Back to June 2007
Mind States - June 2007
Divine Healing:
The Dolphin Experience of Matsyendranath
by Yogiraj Sat Gurunath Siddhanath
Excerpted from Wings to Freedom: Mystic Revelations from Babaji and the Himalayan Yogis with permission from the author.
It was the 27th of July 1996. I was in Puna on the Big Island of Hawaii. I rose early with the dawn to meet the Sun rising majestically from the Pacific. So ineffable was the ocean air, so rich and pristine, that all this left me lost inside myself. I sat for meditation on the lava cliff of our cottage overlooking the vast violet waters with the black Kahena Beach to my far left. This was heaven on earth.
Soon I became absorbed in dhyana and was oblivious to my surroundings. As I moved deeper into my Self, all this became a part of me. I felt calm, undisturbed and a deep gratitude to nature and its bounties arose in me. And there arose before me out of the ocean, the splendid form of the half-fish half-man. This was the "Dolphin King" Matsyendranath, with his feet submerged in the ocean and his body soaring into the skies. I was overwhelmed with joy but could not understand the meaning of the vision. It became clear to me after I finished with this experience.
Then I heard one of my disciples call out, "They are here, the dolphins!" It's a rare thing to swim with dolphins in captivity, but it's totally out of this world to swim in the wild ocean with free dolphins. Knowing that this was not an opportunity to lose, I got up and made towards the black beach, as a group of my students followed behind.
Even the slow movements of the dolphins were too fast for all of us, including those with fins. I was getting tired so I stretched out and lay afloat on the "ocean bed", with the swell and valley of the waves giving my body and bones a great massage. Suddenly a thought struck me as I lay afloat on the ocean bed,
"Suppose I called out to them in a high pitch sound, would these highly developed playmates heed the call and come? Would they come if encased in my call was the emotion for help or distress?"
I tried the high pitched call in vowels such as Eeee, Oooo and Ahhhh but nothing happened. The dolphins didn't come. Perhaps I had gotten the song wrong, or was out of tune. There were twenty to thirty dolphins swimming in unison and in a pod. The closest they came to me was about twenty feet.
I wanted to touch a dolphin. The contact was of prime importance, but how could this happen? I decided to stop swimming. I held my breath, put my head underwater, and shut my mouth. Using my throat, I let out a high-pitched sound of Eeeeee. I had barely raised my head up from the water when the whole school of dolphins swam under me, unbelievably close. I gave a few other underwater calls but to no avail. I was aware that should I hit the correct pitch and frequency of sound, the dolphins would respond. Nature had made their receptive sound system to perfection.
I was having a bit of an aching spine and a pinched nerve was affecting my right leg. It was sciatica. They say that dolphins are sensitive to even body pain vibes. This time I inhaled deeply, shut my mouth and lips tight and with full force through my throat, let out the high-pitched Eeeeee sound and continued long. The emotion infused in the sound was of happiness and help. I knew this was crazy and may not be in keeping with current scientific theory. But then again, how much does science know and how much nature? She knows better.
After I gave the call I rested and then I felt an exchange happening in a portion of my emotion. My devotion was being drawn out of me and simultaneously I was being replenished with a physical energy, an animal magnetism. No sooner had this happened that, as I was treading water, I saw him come underwater, a solitary dolphin. He first steadied himself, studied me and then with accurate velocity, he grazed the right side of my pelvic bone from the front. Something in my lumber spine made a noise while my hands touched the smooth rubbery skin as he flowed by me. The rest of the group of dolphins swam underneath. When I tried to go after them, I realized how slow and cumbersome a mammal man is. I was a competitive swimmer in school, but this school of dolphins was just too fast for me to handle.
There is an age-old Hawaiian saying, "When the dolphins come out to play, the sharks never stay." The dolphins have the largest brain mass compared to all mammals in proportion to their size and can be compared to that of a human. What potential such a brain holds is still under research. But these aquatic friends show remarkable learning skills and a great friendship towards the human species. They have a surprisingly well developed neo-cortex, but how they use it is yet to be known by man who has not yet learned to fully use his own.
The ocean and the sky inspired me and I drank of God through nature. As I stepped on to the black beach of Kahena, lo and behold, my sciatica had been cured. Now I knew who had visited and cured me in the form of the big dolphin. He removed the sciatica of my leg so I could meditate unhindered by pain. The vision of Matsyendranath became clear reality to me.
Yogiraj Gurunath Siddhanath is a Himalayan yoga master and poet-mystic. He will be giving free satsangs and workshops in Southern and Northern California from July through October. Please see his websites for details: hamsa-yoga.org and youtube.com/hamsayogi.
New Orleans Wisdom: Riding the Wave from
Los Angeles to the Mississippi
by Michael Love
My relationship with water has always been valuable and essential to me. As the years accumulated, so did my wisdom and understanding. Then it entered other dimensions when I finally met my life partner, Aysha. My life transitioned from black and white to Technicolor. This change in me happened for many reasons, but significantly because we shared a deep love of all things water.
Uniquely, Aysha brought with her profound and beautiful perspectives. Having lost her mother and father at the tender age of six weeks, she was raised by a wealthy and powerful grandmother who at least had the foresight to let her granddaughter spend a large part of her first five years by the ocean at Trancas Colony north of Los Angeles.
From those many days at the shore, Aysha found her surrogate mother.
As a young child, countless hours were spent at the water's edge. A nanny was always present, but with enough distance for the child to consciously and clearly hear the ocean's wisdom and the life lessons it taught. What followed was an extraordinary life pioneering the research and practice of Emotional Intelligence.
Aysha was the archetypical California girl/womanbeautiful and, of course, blonde. A surfer and beach lover to the bone, she remained true to the wisdom, power, and ever-moving nature of the wave. Around the world it carried her and along the way scooped me up with her.
Reunited, that wave eventually carried us to an American Oasis of cultural brilliance, floating on liquid land and defined so completely by waterthe wondrous and mystical lady, the City of New Orleans.
Aysha passed three years ago, but not before she shared with me the love of this place. This island, New Orleans, is a human character. It is creativity and liberation nestled next to the mythological Mississippi, all of which is surrounded by Zen swamp and marsh. The waters of the swamp barely move. They are almost reptilian. Yet they are so full of life.
Then, almost two years ago, came another kind of wave, powered by an engine of all elements combinedeliminating any illusions of permanence. This wave was, of course, Hurricane Katrina.
It is so true that water is the metaphor for emotion. At any moment, water can be nourishing, gentle, ecstatic. In the next, it can be absolutely powerful, fierce and destroying.
Living in New Orleans after Katrina has done more for me and the many I know here than all the life coaching and spiritual seminars that Southern California could offer in the same amount of time. Feelings, so connected to the water that surrounds us, are right on the surface. There is intensity, pain, joy, and a clear sense of what is important and what is not. For me, it is clear. What takes precedent is the appreciation of the moment, acts of love, and, of course, taking the time out to play. And in all respects, it is the deep human yearning for what could be better for us and the desire to make it so.
Michael Love is an artist, business owner and writer who lives, loves and plays in New Orleans, LA. He can be reached at lovesights@yahoo.com