Also known as the Path of every dogs dream of heaven. The hoomans were always hooome!!!!

I can’t describe the kind of person I was before my path. I don’t recognize that man anymore when I see photos of him. When we see photos of our past selves we do so, sometimes with wonder and sometimes with regret.

The fact remains that without being that person in the photos and without experiencing what that person ends up experiencing, the person looking at the photos, wouldn’t be you either.

But the soul would be.

The Soul

The soul never changes but the mind and the body constantly change. You aren’t the person in the kid photos, wedding photos, or at the birthday party last weekend; but the soul that was in the photos was.

Just as we shed skin, we shed former versions of ourselves every time we walk our true Spiritual Path. Our heart is the same physical structure but its job and its abilities to Love are exponentially greater today than they were a decade ago.

Because the Love on the Path of Love is stored in the Soul.

The Day The World Shutdown

My kids, spouse, and friends at the time will tell you that had I not found my Path before the world shutdown I probably wouldn’t have handled it as well as I did.

At the time I took it as a justification that my Path was the right Path and why the others around me couldn’t see the Path was so baffling to me.

You see while writing the Path of Lockdown I personally realized this week, I was still on the Path of the Golden Retriever at the same time. Now yeah, self-analysis live in Journal format friends. Pretty sure the previous post will describe the time for those nearby.

To someone who loves to research and now can’t leave home; I felt like it was the most amazing time. When I wasn’t working, I was researching. I researched every inch of Bhakti Hinduism. I wanted to really see what made it tick.

I questioned all the things that a person from the material word sees in the text, and can interpret in today’s world something not as flattering. I discussed it, analyzed it, debated, every inch of every text I could get my hands on.

The whole world was learning to bake bread and learn way, way, way too much about tiger owners. Yes, I did partake in some of the Maya Express Lockdown Extravaganza sponsored by Netflix, Zoom and social media.

Yet, I found most of my time still sitting at those tables talking about our Spiritual Guides instead. So many different kinds of tables.

BOOKS

The book reading and scientific literature tables consumed me to be honest. Was so all consuming. I picked up a book and disappear for the entire evening. Started back up at 6am after zoom.

I read more during the first year of the pandemic than I had my entire life. That is not some grand exaggeration but literally more books that year than my entire life.

I doubled my library. From a single Stephen King bookshelf to a second one of Bhakti and Spiritual Growth.

I call them my Yin and Yang.

Paths of Light and Dark.

As you can tell by other posts on the path, I will be sharing many books from the shelf that impacted my path so much.

MUSIC

The friends I made at the Music Table connected to me like I hadn’t connected to music before. I was a Hypocrite now. I used to complain about loved one’s songs always repeating verses. Now I’m listening to call and response singing.

The first time I heard Kirtan sung by Jahnavi Harrison, is also the first time I was brought to tears deep in my soul, from a song. During the Path of Lockdown, she was doing daily singing and sound bathes and let me tell you that was peak.

The energy of Vishvambar and his family doing live music with mridangas on social media was such a treat. Other times his brothers from their full group the Mayapuris were together. The music was divine and energetic.

Music from Kelli Woods, MC Yogi, Krishna Das, Dhanya, Trever Hall etc.

Music I would have dismissed a year prior. Was making me feel so much Love through song.

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM

From Yoga classes, Gita classes, japa groups, and most of all that Sangha group of mine. Zoom was all our life.

But I was living in an instance where a product on the Maya Express was being used directly to help me on my Spiritual Path.

The Sangha group even started their own Podcast right before lockdown. The Wisdom of the Sages

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If the world had not come to a halt. I don’t know if my thirst for knowledge of Bhakti and the path of Love would have ever been sufficiently satiated.

As the Previous Path of Gratitude discussed how the world of social media to me was at an all-time high with Gratitude, it soon would be taken back over by the Maya Express.

Mayas Wrath

The Maya Express had seen the light that started to shine through as all the praise and cheering went on for the first responders and healthcare workers and everyone on the frontlines and the unity on live video streaming. They were cheering on ideas of a vaccine. People were upsetting the natural order of things and concentrating on Love too much.

The Path of Lockdown was meant to increase strife; not increase harmony.

I was reading the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and I was wondering how such highly esteemed people could be fallen to such simple deceits that was happening in the gambling scenes and such evil atrocities by others were done in the name of a demoniac leader.

Then I turned on social media and it began happening there. Gratitude gave way to unappreciative anger and unspent energy, and not one-direct-person-to-blame.

No one knew where to direct their anger and despair at all the calamities.

The Maya Express knew just what to do with it…….

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The Maya Express deployed her most trusted weapon to almost every table “Fake Political Strife”.

They took the fear many had from debunked internet conspiracy stories or bad eighties action movies into what “made sense to them”, even if it wasn’t true.

Whomever took over the tables at that time had some anger and displaced energy to put into place.

The tables everywhere where in turmoil.

Losses piled up for everyone.

So many arguments over what should be allowed or not allowed to be worn at the tables.

So many arguments about who was trying to poison whose tables.

My friends who sat at the pharmaceutical manufacturing tables, went from people that family members always went to for questions for years, to people their own friends would claim are putting trackers in their tables now.

My nurse and doctor friends went from a table of trusted physicians whom their family and friends trusted with their lives, to being accused of falsifying documents to make profits. Going from a hero working 200 hours a week, to making up diagnosis to make the numbers high.

Maya Express as they have done so many times before, took a moment of unity and created strife, anger and more reasons to fight and argue and cover the windows from our spiritual path with dirt and grime. They took people who I knew and were respected for their expertise for decades, and in months reduced them to fake villains.

Saved By Faith?

When writing this piece, I understand now what they meant when they said finding Bhakti saved me during the pandemic. Because instead of getting in arguments with those people, as much,

I dove deeper into my spiritual path. Each time I would spiral, I would go back to the new spiritual path and hyper-focus on it. Rooted in a daily Gratitude practice and a new sense of friendship with many people around the world. I forged ahead learning more and more as I could.

It’s crazy when any of us try to quantify the time frame during the Path of Lockdown. Studies are being done on how it changed our view of time forever. At least in this lifetime.

As far as I know, my “normal” never was anything compared to what it was prior to the Path of Lockdown. I do know one thing. There are many pets in this world who would prefer we went back to that world again.

One thing was for sure, I always considered myself an Introvert, and yet I was ready to travel in person through the Path of Association.

Yours Forever Grateful