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TESTIMONIALS
Adventures with
Shiva
From time to time, Shiva has asked those who have attended his seminars and
retreats to submit a short essay on their experiences. The following are the
results of that request. All those who submitted the essays presented below
have sequentially agreed to share them publicly. Only the initials of the
contributors are used in order to insure their privacy.
–Clear Light Seminars
NEW!
Coming back into the light, into stillness is a little bit like the feeling of
when your parents leave you home alone for the first time with no babysitter.
It takes a little while to really accept the fact that this space is for you,
that there is no one watching, that you can dance, sing, jump on the couch,
eat ice cream out of the container and there is nothing else you'd rather do
but that. The dance of life. It's like trying to describe the color of
light. It surrounds us yet we look right through it. Still teetering with my
ego and anxiety, the light has peeked through the door. It's so easy, no
wonder why no one trusts it.
It doesn't matter when I become Enlightened, because I am Enlightenment.
–Chi Dharma
NEW!
I can not stop descibing, or being amazed each time I have gone to a power
spot with my teacher. I was in this pure, pristine enviroment watching not
only my teacher, but the landscape shimmer in and out of , I guess dimensions
or planes of reality. But I personally felt a very happy, light feeling. I
entered the desert with a bit of fear, yet left with a knowing, I can not think
of a better word.
The energy, for lack of a better word, was soooo intense! But for me it was not
overwhelming.... more embracing. I love sitting with my teacher, each time I
feel more connected, knowing, and empathetic i guess.
It was so profound for me.
–EW
NEW!
"One of the most powerful nights I have ever had in the desert was out in
Joshua Tree with Shiva.
The desert felt extraordinarily magical and alive on that beautiful evening.
I was aware of a multitude of things simultaneously, so many in fact that
I was in awe. It was like being a child again, only far better.
The thing that moved me the most occured toward the end of the evening.
Shiva was standing a
short distance away from us in front of an enormous and powerful-looking
Joshua tree. I saw a shimmering, white haze of light form around him and
watched him all but
disappear from sight. He then slowly reappeared. This happened a few more
times. It was as if he was leaving the world temporarily and
then returning, over and over again. I then felt waves of light and energy
pouring over me and flooding
my being, even though I was not physically very near him. It felt as though
I had become part of him and the others, part of the Joshua tree, part of
the desert, and part of Eternity in a single moment that tran-
scended time and space. It was an ecstatic feeling of merging with all, and
I very gratefully carried it with me out of the desert. Whenever I close my
eyes and remember this time, it as if I am there again."
–C.M.
NEW!
It's Saturday, October 11, 2003 at sunset. The sun is disappearing over the
horizon.
I had been meditating on a hillside just below Key's View in Joshua Tree
National
Park. As the sun disappeared, I walked back up the hill to the paved area my
teacher
had asked us to meet at sunset. We formed a semi-cycle around him and he asked
each of us in turn where we were and what we had learned in our meditation. As
each student spoke, I began to think of what I would say. I wanted to say
something
wise or profound, but when he got to me my teacher asked, "Are you ready to
kring?"
Laughter bubbled up from nowhere and I replied without thinking, "It doesn't
matter," I chuckled, "I got out of my way in spite of myself."
It was the beginning of a magical night: incredibly powerful, breathtakingly
beautiful.
When I woke the next morning an unexpected thought came to me. I saw
myself
taking a wallet size picture of me and sticking it in the corner of my bathroom
mirror. The caption under it in my handwriting read, "the only thing between
me and enlightenment."
–L.M.
Every retreat changes my life for the better. But this last retreat was a real
eye opener for me. I really feel that Shiva saved my life.
–EO
The Solstice Retreat at Devils Tower was filled with profound and unbelievable
experiences, but my most amazing experience happened as we sat in meditation
looking at Devil's Tower. I watched the Tower breath - in and out. It had a
very powerful presence. I was in awe as I watched Shiva fade in and out with
the breathing of the mountain. We were all one with the universe, all lifted
into the presence, infinity, all, nothing, everything. It is truly impossible
to put into words. But, I wish everyone could experience this miracle, this
oneness with nature.
–TB
I cannot begin to describe my meditations with Shiva. It is such a joyous happy
feeling. I have felt the energy and watch myself dissolve into the cosmos.
Being with an enlightened teacher that can help guide you and help oneself to
open their eyes to truth, beauty, and so much love. I myself find words
inadequate to explain what I felt and witnessed. Only that it is something
intangible but real that I hold in my heart.
Each time I go to another meditation or power place with him, I find my life
changing radically for the best. I am happier, more loving and also...more
compassionate to others. I guess that is all I have to say now.
–EW
In the extraordinary world I inhabit when I sit with Shiva, I lose all the
words necessary to describe it. And in the ordinary world, it is often
difficult to remember. I meditated with Shiva tonight, so that world is fresh
in my mind, my ego has not yet had a chance to deny the experience.
Meditation with Shiva is like being in a world of light. The room glows and the
mind stops. Even when I try to have a thought it just evaporates. I feel my
heart open and light pour in. My judgmental, critical mind is gone and a
peaceful emptiness inhabits my body. I feel like I am dissolving into the
light.
–MG
For years I have heard Shiva say that we weren't who or what we thought we
were. He has said that we were a breeze blowing through the Universe. Or, we
were like a puff of a dandelion drifting on a wind.
All of this seemed like a wonderful analogy but did it have any relevance in my
life, the world I lived in? More than once, when on trips to Places of Power
with Shiva, I had seen the world in front of my eyes undulate and shift back
and forth. This was due to being in higher states of awareness that Shiva held
us in at the time. These were direct experiences that the world was not as it
seemed. But I couldn't make the leap to "knowing" that we are just beings of
energy having experiences in these bodies.
Then, recently on a pilgrimage to Mt. Shasta, all that changed. Meditating on
that mountain with Shiva brought a truth, a knowing. I had been meditating and
had a short discussion with Shiva and had gotten up to walk around and look at
the mountain.
The world in front of my eyes was undulating and shifting back and forth. I
brought my gaze closer and the foreground was doing the same. So, I gazed at my
hands as I extended them in front of me. My hands were dissolving and shifting
back and forth. Then my hands disappeared! This world is not as it appears and
we truly are beings of Light and energy having adventures in these bodies!
–KF
I went with a group led by Shiva on a trip to the desert. We walked up a gorge.
As we walked, I felt as if some adventurous part of me that had been asleep was
waking up. I was also sobbing for no reason. It was just about dusk. Shiva
said, "look at the mountain", as I gazed at it, I realized that I was
dissolving into the air, my head and the mountain and the air were one thing.
It was freezing, we were all bundled up in jackets and gloves and hoods. Shiva
took everything but his pants and T-shirt off to show us the body siddha. He
said he could only do this because he was in a non-physical state.
At one point Shiva and David C. knelt facing each other about five feet apart
and they seemed to merge into one.
Something within me changed and when I got back home. I made major changes in
my life.
–NA
During tonight's meditation, Shiva said, "You're very close, James." He said I
was touching the hem of Enlightenment. I sensed the golden fabric. Then the
cloth of Enlightenment became a garment draped over me. Except there was no
"me", only the shape of the cloth as though it covered someone. There was an
intense sense of emptiness; and a joy felt in the awareness of purity.
–JM
Shiva teaches mysticism, so setting with him is always an opening into the
other realities. And over time one sees the magic in all things and the
'perfect moments' happen more and more often. Shiva was holding a meditation
intensive in the city where I live. Near sundown Shiva took a small group of us
up to a hilltop that overlooked the city, for an evening sunset meditation. He
told us that he would open different dimensions and for us to just stop our
thoughts and just observe. I had the most awesome experience. The phenomena
were amazing. I flipped through dimensions of time!
This was important to me because I had been wrestling with the concept of time
for a while. In the microcosm of our life, time exists, the days pass, lives
end, friends come and go and we feel all of this with our emotions or our
physical bodies. But, without something to reference to there is no time, just
moments passing through our view. But I've strayed from my story.
As I meditated with Shiva, I saw the world sliding and shifting like an
illusion in the desert. The world wasn't physical at all. I saw the city change
into what it must have looked like at the turn of the twentieth century. There
were only a few twinkling gaslights and not nearly as many trees, only a few
strung along the river. Then the sunset and there were only shades of deepening
gray over this city from 1912 or 1913 that I was looking at. Then it all
dissolved into the void. Now you must understand I was not asleep nor did I
have my eyes closed and imagining all that was going on.
Shiva ended the meditation and we slid back into what is called the first
attention. I was shocked! The sun hadn't gone down, the sunset was still
happening. Brilliant oranges and pinks filled the sky and the city was once
again the growing, thriving twenty-first century city. I had been totally
involved in the 1912 city that it was totally real - I was in another time
dimension while at the same time that my body was in the present time setting
on a hill with Shiva.
So, I saw that time is not linear! You can reincarnate in the eighteenth
century, the twenty-first century or the twenty-seventh century. Time is not
linear, all things are happening at once.
As we were setting on the hill I saw another student, Vadra, with a nice neon
green aura. Then he disappeared and then was pure white light - his true
nature, his true being. I thought "hmmmmÉ. If I saw that in him, that he's more
than just his physical body - could it be that it is true of me also?"
–RA
So I thought I was simply going to yet another meditation
session of some sort. I really wasn't expecting anything unusual. After all, my
"theme song" had always been that I was the person who did NOT have mystical
experiences as did others I heard from or read about - seeing auras, having
out-of-body experiences, or the like. So I was totally unprepared for what
happened. At one point, as I sat watching Shiva I realized that what I was
seeing was starting to shift. First I had been seeing a human form sitting in
front of me; next I'm seeing the form take on a somewhat golden hue - until
finally it (he) appeared to be just gold light. I certainly couldn't say how
long this lasted. I remember Shiva finally saying something to the effect that
now we were coming out of meditation, and I found myself trying to somehow
prolong the experience (of the gold light). But then Shiva looked right at me
and said, "Well, you have to CO-OPERATE!"
Since then I've had other equally or more intense experiences at the
meditations. At the most recent one, I was experiencing the gold light as being
especially bright and I was intensely focused on it (or maybe merged with it; I
don't recall even experiencing "I" at that time). Suddenly Shiva said to me,
"Susan, are you breathing?" Before I could answer, he said, "You haven't been
breathing for five minutes." And, interestingly, this did not seem to be of
concern to me at the time. In fact, as best I can recall, the moment seemed, if
anything, absolutely perfect.
These are some of the profound experiences I've been having. I'm still new to
this Teacher and this community and I'm not sure what all this will mean for my
spiritual unfolding, but I'm open and willing. I think I may have finally
walked into the fire!
–SS
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