Check out these excerpts from the introduction I wrote on Mahamudra:
Imagine you own a sword fashioned of pure diamond which can slice through to the blazing heart of reality. This sword, however, is sheathed in layers of ignorance and is your own mind, your own consciousness. The poisons that dull its brilliance are delusions about the ultimate nature of reality, poisons that begin to form from our first moments of consciousness, when we begin to see all things as fixed in their nature — beautiful and ugly, cruel and kind, good and bad.
Feelings spring forth from this world-view. We learn to like and dislike, to desire and to push away, to crave and to seek escape. This gives rise to an uncontrollable stream of thoughts, often resulting in heedless words and actions.
Then, when our physical body dissolves back into the elements, our mindstream lives on, impregnated with the seeds of these habitual patterns. We are forced to take birth again, and the great wheel makes another turn. We suffer, age and die, again and again and again, trapped in defective worlds of our own creation.
Is there a way out of this madness? Yes! If we transform the way we think, speak and act, the movie of our relative life transforms too: Karma metamorphoses into a benevolent producer intent on giving us a blissful role, using her power to create a paradise for us to play within. Karma is compelled to act in this manner because the world is “empty”, because there is no base reality, because it is our thoughts, words and actions alone that fashion our reality.
Mahamudra is the systematic stripping of ignorance that all of us must undertake at some point in our eternal timeline. If we succeed in eliminating poisons that incline us to perceive ugliness instead of beauty, we are in a position to construct heaven. The stakes are incredibly high — eons of suffering if we don’t clean up the mess, luminous immortality if we do.
Click the buttons below to SHARE if you liked this post.
Note: The REBLOG option is available only when viewing the post in full. Click on the post-title above if don’t see the REBLOG button below.
mira prabhu 
Wow MIra, a diamond sword which is the mind, wonderful image, wonderful picture with it too.
Actually, Caroline, the diamond is a metaphor for “emptiness” or shunyata in eastern philosophy — because it is reputedly the hardest substance in the physical world, and yet, were you to break a diamond into a million bits, each one would be just as much a diamond as any other. Simply put , that is the nature of emptiness–for all things are equally empty in samsara — meaning, that all things are equally subject to the flavors of samsara. this is getting a bit too convoluted….hahaha….sorry, i will stop now….before i tie myself up in diamond knots….
Dear Mira, beautiful and meaningful words. We are the ones who choose what role to play in the theater of life. Role in a tragedy or a comedy. But, and this choice needs a step of discarding comfort and laziness, needs an active space (meditation) to recognize the true nature of our mind.
Beautifully expressed, Gordana! Yes, it is this wisdom that escapes most humans — that there is no one in the sky pulling the threads of our lives
Mira, my opinion: the content is great but the lengths are too short.
Yes, a couple of other friends have said the same, including Bala – Raj and I are doing our best to give our audience what they want — some thought the old posts too long, so we chopped them down. Its all a learning curve….and a lot of fun. if you want to wait for the entire series, all 12 will be out by Oct 23. And then you can read them all in one go. Love, M
On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 11:35 PM, mira prabhu
You shd become a spiritual teacher….
Everyone is a spiritual teacher if they come from their spirit and not from their conditioning and biases — in point of fact, i did teach — yoga and analytical meditations — in america and in certain parts of north India. One day, when I feel ready again, I will start again — perhaps. But first I need a wife to take care of the house, the dogs and the garden! And thank you as always dear Ajay!
On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 11:42 AM, mira prabhu