04/04/2022
Some writing from my next guest on this Podcast published this coming Friday where we speak on creativity and our divine nature.
http://www.maryangelonyoung.com/
Maturing on the Spiritual Path
Many of us come to the spiritual path to be freed from our suffering, bringing with us a bag full of illusions, assumptions, and naïve expectations about the promise of transformation, enlightenment, and liberation. The call to surrender to the path, to a guru or teacher, and ultimately to Divine Will does not absolve the individual of responsibility. In fact, it puts greater responsibility upon our shoulders. It is said that God or Grace does ninety-nine percent of the work for us, and we do only one percent, but we must do one hundred percent of that one percent—a daunting task indeed.
I was blessed to live and travel for twenty years in the intimate company of Khepa Lee Lozowick (1943-2010), during which time he guided my sadhana on a daily basis. Traveling with Lee, I had opportunities to spend time in the company of Lee’s master, the revered south Indian saint Yogi Ramsuratkumar (1918-2001). My gurus have departed from their physical forms, and yet they remain with me as a guiding presence or essential guru tattva. The decades I lived as a companion of my teacher were times of intense concentration and attention to traditional forms of practice. In the Baul way, these were years of learning how to “gather honey” through tapasya (spiritual effort), service and self-sacrifice; they were thick with experiences that contained the seed form of my teacher’s poignant instruction, given in the last months of his life, “Make the Path your own.” Finally, this must be done on all spiritual paths, or we become blind followers caught in a web of dogma and creeds and charismatic personalities, to discover, in the crucial end moment of our lives, that we are strangely empty-handed.
Whether we engage a sadhana based on nondual teachings, inner inquiry, karma yoga through service (seva), bhakti, or the challenge of ta**ra, the Path demands our courage, discipline, vision, honesty, integrity, and a great deal of faith. In return, the Path often blesses us. In my case, I was blessed with a creative Muse that does not let me rest but keeps me busy with writing, teaching, singing, playing the piano, and reveling in the beauty of the world through Great Nature.
On the Baul path, the burning alchemy of ta**ra, with its radical approach to an accelerated evolution of the individual, is tempered with the softening and opening of the heart in bhakti through devotion to Deity and chanting of the Divine Name. These powerful practices are based upon the knowledge of nonduality as the underpinning of Reality and blended with a deep, vigilant inquiry that results in an integrated awareness within the practitioner. One learns to make acute and powerful distinctions about what we really want, to accept all of life as the playground of transformation, to cultivate mastery in many domains while at the same time the heart is opened and steeped in gratitude, love, compassion and good will toward all beings. Eventually, the Great Path becomes the tacit ground of our lives, fueled by an inner wellspring of ongoing inspiration to make our lives a prayer for the benefit of all beings.
The creative works of writer, teacher and Baul practitioner Mary Angelon Young (M. Young), including her published books, public events and blog. Includes consideration of Lee Lozowick and his teachings as well as Yogi Ramsuratkumar, Swami Papa Ramdas, the Bauls of Bengal, the HOHM community (Hohm
