These next nine days, beginning the 15th of july, is a period of nine days that the tantrikas dedicate their sadhanas to the nine forms of shakti. These are extremely auspicious days. I’m going to start with teachings and practices surrounding the 30th pauri of japji, “eka mai.” Aades - salutation to everything that is and everything that ever was. Not good morning. Not Ram Ram. Not Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa. Just Aades. The supreme greeting of the great yogis, because there is nothing left to say when you are bowing to the entire universe and its Creator simultaneously. The 30th Pauri is Guru Nanak speaking as a supreme yogi. Aad - the very beginning. Aneel - unconsumed, unmeasured. Anaad - no beginning, no end. Annahat - no limit. And then the superlative that holds it all: Jug Jug Eko Ves - from age to age, he has never changed. Before creation there was Adi Shakti - Uma, mother of the cosmos, so beautiful and so generative she could not be contained. From her came Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. The first two were hung upside down for their refusal. Shiva looked at his brothers and did the math. His solution was not submission - it was transformation. She would be reborn as a woman, he would wait and grow, and they would meet as equals. That is the story of Shiva and Parvati. And in that story lives the deepest teaching: God is not separate from creation. God is God plus. That plus is what troubles everyone - and what this three-day series is designed to resolve.