Hey Saul, where would I find that info? Mark Dyczkowski, maybe?

Oddly enough an email from exoticindia just appeared - 30 seconds after I read your post - in my inbox, telling me all about their new murtis, including 4 massive painted stone statues of Ma. Pretty funny.

> how was Laguna this year Jody?
*****
I didn't go, but heard it was awesome.

hehehe ... well, if you ask me, what you describe sounds like the typical dilemma of the soul's journey.

The real point however in finding the external Guru who will guide you to the Self and is none other than That if they are the real deal, is that they will challenge everything about you, because their point is to help eradicate your fixations, habits and impurities and this is precisely why the Guru exists. most people except for the rarest of rare beings will ever be able to take a clear and sober look in the mirror and actually identify their faults (and past accumulated karmas) and be willing to let go and dissolve them for good (meaning for ever and that's a mighty long time). and most will never be disciplined enough to not accumulate any further karmas without the anchor of the Guru and the lineage behind them.

all spoken from the girl who said she never would :)

Jai Ma!

>>I find that the more rules, steps and prohibitions I find the more they get in the way of offering love, which is all I've got, really.

bhakti is an established and respected path. it may not be everyone's cup of tea but that does not mean that simply offering one's love to Ma is not both valid and with historical precedent. we are all ultimately dependent on anugraha. I do think that our actions are part of how things are supposed to play out, however.

>>Unfortunately I'm the sort of person who bridles at external authority of any sort, even if that happens to be a strict formula for puja, and while my own little ceremony feels right to me, I know it isn't any sort of right from even a faintly orthodox standpoint.

I find that structured puja is a form of self discipline. I like that. but do I think that Ma really cares one way or another? no. everybody is different. we all go back to Her one way or another, but the ways in which we do so may vary.

>>I tend to shrug that off with the 'Hey, I'm a tantrika' defence, but that sometimes feels like a cop-out, and I can't really explain why.

well, tantra itself is often highly structured; the changes it makes to orthodox ritual all have their own correspondences and meanings. as antinomian as it may be, I do believe that tantra is a very structured path, especially compared to bhakti.

>>People will say 'find a guru,' but if I did and the guru gave me some long list of rules and instructions I know myself well enough to predict I would never follow them, and resent rules, guru etc into the bargain. And it wouldn't bring me any closer to Her lotus feet.

some of us continue to test and test :)

Ma will let me know when the time and the teacher are right. in the meantime I explore that Light which makes me question, that Self awareness which is Siva. I don't believe there is any one "right" way. there is what is right for a certain individual at a certain stage in their development. and we must all use our discrimination to decide when we have found what is correct for us, at that time. to do otherwise would be to marginalize that spark of the divine which is inherent in all of us and which inspires these questions, doubts and uncertainties in the first place. your questioning nature is Siva, beholding Himself, desiring union with His Sakti.

(IMHO, as always)