SPIRITUALITY, ART, NITHYANANDA

Christmas 2012 What an awful day it was for me today  Why?  Because I was all about me, my suffering, my emotions.  I was not living for others.  I was all about feeling my pain. My husband left us for the second time this year.  The first time was several years ago, and it was close to holidays. It was such a shock and so much pain that it was almost the feeling of being numb through the whole thing. Kids and I went to friends for two days in a row, and it helped us through the holidays.  By next Christmas, I already met my Guru.  Thank you, dear  God!  Suffering was gone. My ex-husband then came back, and I took him back without any conditions, trial periods, whatever.  I was so happy to have a family back together.  He came back as if he never left but only with a lot of anger and meanness.  It was as though he was mad at me that he came back.  Three years later he left again. This Christmas is the first one when I am sure my family life of 22 years is gone.  It will never be b

From 2010... Paramahamsa Nithyananda is going to a Bangalore Court  to officially declare that he is God.  He says if they want to argue, he would enjoy a debate.  He says  this is the land of Advait  God realization is a birth right of every human. He follows Upanishad that every human being is God.  He also will create a precedent to help enlighten Masters who are under different attacks in India nowadays.  He tries to inspire Indians to protect their culture and rich traditions instead of following somebody elses.  I am sure he will create and actually already has created a lot of tension.  Along with tension he will create inspiration.  It feels that awakening is happening in the society.  We will see what comes out of this. This whole thing reminded me about the movie "Miracle on the 34th street" and how New York was voting if  Santa existed or not.  New Yorkers decided that yes, Santa was real and it was their right to believe and they won the trial in the movie

From the Fall 2010.  Returning from the ashram after LEP (Living Enlightenment Program) I opened my computer on the plane after leaving the ashram to make notes about my last few days in the program.  It is always great to write down things right away  before beautiful things fade away .  When I   opened my computer the note popped up:             RADIATE your Enlightenment. Live Enlightenment.               You are now divine Ambassador, and He is always with you.                                     So what is there to worry about???? I did not write that note and this note did not get mystically on my computer.   I made a great friend there, I wrote about this young fellow several times. His name is Paul, he is my son's age.     He just wanted to remind me...

The biggest one is that not a single fear or incompetency of yours will stay untouched. You will need to clean all the mess and learn all that you are teaching your children to do.  Every time I say that I am not good at something I end up doing exactly the thing that  I was trying to avoid.  To give you an example,  I really never liked Math.  Maybe I did not spend enough hours practicing it but I was always convinced that it is not my subject and there was no way i would ever understand it.  When my son was little I gave the task of helping him with Math to my husband and when it did not work out I found different Math programs (although he just got his Bachelor with majoring in Math and minoring in Physics).  Anyway, now my daughter is in six grade and I am still avoiding her math homework.   I was speaking to a friend of mine who is a full time volunteer in the ashram now.  She is putting different amazing programs together.  The plan is to create a website with a lot of less

I did a workshop last year in New York City.  Women were funny and very creative.  One was a shoe maker.  She was in her late fifties and she  told some funny stories about her childhood. When we were having lunch and the time for a desert came, she said: "When I was little, I never got deserts.  You do not get treats because you ATE!"  :)

It was a confusing question for me when I was asked what religion I belong to since at that time I did not know that my way of thinking actually exists as a religion as well.     I used to say: “I am spiritual but do not belong to any one particular religion or   I am a Buddhist but I still believe in Jesus." My daughter and son used to ask for one simple way to answer the question and the above written sentence was all I could come up with. If you are like me and think that there is more than one way to God, you would be happy to know that there is a name for it.   It is called Vedic Tradition.   And thank God that now I finally have a name for what I believe in.   I can celebrate Jesus and I can celebrate Buddha and I do not feel that I am betraying anyone. My Master Paramahamsa Nithyanada gave me that beautiful truth and Hinduism gives that opportunity to just celebrate God in all different expressions. How can you really compare Incarnations, how is it possible

I wanted to put together some memories.  The whole experience was deep and  sweet.  I can not say that we joked around.  It was a gentle and soft experience.  One day we danced though.  Imgine, night in the town where all are sleeping and in one house on the hill the lights are up and five people are dancing in the middle of the night... Anyway, here are some more stories  Fire Ritual At the end of the program we needed to have a fire.  I have a very nice fire pit in my backyard.  The fire started easily and when it was all burned, a light rain put the fire out as if the God of Fire was watching it. Swamiji and TV One time we were talking what was the right way of doing completion after the end of the program. Some confusion was present.  At that moment the TV turned itself on (no joke) and the group on the screen was in the middle of a discussion and the fist sentence we heard was :"So remember the question was how to continue competing when we are at home"... and  the

Ten days of Swamiji's support and blessings; ten days of energy darshans, ten days of yoga and kryas and working through what seemed to be out endless in-completions,  Many patterns were exposed and broken in everyone.  Many unforgettable moments happened.   Inner Awakening took place in my Sparta home.  What is Inner Awakening?  Inner Awakening is exactly that, Inner Awakening.   After it happens in you, your whole being feels lighter and at peace, your whole being is ready to LIVE. First part of Inner Awakening that we were doing was on completion with our history,  completion with images we carry about ourselves inside and outside.  In other words, liberation. Have you noticed how many times the same situations will appear in our lives, same diseases will show up again and again, same conflict situations will come up.  Same, same, old same.   If we are aware and already at the level of realization that if we want outer change we better work on our inner space we look i

Vampires... During my last trip to Moscow Russia, I noticed that people were calling other people  energy vampires meaning that some people are tiring to be around or one may feel drained after a conversation as these people  “eat” their energy.  I remembered that I used to have experiences like that too!!!   So one day, after spending time with one of my dear friends, she said to me: “I enjoy your energy so much.  it is light and refreshing and happy”.  Then she stopped and said: “But please do not worry, I am not an energy vampire, I won’t pull it from you.”  I laughed and said: “Please do!  Take as much as you need.  I do not have my energy, I am connected to my Guru and His energy is limitless and goes to everyone who needs it.  I am just enjoying the process.”   I now again see that another idea left my system.  I always wanted to be a healer.  Now I know that I am because I realize over and over that I am not the one healing, not the one giving.  I am only an instrument. 

This story is from a marketing seminar that I attended last fall.   A beautiful girl was sitting on the stage getting advice on how to present her company.  The speaker asked her: “What do you do?” She said “We are a group of professional organizers who will midwife your life into a new beginning”.  The crowd went silent.  What?  Turned out she had a company that organizers or de-clutters houses to be exact.  DId you get it from the description?  Well, she was a Yale and Harvard graduate.  I think a lot of educated people suffer from this “let me complicate stuff so it sounds more important.”   I remember I read once a book by a professor of the Russian Language.  I will skip the name.  I remember only that after reading several pages I thought to myself:”He enjoys his own mind more than he cares about the readers.”  I never finished his book.  Whatever we do we have to enrich others , not enrich our own ego.  My Guru speaks about it every day now for 4 months.  

Scott passed April 1, 2013.   It has been almost a month and I only now can write about it.    I was thinking what do I want to remember if I read my own journal ten years from now.   I realized that I want to remember all that incredible love and support that I experienced from him.  It is really selfish of me but my life was so much better with him in it.  Life of my daughter was so much better with him in it.  I feel so grateful even for the tears that are pouring now because I had a privilege to meet him and an honor to call him a friend.  He was a special soul.  It was as if his job was to make sure there are results in the projects that he is involved in and that people who he thought needed to be appreciated were in fact feeling appreciated.   His last words to me were: “I get you Lena.  I understand you.  I see you.  Not many people can understand but I can, I see it so clearly.  I see the spirit.  I love you.  I love you. I love you.”  I am so selfish in these memorie

I went to a Korean spa yesterday to have a massage.   In the middle of that massage a lady started to sing a Korean lullaby.  The thing is that the whole massage is painful for me .  Maybe it is painful because I do not do them often.  Anyway, when she started singing a lullaby the unpleasant sensations subsided right away. I did not understand the language but I felt as a baby and my mom was taking care of me.  Fascinating that the brain seems to be ready to create experiences in your body based on the past memories.  Well, what if nurses in the hospitals start singing to their patients as part of the healing process?  Not sure what nurses will say to that idea but "singing" hospitals make me smile.

Swamiji spoke on four tatvas (truths) so many times this year and at one point he expanded and suggested contemplating on the extensions or deeper understanding of the four tatvas, which are Integrity, Authenticity , Responsibility , Enriching.  He extended with four words and each of these four words correlate with one truth.  These four words are: Positivity, Possibility, Leadership and Enlightenment. I wanted to share the experience I had.. Funny Part:  I originally thought that enrichment was when you speak about the tatvas. So on two different occasions with two different people when I was discussing some business ideas and in both cases there was no direct benefit for me I experienced what i understand as enrichment=enlightenment. My body felt the enlightenment click.  It felt as an un-clutched state.  Something was creating from that space .  Thoughts and ideas  came from nowhere.  They were not taught to me at the seminars, they were not read by me in books.  They came as v

Recently I heard several conversations about Inner Guru and how you do not need a Guru because you are your own Guru. I was contemplating and now I feel that actually without your inner Guru you  will not be able to follow a Guru at all.  You will start, you will drop, you will hear only what you want to hear, your recognition  of your own non-authenticity will not be functioning and your search will continue.  During that search  your inner Guru might get stronger, and come more to your field of awareness. Integrity, authenticity, responsibility, enriching ...These are the truths that your Inner Guru lives by.  

I had a conversation with my 14 year old one today on the concept of giving.  I noticed that a sentence of "you do that and I will do that" is often used among her friends and by her.  I was thinking how to explain the concept of giving and remembered a class with Swamiji.  I told her that when you give in exchange only and ask for equal compensation, you are in the energy of scarcity.  If you give out of abundance you are in the energy of kings.  By law of attraction you will be attracting the same energy as you put out.  Abundance energy will not come from scarcity mentality. Of course giving and taking should be both with integrity and responsibility then you will not take inappropriately or give inappropriately. She got it right away.  How important it is to speak intelligently with young minds!

Все, что мы видим это Парашакти или Всемирная энергия.   Это перевод истории, ктороую рассказал Свамижди объясняя, что мы часто не готовы воспинять объяснение, которое учитель дает.  Мы можем вообще решить ,что учитель сошел с ума, а он на самом деле пытается показать, как нам дойти до нашего собственного понимания, как сдвинуть сознание из привычных рамок, чтобы мы могли осознать суть, познать правду.  Глава 9, послание - 244 Короткая история: Ученик вернулся в ашрам.  Издалека он увидел огромную толпу.  Он заинтересовался происходящим и протолкнувшись ближе, увидел сцену ,которая шокировала его.  Собака пыталась есть еду из тарелки Учителя, а Учитель сидел верхом на собаке! Ученик ничего не понял.  «Что за ерунда здесь происходит?  О, Учитель, что ты делаешь?» спросил он совершенно сбитый с толку.  Учитель ответил спокойно:» Разве ты не видишь?  Один Брама держит дргую часть Брамы на Браме.  Один четырехногий Брама пытается есть это.  Другой Брама пытается ехать на это

  Отрывок из книги Парамахамса Нитьянанды  «Багават Гита без секртов». Глава 9, послание - 242 Люди задают мне много вопросов.  Почему так, Почему этак.  Люди спрашивают с подозрнием. Они думают, что если я говорю им что-то,то это потому то я получаю от этого какую-то выгоду.  Если я им предлагаю пройти какой-то курс обучения, программу, то они думают, что я так зарабатываю.  Они убегают думая, что я хочу превратить их в монахов. Они не понимают, что просветленные учителя находятся за пределами всего этого.  Они упускают возможность быть рядом с просветленным учителем из-за своего невежества. Небольшая история: В одном холодном и снежном месте лежала замержшая змея, как будто  бы это был деревянный посох.  Слепой человек, который проходил мимо поднял ее и подумал :»Какой хороший посох». Мимо проходил просветленный учитель.  Он увидел, что делает слепой и предупредил :»Это не посох. Это замержшая змея.  Скоро выйдет солнце и змея оживет и укусит тебя».   Слепой человек не пос

I really like how  Sri Nithyananda Swami  expresses the lessons. This one is from yesterday "Gazing at the stars should be entrainment not just entertainment " Means you look at how they do things and learn, apply to yourself and your work in whatever you are doing instead of creating a distance of adoration only. Loved this and wanted to share.

Surrender feels  as if the light in me bows to the source of light knowing that that inner light itself is the source that is longing to lose separation.   There is no inferiority feeling but there is a feeling about the Grandness of the Guru.  Feeling of being relaxed.   Seems hard to express.  Swamiji expressed it this way: When we believe there is a Life-force that is conducting this Universe and is taking care of us, we relax. When we relax and are not stressed or worried, we can live and function to our optimum potential. We can express our creativity and live spontaneously. We experience a great freedom and liberation. This is surrender. This is true knowledge also. This is the knowledge that cannot be taught or picked up. The Master can simply transmit it when our being is ready to receive it. -PURNAVATAR PARAMAHAMSA NITHYANANDA.

Funding for the arts and art education is being cut all across the United States. To me, this is a huge mistake. Art is not an extracurricular activity, yet that’s the way most people think about it. Instead, I believe that art, when taught correctly, is a core skill that can inform the way we approach all other subjects. Valuing art means valuing innovation, creative problem-solving, and the search for every person’s unique mode of expression. Our children are not the only ones being impaired by these decisions. All of us lose when we let art fall behind. I believe all things can and should be approached as an art – from accounting to sculpture. At the core of this failure to value arts is a mentality that wants to create automatons who can score well on standardized tests and fit into a broken economic system. 

People are the biggest assets on the planet Earth, said Nithyananda tonight.  He added:"They need right education". I thought to myself.  Oh, how I wish that Enlightened Masters were in charge of the curriculum in our schools. Our planet would be a kinder and more beautiful home for us.  

When my daughter had a speech delay, one of the things that I had to do was to use only English around her.  I was born and raised in Moscow, Russia.  I left Russia when I was 30 not 3 y.o.  However, I have to face the reality that my Russian is not that great and I have to work to bring it back where it used to  be. The difficultly I faced when I wanted to call my baby these cute little nicknames in Russian and had to instead switch to English was huge.  It was not just that I needed to learn different words, update my vocabulary. It felt as I had to do an emotional switch.  We are connected to our native language at our core level.  We hear it  when we are babies, it is in the body itself. Today when I was making posts on Nithyananda Russia page on facebook I again realized that my Russian was not good enough.  I was later driving around and finally found the words I could not find when I was posting earlier.  Now I am "neither ...nor..."  My English still needs editing

Another memory takes me back again to our family's wonderful country house; that day there were many visitors including two artists, two sisters, two kids, and all these amazing friends of my parents: a medical professor, a writer, a physicist, a scientist, and other artists.  There is an argument: Does a person need to be trained to be able to appreciate art?  Can a person from a street without any background or education understand art, or do you need an education?   They are loud and passionate and think totally differently from one another.   I am fascinated as their voices rise, hands waving wildly in the air… Someone lights a fire and the physicist starts a song and says, “This one is for you,” talking to my stepfather.  Everyone joins in and they sing together his favorite folk song about simple love.  Their voices are in harmony of warmth and tenderness around the crackling fire.  We are somewhere on this planet, not far from Moscow, yet very far from an everyday

That sentiment applies to our genetic makeup and our life’s experiences.     It is that conditioning (training from our elders in the home and society) that later in life often needs to be reconditioned or just lost altogether, through either hours and hours of psychotherapy or meditation (whatever works but meditation was a faster and cheaper way for me).   It may also, however, be that same conditioning that will keep you going and will not let you give up; will make you so sure that there is another way or…not.   My ancestors – those little voices that sit on our shoulders - always tell me there is another way.   I just have to look a little harder.    When we are youngsters, we try hard to avoid family comparisons.  We don’t want to chew funny like Grandpa, or walk weird like Grandma.  We certainly don’t want to tell stupid jokes like Dad or wear old-fashioned makeup like Mom.  After all, we are unique, special, and our own person.  We make every effort humanly possible to se

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Have you ever noticed that your child thinks or expresses him or herself differently?  And although it is not a conventional way of thinking it is still quite amazing if we only stop worrying about their future or ‘fixing the problem’ and listen.      Early one morning at my kitchen table, a tiny five-year-old sits staring up at her seventeen-year-old brother Lev.  They are doing math.  My son is exhausted because he just spent 25 minutes explaining the complicated concept of addition to his little sister.    He looks very serious and hopeful that she got it.  He rubs his eyes and asks his "test" question:  "So, Alice, one plus one equals ....” “Friends,” Alice answers, smiling. He starts all over, using his fingers, fruits and other objects.  He tries really hard and then he says again, “One plus one. . .” “Love,” she says.   I laughed so hard I nearly choked.  He was so big and strong.  She was so small and insistent.

"...Not giving up on people is neither keeping quite nor discarding what people are saying.  Remember,when you  give up on people you give up on you.  Decide today: I will not give up on me based on my past record.  Do the same to others..." "If you are not serving others you are hurting others.  Either you are serving others or you are harming others.  Life happens to you from outside so you have to positively contribute to other's lives. Commit to enrich other's lives.  It is the law of nature, if you do not enrich other's lives you are harming others."

There is a saying that nothing really is what it looks.  Well, I am thinking that depends of course on who is looking.  Ordinary eyes - probably yes.  Enlightened eyes - I do not think so. I do not have enlightened eyes yet but often find that I see much more than what I used to.  By seeing I mean understand and feel.    Much, much better but still ordinary, conditioned to see things. I did my first proteksha pada puja in 2010.  As I wrote many times, all these things were really foreign to me.  Proteksha Pada puja is when your Guru accepts your puja and you are right in front of him.  I was there for about 40 minutes and then you can speak to him and ask questions or ask for healing or whatever seems important to you at that moment. Anyway, After the ceremony I got gifts, his framed footprints and my photo of the ceremony. Footprints were framed and I brought them home without ever opening the frame.  They were not really visible, just a little pink color on what I thought was a

One day when my cheerful, smiling three-year-old sat on the steps and cried with grief changed my life, plans for the future... I sent her upstairs to tell her brother that lunch was ready.  My goal was to push her to speak more clearly and deliver the message to her brother.  (I was somewhat concerned, but our last appointment with speech evaluation had convinced us that the root of the problem was in our bilingual family.  Denial…) She goes upstairs and in a couple of minutes comes back crying and in despair. She sat on the bottom stairs and huge  tears roll down her cheeks , “No one understands me, no one understands me, Mommy.”    My heart just goes into such a strong shock that I can almost feel the heart muscles clenching like a fist; I feel overwhelmed by her pain.  There is no space between her being and mine.  I feel that my whole being goes into resolve that I will change it, I will change it.  I will do something, whatever it takes, to help her.  Eventually

jump, jump. Left foot, right foot.  Brown dress, black apron, red scarf, two braids… Moscow, 1973.  A girl is walking the streets of Moscow and dreams intensely about…bananas.   One day, she thinks, many years from now, I will be living in Canada and I will have a kitchen and every day I will have a bowl of fruit on my table with lovely yellow bananas.    Why Canada, you may ask?  “No clue,” I tell you, but I think perhaps that it is because there was so much negativity then toward the U.S., and a neutral attitude toward Canada, and so it was okay to dream about it.     Three years later the banana dream is still there, but it has grown: I can clearly see myself speaking English as if it is my native language.  Oh, and of course presents, presents, presents for my two best friends.  I have a house and money and I am packing a suitcase full of awesome stuff for them.  For one, I would bring a fur coat that is red because she would look so good in it and for another one I woul