“Why HAVE you been writing these journals for so many years? Why has this blog happened where everyone can see all the thoughts, good or bad, that come out of your complicated mind?” [PART 1 of a three-part Introduction to what might become my third book by 2027.]
Well, at the beginning I wrote in my journal to try to remember what Swami was teaching us. In those days, (1984-85) Swamiji was teaching 3 or 4 times each week—at least once during the week, plus every Saturday morning, and every Sunday morning. Shivani had just been asked to go to the recently opened Italy Ananda center to teach the new devotees there. To prepare for that ministry, she would sit in the back of what is now the Expanding Light yoga hall, furiously taking notes on everything Swamiji was saying. All this knowledge was pouring out of Swamiji day after day. It was a wonderful time for me to have arrived at Ananda Village. But even though I had already read the Path, the AY, the 14 Steps (Raja Yoga) and a few others of his books, I nevertheless had to concentrate like crazy to follow what Swamiji was telling us. So, my “journal” that I started the very month when I, as a new member and resident, first stepped onto Ananda land, was filled with classes, workshops and sermons on all the myriad topics that we all still teach and hear today.
From the very first month in August 1984, in addition to Swamiji’s class notes, odd musings began cropping up that were NOT notes about his classes—scribbles of thoughts from my own mind. Prior to this, I had begun to write attempting to answer four repeating questions, three of which I no longer remember. By the time I had decided to move to the Village, though, I had simplified the exercise from four questions down to their essence of just one. That question—my prompt for writing these “scribblings from my own mind”—was always the same. It never varied, and hasn’t ever since I walked onto Ananda land 42 years ago. It was, “What do You want me to learn today?”
In the early days, what often came out onto my journal page seemed like gibberish, silly unconscious spewing of dream-like, often disconnected, ramblings that had no real power nor obvious sense to them. But somewhere I had read that when this happened, to continue writing anyway. Until one day something else began showing up on the page. Entries with more sense, more gravitas, statements that seemed unexpectedly true. Not only that, but amidst such more-uplifted entries, a new voice began appearing. It was no longer sounding like “me,” as if my personality was suddenly using phrases I had never used before. It just felt like I was no longer merely “talking to myself.”
In my mind, the ”You” of the question, “What do You want me to learn today” came to imply God, the Holy Spirit, the Source of all wisdom. Following my guru Yogananda’s practice, I began referring to the source of these answers as “Divine Mother,” or Div Ma for short. But every time I asked for confirmation of who this was that was speaking to me, it puzzled me that the answer never included a specific name, though did often include the pronoun “We.” This was, and has continued to be for the past six years, the origin of these blogs of mine which you have been so kind to read, and to support. [“Why is This Blog Ending? part 2” continues in next week’s blog.]