The Greatest Inheritance

Confessions and bday Guru wisdom

I had no plans on having a Guru, seeking a Guru or needing a Guru in this life. I have all I need inside of me. I am guided. I’m all good. ;)

When I left for India over a year ago I didn’t even consider traditional yoga teachings as part of my plan, yet I was headed to the land that birthed the holy Ohm. My inspiration was a voice that said- “No matter where you believe you are headed in the second half of this life, you cannot proceed until you come to me first”~ Mother India

I landed in Amritapuri ashram, suggested by others, as a first stop to rest and orient myself to my next steps. I had pure intentions to follow music and prayer, to be on land that is steeped in God and honor that voice that called me forth. Alongside a subconscious, wounded desire to find the cool kids, do the spiritual world circuit thing, finally heal, become beautiful, add to my am I good enough yet resume, yada.

My plans unraveled over the 6 months-

-because I met my Guru.

My first encounter with the great hugging saint, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi- better known as Amma- was like an alligator (a really big mean one) wrestling match between my ego and her unconditional love.

I fell into a full hypervigilent panic after the first hug, on day three of my arrival in India, as my deepest rejection fears emerged from the shadows of my psyche. I had nowhere to turn and no one I knew to hold me. All of my vices, but the demons of my mind and emotions, were left back west. I was frozen, in shock, in the middle of 3000 strangers from all over the world, in a Kali temple, in a strange land with this living lightbulb of a woman- who just rejected me in her home.

So I did what any rational human would- I proceeded to ask her for a mantra and to receive her graces as my Guru. Inside the wild terror of our meeting there was something that held my heart the way a grandmother does her first born grandchild. I was humbled by a force that rose inside of me that I have been seeking and running from all of my life, subjecting my body to non stop crash collisions with the Divine.

I knew I was in the presence of pure holy love, a master healer, an embodiment of the divine feminine and an enlightened soul. I knew that every prayer I have ever said, and every seeking I have ever sought, was being answered because I was being stopped dead in my tracks through a series of painful “setbacks”.

She heard my deep cries for help that have been living in me since I was a very young child. A help that my ego would not allow me to surrender to until now, and a help that was necessary in order to prevent what, I now see, I was likely headed for.

Amma is known for giving profound guidance to her devotees, as she is a teacher. I took many prayers and letters to her. Each time I would approach her bosom for darshan (a blessing by way of her hug) she would simply hand each letter, or question I had written down, off to her swami without even a looksy at what I was asking, needing, shamelessly groveling for- because she already knew long before I had even set foot upon Indian soil.

The one time she did read one of my questions she replied, by way of her swami translating from Malayalam, “tell her she can decide for herself.” She then energetically shooed me away. This was our dance. I was frustrated as many devotees had received direct guidance and lengthy conversations from her living breathing, humanish, Guru mouth.

When I would finally, and barely, settle the ghosts that flew the cuckoos nest in my mind post her every embrace, I would hear her voice behind the haunting noises of my subconscious ego-

“Trust yourself daughter. Love yourself. Listen. These are the teachings you asked for.”

“Well I take it all back! And I have never felt so loved. Thank you. I can do this.”

My last bday (April 19th), I went up for darshan with another inquiry about my path forward and if there was a bday message for me. She hugged me, whispered divine sweetness in my ear in her native tongue, sprinkled me with flowers, put a sugary chocolate in my mouth and a non organic apple in my hand, both of which I savored. Yet, no message. Nothing.

Immediately after, my dear Irish sister, a long time devotee, came up to me with a card in her hand. Inside was her own bday blessings and an Amma quote card, from the ashram Amma shop, that she said Amma told her to include:

God himself will be the servant of the person who has gained one-pointedness of mind. Mother guarantees this. Try and see what happens.

The meaning in this message is the crux of the spiritual life. It was not the message I wanted to hear on many levels. I wanted a different kind of guarantee, to be told what to do, receive exact directions down my path, to know I was right and that I was special and that I wouldn’t hurt ever ever again.

A true Guru will guide each soul according to what that soul needs and the level of spiritual maturity that soul contains in order to rest back into union with Life as guide- Life as Guru. Everyone has access, no one is denied, and all need assistance on the journey back to God, but a rare few that come along like Jesus, Buddha, Amma and other mystical prophets born to the path.

The hubris of the ego will always deny the need for God, for the teachings, for the assistance from any other source than the one it created to maintain its identity and control, a false illusion of safety.

Standing in my center, staying flexible, trusting my heart, honoring my intuition and life experiences, leaning into pain, staying as neutral as possible and cultivating inner wisdom is the greatest inheritance in a world full of nefarious noise. My Guru knew that this is the gift she could give me by denying me of what I thought I needed from her to feel safe or validated.

Breaking through the multi layered, multi generational codependent attachment web in my subconscious, as a person who was karmically wired with deep grooved addiction patterns, required(s) a one pointed faith placed in God- it even says this in my astrology.

Taking Life’s hand and trusting every unfolding, feeling it, dying in it, rising from it, is the sacred human journey our soul’s long for. We have denied ourselves of this journey due to corrupted power structures dominating our definitions of God, Guru, Jesus, faith, prayer, the role of the church (or an ashram) and other sacred spaces to provide skills and solaces for Life, not induce fear of Life. (There is much to unravel here)

I turned away from God’s altar after suffering the traumas from being indoctrinated at birth into a cult that renounces all participation in the outside world- including one’s birthday. This was reinforced through an adopted societal correlation between God, Jesus, spirituality and prayer, with war, division, politics, mass genocide and suffering. Rightfully so- and devastatingly so.

We face a God problem. We have lost our drishti on the Divine ( I learned a little yoga after all). Nothing less than turning back toward our soul’s inherent design to connect with an omnipresent source for solace will do in these times. We aren’t in charge of this turning and we are the main cog in the wheel. The most mind bending piece of the human design is this paradox of power.

The noise is going to continue to escalate in the outer world and within the people’s minds, from the people’s minds rapidly losing resonance with Life’s rhythmic wisdoms. We are in extraordinary times and walking through something that will require we look at our relationship with faith and God and how a history dominated by deceit has shaped our innate connection to the Sacred- and why.

I love the word God. It gets people all worked up. Call it what you want, honor the many names and faces, you are still talking about God.

It’s been a year since that message from Amma, and a little more that her mantra has been reorganizing the dissonance in my mind. And what has happened, is happening:

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it, and embrace them~ Rumi

I have come to understand that the majority of the pain that almost rendered me unable to walk was from a deep rooted addiction to self hate and flagellation more than the traumas I endured in life. I had been attacking myself every day since I was very young to know love, to stay safe. It was how I took care of myself.

Emotional wounding must show up physically in order to heal. It is how the body speaks to us. It is a highly intelligent system of love, restoration, quantum communication and miracles.

Humbling myself to the Guru and reclaiming my connection to Jesus Christ (I feel like I just came out of the closet), the sacred teachings and a God centered life is what my soul came here for. And what I fought in the face of extraordinary fears around God, Love and the Guru’s guiding light.

This other fear crept in that I was not expecting -and that was the fear of innate joy and the implications that it brings in a society that is bent on everyone being in the misery soup. God forbid (which God doesn’t) that one finds freedom inside the imprisoning structures many still choose to vote for.

A prayer my soul sent out, the mature prayer and the one my ego immediately wanted to bargain around was “teach me to live in the world and not of the world.”

I was terrified of living inside the human condition with joy. I wanted/still want joy with no more human conditions in order to experience the contentment of true peace and joy. It doesn’t work that way -and that is the trust fall. Innate Joy is my birthright. Joy inside the grief, pain and challenges of life is a full life, a complete life. I can live in everlasting peace- it’s the guaranteed design. I cannot live in this ever-present truth on my terms, outside of a body and natural law.

The mind cannot fathom how God works and this is the eternal conflict.

Above all what I sense has happened inside the longest winter of my many lives (may I not speak too soon) is that I healed a broken heart, more scattered than the firmament, by way of a one-pointed faith in an old old song.

The pain, grief and rage that was still infecting my body/mind attracted that mantra, the holy languages and the forced silence in order to hear the sacred teachings that live within all of us. It was all a part of the answered prayer. The only intervention in this life for me was the supreme love of God, the all pervasive Living Light of Life, and my most beloved Guru- which, as we all know-

live within.

Bless the mess,

Shira Starfire