Swim Like A Prodigal Fish

You do not see that the Real is in your home
Yet you wander from forest to forest listlessly,
You do the see the Real is in your Home
I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.

Here is the truth,
go where you will
to Benares or Mathura
If you do not find your soul
the world is unreal to you.
I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.

-Kabir

Journal Entry, September 27, 2014

Many years ago, this beautiful translation by Rabindranath Tagore turned into a song that poured over me day after day and empowered me during tremendous loss and grief.  It quenched something that I only begin to understand now.  In my daily life I meet so many people flailing in all directions, battling depression, disease and behavioral disorders.  I see them flit from one thing to another while playing with their phones or electronic tablets all the while searching an answer.  I see them earnestly trying to navigate a world which is fighting for a piece of real-estate in their thinking.  My Teacher used to remind us that the mind has a thousand eyes.  The mind is extraordinary in how much it can file into its memory bank.  With each conquering in the memory bank, the fish is more and more away from the waters of imagination and innovation.  I am beginning to see so clearly that we relinquish control of this information storage system because we have lost our individual connection to the real nourishment of life which waits for us to return homeward like a prodigal fish.

The DreamFish is a symbolic representation of the limitless possibilities that await us when we let go of our dependence on the external.  I know its a stormy sea out there, but when I continue my practice with the 4 Eternal Principles, when I continue to listen to the creative outpourings of my Consciousness, there is a smile on my face, faith in  heart and so much patient love that wells up inside of me.   

How Can A Fish in the Water Be Thirsty?

Journal Entry August 14, 2014

It is You who returns to me today and swims anxiously around my awareness again.  Opalescent beams and the feeling of wet pour over my starving perception and I hear a faint whisper telling me that I have run too far into the dry and suffocating thoughts of a bleak and mundane world.  Laughter, like perfect bubbles of fresh insight, dances in the space between us.  Excitedly, You urge me to play once more in the world of limitless songs and inspired stories.  

Oh yes, sweet redeemer, You drench and revitalize my understanding  with radiant blue. 

Blue like the unlimited and expanding sky.  Blue like the awe-inspiring and swirling waves of an imagination that cannot and will not ever end.  Blue like the true blue power of a dream that crystallizes out of the purest desire to love and magnify for its own sake.  Blue like the Great Blue Heron that stands staunch and ready peering toward the horizons of its kingdom.  Blue like the skin of the all attractive Krishna energy that calls the Universe to rise and dance in ecstasy.  Blue like those eyes that drowned my entire existence with one first glance.  Oh yes.  Let Us redefine the "Blue" of Eternal Opulence and remember ourselves flashing across an overflowing night sky which by its very nature abases any weak and deflating thought into complete oblivion.  

Oh the immortal words of the Master Poet Kabir resonate in the core of my Being tonight:
"I laugh when I hear that the the fish in the water is thirsty."           

Kabir says: "Look and See Where the Root Is..."

When a low and sorrowful mood takes hold,
my Heart calls from high above the clouds to look up.
Gliding over the unending spread of cities upon cities,
It shows me a frenzied and fearful world
locked in a gruesome battle for validation and control,
security, profit, sustenance  and possession.
Reassuringly,
my audacious Heart laughs out loud
because from Its expansive realm
there can be no haughty agendas of courtships with countries,
no royalty or religious sovereignty.
It asks:
“Who can rule a single beam of the sun?”.
Beyond money and property,
age, gender and education,
how many more ways can be thought of,
to divide humanity into opposing forces?
When will we know who we are?
Where is the home that each of us aches to know? 
   
My Heart reminds me that we are the constant wind
entering and exiting buildings
that begin to crumble the moment of construction.
We are the constant wind that loses itself in earth
again and again
only to be liberated by the generous and sometimes painful rains
that soak through our fragile bodies of blood, sweat and tears.
Still my mind keeps reaching out to analyze and philosophize.

Stretching Itself out over the vast Universe,
my timeless Heart cries out to me yet once again
to rely only on the unseen and unknown Name
which makes itself seen and known
in the life of every true dreamer who dares to look up.
Despite the foolishness and baseness of the ignorant,
and the disconnected,   
life flourishes in the wisdom of Unity.
Innovate a powerful and abundant Ideal
and become one with the master of the timeless wind.   

©Ganga Fondan, 2014

"To Thine Own Self Be True"

What is Your Song of Truth?

“Where do you wander in your body of dust?

What do you need and who do you trust?

How do you heal and do you know what’s real?

Come sing a song of freedom,

I know just how you feel.

Come share your sadness.

Release any hate.

Look for the oneness beyond all the ache.

Touch all the beauty, your soul wants to dance.

Come sing a song of freedom.

Just give yourself a chance.

(Chorus)

Free from slavery arise

It’s time to open up your eyes

And lift away that look of pain

To open up your heart once again

Look deep inside you and feel your desire

Is it one that can burn you or lift you up higher?

Does your smile lead to laughter?

Is your intention clear?

Come sing a song of freedom.

There’s only right now and here

Come let your deep imagination soar.

Believe for a moment, you can always ask for more

Let go of limitation, let go of all the fear

The one you have been waiting for

…is finally here.”

©Ganga Fondan, 1998

Journal Entry July:  20, 2014

Fueling the global political tensions, igniting religious battles over differences of ideals and territories, creating organizations that cut-throat any attempt to nurture a fair playing field  are all micro-cosmic examples of the macro wars we fight within ourselves.  Why are we so angry?  What are we so afraid of?  While this song lifted me through a deeply personal experience years ago, its message of freedom is helping me recognize a much larger pattern of life and living that I see all around me.

As a student of the "Four Eternal Principles", I realize that this pattern of enslavement has always been a challenge throughout the ages.  Many great Masters presented their modalities to ease the suffering that humans inflict on themselves and others out of ignorance of Unity.  All our deepest fears of loneliness, death and lack stem from the idea that we are separate in a depleting paradigm and we must claim as much territory as we can to satisfy our insecurities about this supply and demand.  Rather than hoarding and claiming, the Masters taught "Pro-claiming".  This idea is based in faith.  As we think in our hearts, so are we. We ask ourselves:  What is the central ideal of my life?

When we affirm ourselves to be children of the Universe, soaked with abundance and opportunity, we transform. This new mindset is not easy while bombarded daily with messages to conform and repeat our old habits.  This art piece is a reaching outward to acknowledge That which flows in absolutely everything, makes up everything and is even the power with which it is made.  Acknowledging Consciousness, through contemplation and meditation breaks the chains of fear and ignorance and we return to a sense of Unity and boundless Joy.  We begin to feel a much larger version of Self and realize more freedom than we have ever dared ourselves to be.

There's A Place I Know

There will come a day
This Voice will sing to the whole world
These songs of Love
Which hold me in your Heart

You have shown me so much courage
How the greatest joys are born of pain
Out of the dimmest hope such comfort
You teach me how to dream again

You have severed all the wounded memories
And nurtured thoughts that just the highest Vision sees
So when I look to see the purpose of my life
My breath flows calm and full of ease

I see your smile inside me
Your laughter fills this busy mind
And leads me to such wonders
Then share the beauty that I find

Teach me the meaning of surrender
For in the end there's nothing mind alone
Except the memory of singing
Precious songs that lead me Home

©Ganga Fondan, 2002



Journal Entry May 23, 2014

I remember back in 2002 when these words poured into my journal.  How far these songs carry me onward and through the many twists and turns of days.  Lately the message seems to be for me to go deeper into the experiences.  Instead of flitting along the surface, let go and trust that all the wonders of life live constantly there just beneath the banal exterior to that place vibrating so intensely with romance and possibility.  Sometimes I take for granted that I know a thing and have not fully experienced it.  All the artwork and songs pull me deeper now.  Beyond all of the turmoil and struggle of life is a constant way opening to live in the ideal and not the leftovers of circumstances the mind seems to be distracted by.  I will not settle for the mundane.  I ask for the strength and courage to go to the only place that has ever been my Father, Mother, Teacher and Friend... my All in All...

2014 : Dance with Substance and Power...

What calls me constantly
To leap from thing to thing
Is a song without voice,
A vision without eyes,
A feeling without touching
A romance of experiences
Oozing color,
Music,
Movement.
Wringing out all Joy
Every drop and wave
Empties
The Heart
Of That which is not mine
Yet none can take away.

©Ganga Fondan, 2014


Journal Entry: February 24, 2014 

Can you see the abundance in and around you?  No matter what circumstances seem to blur your line of sight, can you still revel in the dance and experience the joy of existence?  

Every day I meet people from all walks of life.  Some have money and some scrape by.  Some are decorated with titles of education and ranks of office.  Some saunter and some barely lift their feet off the ground.  Some whistle, some grumble.  Some smell synthetic and wreak of expired perfume and some haven't showered in a very long time.  Some wander fragrantly along.  Some are weighed down with generations of identity while others recreate themselves moment to moment.  Some don't need my help at all and some follow me around wherever I go.  Some even walk in a very large circle around me to avoid my gaze while others patiently wait for my glance to fall on them.  Each carries their world around with them.  Each hears a drummer and finds a unique role to play in life.  Some believe what the world tells them they are.  They cannot hear their own heartbeats anymore.  Some find their own music deep inside and add to the beauty of everyone's experience.

I dance with every single one of them.  They are the children of a great garden.  Some remain oblivious to the wonder and possibility of this place.  Some trust only what their eyes and ears tell them.  Others sparkle with absolute courage and imagination while still others cower in the shadows of fear and worry.  One planet whirls round and round offering freely its endless unique and trans-formative experiences.  The music plays on...  

And sometimes...I see someone aching to dance, to feel alive, to open up and blossom.  I know their journey by heart.  Something inside me leaps up and sings.  In those moments I know who I AM and with complete elation my purpose is profoundly revealed.  

(This posting is inspired by  a quote I found in Alice Walker's new book "The Cushion in the Road".  It is an old Honduran saying : "What has been danced cannot be taken away.")