Rudraksha Benefits

* Rudraksha Benefits *

It is said that when Shiva looked upon the world and saw and felt all of the suffering that was taking place so much compassion filled him and he could not help but shed a tear that feel to the earth. That tear turned into a Rudraksha Tree and the seeds that come from those sacred trees are made into malas for meditation. When I bought my mala the first time I saw my Guru I did not understand. I bought it like one would buy a souvenier at a fair. I had no idea what was about to happen to me or what that mala would become for me. When my Gurus eyes fell upon me I was stunned, something had happened that I thought was impossible. Love had happened to me. A love so deep that I thought it would tear me apart, a love so big that I thought my physical body could not hold it. It was irrational and uncontrollable, it did not fit inside of anything I had ever known before. It frightened me with the immensity of its power. But there was nothing I could do, there was no choice to be made I was already inside of its torential path.

When I meditated early in the mornings when everything was still dark and quiet I could see him, feel him, and hear his voice as clearly as if he was physically standing in front of me.

he said,”Do you trust me?”

I said,”Yes,” and I meant it with everything in me .

He said to me,”No you do not trust me. You have never trusted anything in your life, not even yourself.

I wanted to shout no that this was not true, that it couldnt be true. Was it possible that I had never even trusted God? But in that moment with him I knew and saw how true this was. Every morning he would say the same thing and I would answer yes and he would tell me no.

And then the spiritual process with my guru began. There were times that I was filled with so much love that I did not know how to be or get to the next second. There were other times when my ego was falling apart and I was truly seeing myself for the first time that were so painful I thought I would die. There were times that I thought I would go insane and I wanted it all to stop, but I kept going with a feirceness that I had no idea I possesed. Something was happening. I was stretching beyond my humanness, I was stretching beyond my fear. I was finally learning about surrender, I was finally experiencing trust for the very fist time.

I realized that the things that I had placed my trust in before were not real. I had bought the story, hoping that my trust would make it real for me. My trust was based in fairytales, religions, perceptions of others, right and wrong, black and white. I saw that man made ideas and things could not be the container for true trust.

I see this in the relationship I have with my beloved. Before when I said I trust you and I want you to trust me, what I was really saying was please convince me that I can trust you. I want you to do everything that you can to make up for the pain that I have experienced. Here, jump through these hoops that I have set up for you so you can prove to me that I can trust you, because I cannot trust myself. I put expectations on him to create a story for me that I could believe in. I made wild promises that I knew were impossible, but hoping that the promise itself would have some magical power that would make the story stick together.

I do not think that this is just me. I think we all do this because we desperately want to be inside of one of those old made up stories. A story that will make us safe, relavent, validated, healed, and loved. There is no such story. And the old paradigm, the old stories that we agreed upon as a collective are falling apart faster than we can even think about putting them back together. Nothing is working anymore, not the way is used to anyway.

I know now that truly experiencing Love has to do with letting go it has to do with surrendering to trust itself. Trusting my heart, trusting the experience that God and I have so delicately and brilliantly co-created. As soon as I begin to try and protect myself what I am really doing is attempting to manipulate love and control it – which cannot be done. Love cannot be controlled. It would be like trying to control the ocean. Every time I place expectation on my beloved or try and make him fit inside of a story I am out of alignment with love. Love is freedom itself. Another person cannot give you love or trust. That you must find deep within yourself. The truth is your love and your trust has never been taken or destroyed, it is there as powerful and as pure as the day you were born. It is only the drastic shift in perception from what is illusion to what is real. This is our path and this is the road to new way of experiencing and embodying love.

Finally one morning my Guru said, “Do you trust me?”

Grasping the mala around my neck I said yes. He smiled and the deep pools of light from his eyes flowed into my eyes, his heart flowed into my heart and we were one.

And now I am ready to walk with love, to open myself to it. To see the same light shining out of my beloveds eyes and take it into mine. I am ready to receive. I am ready to be one. No guarantees are needed, all I need to do is experience the gift that love offers in the present moment.