I took a look back over the Dharma activities of the last year and the treasures that we have studied from the Hard Light archives.
During our 2020 New Year retreat, we ended 2019 with the offering of the Cho Feast. Machig Labdron says that the primary goal of Cho is cutting through ego-clinging. Buddhist Master Jamgon Kongtrul adds that: Chöd involves “realizing that gods and demons are one’s own mind, and ruthlessly severing self-centered arrogance through an understanding of the sameness of self and others.”
Travel to India
In late January, a group of sangha members traveled to Fire Mountain for a personal retreat. While there, a spontaneous 3-day group retreat emerged.
We visited the samadhi shrines of Perfect Masters Sai Baba and Uppasni Maharaj. We also had the opportunity to visit Meherezad for the first time. Meher Baba lived at Meherazad from 1944 until he died in 1969. Some of Meher Baba’s surviving mandali lived there until 2012. I pray we get to return again.
By the time we left India, COVID had erupted. Nadia was flying on China Air and ran into significant travel disruptions on her return home. And, once back in the United States, it wasn’t long before the lockdown went into full swing.
MahaShivaratri
In February, we celebrated MahaShivaratri, the Great Night of Shiva.
Pratyahara
We continued the year with an in-depth study of Mark’s teachings on the Pratyahara, the withdrawal of energy from the senses. Mark described the impulse of switching off as it moves through the physical, energetic, and mental bodies and touches the fourth body of the Atman and then how that flow feeds back through all four bodies through the fabric of each level of formation.
Bodhicitta
In May, we practiced a month of Bodhicitta. Mark teaches that raising Bodhicitta is a mystical maneuver and that the anchor of the bodhicitta at the heart space is a nexus where all four bodies intersect. He says that you cannot have an experience of Bodhicitta without an experience of Love.
Modifications of the Mind
During June, our annual summer retreat centered around Mark’s teachings on the Modifications of the Mind. He says that the CONTENT OF THE MIND IS NOT THE MIND and that coming to terms with the modifications of our mind is the very basis of yoga.
Guru Purnima
In July, we celebrated Guru Purnima, the full moon festival of the Guru. We delved more deeply into the study of the Guru of Cause — the embodied Guru, and the Guru of Action — the inner Guru inseparable from the outer manifestation.
We studied the Five Spokes of Spiritual Practice:
Skillful Means
Purification
Accumulation of Merit
Accumulation of Wisdom
Power
August
In August, we had a month of Guru Yoga practice with the high holy days of the Siddha Lineage — Bhagwan Nityananda’s mahasamadhi, Bhagwan Muktananda’s initiation, and Mark Griffin’s birthday.
Autumn
In the fall, we celebrated Navratri, the Nine Nights of the Goddess. And we delved into Mark’s teachings on the Ten Mahavidyas, the Wisdom Goddesses, the Great Truths.
We commemorated the Solar and Lunar Mahasamadhi cycles of Baba Muktananda and Mark Griffin and ended the month with a Cho Sadhana recitation at Hollywood Forever.
In November, we took a deep dive into Mark’s teachings on the Universe, our world system, 13 of 25, and our home of Jambudvipa, referred to as Endurance, the Tolerable — tolerable because Dharma is present here, Shaktipat is present.
During last week’s Intensive, we meditated on the inseparability of God, Guru, and Self. I am still getting my wind back after that powerhouse transmission.
All during the year, and all during our past, present, and future Hard Light training, Mark’s message is that:
The winds of karma are unrelenting, and nothing is fixed. Everything that we ever were or ever will be is always accessible. Our attention on what is of most importance must be continuous.
The Shaktipat transmission, the Gift of the Siddhas, triggers the process of integration of the fibers in Sushumna into the Ocean of Consciousness.
On the Horizon
We will break until the New Year’s Retreat. The retreat will be a two-day event on December 31 and January 1 with limited in-person attendance. We are still working on the retreat content, and I will send out more information in a newsletter later this month. I hope to include the 2021 calendar, or at least the first part of it, at that time, too.
After the New Year Retreat, we will break until Thursday, January 21. The first week of the new year is dedicated to finishing the massive move of Mark’s studio and storage spaces under one roof. And what to do with 40-year-old canvases in various stages of decay? They are the record of Dharma Artist Mark Griffin’s awakening process and enlightenment. In defiance of some recommendations I received in the last few years, I cannot yet let go. Once the work is photographed and cataloged, it might be best to have a bonfire or burial in the desert for those works that are beyond repair. That remains a distinct possibility.
And what Dharma teachings will we, should we explore in the new year? There are 40 modules of the Hard Light Deepen Your Practice course that needs to be revisited and revised. We have Mark’s extraordinary commentary on the Shiva Sutras. There’s a large amount of unedited video and audio. We have the audio recordings of many philosophy classes through the decades, including Mark’s first philosophy class on the Bhagavad Gita from the early 90s. I don’t know if the quality of some of these recordings can be sufficiently improved to bring them up to production quality, but we will try.
All of these efforts are monumental and must be undertaken. It is time to identify and set priorities on our projects and then fund-raise to hire the professional resources that must be acquired. Hard Light needs to earn income from these deliverables, and the deliverables must be funded to be produced. The current financial sustainability window is not long, and we will be addressing that directly in 2021.
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