Love Mantra and The Posture of Love

Wasn’t planning on it, but I ended up getting darshan (hug) from Amma again yesterday. I had been completely restless at night for a couple of nights with a buzzing energy in my body. I had been thinking it was the antibiotics I was on, but then in talking with a friend here, I started to realize that perhaps there was energy in my body from the explosive blue/white electric hug I got from Amma in a dream the night I got here. I meditated on that and felt the possibility of that. I went to sit near Amma and while there my heart felt like it wanted to be with her again one more time so I talked my way onto the end of the line (since I didn’t have a ticket) and went through the process.

While in line there is a place to buy gifts to give to Amma (garlands, candies, fruit, etc.) I didn’t do that as I don’t fully understand it except as a cash generator (I know there is more to it than that), so I proceeded in the line past that. I felt into my heart and what felt best was to write a short note to her and give it to her. I thought about it for awhile, tore a 1/4 page from my tattered Eco Friendly Student Notebook bought in India which contains email addresses, facebooks, train times, book ideas, travel suggestions, mantras, etc) and on it I wrote the following:

I Give
My Love
My Heart

I held it to my heart the entire time in line and when I went for my hug I handed it to her. It felt like closure in a sense, because what I was offering was not My Love and Heart to her per se but really to the world at large. it was really more of a pledge.

When I finished and walked off the stage, my posture was noticeable upright with my chest naturally but proudly and openly forward. I had a feeling similar to one I had on the airplane as I was flying from Bangkok to India for the first time, that there was a huge smile on my chest, starting below each armpit, and curving down and then up to meet at a my diaphragm. My entire body/heart was smiling. I began to look at people in the room and realized how much love has to do with the eyes. If we truly look at people, we are able to give them our love. Notice in yourself how quickly you divert your gaze when you look at someone, either immediately after eye contact or preempting it altogether. As Ann Kyle Brown taught me once in one of her Dharma talks which still sticks with me, it is important to “give people your whole face,
when meeting/greeting/interacting with them. It’s the channel through which love flows outward towards another. It also helps us to orient so we are ready to attend to their words, experience, situation, emotions, needs, joy, whatever.

I’m leaving the Ashram here at Amma’s today. I went for a swim yesterday and it became very clear that I needed to go, to get out into the world again and interact and practice in a non-contained setting. It’s wonderful here, but it’s also very contained and inward here. I’m ready to be outward again and meet the world as best I can with my smiling heart/chest and a full face of eye contact. It’s quite a practice really. If I can succeed at truly integrating this in my life, I am certain that my neck and back difficulties I’ve had through the years will disappear. The posture of openness as I am speaking of here is actually not familiar to my system. My musculoskeletal structure seems to have formed some around a degree of self-guardedness and separation. In that posture, there is a slight collapsing of the chest and shoulders, forming a but of a nest for the heart in which it is able to remain safe. Might take some rolfing to get there, but the inner work feels like it’s more in place to support the transition.