Today is Guru Purnima: basically “Guru Day,” the day when when people honor their Gurus with rituals and gifts. If you were, or are, in a really traditional Guru-disciple relationship, today might be the day when you would hand over a lot of money, or dakshina, to your teacher.

Here in the land of the almighty dollar, some students have decided that spiritual teachers shouldn’t get paid. They’d feel better if their teachers ate air and lived on pink clouds. Apparently, working 24/7 for the benefit of all beings doesn’t rate with these folks. (And P.S. The pink clouds get that way because of pollution.)

That’s one great thing about Tantriks. We enjoy big, juicy, happy, well-cared-for Gurus. Last year on Guru Purnima, we chipped in and sent our teacher off to a super-fancy restaurant in New York. If I recall, boar was on the menu. I’m not really sure what a “boar” is, but our teacher sure had fun.

Of course, we enjoy skinny, ascetic, cave-dwelling teachers, too. Whatever floats your boat. We just wanna be free.

Guru means “dispeller of darkness” and “heavy.” “Heavy” because getting your darkness (ignorance) dispelled is no walk in the park. If you wanna be free, you have to get out of prison, and there’s plenty of prison to walk, crawl, and cry through before you reach open land.

Today, I finished up a twenty-one day practice with 10,000 offerings to Lord Ganesha. Ganesha is also Siva, also the Adi-Guru. He’s definitely heavy, but he’s oh-so-light. Even with that big body, he dances. Ganesha is always dancing.

I wasn’t dancing, though. I felt like crap. Yesterday evening, I was reading some fantastic poetry by Lalla, the 14th century Kashmiri poet and naked, wandering yogini. She wrote:

My mouth got tired of saying words.
My thumb and my forefinger wore
smooth with telling beads,
and still, my dear, this love
feels the pull of another.
I haven’t lost my sense of being separated.

It’s humbling to hear that such a hardcore practitioner can still hit those moments of not being able to relax.

One thing Ganesha has taught me is how to have an undefensive heart. Big, solid, steady, open heart—that’s Lord Ganapati. Once you get a taste, through sadhana, of such a relaxed way of being in the world, it wrecks you for the rest of the time when you aren’t so open. It really hurts a lot more to be shut down when you’ve tasted the alternative.

So I had this pain in my chest and a story to go with it that I kept surrendering and surrendering to no avail. You know what finally got the pain to relax and resolve? Not figuring out the problem. Not reassuring myself that it was all going to be okay. Not begging for help, although that sometimes works.

The clincher was one, absolutely pure moment of remembering that freedom doesn’t lie in that direction. By some grace, as I was working the pain, I remembered that all I really want is to be free and for others to be free. I really want this, deep down to the bone, and I wanted it that deep and strong even as a little kid. I recognized that this desire for freedom is the only thing of value, that it is the real evidence of grace in my life, and that it’s the only thing worth following.

Then things got kind of like one of those hokey near-death experience movies. You know: Gold, sparkly lights. A shining path. Beings beckoning. But I won’t bore you.

(Heh, heh.)

I finally relaxed and got out of prison around offering 9,972. Whew!

Tonight, lots of people are coming over for prasad from the ritual. After that blessing, it should be nice and sparkly. Wish you could be there!

OM Shanti, Shambhavi

Related Posts

• Ganesha is Shakti
• Happy Birthday Ganesha!
• Fascination