Journey to Becoming a Sadhak

As a disciple or student progresses on the spiritual path, as with many monastic orders and schools, there is an outer journey of commitment that compliments the inner. From diksha, to pravartak, to sadhak – this blog shares a look into a ceremony taking vows to enter ‘sadhakhood’ and a poetic prose that emerged to share.

From shattered sanskaras to shanti.
From the profanity of self-sabotage to the sacred.
From egoic survival to service in Shiva.

I knew little of ashrams, yoga, or meditation before entering this semi-monastic paradoxshram called Sat Yoga some 10 years ago. I came from a life of many wounds, as most do. I felt done with an attempt at ‘normal’ life having studied Geology and carried out a handful of unfulfilling jobs and chasing mirages. I felt incoherent, crippled with anxiety I could no longer repress, and was seeking answers to this mystery of life. An uncanny encounter at a Permaculture course in Costa Rica would lead me to the doorsteps of Sat Yoga and to the mind of Shunyamurti and this Wisdom School.

It has been a journey of such richness and profundity these words cannot begin to express. But one, nonetheless, of psycho-spiritual growth, the reprieve of inner silence, healing traumas and pain in the depths of my heart I thought I’d never be able to feel, learning law and love and their delicate balance, understanding how to understand, meaning-more-ness, coherence of thought and language, and delving into nearly every subject and facet of knowledge.

But as every vision quest entails, it has been a journey of many obstacles, resistance, and rites of passage. With resilience and surrender, grace unfolds and miracles ensue. And I realize Divine Love is what is Real. I joyfully vow to abide in the Dharma of the Dao, to allow growth of consciousness in surrender to Shiva.

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Holy Wow, Mountain of Light

Holy Wow, Gratitude to the Dao.

What words can I offer for this uncanny, auspicious, miraculous, teleologic moment.

A true testament to the impossible that is inevitable, an incomprehensible wonder.

This being, formerly known as the ego Desiree, wandered astray, a shadow of desire or that to be.

Whichever way the story went, she grew tired riding roughshod over too many lifetimes
and too many years of pain and suffering sorrow on borrowed time.
Feigning a phantom victim that was a negative, narcissistic, blundering nincompoop.
Digging an abyss of self-sabotage, on an endless loop-de-loop.
A barrage of fighting frenzy against an enemy in the mirror.

Being born blind, eyes swollen shut, my heart’s door had also closed
after a few too many insanely traumatic blows.
Done with mothers, others, dysfunctional family mind-clutter.

Left journeying bereft through this virtual reality.
Looking for that which would relieve my soul.
The stability of coherence to console.

As a child in that faraway swampy flatland, amidst an all-too-common micro world war,
I once closed my eyes to behold a vision.

Against a clear blue, warming sky from which billowing white clouds emerged
glowing gold in the sun there was a lush, green ridge line.

That upon entering the Ashram, looking out from this Lodge, I was years later to find.

This vision brought with it not only a mountainous ridge, but my teacher, spiritual father, and dearest friend,
his equally dear partner in divine to end the insanity of this cycle of time,
and their noble cadre of fearless warriors.

It’s been many a moon, digesting and discerning law and love through hard knocks and bitter yet imperative Truth.

Psycho-spiritual development contained in this sacred cocoon.

Navigating the perilous road of paradox, lost in chatter, attached to matter, scattered will.

But with prolific patience and many a rite of passage, grounded in dharma, dissolving karma, can I say I’ve arrived at being still.

Beyond geologic, the proverbial rock of ages.

This moment is beyond words.

I am but a love bird, singing songs of delight and gratitude.

For this sight is of my heart’s deepest yearning.

Learning how to Love and her subtle ways, the Wisdom and Logic of Worlds, and feeling the ecstasy of freedom living a life fully alive, expanded and unfurled.

All the detective work looking for the Real I has brought me to an enthronement, of a kind, aligned and seated by this spiritual order.

Through which I’ve had to face Alone-ment without anesthesia and be thrown into the unknown.

Where there is No I, No Other.

And here we are, on the very Mountain of God, whose majestic peaks have led me through this realm to the Light.

Here I, Parvati, abide, rooted in redemption with all my might.

From swampy flatlands to this multi-dimensional semi-monastic dreamland of miracles and divine love.

It is with all my heart and being and not a modicum of doubt that I belong to Shiva, Shunya, and Sangha and surrender in service to these vows.

Impervious to the throes of this illusion.

In conclusion, passing through the singularity, may the bliss of Sat Yuga begin again.

~Namaste,
Parvati