alxindia

An eclectic spiritual & inspirational place to heal, learn, feel & expand. Heart & soul first. Miraculous experiences from India as well as the life & times of a spiritual healer/teacher in the U.S. Miracles, saints, sages, gurus, healing, life & death... and more...!

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Asian JAMMS & the joys of healing...

so The Mystic JAMMS Band arrived in Singapore on the 9th of February, 2006, and spent a few days in a nice hotel relaxing, sight-seeing, touring around, and finding out where to get musical instruments... (Boon Music Studios, as it turned out, lived up to the promise of its name -- it really was a boon! -- and outfitted us with a fine electric bass, keyboard and a few amplifiers.)

we connected with Whatever, the fabulous healing and yoga cafe center in Chinatown, where the concert was going to be held. the friendly, warm, and inspired bunch there at Whatever were pumped up about the concert and really did their best to get the word out and to promote the show (on incredibly short notice).

on Friday, Jonathan and I had a great time re-connecting with our friends and extended spiritual family in Singapore, doing healings, sharing spiritual discoveries, and enjoying meals together on Friday.

we taught a mini-workshop on Saturday afternoon, covering aspects of karma, healing, miracles and spiritual healing.

that night, we played and sang, entertained and let the healing energy rip in the main yoga studio of Whatever. it was sublime, and we were very happy that we'd brought most of our instruments along from the USA (guitar and drums, flute and digiridoo! -- amazing how they all fit into suitcases!) since it all went smoothly.

it was a real honor to share this music with our friends in Singapore, and we're looking forward to doing it again in the future.

it was especially inspiring to be able to share the new mantra, Om Mama, with them. Kaleshwara had just given it out in America in November, as a kind of soul medicine to treat many ailments, and Maya & Sage loved it so much they set it to music, and then went through the difficult job of recording, arranging, mixing and finally having it put onto CDs so we could share them with JAMMS audiences in Singapore and America, as well as our friends at Kaleshwar's ashram in India. (the CD will be available on our site, at www.karmatalk.com -- at the Mystic JAMMS Band link.)

watching a roomful of people in Singapore learn this mantra for the first time, by singing it, and feeling its power and healing develop in the room, was an incredible experience.

standing in a doorway as the fresh winds of divine change are blowing in from the outside... feeling the door open wider and wider... seeing the relief, the settling down, the unburdening, that occurs when people's hearts are exposed to the breeze of pure love....

wah!






Tuesday, February 07, 2006

MY INDIA


yoganandaspeech
Originally uploaded by alxindia.


by

Paramahansa Yogananda

Not where the musk of happiness blows,
Not in the land where darkness and fears never tread,
Not in the homes of perpetual smiles,
Not in Heaven or the land of prosperity
Would I be born—
If I have to put on a mortal garb again.
A thousand famines may prowl
And tear my flesh,
Yet would I love to be again
In my Hindustan.
A million thieves of disease
May try to steal the fleeting health of flesh,
Or the clouds of fate
May shower scalding drops of searing sorrow—
Yet would I there
In India love to reappear!
Is this, my love, a blind sentiment
Which beholds not the pathways of reason?
Ah, no! I love India
Because there I first learned to love God and all things beautiful.
Some teach to seize the fickle dewdrop—Life—
Sliding down the lotus leaf of time.
Some build stubborn hopes
Around the gilded, brittle body-bubble.
But India taught me to love
The soul of deathless beauty in the dewdrop or the bubble,
Not their fragile frames.
Her sages taught me to find my Self
Buried beneath the ash heaps
Of incarnations and ignorance.
Through many a land
Of power, plenty and science,
My soul, garbed as an Oriental
Or an Occidental, traveled far and wide,
Seeking Itself:
At last in India to find Itself.
If mortal fires raze all her homes and golden paddy fields,
Yet to sleep on her ashes and dream immortality,
O, India, I will be there!
The guns of science and matter
Have boomed on her shores,
Yet she is unconquered.
Her soul is free evermore!
Her soldier-saints each day
Rout with realization's ray
The bandits of hate, prejudice, patriotic selfishness,
And burn the walls of separation dark
Which lie 'tween children of the One, One Father.
The Western brothers by matter's might have conquered my land;
Blow, blow aloud, her conch-shells all!
India now invades with love, to conquer their souls.
Better than Heaven or Arcadia,
I love thee, O my India,
And thy love I will give
To every brother-nation that lives.
God made the earth, and man made his confining countries,
And their fancy-frozen boundaries.
But with the new-found love I behold—
The borderland of my India expanding into the world.
Hail, mother of religions, lotus, scenic beauty, and sages!
Thy wide doors are open,
Welcoming God's true sons through all the ages,
Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves and men dream God.
I am hallowed; my body touched that sod!





 
 

back to India...


blue-black om
Originally uploaded by alxindia.
so we're packing our bags and tomorrow is the big day -- another plane ride over the Pacific Rim... destination, India.

I never EVER thought in my life I would go to India, despite a childhood fascination with Kipling's Rikki Tikki Tavi.... India was not a place I had any desire, attraction, or intention to visit. nope, not me.

(so of course the exquisite divine irony is: I wound up living there for pretty much five straight years.)

that being said, it's been a year, now, since I've been 'home' in my soul home, Mother India, and the idea of going back is a beautiful nostalgia already -- the divine fragrance is in my nostrils already, the scent of jasmine and rose flowers redolent in my mind.

I can already taste the divine nectar that is always flowing on that ground, in Penukonda, and around my teacher, Sri Kaleshwara.

and more -- the greatness, the spiritual power, the astounding vibration that IS India -- I can feel it already. in my heart, under my feet, in my inner Self. there's a steady flame of excitement, burning just behind my eyes. at times, I'm certain the whole world can see it.

a few days ago, someone shared with me "My India," the incomparable poem written about and from and from within India's great spiritual tradition by one of the greatest souls who ever walked this planet, Paramahansa Yogananda. (for those of you new to Yogananda, check through the archives of this blog and you'll find material aplenty on this maha-atma.)

I'd read the poem years ago but not recently. as a younger person, and a far less spiritually mature one, I enjoyed the poem but really had no idea what it was addressing, or how deep it really goes. I was touched but not overly impressed that Yogananda had been reciting this exact poem when he left his body in the early 1950s, in Los Angeles.

a few nights ago, someone handed it to me and I read it aloud to a few folks -- and by the end of this call to spiritual arms, I was in tears.

NOTHING, absolutely nothing, expresses the experience of Spiritual India better than this poem, in the words of a true spiritual master who had tasted all the flavors of the world's countries and continents, nations, and human beings.

when people ask me, "why do you spend so much time in India?" from now on, a copy of this poem will be my standard response.

namaste!

Alx