DONNA LYNN BROPHY SPINAL DISEASES FUNDRAISER!

Please help Donna (aka Bhakti) get the spinal surgery she needs in NYC.

“We can find inspiration in various walks of life. Whenever we see someone rising above their limitations, having the courage to continue to not only be creative in the face of great adversity, but also to excel, these people raise the bar for all of us and seeing them continue to find a way can be tremendously inspiring. Donna is just one of those people. Her passion for music and the guitar has given her the courage and strength to rise above tremendous limitation. And this is how one can change the world for the better. By being an excellent example. You go sister!”
 - Steve Vai
*Guitar Virtuoso (Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth, PIL, Whitesnake)
*Four time Grammy Award Winner 
*Symphonic Composer


Donna Lynn Brophy (aka Bhakti) was hit by a car in 1997, resulting in multiple surgeries, including cervical spinal reconstruction in 2005.  Living with spinal cord nerve root injuries and four incurable spinal diseases causes Donna severe chronic pain and has left her virtually bedridden and 100% disabled.

Donna’s insurance no longer covers the cost of her disability and care. Therefore, her family has set up a SUPPLEMENTAL NEEDS TRUST to help provide all the costs that insurance and governmental benefits deny.  This Trust will make it possible for her to have cutting edge surgery in NYC.  These costs are significant, costing tens of thousands of dollars each year.
Please help Donna maintain her current level of care and quality of life.


Donations can be made online through www.gofundme.com/GoBrophy

or by mailing a check to:


Donna Lynn Brophy Supplemental Needs Trust
    P.O.Box 556
    Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927

THANK YOU! 🙏

JAI BHAKTI™ BLOG: How I Type With Spine Injuries

One of my students asked if I use Dragon Software to type. No, actually, I don't have a computer.

I lie I bed and SWYPE everything from my phone!

Where there's a will...

Jaya!

JAI BHAKTI™ BLOG: Silver Linings Amidst Disability

Dear Ones,

"'Tis almost the season
to recline outside
And commune with the sky!"

I love when words flow through me, like the above poem. AUM.

Once you have experienced and lived from the hub of ALL creation, you see definitively that there's always a silver lining, no matter the level of chaos you are experiencing in the objectified field of awareness.

Chaos, too, is a manifestation of the One: Pure Consciousness.
Everything is a manifestation of the One.

This is what Subramuniyaswami refers to as DANCING SHIVA, and Baba Muktananda (as well as Vedic and Sufi mystics before him) called The Play of Consciousness.

Being 100% physically disabled and not able to sit up, one of my silver linings is becoming One with the sky (not that we have ever been parted!).

Find the One.

Discover WHO YOU ARE...your Truth...and meditate. Contemplate this Truth.

(Fifteen years ago, while on personal retreat at the now famous Omega Institute, a fellow devotee/bhakta recommended I read the back cover of TALKS WITH RAMANA MAHARSHI. I suggest you do the same. Read everything Ramana wrote...and watch the layers of your small self peel away.)

Find forms of remembrance because, friends, there are many levels of "enlightenment", and when maya tests your will, chances are you will need to remember what you have forgotten. (My quote, "I forgot to remember" sums up the dark night of the soul quite well. There is the dark night that lasts awhile, different for every seeker, and then, as has been my experience, we fall back into that place from time to time on our journey towards freedom from the cycle of birth and death.)

Twenty seven glorious years since I became
immersed in the glorious, cognitive pursuit of who, what, when, where, and why (jnana yoga);
glorious is an apt word, to be sure.

For me,  ever since childhood, the epiphanies  and experiences always came first, and then the pursuit of meaning, relativity...etc.
The journey through the fields of maya have been challenging, but as my beloved Guru said to me eleven years ago: "Sadhana is sweet, like a flower." Life may kick me down often and a lot...but indeed, my sadhana is sweet. So much grace.

How can I look out at this sky and not believe that everything is in perfect order--even while immersed in legal battle with Medicare to get my spinal meds paid for? (Thank you to my lawyer, from Maricopa, AZ, who is helping me pro bono. You see...right there: grace! More on that later.)


Eternal Blessings to you, as my very own Self.

Namo Namah
Bhakti




JAI BHAKTI ™ BLOG
CELEBRATING OUR TENTH YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

Sketches of My Sweet Heart

While reading a book titled The Middle Way, by Lou Marinoff, I was pleasantly introduced to the "Golden Ratio (Golden Mean)". This gem of aesthetic beauty as revealed in scientific, mathematical, and natural theory is mindblowing; so much so that it inspired me to start sketching again as a means of art therapy.

In the past, I used a circle as the basis of my subconscious Crayola rants, now I am dissecting the Golden Ratio so as to create it from scratch. The following sketch is my first attempt at consciously using the Golden Ratio in abstract art.

While making this sketch I had three things in mind: 1) the Golden Ratio; 2) my mood at the time I was sketching; and 3) the color of the mood. (Since as far back as I can recall I have seen energetic, metaphysical things in terms of colors. It wasn't until I was in my mid-thirties that I learned this was a spiritual gift: the gift of seeing auras.)

Eventually, this sketch will be painted with water colors. Even though my mood will be different when I do the actual painting, I have the color scheme locked into my memory.

My friend Yentyl asked me to publish the process of my abstract art therapy work on JAIBHAKTI. I have never taken art therapy classes, but I have learned that putting pencil (or crayon or marker) on paper and just letting the flow of my mood come out through my arm movements truly does help express emotions that are stuck, creating energy blockages (i.e. 'disease'). I was going through a profound, intense period of unrelenting physical pain that was starting to affect my mental state when I created the following piece. It is incredibly stark and simplistic, yet it moved me out of my lurking depression. The blue circle represents the Truth of my (our) reality: that which is unchanging, stainless, and eternally blissful. The black crayon represents the chaos/drama of life that goes on outside this eternal Truth within the very core of each of our beings. This is what we, as human beings, have to work.

With regard to the Golden Ratio, it was fascinating for me to look at my most successful commercial and fine art photographs and realize that I executed the Golden Ratio without even knowing it. Since I have learned about this sacred geometry, I can’t help but find the Golden Ratio everywhere.

IMAGE TO BE PUBLISHED SHORTLY!

So much Love!
Bhakti

@jaibhakti
@BhaktiBrophy