Longing...

Longing for gardening season and the fragrance of fresh marigolds...

Shraddha: The Garden of Faith

All spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of faith.  Often they are even referred to as "faith traditions".

When using the word, they generally refer to a sense of trust, loyalty, and love. 

Yogis differentiate between two kinds of faith: 

1. Blind faith.
2. Faith cultivated through personal experience. 

And they definitely prefer the latter.

Shraddha is difficult to define.  There is no direct equivalent in English. 

Shraddha includes the qualities above but also confidence, awareness, and proof aquired through our own direct inner and outer experiences. 

Shraddha is one of the personal committments required on the path of Yoga or Self-Realization. (See Yoga Sutra 1.20)

Think of a garden.  We can grow beautiful flowers like these California Poppies from seed. 

Suppose someone gives us a few.  We plant them, water them, hope, wait and wonder.

What if that person isn't a good gardener and gave us bad advice?  What if the conditions in my soil aren't the same as theirs?  What if the seeds were for some other plant?  What if they're weeds instead?

We have acted on faith, but it was blind faith.

If conditions permit, we will be rewarded with a colorful field of bright blossoms bobbing their heads in the breeze as if to agree, even blind faith was a good start.

As the petals drop, they leave little seed heads which dry in sun.

Inside we discover more seeds!

Next year we will plant them with a different kind of faith, cultivated in us as confidence through personal experience.

The yogis say, don't believe everything you hear. 

They suggest, we use our own minds and lives as laboratories to test and evaluate what we learn and discover for ourselves how it applies to our practice. 

Employ both your intellect and your intuition to assess and apply the teachings of yoga and the result will be a firmly grounded faith that is mindful, tenacious and sustaining: 

The highest form of faith - faith in the Self!

Om Trayambakam

All the rain this year may have limited our chances to tan but it has certainly been a blessing for gardeners!  Bountiful crops are coming to harvest and we are enjoying the sweet and juicy fruits of our efforts and of the cycle of nature in abundance! 

A delicious gift of garden tomatos and a fresh cucumber from a generous student got me thinking about one of my favorite fresh summer salads (Israeli Salad Recipe on the Prasad Page) and a summer several years ago, when I worked at a U-pick cucumber farm to deepen my understanding of one of the most famous mantras in Yoga, the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra.  This is the mantra of great liberation, also known as the Om Trayambakam.

Lord Shiva, Lord of the Yogis, destroying the demon of ignorance.

Dedicated to Lord Shiva, whose eye of intuition (or third eye) opens to bring about the dance of destruction, this mantra is often chanted at the beginning of important endeavors and voyages and at occassions which mark time like birthdays, and passings.  Traditionally it is chanted as an amulet to protect the chanter or others from calamities like scorpion stings, rampaging elephants and other equally nasty disasters! 

Nowadays, at the ashram and at home, we chant it whenever we get into a vehicle, praying for the safety of the driver, the passengers and everyone on the road or in the air or on the ocean as the case may be.  We love to "Om Trayambakam" our friends when they depart, wishing them a safe journey and a speedy return.

This mantra evokes the image of a cucumber being severed from the vine, and reminds us that we too are released from the bondage of our own mortal limitations, not one itsy-bitsy moment too early or too late.

Om Tryambakam Yajamahe
Sugandhim Pushtivardhanam
Urvarukamiva Bandhanan
Mrityor Mukshiya Maamritat

We Meditate on the Three-eyed reality
Which permeates and nourishes all like a fragrance.
May we be liberated from death for the sake of immortality,
Even as the cucumber is severed from bondage to the creeper.

This mantra, handwritten in Devanagari or the written form of Sanskrit, as well as the transliteration and translation above can be found at:  swamij.com

You can chant this mantra 3 times, 9 times, or 108 times to bless and remind your Self that all things happen according to cycle of nature and divine timing! 

As I plucked the ripe cucumbers that summer, I chanted this mantra over and over and over again and re-learned a basic truth in gardening and in life.  Everything has a season.  There is a time to sow the seeds, and a time to reap the harvest of what we've planted. 

If the cucumbers are tugged before they are ready to release from the plant, the vine itself is damaged.  If they are left too long, they sag into the soil and rot.  The art in cucumber picking, and maybe life, is not to struggle against either. 

Be diligent in maintaining your garden and your practice and you won't lose or limit your harvest.  Be gentle and patient and at just the right moment, the sweet reward will drop willingly into your hands!

Om Trayambakam!