Why I’m Moving Back to the Bay Area
It’s not for a job
I want to share something personal with you. Or maybe it’s not exactly personal, but just weird and even dangerous-seeming in the context of our secularized, rationalistic lives.
I’ve gotten some occasional criticism and expressions of disgruntlement about our nonprofit organization’s impending move from Maine to the Bay Area. We’re a spiritual community learning and practicing in the traditions of Trika Shaivism and Dzogchen.
These comments are interesting because of what they assume: that I made a decision to move. According to these commentators, I am making the wrong decision.
| A Guided Life
Leading a guided life is one way of describing the method and fruit of spiritual practice. While for some time we may be guided by traditions and teachers, ultimately, we are guided by natural wisdom.
My Guru, Anandamayi Ma, said that she never did anything other than by what she called kheyal. Kheyal means, on one level, improvisation. On another level, it means to be moved by the spontaneous impulse of unimpeded wisdom.
As ordinary humans, we don’t always have access to natural wisdom, or we do, but we don’t follow.
Wisdom speaks to us in many ways. Through teachings and teachers. Through upsurges of clear inner knowing. Through dreams. Through omens and the call and response wisdom of circumstance. And through the many forms of astrology and divination that we humans enjoy.
Learning to recognize, listen, and follow has always been the essence of anything I could call my path.
| Moving with the River
In 2007, I left the Bay Area. I’d lived there a total of 21 years. I left without any idea that I was ever going back. And I never looked back. In the 11 years following, I have visited only twice.
Last year, I had a series of extraordinary dreams. Dreams have always been an important compass in my life.
The dreams involved returning to the Bay Area. They signaled the resolution of karma. They were accompanied by a state of joy that I associate with the most thorough transmission (a.k.a. shaktipat).
I confirmed the wisdom shared in these dreams with divination. Divination has also been a guide for me and a deep source of teachings.
So the “reason” our community is moving is because I’m listening and following.
In fact, I moved to both Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine because of a combination of astrology and divination and listening to the inner promptings of the heart.
Throwing your life into the river of wisdom is scary. It’s thrilling. It’s fun and gamelike and surprising. It’s an expression of the playfulness of this reality. This kind of following also teaches us that sincerity is more important than being able to hear and follow correctly all of the time.
We all have to live by some means. There are a lot of guides.
To me, the river of wisdom is the teacher, the real Guru.
The only choice I make is to follow this living flow as best as I can, using whatever means I have. And that’s why I’m moving back to the Bay Area.
Most of the folks in our community and our organization are concerned about the cost of living. We’ve built a really strong community crucible for practitioners. We’re hoping the energy doesn’t get dispersed by living in such a busy metropolitan area. The prospect of moving is both exciting and daunting.
We have no idea what’s going to happen. But we’re moving with the river. Because why not play?
Love,
Shambhavi
