Tag Archives: western hindu

Jul31

Want It Done? Don’t Ask the White Lady

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“Why are all your roads at 90 degree angles?” My friend Tushar once observed.

“Everything in America is at 90 degree angles, the roads, the food, the religion.” I replied.

Whenever I go to the Hindu Temple of Atlanta, I want to visit on Saturday (as well as other days) because ostensibly, their gift shop, which is full of books is open.

The problem is, even on Saturday, the one day of the week when the gift shop is open… it’s rarely open.

I approached the old white woman who, presumably, cleans the temple, if she could find someone to open the gift shop, telling her I had come a long way and would like to buy some books.

“No.” And that was all I got, a 90 degree answer.

I sat for a minute and thought… I know what happened here… I just asked the wrong person. I need to ask an Indian to open the gift shop, then as I began to seek out an Indian associated with the Temple, the entire scene that was to ensue played out in my head. This person would have no idea the gift shop wasn’t open, would have no idea how to get it open, and no idea where the key was. He, or she, would then confer with at least 3 to 6 Indians, none of them knowing why the gift shop wasn’t open, who was supposed to be in there, nor who had the key, then they would scatter in all directions, it would take 10 to 20 minutes, but they would find the keyholder and open the shop. Yes, all the chaos played out in my mind like some telepathic prediction, but the end result would be a “yes,” and the gift shop would be open… there was only one part of this scenario I hadn’t seen coming.

“People from dharmic cultures tend to be more accepting of difference, unpredictability and uncertainty than westerners. The dharmic view is that so-called ‘chaos’ is natural and normal; it needs, of course, to be balanced by order, but there is no compelling need to control or eliminate it entirely nor to force cohesion from outside. The West, conversely, sees chaos as a profound threat that needs to be eradicated either by destruction or by complete assimilation.”

Rajiv Malhotra, “Being Different”

I found an Indian, who was very respectful, and agreed, that, of course, there was no reason I should not be allowed into the gift shop (as predicted), then I sat back and watched my every other prediction become a reality right before my eyes. I sat on the steps leading up into the gift shop and watched, from a distance, as if this were a silent movie, 4 Indians all conversing about why the gift shop wasn’t open, who was supposed to open it, and who had the key. Then, as predicted, they scattered in all directions in search of all these unknowns. And as predicted, 15 minutes later, up came a pair of Indians with looks on their faces that made it obvious they had found the key, even though none of the roads they took to find it were at 90 degree angles… and who had the key?

You may have guessed it, the withered old white woman who had given me a 90 degree “no,” but now she had a rather angular scowl on her face as she saw me sitting on those steps. But, I suppressed my inner raksha and did not grin at her… well, not outside, but inside I was grinning ear to ear… I suppose that grants me 50% good karma.

I learned if you want a 90 degree no, ask the white person, if you want a chaotic and active yes… ask an Indian. Personally, I prefer the way Indians do things.

Mar11

The White Deer

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The White Deer
by Justine Mara Andersen

Why, red cardinal, do you stare silently from the tangles,
Of dirt and roots that tell of how the mighty fall,
Are you silenced by what I have seen this morning,
Or is silence the only song that speaks of all we know?

Why eagle do you sit so low in the bowers and the branches,
So near that I now know the name and weight of your form,
So still that when you go I know the might of your flight,
I ask why do my feet remain solid in the sand and dust?

Why cardinal of the forest do you stare at me from the twigs,
As I contemplate all I am reading from the shady place,
That overlooks the lake reflecting every rising orange moon,
Are there secrets I will see only through your black eyes?

And wasn’t it just this morning as I crossed the lake,
Just this morning as I tended to the feeding of my body,
That I looked up and saw what I took for a wooly white goat,
But why a goat where the deer and turkeys come to feed?

My heart and every step did stop, and I forgot to breathe,
This was no goat before me, not standing with the timid doe,
This too was a doe, though luminous, white as the camphor,
The camphor I burn before the altar of my beloved Mahadev.

As it goes with wisdom, once I saw you for what you are,
You turned from me, white deer, and leapt into the forest,
Leaving nothing of you but a white ghost and many questions,
Leaving me with nothing in hand beyond what I had seen.

Today I saw the red cardinal from the roots of the fallen tree,
And I saw the great eagle perched amidst the bowers,
And I saw the silent cardinal stand forever in the twigs,
And I saw the white deer standing outside my forest room.

And today I read of the play of Parvati’s and Siva’s maya,
And though the words were wondrous and full of godly wisdom,
Their truth remains to me as elusive as the smoke of camphor,
Fleeting as the snow-white doe which I beheld but for a moment.

As with ecstasy, my wisdom vanishes like the smoke of incense,
As with wisdom the white deer only allowed me but a glimpse,
And a holy longing that one day I might run through the forest,
Alive in the camphor of His company, resolved fully in truth.

Feb22

Aghori Baba Circling Back

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Aghori Baba Circling Back
by Justine Mara Andersen

Having bowed under one, a dozen blew in on the wind,
Dancing dispassionate circles in the sky.

Some see you as ugly, grim, inauspicious and turn away,
I see truth in the center of your soaring.

Circling high, circling low, black winged Babas all,
In all they are, they teach all that we are.

Into their bellies then high above the thriving trees,
Wrinkled red-faced Gurus carry death like Gods.

Above samsara my Aghori Babas circle as all must circle,
Earth to death, birth to sky, sky to earth.

All that dissolves is destroyed by Mahadev’s dancing,
All that dances is destroyed as it is doing.

All that dies is reborn through Mahadev’s destruction,
All that falls must rise again to the dancing.

So why fear losing that which is released into flight,
Only once dissolved in bellies and destruction.

What greater victory over fear than bowing to vultures,
Jai Jai Shiva Shankar! Jai Jai Shiva Shambho,

What greater victory over death than red and black Babas,
Who fly the rot of death in their bellies.

Jai! To carry death above the trees! I bow in devotion,
Har Har Mahadev! Har Har Mahadev!

Feb16

Aghori Baba

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Aghori Baba
by Justine Mara Andersen

I saw you solely through the darkness of others,
As a thing of filth, as horrid and bald.

But today I see you, you who eat only death,
Without fear, it is you who finds life.

I bow to thee vulture, so alone in the branches,
Tears well in me, to see my Aghori Baba.

Exalted to be below your silent secret wisdom,
I stare in devotion, it is you who knows.

Teach me, Baba, to eat of death without fear,
To fly above the darkness others see.

Shedding tears in the shadow of your black wings,
I shade my eyes from so much sky and sun.

Feb15

Goddess Of The Azaleas

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Goddess Of The Azaleas

Goddess Of The Azaleas

Goddess Of The Azaleas
by Barefoot Justine

In a sea with no sound but my own warmth and vibration,
In such resonance Shiva, Atman, Aum and all resolve,
To Destroy, create, maintain, I, one sinuous forever,
In whose gravity particles alive as fireflies revolve.

And I, a Goddess, aglow, the color of the azaleas,
Ten arms undulating in waves of roiling magnificence,
Three eyes closed in the silent harmony of eternity,
No din of thought to dim the melody of pure existence.

Floating in the cosmic sea, a mountain of sacred peace,
Soaring weightless over rock and tree, river and sod,
And I am light, and I am joy, and I am life hereafter,
And light and joy and life in self are all as one in God.

Feb15

When Shiva Whispers

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When Shiva Whispers

When Shiva Whispers

When Shiva Whispers
by Barefoot Justine

When solitude comes to me as its lonely worst,
A cloud of suffering mists my mornings.

When solitude comes to me as the breath of Shiva,
my vision is awash with shimmering saffron.

When I am she alone battling in my darkest hollows,
With a soured stomach I long for silence.

When all and one purr like twin tigers in my heart,
Silence flows clear as crystal springs.

When I alone am bloodied by demoniac struggles,
I see no path to virtue or release.

When I alone am one with all and one with truth,
I have no desire for the songs of men.

When Shiva seems to me but paint and fragile plaster,
No wisp of peace wafts from stillness.

When Shiva’s whispers warm my ears full of grace,
I melt into him with tearful trembles.

When maya barks its verses to me the virgin Mara,
I cannot hear the wisdom of the shlokas.

But when I wander quietly the lush green forest,
Every tree drops leaves of grace and wisdom.

Jai, jai! Every tree drops leaves of grace and wisdom.
Har Har Mahadev! Har Har Mahadev!

Feb15

I Am Therefore

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I Am Therefor

I Am Therefor

I Am Therefore…
by Barefoot Justine

I am not the pillar cypress swaying,
I am not the rattled dirty window,
Nor am I the wary eye of my watching,
I am the very movement of the wind.

I am not the harbor of my precious pains,
I am not the gnawing claws of my regrets,
I am not my beliefs, nor the believing,
I am this peace that need know nothing.

I am not a shadow of he who travelled with me,
I am not of the bile he held in our bellies,
His whiskey breath could not contain me,
Nor am I worm, cocoon or Rapunzel’s butterfly.

I am not this headache which cannot touch me,
I am not this clot, nor stroke nor cancer,
Nor these thousand thoughts eating their tails,
And further not redoubling doubts and dreading.

I am not the echo of those who hurt me,
Nor the barbs of canker in those I’ve wounded,
I am not the song of our sad hearts singing,
Nor even the rumble of our forsaken laughing.

I am that silent breath of Shiv which wants not,
That altar of Ganapati’s heart which needs not,
That which travels to reach beyond my all,
That whose wanderlust has been sated and reborn.

I am the fall of a million cloudburst sisters,
I am far beneath the low of this long fall ended,
Yet far above the cloud of this fall’s birthing,
And I, of one, and all are of the fall itself.

I am the wet that manifests the drop of rain,
That becomes my sisters on the ground,
That knows no breathless pain for falling,
That knows no fear in fateful ending.

I am silver dew of grass into which I fall,
And I am the rain rippling in the pooling,
I am all the rain that has become one center,
And am every heaven reflecting in my puddles.

I am both feeding roots and flooding stream,
And I the sunken stones ‘neath river running,
I am all the storm does by doing,
And am the sea and depth with no light shining.

I am not what I was willing to know,
Not what thinking thought were so,
And I stand on nothing that I cognize,
And am only knowing in knowing being.

I am only what I am alone with all,
Not that which thinks therefore I am,
I am that which tastes the infinite nothing,
I am the forever still between my thoughts.

I am that silence between unspoken words,
I am that center, that hearth of home,
And I am sometimes so far and spinning,
From that home where silence holds its center.

I am not that simmering head that chatters so,
But am the stillness of silence in each ecstasy,
Yes I am only endless when one alone,
And reaching for forevermore now in one together.

I am not the steadfast earnest seeker,
Yet am the length between myself and all I’ve lost,
I am no more than the unteachable wisdom,
And more than every truth I have forgotten.

I am every birth of your becoming,
I am myself in all you dream without me,
I am the life in death’s concentric rhythms,
I am, most humbly, one only with God.

Neither I nor you have ever been here,
And neither I nor you will ever leave here,
I am an experience only briefly passing,
I the one and you and all are all.

I am the pillar cypress swaying,
I am the rattled dirty window,
I am the wary eye of my watching,
I am the movement of the very wind itself.

Feb15

The Bear

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TheBear

TheBear

The Bear
by Justine

A bear, the beast upon my chest, a cumbrous coat of want and greed,
If I could move I could not breathe for suffocating need,
If I could move it’s teeth would bare, wide eyed would I recede,
This bear it pins me in my place, my life it does impede.

His gums are black, his teeth are yellow, and bloodstained all around,
His beastly fur darker than nights when stars dare not shine upon the ground,
His breath the sea and undertow in which so many lost souls have drowned,
Beneath sharp black eyes I tremble still, and my senses he does astound.

This bear, the beast, blinds me to my path, no sky blue can I see,
The meat-blood breath it takes in turns and draws my will from me,
I fear to move, so mighty he, my heart it cannot flee,
I forget myself, sweat and cry, and wish the beast to set me free.

This bear, my beast, it caught with me as I scrabbled up Longing Hill.
The brutish rhythm of its breathing drives it’s weight throughout my will,
This bear it snarls holes of fear all through dreams I’ll not fulfill,
Paralyzed the beast presses me to the earth and drives me like a drill,

To blackness I fade too slow, though never a sleep of dreams,
The leaping salmon this bear ignores, like me they fight their way up streams,
Afraid to open my mouth for fear I could never stop the screams,
This bear this beast was given birth through my life of mad extremes.

The black of sleep I would welcome now but dear God it never comes,
A minute here an hour there, the peace of sleep comes to me in crumbs,
Please I beg you, let me sleep and still the army of warring drums,
The bear, dear God, the darkness too, my tallied karmic sums.

I seek release from the dark cocoon the bear around me he did weave,
From this web I would struggle to be free but with nothing can I cleave,
So mighty the links in his chain of web I’ll never have my leave,
For now I must surrender myself, my hopes I must relieve.

The forest of the bear is deep, his dark breath thunders deeper still,
The darkness is his blood, and thicker than the web, it will not spill,
I’ve lost myself to fur, breath, webbing and the darkness of this hill,
For want and need I’d lost my way, ground to powder in my mill.

This bear is mine, my soul released the beast which chased me down,
The dreams I dreamt and the paths pursued lost me to this last ghost town,
And all my needs have grown such teeth and growled all my golds to brown,
I’ve lost my way but cannot pray while this bear he keeps me down.