The Dance Of Stillness

Initiation into Tantra — the Path of the Mother  Swami Shankaracharya interview by David Rivers A round that time, I was told of a Tantric Guru named Ramesh Moudgil who carries on the Divine Mother tradition. Even though I was having experiences of the Divine Mother and had been with these Kundalini Gurus, I’d never formally worshipped the Divine Mother and didn’t know any of Her sadhanas (spiritual practices.) You had the realisation of the Mother, before you even…   Prior. Really? Goodness!   Yes. So, I went to visit Ramesh, took initiation from him, and started Mother sadhanas. He passed many esoteric mantras from the Tantric tradition. It was 1981. I’ve been with him ever since. While attending a program in Kullu, India, the Shakti jumped from my body into some swamis and they started getting kriyas (yogic movements.) They came over and prostrated. That’s when it all started.  I went back to Dhyanyogi on Guru Purnima and told him about my experience of the Divine Mother and the Sha

God Alone Plays ALL the Roles, There Is Only THAT   Swami Shankaracharya W hat could you say about the progress, or the process, of the awakened Shakti that happened in you during that period of time, between ‘67 and ‘81? Why was it so deep and powerful in you that it led to full realization? Certainly that doesn’t happen with everyone!   One thing leads to another. A quest for answers led me to Guru Maharaj. That led me to Baba and then to Dhyanyogi. When I went back to India to see Dhyanyogi, I was going to start a 40-day anushthan in Uttarkashi, a time when you go into seclusion and do austerities. The night before it was to start, Anandamayi Ma manifested and said, “Don’t start this anushthan. Come and see me.” In a vision she manifested?   Yes, in meditation. So, I went to see Anandamayi Ma at her Kankhal Ashram. I arrived on the first day of the Adi Rudra Fire Yajna, one of her major life events. This yajna was being held for the stability of the earth. I stayed across the street

Meetings with Great Yogis Swami Shankaracharya M y first area of enquiry is into your initial contact with the awakened current. Can you tell me about the first stirrings of spiritual desire and the spiritual quest in your own life?   I was working in aerospace engineering in the mid-‘60s, which was when the psychedelic revolution and the hippie movement started in the United States. During that time, people were really looking for answers. I started spending time with them and that led me, in 1967, to begin a world-wide search for realized masters. In 1970, this search involved a year-long pilgrimage to India. I hitchhiked. It took a few months going overland to get there. In India, I wandered as a sadhu (renunciate) with no money and lived on temple prasad. Since then, there have been many trips to India. After spending time with a number of yogis there, I brought back Guru Maharaj, who had just turned 13, to Boulder, Colorado and helped establish his Divine Light Mission in Denver.

Introduction: The Eternal Unity of Shiva and Shakti   Swami Shankaracharya S wami Shankaracharya, born Steve Sabine, was blessed with the direct realization he refers to as, “God Alone Is” in 1981, while on pilgrimage in India. Previously, Steve had been working in the field of aerospace engineering and during this period felt a deep yearning to directly experience God. This yearning evolved into an all-consuming quest that eventually led him to serve two great masters of Kundalini Mahayoga: Baba Muktananda and Dhyanyogi Madhusudandasji. In the presence of these masters, he found himself undergoing profound kundalini awakening and during several years of intense spiritual discipline, progressed into advanced stages of mystical awareness. This culminated in the unbroken experience of undifferentiated Oneness (Parasamvit,) ending the fluctuation between the ecstasy of God and the turmoil of the world. The energy of Consciousness appeared to him in the form of the Divine Mother of the uni

Mother Reveals the Essence of the Four Yogas David Spero   S o, what shifted? The shift was a movement beyond advaitic Oneness into the ferocious aspect of the Divine Mother Consciousness. It was about Kali standing on the head of Shiva, about energy conquering detachment. It was about my total, irreversible transformation into the Mother. I learned to look out of Her eyes.  Odd things happened. Once I looked at a photograph of an avatar. Across her forehead passed many faces. I was totally captivated. All were Indians, some with shaved heads, and others with beards – men and women, one after the other. Mother commented that they were all my gurus from the past and that I had gone beyond them.  As you can see, Mother-Kali became my Supreme Guru.  Kali tutored me through each of the four yogas described in classical Hinduism. She first instructed me to wash my tile floor. While washing it I dissolved into Pure Consciousness. Mother-Kali confirmed that this was the fulfilment of Karma Yo

When the Mother Adopts Your Nervous System David Spero I ’m interested specifically in the energetic process of awakening. In your book you speak about the divine energy, “the Mother,” adopting your nervous system — that’s a very interesting point to me. Yes, this is a fascinating topic. Energetic awakening, which is to be distinguished from Transcendental Realization—what I spoke of earlier – was characteristic of my later sadhana . My early sadhana was meditation-based, whereas the latter was energy-based, and by energy-based I mean immersion in the shakti – the energetic currents in consciousness. For me, energetic awakening was rooted in the Transcendental Reality, not vice versa. After about fifteen years of daily meditations, meditating sometimes up to six or seven hours a day, I felt compelled to visit a couple of living avatars. Both were known to be incarnations of the Divine Mother Consciousness. I meditated in their company and experienced a whole different kind of sadhana.

The Path David Spero C ould you tell me about your spiritual awakening?  That is, when did you first encounter the forces of consciousness that started to reveal to you what is beyond egoic consciousness?   My process of awakening began when I was a senior in high school. On April 26, 1975, in Providence, Rhode Island, I was initiated into an East Indian form of spiritually activated meditation. It was mantra based. That’s when my spiritual life really began. On the day I was initiated, I experienced the Transcendental Reality with remarkable clarity. For the first time in my adult life I penetrated the source of thought, the silence existing beyond the mind. From that moment on, I knew I would continue practising this form of meditation until awakening dawned.  After about one and a half years of regular meditation I began to experience the witness, which is described in classical Hindu literature as a major stage of awakening. A life beyond the superficial ego was revealed to me. Spi

Introduction: Liberation Through Kali’s Fierce Grace David Spero T his was to be my first meeting with David Spero. Until this point we had spoken on the telephone and corresponded via e-mail. I was moved to include David’s unique story in this book after reading his own account of a powerful spiritual awakening in his book Beyond the place of laughter and tears in the land of devotion, which I found to be lucid, insightful, and deeply inspiring.  After undergoing a series of profound spiritual awakenings, he found himself living spontaneously in full awareness of pure nondual consciousness, within which the fathomless energy of Shakti radiated endlessly in an ecstatic mystical condition of cosmic embrace. Remarkably, while in this highly evolved yogic state David suddenly found his nervous system being invaded by an intensely active feminine presence, a presence David refers to as Kali or simply the Mother. This deity-like manifestation usurped the functioning of his psychosomatic a