Yoga is like a gateway drug. At least it was for me. One day I was opening my hips and the next thing I knew I was opening my mind. Downward-facing dog led to chakra meditations, led to psychic flashes, led to pendulums, remote energy healing, DNA activation and now I find myself a full-blown kook, pointing out at parties that “all UFO’s aren’t extraterrestrial, some are obviously intra-terrestrial.”
And now the orbs have bounced into my consciousness. The orbs are impish little balls of light that first started appearing in photos of crop circles. Then they showed up in pictures of other sacred sites. And now they are in all sorts of pictures. Zoos, backyards, a friend even sent me one surrounding a couple at a mall.
Debunkers claim the orbs are dust spots or “just previously subvisual particles.” As if there’s any “just” in that phrase. Rebunkers
are saying they see orbs without their cameras.
“Why don’t I get any orbs in my pictures?” Apparently the orbs don’t mind a little whining because as soon as I asked they immediately started appearing in my pictures.
I experimented and found that when I felt more loving while I was shooting, bigger, brighter and more abundant orbs dotted my shots. Which meant that my consciousness was affecting reality in a way that my digital camera could see.
I feel like my experiments are a tiny part of a great wave of Citizen Science. Like Dr. Emoto and his water crystals or Lynn McTaggart’s work on focused group intention. I also feel like it’s connected to my yoga, which I see as the great experiment: You change your behavior and watch the results. You are the experimenter and the experiment.
Lately I find that when I think I’m really not something, often, that is exactly what I am. So I am staying open.
And then I heard about a satsang (spiritual gathering) to receive darshan (blessings from the teacher) with Swami Vishwananda. I didn’t actually know what darshan was, but I liked that. Beginner’s mind is so much easier when you are actually a beginner.
I’ve never been a guru girl. I’m more of an independent study type. But lately I find that when I think I’m really not something, often,
that is exactly what I am. So I am staying open. And this latest event has everything going for it: It is free, on a night I actually have available, at a venue so close I won’t have to worry about my yoga carbon footprint.
Plus this is a bhakti-yoga event, which I understood to mean Love Yoga. And when I get to the hotel ballroom, the love is flowing.
I walk into a heartbreakingly beautiful kirtan (devotional chanting). Within 30 seconds I’m sobbing. When my eyes clear I see that I’m dressed all wrong. The room is a sea of white easy-fit cotton. I’ve got on slinky summer black with pink straps. Modest only by Hard Tail standards. Oops. Beginner’s mind, beginner’s wardrobe.
There are a couple dozen other obvious uninitiates but we’re warmly absorbed, like ground pepper into creamy soup.
After an hour or three the kirtan peaks and the Swami arrives. Not in white, in hot disco pink. Maybe in bhakti yoga you earn your pink robe the way you earn your black belt in karate. Or maybe the Swami is a yogi fashionista. I feel better about my non-white pink-strapped outfit. I feel better about everything.
I stand in a slow moving line to get a one-on-one with the Swami. I am not impatient. No one is impatient. We are not waiting. We are loving.
Finally I am eye to eye with the Swami. Should I keep my eyes open, shut? I try open. Feels amazing. I try shut. Even better. But I don’t trust it and I open them again. The Swami dabs my third eye as if to say, it doesn’t really matter whether your other two eyes are open or shut. It only matters that you feel the love.
Back home, still glowing with bhakti vibes, Greg and I continue our orb experiments.We shoot and then get into bed to review
the pictures.
What we see is kind of mind boggling. Around me, in various pictures taken at various angles, are two bright pink orbs. Exactly the color of the Swami’s robe.
Is the Swami’s consciousness affecting the orbs? Is my consciousness of the Swami affecting the orbs or are the orbs trying to tell me that they also had a good time at that party?
These rose-colored orbs do not appear again for a week. Then I tell this story about the Swami and pink orbs on stage. And the photos from that show, when I’m talking about the pink orbs, have pink orbs in them!
I love those orbs, for their sense of humor and for raising my consciousness. They asked me to be in a state of love the same way the Swami had. And maybe they were the same as the Swami because a guru is literally one who dispels darkness with light. And that’s exactly what the orbs are doing. The orbs are gurus. So I guess I am a guru girl after all.
Beth Lapides is the author of Did I Wake You? Haikus for Modern Living and the creator of Un-Cabaret. Find out more about her shows, workshops and seminars at bethlapides.com or email her at: beth@lapides.com.
By Beth Lapides
Beth Lapides is the creatrix and host of UnCabaret. You may know her from her LA Yoga My Other Car is A Yoga Mat column, as the author of “Did I Wake You, Haiku For Modern Living”, from her appearances on Sex & The City, NPR and Comedy Central or from her writing in O Magazine, Elle Decor and Los Angeles Magazine. She teaches her workshop The Comedian’s Way privately in LA and annually at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. UnCabaret is her long running comedy show in which she asks the very best comedians working what is going on with you now. The show is known for being uniquely about the present and every Sunday a completely unique experience unfolds. In the past two years Beth has collaborated with Mitch Kaplan, both on the music for her New Agey comedy show “100% Happy 88% of the Time” and at UnCabaret where Mitch is Musical Director. Adding music to the comedy is like adding an out breath to the in, a vowel to the consonant. UnCabaret is intimate, conversation, idiosyncratic and fun intentional.