Energies of Transformation: November 2010 Energies of Transformation: Practicing with the Power of the Divine Feminine Some Notes on practicing with the Wisdom Goddess, and Two Additional Contemplation Practices Week Two: November 17-24, 2010 Below, you’ll find: Some notes on Lalita Tripura Sundari, Two contemplation practices that will help you tune more deeply into the love-beauty energy that we are working with this week. The first is a meditation with Lalita Tripura Sundari. The second is a self-inquiry practice for looking at your beliefs about beauty, and then for looking into yourself with the eye of love. Sometimes, when we are contemplating love and beauty, opposite feelings arise. This is a natural part of the purification that the goddess energies set in motion. If this happens, rather than trying to push the feelings away, offer them into the welcome them. Please do each of these at least once during the week. I would recommend doing the first one a couple of times, or more if you have time. Set aside half an hour for each of the first two practices, turn off the phone, and make sure you have paper and pen handy, so that you can journal about it, and record whatever you need to record. In addition, I’m including instructions for the meditation on raising the sexual energy that we did during the last few minutes of the class. You might want to do this instead or in addition to your regular morning practice on one or two days this week. It is a powerful way to experience the spiritual aspect of your sexual energy, and one of the core inner practices of some schools of tantra. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More about Lalita Tripura Sundari ©2010. Sally Kempton. All Rights Reserved. 1 Energies of Transformation: November 2010 Lalita Tripura Sundari is one of the major Great Goddess forms, holding the full energy of creation, sustenance, dissolution, concealment, and grace within her being. She represents the cosmic activity of supreme bliss as the motive power behind everything in the universe. Through Lalita, we come to recognize the universe as an expression of erotic play. Her bliss is the internal sweetness of the awakened shakti in union with the beloved. Her image represents the full integration of the sexual/spiritual polarities, the sacred marriage of masculine/feminine within your being. Her iconography: • Her rosy color signifies passion, and the ever-fresh quality of transcendental bliss. This is not worldly bliss, but the bliss of pure consciousness. • The moon in her hair symbolizes the still mind, and is also a symbol of the divine feminine. • The sugar-cane bow is the mind illumined with ecstasy, and the arrows the five senses transformed so that they see the world as the emanation of love. • Her noose symbolizes her ability to capture your attention through divine distraction. The goad is the force of longing for God. • The five male gods who support her seat are Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Isana, and Sadashiva, symbolizing the fact that she is the mistress of the five cosmic processes, creation, maintenance, destruction, concealment, and grace or revelation. • She is shown seated on the prone body of her consort Shiva, or in ecstatic union with him. As in many of the Wisdom Goddess forms, this symbolizes her role as the dynamic power in consciousness, Shiva’s as the ground. But it also symbolizes the union of Shakti with Shiva in the highest spiritual center, the Samadhi state that is the culmination of kundalini sadhana. Exercise I Contemplating Lalita Tripura Sundari You might like to begin by gazing for a few minutes at her picture (downloadable from the Course area on the website). Notice the energetic qualities of her form. Feel her peaceful, blissful fullness. Notice the quality of majesty about her. Her energy is the energy of divine beauty. It shimmers. That shimmer may be experienced as a sense of lightness and radiance. Then, close your eyes and seat yourself in a meditation posture. Practice the following meditation. (You may also practice the meditation without looking at the picture.) ©2010. Sally Kempton. All Rights Reserved. 2 Energies of Transformation: November 2010 Imagine Lalita as a luminous presence, standing or seated in the sky in front of you. You may envision her image, or imagine her presence as a rosy light, or sense her as a radiant loving energy. She incarnates beauty itself—the beauty of the inner world, the beauty of nature, and the love-play that is the heart of the universe. She is the flower that blooms among ruins, the majestic play of clouds lit by the setting sun, the sweetness of a lake at moonlight, the light of the rising sun sending pink and gold light over the landscape. Feel that her eyes are gazing upon you with pure, ecstatic love. She is here to show you your beauty, to reveal to you the essential beauty within your being, and the essential beauty of life. Let yourself receive the message of your own beauty. From her heart comes a sparkling mist of golden-white light. It flows into your body with each inhalation, flowing in through your pores, and turning your body to light. With the exhalation, you breathe that light energy as a blessing through your body and into the atmosphere. You sit like this, breathing in her radiant transmission, and breathing it back. Then, ask her what she has to tell you about yourself. What words does she have for you? There may not be any words, or what comes back may be an image or a feeling. Let yourself receive it. Then, offer anything you might feel as restrictive or obstructive in your consciousness. Have the sense that she takes it into her heart, and that in her heart it turns into golden mist. Ask for her support. You may ask for support in a general sense, or for specific support. Feel that you receive her support. At the end, if it feels right, have the sense that you inhale the form of the Goddess. You breathe her energy into your heart, and imagine her radiance, compassion and strength filling your body. For the next few minutes, see if you can feel yourself as Lalita, the essence of divine beauty. Notice the energy of her presence in your body—the energy of playfulness, of lightness, of subtle erotic love. What are the qualities of Lalita that you notice within your self when you hold her presence in your body? At the end of this contemplation, have the sense that Lalita becomes a white-gold mist in your heart, emanating beauty and love. Offer salutations both to the atmosphere around you, and to your own heart. ©2010. Sally Kempton. All Rights Reserved. 3 Energies of Transformation: November 2010 Exercise II Contemplation for Recognizing your own Beauty (Set aside at least half and hour for this exercise. You may find it very revelatory. 1) With paper and pen, write down a list of things you find beautiful. Then ask yourself, ‘What beliefs and prejudices to I have about what is beautiful?” See if you can find some of the root ideas you have about beauty. Think of people you know whom you consider beautiful, or not beautiful. What are the standards you judge by? How do you judge yourself according to these standards? 2) Write down the ways you have been affected by the images of beauty in your family or in society. How do you feel about your own beauty? How did you feel in childhood? How do you feel now? In what ways to you seek beauty, and in what ways do you reject or deny its importance? How do you believe you fall short in having or expressing beauty? How have these images of beauty given you confidence or lack of confidence? How have you sought beauty? How have you denied yourself beauty? 3) What, in your experience, is true beauty? Think about this very concretely, looking for ways in which you have actually experienced or known true beauty. Be very real with yourself about. Write down what you come up with 4) How do you feel that you incarnate or express true beauty? Write down what you come up with. Part II 5) Now, find yourself in front of a clear mirror. If possible, sit before it, even if you have to hold it. Its ok to stand, but you’ll feel more relaxed if you can be seated. 6) Close your eyes for a moment, and bring the energy of Lalita into your body with the breath. Imagine that the supreme loving shakti of Lalita, the beautiful one, is seated in your heart. Let your ©2010. Sally Kempton. All Rights Reserved. 4 Energies of Transformation: November 2010 attention rest in the heart, feeling that your heart is the golden heart of the Lalita Shakti. 7) Look into your left eye in the mirror. Say to yourself, “I love you,” and let the energy of Lalita Tripura Sundari flow through your eyes into your eyes in the mirror. You are looking at yourself with Lalita’s eyes of love. If emotions come up—tears, resistance to loving yourself, happiness—let them be there. The emotions too are seen with the perceptive eye of love. If sad memories or feelings of being unlovable arise, offer them into Lalita’s golden heart. Realize that as you do, they are being received and transformed. 8) Stay seated in front of the mirror, looking at yourself with the eyes of love, allowing yourself to receive the loving perception of your own gaze.