For Wendy and Son and me too!

[Guest guest]

gjlist, Das Goravani <das@g...> wrote:

>

> Hello

>

> This is going to be general and blunt, aimed directly at the kind of

> situations Wendy described about her son, and it's about many of us

who

> are in any kind of intense suffering where it's going physical also

in

> some ways, any ways.

>

>..........

> Addressing that, is where guts begins, and glory begins. I'm

standing on

> that edge staring at it for a couple years now. I don't have a

sermon.

> I'm still staring at it.

>

> I know others are staring at it as well, not only me.

>

> So hello, to those facing the big difficult. I'm there with you.

>

> with love

>

> raghu

 

 

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!!

 

Namaste dear brother Raghu (and all!)

 

thank you so much for your courageous standing on the edge, staring at

"it"....this letter touches me so very deeply, just as Wendy's letter

about her son did...sometimes we end up in places where we didn't

intend to go...and with the best of intentions...we find ourselves

right there in the gutter at the bottom of the street...can't get any

lower unless a big storm comes along and washes us right down the

drain...i do know of what you are speaking dear brother...and Wendy..i

can understand your son's view SO well....been there....been standing

on the edge so long it's gotten to feeling like the middle of the

road!!!

 

i suddenly was getting a migraine every day in january 1983, shortly

after my second child was born...too close to the first...only 16

months...and we were already overloaded and stressed out....well, much

as i wanted to be there and helping and carrying my "full load"...the

migraines hit...day after day, laying me low...so my ex-wife thought i

was "faking" it to get out of my responsibilities (she didn't and

doesn't get headaches...just gets rages instead)....so quite quickly i

found myself in front of our family doctor, who ran me through a lot

of tests to see if i had anything fatal, like a brain tumor or

something...discovered nothing...but a heart murmur....put me on

Ativan (Lorazepam) a member of the much loved, and maligned

benzodiazapene family...you remember Valium....Well valium is a member

too, of this family.....so Wendy, you'll have to remind the son that

Valium itself is TERRIBLY ADDICTIVE....i know this myself from the

Lorazepam which was innocently given me by my doctor to control what

he thought were the tension headaces....it WORKED!!! and

excellently...so i used them regularly...and slowly over a period of

years became an ativan addict...until finally about 5 years later i

was consuming 20 milligrams of Ativan a day (six milligrams/day is the

"maximum allowable")...had to buy bottles of 400's...pharmacists would

either cringe or scowl when they saw me coming....but i was

DESPERATE...as this was the only thing i knew which could touch those

headaches....i can't tell you the humiliation experienced constantly

around this issue!! it was beyond words....HORRIBLE...and just because

i wanted to end my headaches!!!

 

i was looked upon as a drug addict by doctors and pharmacists...they

didn't see the person in pain underneath that image...they only saw

the image of how much ativan i needed....Only two doctors in that

entire time of 5 years, had any compassion for me...the first one who

prescribed the med first...and a later one who believed that the

patient should self-medicate...as to how much the patient felt he

needed....

 

so upon a return from Germany (a very uptight stressed out place for

me) i ran out of the much needed meds on a long weekend, Labor day

weekend...not thinking so much about it, i decided this was a good

opportunity to quit cold turkey...i DID NOT KNOW that you NEVER quit

benzodiazepenes cold turkey, because you can go into

convulsions...like epileptic seizures....nevertheless i did it...and

the world suddenly sped up painfully...everything over smelled, over

tasted, over felt, over everything....everything was on overload...i

could but lie in my bed for a few days, unable to slow down the

rushing world...listening to the huge water-bomber airplanes flying

overhead to some forest fire...and imagining what it must have been

like in Germany during the British and American Bombing runs....(i

had just returned from Germany, in the town of Kassel, where as i had

walked thru the park near the Schloss Wilhelmshoehe, i had noticed

that the entire ground of the park, although overgrown now with

greenery, was pockmarked with bomb holes....EVERYWHERE!!! BIG

ONES!! The town of Kassel had been LEVELLED in three days of

bombing...and in this park i could see the leftover scars in the

land...so these thoughts were drifting thru my tortured brain as i lay

there detoxing from the Ativan...

 

so dear Wendy, please keep in mind that Valium although useful in the

short run should NOT be used for very long...even in the short run it

is very seductive...cause it makes you feel GOOD...like you're all

warm and fuzzy...embraced by the world...something that makes you feel

that good, is a great danger to the addictive folks, cause it's just

what they are looking for!!!

 

unfortunately in the case of Valium and Ativan, the cure is often

worse than the disease! and we find ourselves even further

down....even lower in the gutter of self-loathing, and disease

....mainly due to what others think of us as much as anything else...

for me it was "medicine"...but for all others it was "drugs"....

 

so dasji, i know too, somewhat of that vast pit, that we stand

contemplating...sometimes i'm standing on the ege looking

out...sometimes looking in...and sometimes i'm so far from the

edge...in the very middle of the morass, that the edge looks to be a

long ways away....

 

However, just as you say...only i have put myself there, and only i

can slowly step by step extricate myself from there....i am thankful

to say that the sessions in the middle of the morass have decreased a

lot since meeting Amma...and since seriously attempting to embark upon

this path of Bhakti that Amma has recommended for me...i notice that

if i am wallowing in self pity...i am just left there to

wallow...although the occasional message of light will come my

way...but when i redirect the mind from self-pitied wallowing to my

Guruji, and my Beloved Deity...if i talk to Her in my heart about all

this that is bothering me....and if i offer it all to Her...it is all

taken away...and a great feeling of peace and love descends upon the

once troubled mind...often tears of love spring out, and the heart

spontaneously seems to open its doors a little wider in love for the

whole creation.....

 

i see that when i am selfishly contemplating all that i am missing in

this life...that the sorrow and depression just get deeper...you know

the ones....all the longings and yearnings....especially as in your

case (and mine!) for a loving partner...i know that longing so

intimately....but when i offer all this to Mother, She accepts it and

gives it back as prasad...and i come to see that possibly this

yearning is really for union with the Divine, and that the only

possible relationship that i could embark upon would have to be

centered upon the Divine as our Anchor, our Polestar...our deepest

being...and i look around me at the people i see, and i realize that

kind of connection is not easily to be had in this current Asuric

western lifestyle...in longing for such a partner, a consort, a

Beloved, one is really longing for the Divine Who is resident IN that

beloved being...and so when we are loving someone...really we are

loving the Divine WITHIN that person....

 

there's an old sanskrit saying that: "the husband is not loved for the

sake of the husband, but rather for the sake of the Self, dwelling

within the husband; the wife is not loved for the sake of the wife,

but rather for the sake of the Self, dwelling within the wife; the

child is not loved for the sake of the child but rather for the sake

of the Self, dwelling within the child."

 

so even our ordinary longings can be seen as sacred....we are longing

for union...but are having a hard time getting it here in this

material world, where everyone is out for him/herself....and we don't

know how to be fountains of Love...we don't know that if we want love,

the first place to look for it is in our OWN HEARTS!!! and that if WE

are loving to the people in our lives, chances are that we will find a

lot more loving feelings directed at us too....but we won't care

because we will have come to realise that in reality we ARE Love....

 

When we say: "I love You", we are actually creating a division, which

is bound in the end to destroy everything...when we say

"I" love "You"...there is "I" and there is "You", and they are

separated by "Love".....thus there is subject and object...and now we

treat that beloved as any other object...to own it or to throw it

away...

 

However, as Amma always says, if we understand that in reality

we ARE Love, then the artificial division between us will

disappear...and smiling faces will adorn us all...our hearts are not

meant to RECEIVE love...they are meant to be a fountain of Love a

fountain of Light and Love, which flows in ecstacy. it doesn't care

who comes and has a drink, or admires it...or indeed if NONE appear to

quench their thirst...it is all the same to the fountain of love and

light...still it flows unceasingly blessing everyone in the entire

creation with its every motion....when we understand our hearts to be

doing this...then our very breath will be a blessing to the earth...

 

until that time, however, we must attempt to understand that it IS

indeed true, as every great Master has said, that we are Love itself,

Embodied in these frail human bodies!!! We must always attempt to live

as if it were true, contemplating the reality of it, and slowly or

quickly, we will come to be that which we are contemplating...if we

constantly contemplate upon our Guru, soon we will start to be a lot

like the Guru...if we contemplate that we ARE LOVE ITSELF, and keep on

contemplating this, despite all the wily objections of monkey

mind....then we will BE LOVE itself...as we think, so we are.

 

In the Divine Mother's Love,

and in Her Blessed Service,

this littlest child

of Hers,

bows, and bows, and bows,

in utmost humility,

to those Great Ones

assembled here,

hiding

in the innermost hearts

of All.

 

O Beloved Devi come!

O Sweet Krsna come!

O Dearest Siva come!

 

Koti Koti Pranams to Thee

 

>From Joy have we come,

In Joy we live and have our being,

and in Sacred Joy, will we one day melt again.

 

May the Divine Mother bless us all, always, with Pure Love of Her Blue

Lotus Feet, and may She shower Her grace upon us that with true Divine

Love, and humility, we may live entirely according to Her Will!

 

as ever,

your own Self,

 

visvanathan

 

Om Amrtesvaryai Namah!

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 7/7/2001 10:01:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

kasi_visvanath writes:

 

 

> i see that when i am selfishly contemplating all that i am missing in

> this life...that the sorrow and depression just get deeper...you know

> the ones....all the longings and yearnings....especially as in your

> case (and mine!) for a loving partner...i know that longing so

> intimately....but when i offer all this to Mother, She accepts it and

> gives it back as prasad...and i come to see that possibly this

> yearning is really for union with the Divine, and that the only

> possible relationship that i could embark upon would have to be

> centered upon the Divine as our Anchor, our Polestar...our deepest

> being...and i look around me at the people i see, and i realize that

> kind of connection is not easily to be had in this current Asuric

> western lifestyle...in longing for such a partner, a consort, a

> Beloved, one is really longing for the Divine Who is resident IN that

> beloved being...and so when we are loving someone...really we are

> loving the Divine WITHIN that person....

 

Dear Visvanathan,

 

You put me in awe with what you just wrote (above). That is exactly what

is in my heart, too--although until you wrote that I didn't think there were

words to express what you so eloquently did express. I wanted to know what

love is, and I think you seem to know. You are truly an amazing person, and

I want to thank you for your writings, especially this one.

I don't have anything like that in my marriage, but I do have children;

much love as a mother, and am very grateful for that. But if I were single

I would be asking you for your phone number! :::::::blush::::::I am

sure other women had the same thoughts reading the poetry in your words.

Hopefully some are single! If I get free (single) again, I will go for the

type of relationship you describe, or no relationship at all. Had it up to

here with asuric types.

Keep being yourself, you are a very lovable person!

Namaste,

Robin