Kanchukas and intrinsic goodness

We have freedom in our life. We have the freedom to choose how we want to live our life. We also have the freedom to choose our perspectives. We can choose to be negative, we can choose to pick at everything and point out and notice the bad, but we are also free to choose another perspective. We can choose to be positive; to see the goodness in life. We can even choose to see that everything in its essence is intrinsically good. We can choose to look at the brightest side of every situation. (I wrote a story of Shiva and perspectives Perspectives are powerful.)

Maya uses 5 different cloaks (kanchukas) to try to hide the beauty and intrinsic goodness of life.

Maya: the differentiating power of the universe, it makes us see the one as being separate.
The 5 Kanchukas= cloaks:1.Kala: limits omnipotence (Kriya, relates to action of the 3 A’s), creates limited agency or the capacity to act. Makes you feel like you can’t do it.
2.Vidya: limits omniscience (jnana, relates to alignment of the 3 A’s)) creates limited knowledge. Makes you think you don’t know enough, that you have inadequate knowledge.
3.Raga: limits fullness of heart (iccha, relates to attitude of the 3 A’s) creates desire and longing to be full again.
4.Niyati: limits omnipresence freedom of creative power and expression (Shakti) creates fabric of Space, and the energetic tapestry of causality. Limits the individual expression. We think this causes this and this causes this and that we are too small to participate in the destiny of life.
5.Kala: limits eternal awareness (Shiva) creates time, and the sense of sequential awareness.

My metaphor about maya and her use of the kanchukas:
The kanchukas are mayas way of hiding the beauty and goodness from us. I like to imagine every situation fits into a big glass box and in the middle of the box there is a beautiful shinning light of goodness, this light is Param Shiva (the highest energy). Maya uses these cloaks, like five pieces of cheese cloth fabric of 5 different colors, that are sown together to make one big sheet. Maya then throws this big sheet over the box (the situation), so you can still see the light shining out of the box through the cheese cloth fabric but the light is distorted from the cheese cloth fabric so you can’t see the total truth, the intrinsic goodness of life. For example the kala section of this cloak shines all the light through it accept it limits omnipotence. So you can’t see that you do have the power and capacity to act. The vidya fabric shines all the light through but it doesn’t shine out that you have full knowledge, it limits omniscience. The raga swatch doesn’t show you that your heart is full, so it creates a longing in you so that you can be full again. When really you are full but maya has thrown on this fabric that makes you think you are empty. The niyati fabric shines all the beauty through the cheese cloth except your freedom, so you think that you don’t have freedom of creative expression. The last cloak maya uses is kala and it doesn’t let you see that you have eternal awareness.

How do the five kanchukas fit into intrinsic goodness?
We can acknowledge that these cloaks exists that in every situation, we can acknowledge that maya uses these 5 cloaks (kanchukas) to hide how great life is, how great we are. We can choose to look for the goodness that does shine out in any given situation. We can remember that there is more goodness under her cloaks, but we just can’t see it yet, but we can still no it is there.

How can we use the Kanchukas to see the beauty and intrinsic goodness of life?
Whenever we experience one of these kanchukas like omnipotence, omniscience, emptiness, omnipresence, and lack of awareness we can remember that these are just cloaks that maya uses to hide the full beauty (shri) and goodness from us. We can use the kanchukas to remind us of the intrinsic goodness of life. The kanchukas spell out limitations and they also give us the opportunity to make up our mind on how to behavior which allows us to express our freedom. They also give us an opportunity of discovery. The cloaks also allow us to experience situations at the appropriate time. They cloaks provide an opportunity for revelation at appropriate times. It is like Ganesha the elephant headed god, he is both the remover and the placer of obstacles so we can experience things when we are prepared to and not before. We can see through more and more of the cloaks the better we perform our studentship (adhikara) and we will gain appropriate wisdom on our evolutionary path.

Maya
Maya creates these categorize of illusion and brings about the appearance of difference. She hides the truth of oneness. It is easy to see maya as this horrible thing hiding beauty but she is doing it so we can delight in the goodness, so we can see and experience more. If we saw goodness everywhere, all the time we would get used to it and not be so delighted with the beauty. It is like when we get sick. I know whenever I am healthy I am not always thinking how grateful I am for my health, but when I get sick I remember and appreciate my health so much and then for a week or two after I was sick I live with gratitude for my health and how great it is that I am not sick. But over time I get used to my health and I am less grateful because it is so constant. It takes these cloaks of maya so we can delight and embrace the beauty




I found these resources very helpful:
http://tantra.tribe.net/thread/05d265ed-18b3-4e05-a88f-ff9c4f23ccb6
They Anusara Immersion Packet, by John Friend
Adam Ballenger and the wonderful individuals in my immersion group.