
Though I had asked Gurumayi inwardly to bless my dad, during the chant I received her grace which pervaded the sounds of the mantra and which purified the anger that had lingered, hidden deep inside me. As I continued chanting I became very calm and peaceful . . . I had entered a kind of meditative state in which I was able to accept and love the people in my life at that time as I witnessed their faces and the stories and feelings which presented themselves to me as if characters in a divine drama that then dissolved into love. My heart had been opened by grace which made it possible for me to feel close to my dad and at the same time see the inner beauty, the Truth, the Oneness of Being hidden behind what Swami Muktananda called the Play of Consciousness.
A day or two later, as the affects of that experience began to diminish, the love I experienced during the chanting stayed with me, but some of my fears began to make their presence known to me again. Of course, change doesn't happen all at once; over the many years I've been practicing Siddha Yoga, my experiences of grace have had a steady cumulative healing impact on me. Transformation is unfolding at the pace that it needs take for me, and I am truly grateful. The teachings of Siddha Yoga have been profoundly reassuring to me. Here are two brief teachings that have been helpful, lately, for me to keep in mind:
"If it happened, it had to happen."
(A reference to the laws of Karma and the consequences of actions: Destiny.)
"Grace and self effort are the two wings of a great bird."
In the book Transformation, Vol. III, there are many stories about people's experiences of Gurumayi's grace that occurred during her world tour in 1986 and 1987 (the year Gloria and I met Gurumayi) and throughout the book there are many brief teachings that Gurumayi gave both in informal settings and in her formal tour program talks, including these:
The miseries of this world are not far away from us;
they are within us. If you have peace in your heart
the miseries of the world do not trouble you.
"Because of destiny, you are in this world.
But it's not because of destiny that you
feel miserable. You always have a
choice. You have free will. When
you do not abuse free will, you
attain the joy of the play
of Consciousness.
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The same night Gloria and I honored my dad's birthday, I read in Transformation, Vol. III about Gurumayi's tour arrival in Los Angeles for a month long visit in the Siddha Yoga Ashram there, which was the first ashram Swami (Baba) Muktananda established in a big city in the United States.
The tour stop was her first visit in Los Angeles since she had become transformed into a Siddha Guru through Baba Muktyananda's grace and the formal ritual (in 1982) that transferred the power of the Siddha Lineage to Gurumayi just before Baba passed away. Before that transformation, she was known as "Malti," and it was in Los Angeles that she--as "Malti"--first began translating into English the live talks and conversations Baba was having in Los Angeles with those who were helping him to establish the ashram.
Malti had spent a long time in Los Angeles helping her beloved teacher, and when she spoke at her 1987 Welcoming Program in Los Angeles she talked about recognizing many of the people who had come to the program to greet her. The words she spoke, which I have selected and presented below, resonated for me in relation to the experiences I had had earlier that evening while honoring my dad's birthday with chanting the mantra.
Gurumayi said:
"As I watch each face, I recognize a story. Each face tells a story. Seeing you all is like remembering one story after another . . . Each story takes you through every moment of life; it's a beautiful experience . . . [Each] face . . . has been so familiar for many lifetimes. It is this which brings us closer and closer, making us all become one. This is the beauty of life, this is the beauty of Baba's grace . . . "
Later in her talk Gurumayi also spoke about the stresses of living in a big city, like Los Angeles, and
how chanting God's name was a powerful way of purifying the mind. I will close this project with one last quote from her introduction to the chant she would be leading for the
Welcoming Program…
"A lot of people think of running away from the world because they do not want to face this thing called stress. Yet as you chant the name of God, it is burning all the impurities [in the mind] . . . Ride the sound [of God's name, and the sound of the music] instead of riding your own thoughts."
I dedicate this project to the memory of my dad, James E. Foster with love and gratitude.
(Born February 2,1916 - Died July 22, 1955)
This project was announced on my blog's
Welcome Page February 7, 2022
Related Project Links
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape blog, which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's. You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.
Sump pump & its newly constructed utility closet
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