Meditation guide, Yoga Teacher, Astrologist, Healer & Artist: The Story of Haji Maa aka Secondsight

For those who aren’t familiar, who is Haji Maa?

I am still familiarizing myself with me. Day by day, I myself am understanding more and more. I feel like who I am can only be expressed or experienced in complete silence, within an atmosphere of absolute nothingness.

I find that this idea is thoughtfully conveyed within Taoist philosophy, in the first passage of one of my favourite translations of one of my favourite pieces of writing “Tao Te Ching (The book of the Way)” by Lao-Tzu (translated by Stephen Mitchell):

“The tao which can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.”

How did you come up with the name Secondsight and what is the meaning behind it?

The name Secondsight came to me during time consciously spent in nothingness, immersed in that darkness within darkness that the Tao Te Ching is referring to.

It was in 2012, during the summer, I relocated to Edmonton to be closer to my guru at the time and to deepen my spiritual practice.

During one period of downtime at the end of a guided relaxation CD, with my eyes still closed, just laying there, feeling and sensing the yumminess of the sensations, I remember noticing an intense point of white light hovering above me within the empty space. It kept recurring naturally at the end of this same practice I kept doing daily. There would be this light emerging from darkness, almost as though to welcome me back from the shamanic journey. And then one day the words Second Sight entered my consciousness quite clearly, while I was gazing at that light with eyes closed. The light always felt immensely loving, and compassionate and antique and otherworldly in its beauty, and comfortably so, it just allowed itself to exist as that type of intense divine light, without needing to explain itself. I was enamoured by it. And so I decided on the spot that was going to be my artist name, Secondsight, as an ode to the bliss of that guiding light. By the end of the summer, I wrote the songs that eventually turned into my first EP as Secondsight.

From meditation guide to yoga teacher, astrologist, healer and artist, what life event(s) have you experienced that has invited you to seek refuge in these healing modalities?

My art practice and my spiritual practice have helped me swim through a lifelong sense of alienation within this society. Creativity and mysticism have been my home-base always, my gateway to a refuge in the centre of my centre.

New stages of spiritual practice modalities have swooped in when I needed it the most, numerous creative outlets would come into save the day channel the overflow inspiration.

Thanks to my time in the refuge of my centre, I now know that I am very fortunate to be whirling in this particular region of the universe, not hitting anything, it’s a miracle, just existing on this habitable planet. And on top of that it’s possible for me, as a human, in this region of the universe, to heal, to create what I want, to feel how I please, to love, to be loved and whenever I’m ready to blossom. I just feel very lucky at this opportunity. I feel very fortunate to even be contemplating and considering the concept of home-base and healing, and fortunate to be open to following through with that healing and to have an awareness of the particular vibration within me that feels like it’s my centre.

What are the self care practices that you implement to be able to show up as your best?

These last few years, as I rehabbed from my kundalini release in 2014, what's been proven most effective for me during this time period (thru my own personal experiments): float therapy, singing, dream work, pranayama, meditation, stargazing, basti, neti, a plant-based diet, these are a few things off the top of my head, that have made a world of a difference. To be honest, I would not be alive today if it weren’t for stars, sattvic food, dreams, floats, breathing, cleansing, my songs, my sits and my savasanas.

“Astrology is the science of becoming aware of the Other (and one’s self) as a work of art, as an entity made of star light.”

For those who aren’t familiar with astrology, what can you tell us about it and how can it serve us?

Astrology is the science of becoming aware of the Other (and one’s self) as a work of art, as an entity made of star light.

Astrology helps to increase one’s scope of identity to include the entire sky (the observable as well the hidden universe) as opposed to just claiming a physical body, and a finite mind. Astrology is a reminder that we are immersed in something infinite and eternal and wise beyond measure.

There are lots of different styles of Astrology. My lineage has deep roots within Tantra.

Within our tantric astrological school of thought, we acknowledge that the Universe is expanding, which means so are you, and so the chart shape shifts and reflects this growth and expansion, the chart is always recalibrating and blossoming into something new. We hold very dearly the moments in which we glimpse bliss, and how those moments of bliss are a blessing in how they tend to serve as the ultimate epiphany to initiate meaningful changes to occur within one’s psyche and life. We approach enlightenment in bite size chunks, following the order of one’s planetary transits, and the doses of light being emitted at any given point of time by those celestial bodies to guide the individual incrementally into deeper states of consciousness, peace, clarity, bliss, understanding, compassion, etc.

Why is self-inquiry important?

I’m not certain if it’s important, but I will say it’s been so incredibly relevant to me, so incredibly fascinating, healing, so meaningful, so enlightening, so deep.

I highly recommend it.

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