No weapons. No friends. No hope.

Taught my 4:30 Lotus class and I really wanted to start out mentioning Buffy but found myself holding back.  How well do I really know these students, I wondered, thinking I’d play it safe and talk about the “normal” Hindu deities they’ve come to expect in a Lotus class.
Midway through, I more or less decided to no longer hold back.  I had something to say –– however quirky and specific to me –– and if someone didn’t get it or laugh or whatever, who cared?
So I mentioned my whole Glory and forgetting thing –– plus I had a legitimate Kundali third eye opening kriya to offer –– and I actually think I won over a solid 90% of the room.
I couldn’t, however, remember the quote from a class I taught at the NYC Lotus a few years back that I loved.  Namely, during an October at least four years back I found a sword in my NYC loft that seemed to have no origin.  I asked the people who had lived there in the last few years and no one admitted any relationship to it.
It was wooden sword no doubt used for Tai Chi, but because it was Gods and Goddess month (our monthly teaching theme) at the Lotus, I associated it with Kali.
Here’s a photo and description of the goddess:
Out of the surface of her (Durga’s) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff ), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger’s skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas.
I’m not so into it.
Anyway, having found a sword though –– and usually spiritual folks are now all about the sword “chopping off the ego” –– I thought I’d bring it into class and have some fun.
There’s some connection to Warrior Three being possibly about the sword movement as well and so it was fun to choreograph a whole thing involving an actual wooden sword, and have it passed around in class.  [It’s also the kind of thing that could have also gotten me fired quite easily, come to think about it — unauthorized swordplay in class and all.]
Simultaneous to that, I was watching my way through all the 144 Buffy Episodes and struck by the finale of season 2.  And today, I looked up the exact quote and I’m more impressed with it than ever.
It is a truly incredible moment where Buffy has really been pushed to the limit physically and emotionally (the plot is complex, but needless to say, the second she makes her heart-wrenching decision about saving the world vs. sending her suddenly soulful lover again into oblivion, Sarah Mclachlan’s FULL OF GRACE is needed full blast).
What I love most is the turning point in the fight, when Buffy is literally on her knees and defenseless.
EVIL EVIL EVIL Angelus says:
“Now that’s everything, huh? No weapons… No friends…No hope. Take all that away… and what’s left?”
He raises the sword and swings it down to kill her.
Buffy, however, captures it effortlessly between her hands (as if in prayer) and replies.
“Me.”
Buffy is NO JOKE, indeed.
I try to remember this moment when circumstances are discouraging.
[Bashar would say “Circumstances don’t matter; only states of being matter.]
I actually don’t have weapons –– but I do have tremendous assets ––  and I do have AMAZING friends, and yes hope — but ultimately (like our girl Buffy), I have ME.