Everything is divine - Animate or Inanimate

................................................................................................................................................ As far as I can look at my pre-isha life, I was never inspired to go to temple or to take on to some kind of worship. Looking at the society, I always felt that the temple-going people are always living on the surface and all the worship is just unreal. It is like the body without a soul. Someone like Shreemaa, a realized saint is offering worship, as a complete path in itself. One can check www.shreemaa.org for details. I was inspired to take on to worship by Bhagavan Das, a disciple of Neem Karoli Baba. And looking at the way various festivals that are celebrated in Isha Yoga Centre, it has become a way to celebrate our life in this planet. Why not dance our way to death ? In the following excerpt from a book "Its here now" by Bhagavan Das, Ram Dass is a fellow traveller of Bhagavan Das. Not to forget while reading this excerpt is that Bhagavan Das prepared himself with intense practice before experiencing the things of the other world. The following is the excerpt from the book :-


Ram Dass was always extremely generous. He gave me the sitar he'd bought in Delhi because he knew that i loved music.
A sitar is a very complicated instrument. This one had dozens of strings, and I did not know how to tune it. I didn't know where to begin, so i left it in the empty room next to Ram Dass's room. Every day I'd bring it flowers and worship it has Saraswati - The Goddess of music, art and letters. For weeks I sat with it and meditated.
One day, the sitar spoke to me and told me to pick it up. I picked it up very respectfully, as if I was holding a beautiful woman in my arms. Then it said, "Tune me". And I started tuning the strings. For the next couple of weeks, i spent hours tuning the sitar, never playing it. Finally, something happened and all came together. I started to play. But it didn't feel like I was playing the sitar - It felt like the sitar was playing me. Saraswati was playing the sitar by using my fingers. I never had a lesson. I just surrendered to the Goddess. The music was sublime.
Soon after I learned to play, Ram Dass told me he had been sitting in the next room listening to me play the sitar for about an hour. It was the most beautiful melody. Then he happened to look of window and saw me over at the tea stand accross the street. And still the divine music continued.. He turned white and ran next door, and there was the sitar lying by itself on the floor. There was no one in the room.
Ram Dass realized he had tuned in to where music itself comes from. He realized that I was tuned in to where it was coming from when i sat down to play perfectly, never having had a lesson. In India, musicians practice Nada Yoga, the yoga of sound following the notes back to their source, searching for the original player. It's so arrogant of us to believe we can make music. Only God makes music. The universe is her song.