surrender
Attunement – Deep Slow Inner Receptivity to Love
There are two ways to awaken. There is the way of Striving. This is the way we take on the path as if we are negotiating a goal – a journey to success. This path is governed by a strong intellect – by a way of “doing” that is strenuous – driven by personal will and ridden with tests. It is as if we have an inner tyrant that goads us on and we become devoid of juice – our patriarchal conditioning has co-opted our spiritual journey and we become dry, and serious and without joy.
And then there is the path of attunement – this is the path of slow sensuous melting, a deep inner receptivity to love and relaxing into the ocean of Being that carries us in “this” moment into Love. This journey is one of deep attunement into the Now moment. There is no goal or future place to land. In this moment we are in Unity – slowly melting our rigid inner structures into the honey gold of the heart, the arms of the Beloved always around us. Our evolution is one of deeper and deeper surrender, and we negotiate our challenges from a place of softness, of slow dissolution, and deep, deep trust.
“Deep Relaxation into Love”
This silent relaxed attunement to the Love and Rhythm of the Universe is a journey of deep slowing down. It is a complete attention and connection with the Absolute Reality of Life – in communion with the whole web of sensual reality. It is a deep sensitivity to all the flavors and tastes of Life – of the fluid river of emotions, the sights, the sounds, the deep erotic nature of touch, rooted in Beingness and at the same time, at home in this world. It is both the incarnation of the soul in the body and its liberation – in each moment – and in each breath.
“When she paused, her whole body seemed suspended in space,
in total wellbeing, and calm openness.
I sometimes had the impression that the sky and the trees listened to her,
that the waterfall quieted down,
that the air stopped moving.”
By opening to the sensual reality of life we allow the Life to penetrate us completely and in this penetration we awaken to the Fullness of our Being as the Divine Herself. “The tantrika is like a river that never stops flowing in the divine because the divine never stops flowing in her.”
“The senses declare an outrageous world –
Sounds and scents, ravishing colors and shapes,
Ever-changing skies, iridescent reflections –
All these beautiful surfaces
Decorating vibrant emptiness.
The god of love is courting you,
Light as a feather.”
THE RADIANT SUTRAS
“Magdalene-Christ”
“The God of Love is Courting You”
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Prem Moodaley
Copyright 2019
Mary Magdalene Feast Day 22 July 2019
Resources:
Daniel Odier: Tantric Quest – An Encounter with Absolute Love – Inner Traditions 1997
Lorin Roche: The Radiant Sutras – Sounds True 2014
Surrender: Deep Unclenching, Acceptance, Unconditional Letting Go
“Deep Unconditional Surrender to Her is the Only way through”
In this Sutra I explore the topic of Surrender – which is the really the beginning and end of the Spiritual Journey. Nothing, nothing shifts without the ability to deeply unclench the strong hold of the egoic body-mind. The faster one learns surrender, the less resistance, and the path flows like a clear flowing river.
The Journey itself is the pilgrimage from “head” to “heart”. The journey from self-identification as a person with a “story” to becoming rooted in That which is Pure Love – Expansive – Silent – Present and Unfathomable. The mind can never perceive this Divine Love – it is a felt experience that is happening “Now”. It can only be described as Vast Empty Silence.
What is asked to be surrendered is the false ideas, beliefs, opinions, attachments, neediness, control and the ossified conditioning that makes up our human story. What is embraced is “no – thingness” – pure Awareness and Love embodied in a human form…. Pure Being embracing Pure Becoming… Pure Awareness embracing Pure Creativity – Shiva embracing Shakti – Christ embracing the Magdalene.
“Christ-Magdalene”
One of the most potent keys in the pilgrimage of surrender is deep unclenching of the body-mind – a deep relaxation to what is. You become soft and yielding, open and receptive, trusting and loyal to the Truth that exists within. You learn to lean into the invisible and allow its perfume, its fragrance to surround you, cocoon you in its Love – which is none other than who you are.
In deep receptivity – that is untethered from the noise of the mind – we receive the Grace which is ours to keep – our birthright – the deepest Love that we can know and in this we are free to be…We realize that what we have been searching for has been looking out of our eyes all the time patiently waiting for us to be present. We realize that we are Her temple – the Temple of the living Mother in human form.
Sophia
“Become the Living Temple”
In order to flow like a stream of living water there comes a time when we realise that the moment has arrived where what is required of us is to voluntarily to cut off our heads. In the Tantric tradition this is portrayed by the Goddess Chinnamasta – one of the Ten Tantric Wisdom Goddesses.
“Chinnamasta – the Goddess who offers up Her own Head”
“Having cut off her head, the goddess is able to offer everything to those who need it”
“Give yourself utterly…Even though the head itself must be given, why should you weep over it?” Kabir
Sally Kempton in her book “Awakening Shakti” tells the story of spontaneous awakening of English writer Douglas Harding. In his book “On Having no Head” – Harding describes a realization he had while trekking in the Himalayas…where he spontaneously had the experience of losing the sense of having a head – “Instead of feeling his “self” to be contained inside the small round circle of his skull, he was pure seeing, pure perceiving. His awareness was open to whatever arose, and everything felt as if it were arising inside him. Mountains, sky, his own body existed seamlessly inside a single awareness that included his physical self but also totally transcended it. With the disappearance of his head, he had also lost his personal ego. He was self-less: thought free, fully open, one with the universe around him.”
The question remains – do we have the courage to be that radical – offering our ego identity into the fire of illumination. Each of us will answer this question in a different way at different points on our pilgrimage, from head to heart, to complete embodiment. Who are we without that sense of personal identity – our self image, our accomplishments, our possessions, our education, our story? When all of that falls away – what is left? Who are we then?
To enter the river of life and enjoy its depths, its gifts, its peace and its freshness – we have to be naked. Naked of all that we are – to arise as Her from the depths of our Beingness – we have to let go. This is the secret of surrender. “Entering the Womb of Love is a striptease of the soul, letting go, stripping down completely, and surrendering into the vast naked wildness of the Feminine Dimension – knowing that we are naked and renewing in every moment, and that we cannot control this flow of life, only ride along in passionate wonderment and innocence. The moment we try to stop the flow, cover up, own or control anything, we begin the death of separation from life” WOMB AWAKENING.
Courageous One,
She has been yearning to undress
herself forever, to show you Shiva inside her own heart.
Of course She gets dressed again quickly;
she knows that it’s not proper to walk around with no clothes,
but the fabric is so thin–
can you feel it?
Just a deep breath, a laughter, a roar.
A letting go–
and the moment opens like a rose
(Chameli Ardagh)
“Shiva in Her Heart”
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Mary Magdalene, the Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Prem Moodaley Copyright 2018
February 2018
Resources:
Sally Kempton – Awakening Shakti – Published by Sounds True 2013
Dr Azra and Seren Bertrand – Womb Awakening – Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life – Published by Bear and Co/Inner Traditions – 2017
Poem by Chameli Ardagh – Awakening Woman Institute