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Portlandia- season 7, episode 2 I have been wanting this scene to be a GIF for a while, so I finally just made one. You are welcome :) #Portlandia #RamDass
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Tulsidas says: "The name and the object named, though similar in significance, are allied as master and servant to one another" -Ramcharitmanas, Gita Press. Practice can easily become routine if we allow it. Chanting can be mundane. Puja can become mechanical. It comes down to the quality of our consciousness. At any moment we can drop the veil of ignorance. When we do, God is waiting with a smile. Tulsidas tells us that these names are in fact the Holy One. Not only that, but they are related to the Holy One as master to servant. When we say the name, God has to come. In the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana, there is a point in the Rasa Lila dance where Krishna falls completely under the sway of the Gopis, "Having secured Him as their Darling, and celebrating Him in song, the Gopis sported with Him, their necks encircled by His arms" And Krishna dances with them as a reflection of his own Self, "as an infant would play with its own reflections." But not all Gopis made it to the forest. Some were too attached to the material world. There has to be a willingness to let go of mundane reality to be able to Dance with God. Tulsidas continues, "Install the luminous gem in the shape of the Divine name 'Rama' on the threshold of the tongue at the doorway of your mouth, if you will have light both inside and outside."
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Clip from Friday's kirtan at Key Teahouse at Open Secret in San Rafael. After the kirtan we drove to Westerbeke Ranch for a lovely weekend to be a part of Alison Smith's yoga retreat. Besides leading kirtan, meditation and Dharma talks, I also got to be a student of Alison's yoga asana classes. She is an incredibly skilled teacher, one who deeply understands the body and the therapeutic benefits of asana practice while knowing that yoga is so much more than the body. I am grateful for teachers like her who strive to stay close to yoga's roots and are not afraid to talk about God and Consciousness in a classroom. On our way back home, Jacob and I stopped in at yoga Mendocino for one last night of kirtan. Check out the website for fall kirtan dates.
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"Sarvatmabhava [the experience of feeling God everywhere] is the blessed reward. When it fills the heart, the fruit of devotion is attained and felt in one's body, consciousness, mind, intelligence, sense of self, and throughout the soul."

"It is said when you have total love, you naturally renounce worldly and Vedic desires and become free of expectations."

Letters of spiritual counsel from Sri Harirayaji, the great grandson of Vallabhacharya, to his younger brother Sri Gope...swarji. Translated by Shyamdas and Vallabhdas.

~Selected verses from letter 34~

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https://sitaramdass.com/…/02/28/beliefs-masquerading-as-tr…/

"Faith is not a belief that we hold to tightly. When our beliefs are misplaced as faith, we feel the need to squeeze them, as if we are trying to compress a fleeting sand into a solid rock. This squeezing may create the illusion of solidity, but it requires effort to continue the charade. The second we stop holding, it crumbles.

Faith requires none of that. It takes no energy or holding. Truth just is. It is found ...through the continual letting go of clinging in the mind. Truth is always present, but we can see it more clearly when our mind is open and free from clinging.

Truth is who we are. Faith is the inner knowing that comes from relaxing into the Truth of our Being.

To varying degrees, those of us on the path have faith. But we also have a whole stew of beliefs that have cleverly attached themselves to that faith..."

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sitaramdass.com
Beliefs Masquerading as Truth
Truth is that which can stand on its own. It needs no support. There is no amount of evidence or reasoning that can either prove or disprove Truth. We often call this type of knowing faith. But the…
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