road trip

we never had any promises that came true...but it meant a lot that you promised...meant the world at that moment and then when i was gone...when you were a story in walks with sid and mark and ali and mina and...

promises lead the way to jobs, to hoping, to i got this and then, and then it doesn't happen and then what...the liquor store is right there, the corner store open at 2 am and pm for a dutch, a corona, beef jerky's, porn, kit kats and a thousand vices.

walk in with beaver, as he gets a loosey and a bag of salt and  vinegar bbq doritos. he offers me a stogie as he flames his lighter, barely missing his long nose, close to guantanamo, long enough to be in a line up at the airport.

you sure you don't want a drag?

i'm good, i say. i'm real good. although my heart hollows, sinks from rejection, beats like an upside down pail hit with the broken broom stick by the boy at the lexington ave train station.

sniff the air. inhale like the menthol-laden air was coke, like i was looking for bass to play in my head.

we leapt into the car, flew through trump country, where town-folk were beaten under ptsd's from becoming heroes awarded with permanent trauma and soundbytes of support from politicians for being brave, for upholding freedoms...freedom to rape, pillage, destroy, murder, homicide, torture, piss on, shit on, deface, spread cancer, small pox...

we stood in the parking lot of mickey d's. without a tomorrow, without sense of yesterday, i crumbled. had some hash browns. watched beaver chow down the 2 big macs and bacon egg and cheese he got.

nyc was an hour away and waited for us like a warden, like a cell door closing that we needed to run into before solitary confinement, before supermax and strap down, before a torn anus.

we flew in the night...a sense of empty purpose to return, hugging the ledge of the mountain highway, on two wheels, hoping for float, hoping for something to give...

then yoga, in the rain, by the hudson, by the cry of wolves and the circle of hawks. then Surrender. beaver stood back, his face close to the water, rain streaming harder from his eyes than the black clouds...

then yuj, then clarity, in breath, in You, in releasing from the grips of this body, of the false sense of sense,  driven by expectation, by conditioning, by revised cosmologies that deify capital, status, material...

then You...then it was clear, cause You were before me, everywhere, close to the river, in the river, in trump country in the voice of rejection, in the voice of the rejector...if only You Listen...

samkhya and the importance of duality for non-duality

what is your creation story?


according to samkhya, of the upanishads, the whole world originates from the interaction between consciousness and primordial matter.

consciousness is pure and without form. it can be recognized as self.

the primoridal matter (prakriti) is non-self, it is also not necessarily matter but the seeds of matter, kind of like a resting potential. like ions of a neurons sodium potassium pump, in a resting potential, the triguna's implicit in the prakriti are in a constant state of flux, as if they too were missing ions, and seeking equilibrium...this may be had when the prakriti's trigunas grow active through the active potential set off by the rajas, activating the illuminating sattva.

this gives rise to mahat/buddhi - intellect. intellect in turn gives birth to ahamkara - ego, and ego, through interaction with the higher plane of being - sattva - illumines manas, the mind, 5 sense organs, and 5 motor organs. ahamkara - ego - is split in two. it also mixes with tamas - gross matter. in combining with gross matter, ahamkara forms the tantramatras - subtle matters - which gives rise to the panchamahabootas -the 5 great elements that everything in life is composed of...

is it important to know this lineage of being? how does it help/support us in our seeking homeostasis?

caraka of ayurveda, according to one vaidya i was listening to (i didn't do the research myself), has some disagreements with this view. ayurveda for the most part adapts this cosmogony, but differs in the origin of the indriyas - manas (mind), sense and motor organs. sankhya says it derives from sattva with ego, but caraka says that gross matter comes from panchamahaboota.

understanding that the body is not to be confused with consciousness maybe? samkhya is a dualistic understanding of existence. but does this preclude non-duality? i don't think it does.

if purusha, consciousness, is what informs matter, and that matter does not get formed without consciousness, and remains in a resting potential, than, our goal as humans, is to release the confusion that we are these uniforms. in doing so, we quickly access sattva.

in going through sattvic channels, we ascend through the mind, and the illumined portion of ego, into mahat/buddhi, to ultimately access purusha - pure consciousness, which leads us to ALLAH.

but are the intermediaries important....?

whatever will help us get through this, will help us in more than a just to get by, in a more than a newport and a dutch, just to get by...more than a go out for a run, or do some yoga...more than just bowing down in body...

more, because, too much emphasis on this leads to pathology. too much reliance on babylon to work things out leads to a false reality. yoga will ultimately lead you to a real reality...but it may not. it may lead you to a state of competition, of wanting to create a video library be a personality, seek glory...

but, yoga with breath, with hatha, deep in asanas, in pranayama and pratyahara in the asanas will lead the sadhaka to One, in a state of dharna...

can ayurveda do this? create this experience of depth, of experiential knowledge? how?

observing ayurveda in the day to day, in emotions, in physical states as they spring up, will make it clear...understanding purusha and prakriti make it clear- that there is consciousness and matter and one is not the other. but in the merging of both, the intellect can confuse the two...herein the ego takes over. by taking this separation, by stepping into the role of witness, we can view our bodies and work on its healing as witness...purusha, budhhi allows us to see the body for what it is, allows us to correct the body, balance it...go deeper, Higher...

...aferall, we are not these body's, nor are we these minds...

full moon may 2017

3 days ago i stared through traffic, through inching on the fdr, on 72nd, on lexington...i stole glimpses through restless eyes, hungry for bed, for home...with no one here, in this apartment i traversed bodies in - infancy, childhood, adolescence, 20's 30's - home is foggy, unclear, an anxious response to a yes no question...

full moon in may, in the maya, in the face of comments and likes and dislikes, in the space of transactional interactions based on money marketing sensuality...

hands up, this time to sing qawwal. this time to skat and wail to tablas, to float like a banshee and land on the dome on the rock, before returning to mecca, at the blink of an eye...the whole universe passes through the eye of a needle in ALLAH's universe...

i wonder if i am a cell or a microbe, part of the microbiome or a tissue in an organ...i wonder sometimes, if there will be applause at the end, like in the shows, like how every show in childhood inculcated a sense of big deal, like cash, like some prize that could be held, that people everywhere, the omnipresent audience cried for, laughed for, applauded for...no such moment...never was...it's a continuum...life...it is a never ending cycle...our moments are merely a portion of that...

prospects arise like unicorns these days, and dissipate like a dream that drifts with each step taken after awaking...

...yet...and still...i am clapping...this time for that which is Real, which is Always...which is Known to those who Know...ya ALLAH...

...this time my applause for you comes from that place of ALWAYS...celebrating you for the Love You Are...when i see You, when i look past you, when i get past myself, when i get past my judgements and fears and opinions, when i get past the training of nyc, of the education systems, of expectation, i Listen and smile, and pray, an applaud...

...last month, last full moon, my intention was to focus on just this path...

...this month i learned that purpose is more than individual purpose, more than being a teacher, or a poet, or a writer, or a medicine man...Purpose is about what service you are providing to the One-ness, to shaping the One-ness, going beyond glory in aligning with Glory...

...that is, the prophet jesus was a healer, but this wasn't his purpose...his purpose was to draw people closer to ALLAH, to being compassionate, to being forgiving, to coming from a place of Love...through his healing work, he spread this message...through the time he spent healing others, he did this...

...this month, this full moon to next one, i let go of this individual purpose as an end in itself, and in place, i embrace Purpose by using my healing work to draw others closer to each other, to building community, to communing with and loving the earth, and each other, and prayer...i do this by making herbal medicines for people to support detox, to support their organs, and mind being detoxed, i do this through offering dynamic counsel to support detoxing the mind, to listen, to encourage compassion, i do this by giving what i have, being fearless in this, not worrying about my ideas being stolen or not, my hard work being coopted or not - getting out of this "my" frame of thought, and instead giving my all from where i'm at in life...all praise is due...

end game

in the end...Nothing...Everything...You...return...the great return...been thinking about the ancients...about ancient egyptian emphasis on death, on this journey in life as a passage of preparation for the next life, the real life as they understood it...thinking bout how this resonates in islam, in how much emphasis there is on humility, on bowing down, in staying humble, and clean, to prepare the body and soul for the hereafter...think of how this echoes in hinduism, in buddhism, through ritual, through, meditation and non-attachment for the sole purpose of liberation from the bondage of the material uniform that keeps us in this realm...

and the end game here, in context of this being a passage, in commitment to belief, in trusting in that which was revealed by the arif-ullah's...is to leave the world a bit better, a bit more in tune with One, a bit more engrossed in that which is Always - Love...the Source of Peace...

think about money...how if i had a lot...how a lot of us think of having money, a lot of it...how i never really used to think of it...how even now, it's only a thought in relation to responsibilities...but...if i did have a lot, what i would do has come up in relation to what i want to actualize - an ashram that is in Surrender to One, that holds courses on alignment through connecting with Divinity in asana, breath, meditation, nutrition/diet, herbs, cooking, touching - bodywork, in building sustainably, in music that builds on Love Supreme instead of ego...a school/place where everything is medicine, is based on the economics of spirit, of community, of accountability, of family, of simplicity...this is the end goal...to be able to partake in community through this path of Love...through the village, through a community in Surrender...to offer this as an alternative to the babylon system, to the hyper-individualism, to that which is destructive...

...guru-pops was telling me about this woman in a village in bagladesh, who, not having money to go to the city to a hospital, to address her ailments, began, building a hospital in her hometown, by placing one brick down at a time, and when others asked her, she told them - i'm building a hospital, some laughed, some joined her...it got built...

...if you know the end, if you know that which has to be, then work towards that, not the money...the money will come...so long as the Purpose is clear is entrenched in One-ness...

re-engineering your habits

everything is habit.

focus on one goal a month...
discipline yourself to get there
-mono focus

turn your shoulds into musts
musts = your standards
your standards =your storyline
your standard is what you've come to believe about who you are
who you are is bendable, transformable
what are your standards/storyline on relationships, money, etc.?

your standards of what you would like your standards to be (on whatever issue), can be raised
standards get raised by spontanaiety
omar ali shah calls this deliberate circumstance
that is, if i want to be immersed in yoga that is dynamic and unpredictable, i will work in a yoga studio with a yoga community

you have to be clear on what you want,
otherwise, what are you working towards
the end never ends, so your goals are just a rite of passage into the next level

compete with yourSelf
compete with the best you can be
what is the best you can be...in reading, writing, medicine, bodywork, food, diet, movement, lover???

you see what you focus on...
if you believe everyone hates you because you are brown like me, you will see this
for instance, if i tell you to look up from your computer and look for everything that is brown in the room, you will find brown more than any other color, in fact, you may barely notice the other colors...
this is the power of focus...which wolf will you feed? what do you choose to focus on?

gratitude
love is more than a feeling
love is an action
show instead of telling
do instead of talking
applied to medicine man - i'm making medicine, picking, planting herbs, treating folks

1. choose an area you would like to improve in (i.e. career, relationship, etc)
2. what habits keep you in your current state?
3. what's your vision/goal for this?
4. what habits can get you there?