The Queen, the King and Commonwealth, Part Two – an Epiphany

White Campion 

This post is linked with my previous post with its theme of sacred vessels: “The Queen and King, Part One – a Kabbalist’s Impression”. This second part is more esoteric – in places it ranges freely and poetically. The writing follows various voices in a whimsical synchrony like music. It carries my sacred vessels and my deep source of inspiration.

In Part One’s story I was rolled like a marble to stand near Westminster Hall where people queued to pay their respects to the Queen.  I was just across the road; I spontaneously sang Meher Baba songs to her.  Meher Baba (February 1894-January 1969) is my beloved Teacher of the Light.  Into his Embrace is gathered my devotion to King Charles III and his family and my desire to help support and protect them.

Today I am working on this sketch of the young Meher Baba in a rickshaw

… and here is the King and his son William.

Family portraiture like this picks up an affectionate awareness of his son’s presence through boyhood into maturity;  the evolution of their shared responsibilities; the love in the relationship, the familiar scent and sounds to each other, the ups and downs.   In William’s features is a captivating flavour of his mother and the Spencer lineage.  Last night (most unusually) I dreamed I met and embraced the King … hence this new portrait-study. I feel his mother the Queen (whom he greatly misses) keeps an eye on him.   I see her face in his.  I see both his parents.

Part One (see link at the beginning of this post), featured five youtube videos detailing the King’s extraordinary work in the Middle East when he was Prince of Wales, on a restoration project which unified the “Star, the Cross and Crescent” (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). With Keith Critchlow, the architect Minwer A-Heid and the King of Jordan, Charles helped to resurrect a forgotten sacred craft and its livelihood.

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In Part Two I want to reflect on what Lord Heseltine said about the Commonwealth – the jewel in the Queen’s crown – and to let the alchemist play …

Queen Elizabeth II’s passing and her funeral brought together a vast global array of companions of the Light.  Our Guardians and preceptors, one and all, were present within every dimension and strata of humanity.  They were tangible in the uplifting and relaxed atmosphere around Westminster and they flanked the cortege; they brought persons from every walk of life together in friendship; a common wealth.

Let us not forget our private moments of meaning in the gathering!
Here I shall write about mine – within the diversity.
A few years ago, I was taken to … I discovered Meher Baba.  Like a panther his Love awaited my life’s ripe moment – then he sprang.

Here he is playing marbles – he was an expert

Among his Mandali (close ones)  his attendant Eruch said, “People ask what did you gain all those years with Baba?  They should have asked us, what did we LOSE?”

Eruch Jessawala and Meher Baba – These drawings of Meher Baba are Copyright Sufism Reoriented

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Jotted down during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral:

“The Abbey waits to receive this gentle Christian soul.  It doth their crowns bestow and doth their ashes keep.”

“Of course it will be forever different.  It may be as good, it may be in some ways better, but it will be different.”

And all the way from ‘Frisco – “I watched the WHOLE THING – it’s magical –  pure Harry Potter!”

Myrtle among the flowers on the coffin gathered by King Charles from all his mother’s gardens.

Lord Heseltine remarked on the crimes of our Imperial heritage which make us sombre, and its evolution into a Commonwealth of nations which makes us glad;  they are free to remain under the Crown or to find their own way.  Regarding history as a whole, over time the abuses may transmute to a potential for forgiveness, honesty and understanding.

“Where else in the whole wide world could this event take place?” 

There are mutterings – “Who pays for it? Who asked for it?  Who maintains the pageantry? We are starving!  We cannot pay the bills!”

“The Commonwealth, in the King’s heritage and in his long years of international activity, could be a greater force for good in the world than it has been so far.”

“The Queen’s example sets a precedent for spiritual integrity.”

My mind’s inertia is yet LOVED unconditionally. There is a wider garden to grow into.

The Queen crosses over to the higher plane where she is active behind the veil.  Her job continues in her son the King and in all who love her values. 

Her droplet in the waters is not just Britain but the WORLD.  The ripple moves in and out concentrically. 

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On the same bit of paper some scribbles from an epiphany of voices I heard on youtube –

Do what you like with God the Absolute but beware what you do with saints!  Realise the fragrance of Who we are and share the fragrance of that attainment with others.

He’ll make the clay into a nice ball and put it in the oven.  When you come out you are durable.  He’ll give you a push and then withdraw – then he will see how you respond with his impetus and he will go with the way you express yourself.   If you give your way to the Beloved, he can make it His way for you.

The aspirant’s real task is to pierce through his own layers of self-imposed sufficiency and insensitivity so that s/he may expose a layer of vital awareness to the world about them which would touch them if it could.

Join singers from Ukraine, Russia, the USA, Spain and other nations in this prayer for peace!

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AN INVOCATION

The other day, I read Rick Chapman’s book “You and I” (White Horse publishing), and it brought me a revelation:

You unconsciously
feel my Avatarhood
within you;
I consciously
feel in you what each
of you feels.

“And yes,” (Rick emailed) “we are and must resign ourselves to being ‘very much in the veil’  in our lives with Meher Baba.
“The one thing that was consistent throughout the lives of His most intimate lovers and disciples was that, however varied their experiences in the world and their experiences spiritually, Baba did not lift the veil on them in their lives with Him, not perceptibly.
“Each and every one was ‘chop wood, carry water’ in his or her grounding in gross Consciousness, regardless of how close one might be to Enlightenment or Liberation.
“That is the way the Avatar works, and it is unique among spiritual masters.
“Although He may vouchsafe some experience or other to this one or that, He keeps everyone ‘under the veil’ so as to keep the ego in check.
“If you want sightseeing, you go elsewhere; if you want the experience of your True Self as God, you go to the Avatar.”

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Chop wood, draw water.

Just as I am – heavy sanskaric mind and all – at least I am no tourist.   This is the Earth the Being enjoys and holds me to.   I wondered to this day why with my inner tuition and the gift of access, I cannot meditate/drop out or have blissful cosmic experiences.  I did KNOW – FELT – that what I have and love and am, is complete and real – the rose with its thorns and leaves;  an unfurnished room washed by the Light of the sea.  

What I am and you are is utterly satisfying, including my egoic look-at-me fixtures and fittings and the mirror, including my vanity and my fear of being rejected or disapproved of.  I am here in earth living this whole fascinating egoic landscape.  It is not my Beloved’s pleasure to move the blinds a little for me to drop out into samadhi.   It is my Beloved’s pleasure to play with me around the rocks and through all weathers.

He says with twinkling eye, “Ripe fruit in My hand, this is a generative process – I hold its harvest.”

I am a little gem, a gooseberry, a marble, a prasad he lightly tosses with perfect aim.   Like His Mandali, his close ones and Lovers, I am happy to serve without the veil being lifted; I am His garment.  Love is the Transfiguration I behold on the Mountain with Yeshua.

Like a periodic landslip shifting a little further each time, I trust him more.   Before this day there were rights and wrongs I clutched to myself and suffered with.

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“Am I a Saint? Why you must be the Avatar! Nothing encloses you.” Copyright Sufism Reoriented

The Wind came up and lifts away Aphrodite’s hair.

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REGARDING THE COMMONWEALTH – A DISTILLATION

Visita Interiore Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem  … Enter the inner Earth, put right/equilibrate what you find here, and bring forth the hidden precious Stone

(From the ‘Emerald Table’, Wisdom of Hermes Trismegistos)

This is echoed in Meher Baba’s words: “To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing in the world of forms, Truth, Love and Beauty – this is the sole game which has any intrinsic and absolute worth.  All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.”

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More than ever, when wading in sludge, carry the lamp and sweep out the closets of the heart.  Let it SHINE.   LIFT THE LEVEL; be of good cheer.

Some ideas emerge in me organically – relating to Britain’s empire heritage.  With its expansion, we  polluted the conquered lands, destroyed their culture and ancestral lineages and sold the people into slavery.  We extracted from them the wealth and left them hungry.

Over the last century with the precision of Karmic laws and two World wars  Britain’s global territory shrank.

Eruch Jessawala said (earlier in this post), “People ask what (enlightenment)  did we gain, all those years with Baba.  They should have asked us, what did we LOSE?”

What do we need to lose in order to restore equilibrium?

What is or was or will be the “Work on what was spoiled“?
This phrase arose unsought, it is the title of hexagram 18 in the I Ching.

“What has been spoiled through man’s fault can be made good again through man’s work.”  Here is “Dream Arc 18 ” from my work with the Gene Keys animal-kingdom archetypes. The Shadow is the flea, the Gift is the tiger, the Siddhi or Way of Freedom is the hoopoe. That phrase “work on what has been spoiled”  happened to drop into place at this time of writing – the period for the 18th hexagram is 27 September-2 October.  The Zodiac sign is Libra and I happen to be exploring the theme of balance – a classic nudge from the real Artist who works through me

The above link to Dream Arc 18 “happened to” contain an appreciation of my Kabbalah teacher Warren Kenton (Zev ben Shimon Halevi) written on the anniversary of his passing – open it and scroll down.   For more information about his work visit http://www.kabbalahsociety.org

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Work on what has been spoiled – Isn’t this King Charles’s life long dedication – to return  minerals, trace elements and nutrients to the soil?  Not many are aware that he is an expert hedge layer, farmer and gardener.  His country home at Highgrove nurtures strong organic seed – as befitted a Prince of the realm – whose generations will move beyond his property and invigorate the land.

During his mother’s long reign some of the exploited nations became a “common wealth” – a reclamation in process, dear to her heart.  Ultimately its aim is to restore their individual heritages, conserving a productive web of international friendships.   This was her inner and outer work. It is now the Sovereign’s promise that these nations may retain or discard their constitutional connection without losing the cordial relationship.

The real function of the modern monarchy as I see it, is a “tapestry through time”.  That doesn’t much interest the headline-makers who thrive on gossip and divisions.  In its quiet persistence, its problems and many interwoven interests I see a path of real cooperation and hope.

It is not “plain sailing” because it is in the urgent interest of many countries in the world today to redefine their boundaries.  That movement may account for a number of painful “brexit’s”.  Coming from someplace deeper than the daily politics which act and react as its instrument, the process is more like a global weather pattern – literally a climate change.  There are floods, there are cracks and shrinkage, there is new growth.

For consideration:
“Common wealth” is an interesting expression, suggesting a restoration.  Assets which separated the haves from have-nots are just beginning to be regarded as values in common. Internet technology stirs us into a homogenous uniformity without boundaries.  This may prompt an instinctive struggle for individual forms of expression.   The paradoxical tension is suffered acutely – played out through noble humanitarian efforts, madness, abuse, creative visions, and repressive regimes.  For many of us it racks our bodies physically – if we cannot contain the paradox we are tugged in all directions.

What is the inner meaning of a commonwealth?  Perhaps the wellbeing of the people – to bring them back to their roots and honour the earth where we live. When Empire suppressed indigenous peoples and did not work for the common good, it removed them from their land and root which was their mother. The world is disturbed – travelling away from and seeking home.

What do we distil in life, and how is it different in principle from what we “extract”?

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THE PROBLEM WITH EXTRACTING

Distillation is a kind of flowering: wait and see.
To extract something suggests that we do not put it back   Contemporary culture is based largely upon extraction, on separating from the whole and mixing the pieces in a way which adulterates and actually weakens the essence.  In the health industry the ingredients separated from plant or chemical compound are artificially reinforced as medicine – a visual market of boxes and pills.   That leaves a lot of waste and want.

In the Elder Medicine the whole plant was known and used; yes, extracts from it were taken and boiled or “reduced”.  What was taken out was respected and given back – as with crop rotation.  Ancestral recognition of the plant’s whole energy field was and is the key.

native american tobacco plant

There is an analogy with the use of medicine plants for recreational or addictive drug use.  When one part of a plant is amplified against the whole it is corrupted and becomes toxic. To me this suggests an imbalance in nature, an unbalanced culture. If we select pieces of indigenous culture out of their matrix to get “high” on or (for the over-sensitive) to numb and blot out the world’s ferocity, isn’t that the voyeur’s way?  Recreational drugs extracted from wisdom plants, are an encumbrance, an imbalance, and delay the return to the Heart of All.

Alternatively the wisdom plant has an emanation with which to sit quiet and hear the universe. We might be near it or see it a thousand miles distant, for it is in the etheric field.  There is no requirement to imbibe, smoke or ingest it; no need for “experiences”, no search for sensation.  To be lovingly present in Nature’s seamless silent dialogue was and is the way of indigenous elders and of the gardener; it is not that of the “spiritual” pedlars or merchants.

Tobacco was a sacramental indigenous plant and non-addictive – the removal of its heart or essence, adding noxious chemicals for stimulus, is abuse … which creates addiction.

Addiction happens where a “hole” in the wholeness is made – the way back home is constantly removed! –  entangling the emotional, psychological and spiritual realms.  This may apply to any substance which is “twisted” or exploited for consumer use. What to do?  We face and must find some way to manage this enormous problem in the nutritional field.

It starts here at home with attitudes.

“If we are abused, then you can’t receive our gift to you. 
If we are abused, you won’t benefit from us. 
And if we are abused, it won’t do you any good. 
Speak to us with your heart, and all will be well.” 

I was touched by this message from David Rainbow, in an online discussion about the destructive use of marijuana – the plant spoke to him.  It said it shouldn’t be smoked, cut with stimulants, or forced into being a drug (which is abuse).  The Medicine is a wisdom for us to quiet our mind and listen to. We are: I am the body of the plant.   It came to me that I might simply visualise and honour the plant in its purity – the true conversation with it.

The message is “stop misusing and misconstruing us”.
And stop misusing and abusing ourselves!

To extract is to exploit.  To extract is to remove, condense or exaggerate a desirable feature for marketing or sensation – like a news item divorced from its context;  like gossip; like opiate extracted from a plant;  like fossil fuels from earth so they pollute;  like annexing a country. Religious bigotry is extracted from revelation.

To extract is to limit, to claim for oneself and even to rob.

It is equally so in the selective view of life, my judgements, desires, fears, and conditionings.  My acquisitive attitudes and choices can contribute to an unhealthy economy.

What a lot the little plant has to tell us!

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FARMER CHARLES

I offer here my appreciation of a human being, a Kingly pioneer in the search for our indigenous Celtic heritage and wisdom.  Here he is at work hedge-laying –

“Sir, In the face of mockery, abuse and heavy resistance you developed an ’empire’ of organic farming and education … and in due course the people ate out of your hand. The Duchy estates with their high quality free-range produce became today an immensely successful business enterprise.   The profits helped to underwrite your other initiatives in the “common wealth”. The Duchy is now in the hands of your son William.  

“Let us gather together, let us join together, let us form a vessel to catch the dew of Heaven.”

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AS ABOVE SO BELOW

Distillation (associated with Virgo) is the sixth of 12 Zodiac signatures of alchemy.

To distil is to raise the level of our concern; to reach and allow inspirational resources of love within us which by their nature are more than a match for the world’s ferocity.

It is within each individual’s capacity to “be still and distil;  be of the whole.”  And then to act.

For myself to distil is to hang out all day with an insight or an unfolding creational process – like this one with the Queen and King and Commonwealth –  until the Wine delivers its bouquet.

The old alchemists used to say, “Carry the elixir but don’t let it fall on the ground, don’t confine it to the verbal world of linear ideas and chitchat, else it will raise up cities and delusions against you.”

Lower mind tends to subtract from the whole; forming opinions, re-engraving old fossils, and being possessive – the cult of competition.

To distil is to receive the dew, be still – the essence to shine without seizing it.  Like a rare malt whisky it emanates … and then in our nature, one thing opens into another the gift of abundance: the seed of a common wealth.  Such is the distillation and its potential.  It brings insight of what needs to be done practically.  It is contagious. The light of interior jewels rises in a pearly perfume through earth’s crust.

I am bowled over with the open depth of what I am shown

… and for us to be Lovers, not try to be saints.
Open your heart.

Beloved One
who are in and of my being,
hallowed be your Name.

Thou art that on earth
as it is in heaven.

Give me this day my daily bread
and forgive my errors as I forgive
those of others

And lead me not to trespass
but deliver me from bondage

For Yours is Malkuth the Earth,
Beauty, Root, Truth, Purity
in the Tree of Life
amen.

Click this Link to “THE QUEEN AND KING PART ONE”

Here is a much earlier post https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/tales-from-the-watershed-enoch-and-the-well/ – the vision of Sovereignty in a dream I had in 1975.  It companions this post!

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My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom. See also Aquariel and Gene Keys Diary.

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2022. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

Ganapati Muni’s Science of Mantra – Part Four

In this concluding post of the series, Ganapati Muni’s commentary elucidates the forms of Skanda and Indra which bear the mantra’s sound-wave, Sabda Brahman, seeing them realised in his spiritual brother and mentor, Ramana Maharshi of Arunachala.  See also the three preceding posts, and search “Puranas” on this blog for a racy account of the Skanda mythology.

Note: the god Skanda is also known as Kumara, Murugan (or Subrahmanya) and Krtikkai.

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Third Chapter:  The Vedic Mantra of Guha
by Ganapati Muni

We have commented upon the two Tantric Mantras of the master Ramana. Yet his Mantras are found even in the Veda. Amongst them, here is a clear cut Mantra of Bhagavan:

“Vrsa jajana vrsanam ranaya
tamu cinnari naryam sasuva.
Prayah senanir adha nrbhyo astinah
satva gavesanah sa dhrsruh.”

• The seer is Vasishtha. The Deity is Indra and the metre is Trishtubh.
• vrsa is “Rudra who is of the form of Sabda Brahman”. He is vrsa because “he pours down (varsati) the special knowledge”;
  vrsanam “the God who showers down flames ranavya for battle”.
  To wage war brings forth the meaning – vrsa jajana – (Rudra)

• Tamu –  the way God, u, is indeclinable (without inflexions) – suggests the loftiness of the Name with which it is closely associated

• nari cit is the divine Force: cit is indeclinable, used to denote the indescribable.
  If nari is derived from nara, men, then the word nari (feminine) means the Kundalini sakti hidden in man. (*)

• sasuva – “is produced”. In what way ? Naryam – “born amongst men” – are the leaders, or perfected beings.

FOOTNOTE -
* Nari is feminine (nari-kundalini)

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THIS IS THE TRANSLATION IN ESSENCE:

“Kundalini sakti in the body of perfected man produces for ‘battle’
Indra’s form within the fire of astra from Sabda Brahman.”

God, taking birth, “becomes the commander – senanih – of the armies of the Gods”.
The third and fourth lines of the verse conclude:

• adha nrbhvo asti – “and a helper to their leaders”
• inah (means) svami – “the Master”,  
• satva “is the possessor of sat, of Truth”
• gavesanah “seeking out”
• sa “the acclaimed God”
• dhrsruh, “assailer of all foes.”

Arunachala, inner path

To read here that Indra is being referred to and not Subrahmanya (Skanda), presents no problem. The ‘ordinary’ name for the fire of astra is Indra, and Kumara (Skanda) is the special name.

In what way ordinary? or special?   For instance, the common name for the sun is Light, but his special or personal name is Surya.

Indra denotes broadly, all ideas of multi-faceted strength.(18)

According to a thing’s true nature, each facet of it has separate specific or ‘special’ names.   In the Veda and the Brahmana it is well-known that Indra is the god of strength. The fire of astra is a powerful and mighty concept, for which, combined with supreme Lordship,  Indra’s name (as the ‘ordinary’) is appropriate. The commanding fire of astra is described specifically as Kumara.   There exists another reason beyond all this, which we shall submit later.

FOOTNOTE:
18 Indra denotes the strong lord, as in Mahendra, Kavindra, 
Munindra, etc.

Sacred India Tarot – Indra and Garuda

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WHERE ‘ITIHASA’ IS APPROPRIATE

When the world was afflicted by powerful Asuras, the Gods begged and prayed to Brahma the Creative power for relief.   Brahma replied the young Kumara (Skanda) born of Rudra from Gauri would destroy the Asuras. Later Kama the god of lust was sent by the Gods to incline ascetic Rudra towards the idea of progeny. Kama was burnt up (by one look from Rudra’s third eye). Thereupon, the young Gauri did tapas. Attracted to the severity of her tapas (spiritual effort) Rudra married her. Uniting with her, he ejected his seed upwards. The seed took shelter successively in the fire, in the water and in the stalk of sara grass, and finally became the young one, Kumara.

Parvati(Gauri) and Siva with Bull Nandi and their children Ganapati and Skanda. Ganapati’s vehicle is the rat, and Skanda’s is the peacock.

In other words:   All human means were futile to conquer the Asura race (of demons) who devastated the world by the strength of their maya.   Here we should take the Asura race as a specific, or special human type; in the world of men the Kingdom of Asuras became perpetual.  (A problem cannot be solved with itself; the higher octave has to be called in.) The Gods gave astra, wisdom (*) to the seers, in order to destroy the Asuras. With the destruction of the Asuras, the Kingdom of the devotees of God became once more established on earth.

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This story is related by Itihasa in a covert manner. When the jiva does tapas, firstly kama, desire, is burnt by the glory of tapas.   We should not forget the fact, that the state of  tapas is  poised in the effulgence of Sabda Brahman.   Though desire is burnt up in its gross form, it prevails in the seed form, and impels the Kundalini sakti, called Gauri (or Parvati), to perform tapas.   About Kundalini being called Gauri, it is said in the Upanishad: “pita bhasatyanupama.” (19)     Gauri’s form of Kundalini is fairly wellknown in the Tantra. By her tapas, the Sabda Brahman manifests.

The whole purport is that the form of the Supreme Vak (pronunciation, divine speech) becomes capable of experiencing.   When Kundalini herself, reunited with Sabda Brahman, performs tapas, the sound vibration (energy) manifests.   It impels the energised sound in the sky, and becomes the astra.

The seed of Sabda Brahman is cultured in the fire of muladhara (root) and the nectar of the head (sahasrara) – these are said to be its consecutive sojourns in Agni and in Ganga. (20)

The manifestation in the stalk of sara grass has been described in the Second Chapter.

We have to take the Asuras as belonging to all times, not as born in a particular period.   Itihasa’s aim is to propound an all time truth.

FOOTNOTES: 
* - or Awareness

19 - Gauri, lit. "of golden yellow colour." The Narayana 
Upanishad says "Yellow, like an atom, she shines."

20 - In the subtle body, the centre at the base of the spine 
is muladhara and the centre at the top of the head is 
sahasrara. Muladhara is the seat of Fire, while sahasrara 
is the seat of the moon wherefrom the nectar flows.
 
As Ganga is the celestial river, she symbolises the nectar 
in sahasrara while Agni is the element in muladhara. The seed 
of the Sabda Brahman passes from muladhara to sahasrara, and 
has its sojourn in both centres before it manifests. 

This is the meaning of the Puranic story that Skanda is 
born from Agni as well as from the Ganga.

Gauri – Parvati – being pestered by sages

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WHO IS THE ASURA TARAKA?

Well, is it not to destroyTaraka that Skanda is born? Is Taraka a historical personage?

No. Yet, Tarakasura represents a truth. Taraka is death, one who (as the ferryman) takes across –   tarati – all men. (20A)   In both ways, Guha (in heart’s cave) conquers Death. By granting Self knowledge, he conquers death, the lack of awareness which causes samsara.   By the strength of the astra, he conquers death, the desire of his foes.   It is said in the Puranas that the Tripura Asuras are sons of this same Taraka.   The Tripura Asuras are none other than the three bonds. (21) Their father is lack of awareness.   That is, we fall from the Self into the body – into the idea (of being separate), of considering it as the self.

FOOTNOTE:
20A See also tara, goddess of time

21 The Three Bonds are the three pasas from which release is 
sought from Varuna by the Vedic Rishi. In the later Tantra, 
these take the form of the three granthi knots in the subtle 
body: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Asura Lord (Demonic)

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COMMANDER OF ARMIES

How do the words commander of armies in the Mantra signify ‘commander of armies of the gods?’   Indra, the King of Gods, becomes in this context their commander. This is made clear in another Mantra:

“Indra asem neta brha spatir      Let Indra be the leader. Let Brhaspati
dakshina yajnah pura etu somah           go in front, Dakshina, the sacrifice, and Soma
Devasenanam abhibhanjatinam     Let the Maruts march in the forefront
jayantinam maruto yatvagram.”    of the army of the Gods that demolish and conquer

Rig Veda X.103.8

This Mantra is mentioned in the chapter on astra. Also, the word ina in the Mantra became later on in the common parlance the word svami, (22) Master.

“Vavrajasim anadatir adabdha     He moved all round the seven mighty ones
divo yahvir avasana anagnah     of Heaven; undevouring, inviolate.
Sana yatra yuvatayah, sa yonir        neither were they clothed, nor were they naked;
Ekam garbham dadhire sapta vanih.”   here, young and eternal in one native land
the seven Voices held in their womb the one Child

Rig Veda III.1.6. (Sri Aurobindo’s translation)

Sapta vanih are the Seven metres* in Sanskrit poetry.   The birth of Agni as this Mantra is nothing other than the fire of astra.   This is revealed in the hymn of Agni in the sense of burning: but not with the idea of physical fire.

FOOTNOTES:
22 - Svami is one of the principle names of Skanda.

* - The seven metres represent also seven stars in the 
Pleiades constellation, the 'natural mothers' of the child 
Skanda.

Gauri Siva's bride was the daughter of the Himalaya. She is
also known as Parvati in the Puranic cycle. The river
Ganga, lit by the seven stars and the moon,"poured down"/
descended through Siva's matted dreadlocks in their love-play.
As stated earlier, neither the fire (Agni) nor the water 
(Ganga) could receive his seed. It finally came to rest
in the stalk of the mantric sara grass. From the mythology
we gain some idea of the elemental power of mantra. 
See previous post - Part Three.

Skanda as Muruganar and Krttikai (pleiades

Another version of this tale is Siva's seduction of the 
wives of seven Rishis (seers) in the forest. Entering 
the heart of the fire (Agni) to which the women came to 
warm themselves,Siva impregnated them through their hair 
follicles, causing chaos in the ashram. The seed could
not be held by them, or by fire or by water, until it 
came to rest in the grass; then Gauri's breasts filled,
and the world rejoiced, unknowing as yet where the 
divine child with six heads lay.



Ganapati Muni saw in his spiritual brother Ramana 
Maharshi, the effulgence of Skanda the warrior of light who
delivered us from Taraka. Ramana taught Self-enquiry which 
dismantles the mind and quests consciousness:  the "I ... I".
(J.A.)

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Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi

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COMMENTARY CONTINUED: ENQUIRY INTO THE PERSONALITY

Now we must say a word about the individualised Personality of the maya (23) form of Brahman with attributes, which is known as Subrahmanya.

We say that Indra alone is Guha’s form pertaining to the Gods. This is because Agni, the energy of sound-vibration is in the middle region; and Indra is the Lord of the middle region. This is proven in the Aranyaka when, referring to Indra, it closes with the words, Subrahmanyam, Subramanyam.

Indra’s Vedic fame as the War God, lends additional support.

What is Siva’s form among the Gods? It is Indra only. If it is said, that as father and son they are one and the same, this is correct. The only difference to note, is regarding the hidden Sabda Brahman and the manifest sound vibration. The relationship of father and son is mentioned to specify Siva and Subrahmanya (Skanda).

What is Ganapati’s form among the Gods? It is Indra only. If it is said, that as brothers Ganapati and Subrahmanya are one and the same, this is correct. The only difference to note, is that regarding the perfected mantra within, and the astra Agni impelled by it. The fraternal relationship demonstrates that first the mantra is born from Sabda Brahman; then the astra Agni.     Through the concept of Ganapati, we explain Brihaspati and Brahmanaspati. (24)

What is lightning’s form pertaining to the Gods?   It is Indra only.   Here he has a unique quality. Indra is named as the deity of Lightning.

There are other great conceptual facets in the middle region, with Indra as their deity. They are not mentioned here, as we would have to go into a lot of detail.

FOOTNOTES:
23 Maya - form - the form that we measure out of the 
immeasurable

24 Ganapati, Brihaspati and Brahmanaspati - all three names 
denote the same Godhead in the Veda of the famous Rik 
"Gananam tva ganapatim lawamake ..." 

Brishaspati - Lord of the letters; Brahmanaspati - Lord of 
the Mantras. Brahma means both letter and mantra in the veda. 
Ganapati Lord of tantra, and these two names, denote the 
same Godhead.

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Doorstep chalk pattern at dawn in Tiruvannamalai

 

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THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE DIFFERENT DESCENTS

By means of whichever portion of energy the Lord Indra descends into awareness, the descent bears that specific or personal Name.  

Indra’s descent as a portion of the lightning bears his own name. His descent as a portion of Sabda Brahman is named Rudra. His descent as the force of Tantra is known by the name Ganapati, and his descent as a portion of sound vibration is called Skanda. Ganapati and Subrahmanya (Skanda) are brothers, and they are interdependent.

We have briefly interpreted the three great Mantras of the Master. We shall develop the conceptual truth of Skanda in our Devata mimamsa. (25)

FOOTNOTES
25 - Another of Vasishtha Ganapati Muni's works, where he 
unravels the significances of the Deities

Thus Ends the Third Chapter.

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Thus ends the Commentary on the Mantras of the Master,
a work of Ganapati Vasishtha, son of Narasimha
and disciple of Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi

The Closing Verse

“Munina srimukhe simhe dive suryendusangame
Suryoparagasamaye bhasyam etadudiritam.”

“In the month Sravana of the year Srimukha
on a new Moon day, at the time of Solar eclipse,
this Commentary was given out by the Muni.”

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APPENDIX TO THE COMMENTARY

1).   Subrahmanya is the one who is born of the auspicious Brahman, that is, Sabda Brahman.

2).   By this we have explained the name Brahma garbha (from the womb of Brahma)

Vide Amara: “Subrahmanya brahma-garbha svami saravanodbhavah”.

3).   Kumara, eternal child. He is born, finishes the work and again vanishes. Again manifests at the time of work. Therefore, he is called the eternal child. In the Veda, in the Hymn to Indra, is mentioned ‘arbhako na kumarakah‘26 . Also, ‘sadyo jajnano nirinati saturn’.27

4).   By this we have explained the name sanat kumara – sanat always; kumara, young one.

5).   Sanatsujatah also in the same way. sanat, always; sujatah, well born.

6).   Sanandana samanah equal nandanah, son (giver of happiness) to Rudra along with Ganapati.

7).   Sanakeh, eternal.

Thus these four names denote one and the same person. Perhaps because of their different manifestations, it appears they were mentioned as four (28) .

26 The youth like a little child

27 Born at once, he demolishes the foes.

28 The four disciples of Shiva as Dakshinamurti: Sanaka, 
Sanandana, Sanatkumara and Sanatsujata. Etymologically they 
have the same meaning and denote one and the same principle.
(See also Sanatanadharma)

Here the Commentary and Appendix by the Muni ends.

We express our grateful thanks to Sri K.Natesan of Ramanasramam for making this rare manuscript available to us, and for his help with the text.   Ganapati Muni’s Commentary on the Mantra of the Master, was recently published by Ramanasramam, along with the first translation into English of Kapali Sastri’s sanskrit Commentary on the Ramana Gita.   Material from this has been utilised for the present work.

For the benefit of English readers, the language and presentation of the Guru Mantra Bhashya text have been slightly adjusted, and translations of Vedic Mantras, that were provided as footnotes, are now incorporated in the text, for easier reference..

J.A. Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK 2002

Arunachala village children

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**

My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2014. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

 

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The Solstice of Each Day

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summer-solstice-northern-hemisphere http://www.space.com
photo by Tariq Malek

This morning a cloud has cleared, and I feel the peace and quiet and drawing-in of the solstice, and the opening from the longest night, and sense of Yuletide:  primitive and in my own (re)treat.

Yesterday I found this drawing I attempted and discarded about 18 months ago, after I “caught sight in my mind” of a childhood Queen, looking out to sea.  It is more expressive than I thought.  The vision happened, just before I discovered and recognised the “original” in my old drawing books from when I was seven.  I shall write more of this, in my next post.

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I bought a book the other day, The Radiant Child.  It is by Thomas Armstrong, and was published in 1985 by Quest.  It offers a psychological insight into the hidden face of childhood.  I suppose that since it was written, the constraints around child psychology have loosened, and admit far more, the “descent of the Spirit” which is transpersonal – it seeks out the receptive personal nature for it.   In many young children the faculty is not encouraged or developed enough, but for some it is – and who knows what psychologists know about children anyway? or think they know?   Much of our linear education obliterates it.  The proof of the pudding is inside the child’s world …  inside mine, for reference.

Jacobs Ladder, showing the Four Worlds

I feel I can contribute, having been enabled to keep a record of my early years.  It is a useful angle on spiritual evolution, and is the reason I upload my childhood working process here.

The Radiant Child gives a good layman’s introduction to the esoteric perspective, and speaks significantly of the Four Worlds common to all traditions and cultures.  Everything it proposes is in my recorded experience and development.

The Transpersonal Spirit encircles childhood – the little bud – and enters it sometimes like a sperm.   The Transpersonal Spirit is timeless.   It seems plain, from my mother’s letters at the time, that it came to me in infancy:  and the pressure of the artist from five onwards, tells the rest.  Whether or not I knew the Self, I don’t know;  but some deltas from the human genius as a whole, engaged with my atoms for sure:  the passion, the commitment, the concentration.   Some of my early non-verbal childhood sensations suggest its movement, or its withdrawal.  (See my earlier posts on Childhood, parts 1, 2, 3.)

In adult years, I grasped with intellectual ease, the fourth dimension, and whence all spiritual traditions derive, and aim towards.  This theme pervades my life of time and space and enclosures, and is not any of them.  A friend of mine knows and says that all comes forth from and returns to Allah in the Great Sphere.

In a world whose children are crushed and maimed with war, neglect and abuse, I feel it is essential to keep the lamp which values childhood alight, wherever we can.  For this special awareness, mostly unknown to us as we become lettered and fettered with belief, is unbound – boundless, and – like our sexuality – the secret core and contagion of our human sense of being.

From my early years, my windows were made to stay porous : osmosis two ways.   Yet I am not “sensitized” in the way many contemporary kundalini awakenings are.   I suppose I am at ease with the condition, because the artist’s way, the poet’s way was and is its conduit through myself.

The passion and the commitment entered my Liverpool sketchbooks in its own way, at 19/20 years old, and abandoned Liverpool when it had absorbed and recorded enough there.

My archive keeping honours the Spirit.   I don’t attend a ceremony for solstice:  yet every single morning of the year I do a ceremony;  I light candles, invoke the Kabbalist Tree of Life, open my laptop, and I write.   Thus we greet the Solstice of each day, and awaken the Christ Child;  the eternal child of Christmas.   He was not historically born at xmas, but the seed of the Light is where the night is long and dark, ever since we struck spark from stones and lit our fires in caves near the river.   The virgin – she who is ripe – carries him in her womb.

The embryo gender before it begins to differentiate, is feminine … the mater, la mer, the sea.  Full humanas continues to be carried in the womb, closely furled.

Visible humanity today is a process incomplete, with a long way to go.   There are cyclic golden ages past, and yet to come;  the same within us individually, as collectively.  Awakening into humanas is potential everywhere, and in places visible as Consciousness;  it is possible that our dark, separative tantrum-toddler forces pollute and extinguish the presentation of it, on our beautiful Earth.   Consciousness however, prevails unaltered.   Higher human consciousness and compassion is none other than cosmic Consciousness …  through galactic dark matter which is thought.  It is berthed and earthed wherever there is gravity, in innumerable forms.   I have a sense here, through a glass darkly, of the Reality of the upper astral plane we essentially co-create, and the mental plane:  illumined landscapes and the temples of Eternity.

Towards this fact, certain pretty ideas of new age channelers about Earth’s ascension – about the good people rising up and all the nasty people dropping away – they almost reach the mark, but are groping and too literal.  So what’s new?   In most regions, the available human intelligence is somewhat fundamentalist and limited.

But come home here to hear your intimate thought and feeling process.  What ascends into the bright sky in this moment?  What obscurity drops away?   What is letting go and letting god?  What resists, and goes on replaying the movie?   It starts at home.   Solstice!

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So now, on to Jung … for I begin now, to journey with his Red Book, a little at a time.

Jung started by visualizing himself digging a hole.  But he had already studied trance, automatic writing and Loyola’s and Swedenborg’s spiritual exercises, and he corresponded with Silberer who experimented with allowing images to appear.   Self-experimenters were active in that period before the War broke out.   A colleague called Straudenmaier coined a phrase Unterbewusstsein – Under-consciousness …  the same word as my “Underbeing!”

Deliberately evoke a fantasy in a waking state, then enter into it as into a drama.  Jung wrote down his mythological journeys in the black books – “the book of my most difficult experiment” (December 1913 – 100 years ago.)  Jung “emptied his conscious mind” so as to allow psychic contents to appear spontaneously.

In a way I do the same.  My writing empties mind of what is floating around or concerning me;  then the Underbeing comes up – the deep advisor, or poet.   Each morning when I write, there are at least a few moments of tumbling back into silence and the slow deep river:  the well.   I feel it in my back.

When Jung was up against the wall which was Freud, something in him said “it is not so”.  After two years of active imagination/symbolic thinking, so many ideas rushed in on him that … he appealed to his hands, and began to carve wood.   Philemon first appeared in a dream, in 1913 or early 1914.   Jung painted him from this kingfisher coloured dream: the sky appeared through mud – he found a dead kingfisher in his garden, very rare.  Philemon was at first Elijah, then he became an Egypto-Hellenic Gnostic pagan.  “He represented superior insight.”  In April 1914, Jung resigned from his academic posts.

The wall is there to drive one back into Reality.   Jung would converse with Philemon his guru, in the garden.   It is like the dream conversation I had with Jung in a garden.  Philemon had four keys.  In my dream there were four drawings, images I had made, arranged in a square, like a window.  I showed him them. One of them was the sketch of Jung at Bollingen which he “asked me for a copy of”, and which I drew shortly afterward.  I did not recall the others.

The Godcosm … these things, and where they beckon … is deeply reflective.

I would like to be more investigative.  Work objectively with my One who represents superior insight.   WORK WITH YOU.

During his early investigations (conducted in the evenings), Jung partitioned his activities.  His family, his profession and his military service, kept him earthed in the human Assiyah.

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Jung in his study

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(This is continued through the posts which follow, and also in Aquariel – Mandala, Abraxas and the Angel)

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**

My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2013. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

Sketches of Ranjit Maharaj

Hi Steve,
Following your special request, here are my other sketches of Ranjit Maharaj.  The portrait was commissioned by a devotee quite a while ago, but – oh dear! – all my attempts were unsuccessful as far as he was concerned.

I went to sit with Maharaj in Mumbai one January day in 1999, while Ramesh Balsekar was having his afternoon snooze.

GALLERY – sketches of Ranjit Maharaj

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Ranjit Maharaj began to teach at 70 years old, after his co-disciple Nisargadatta Maharaj – (Ramesh Balsekar’s guru) – passed away.  Ranjit and Nisargadatta had inherited the spiritual lineage of their guru Siddharameshwar Maharaj, in the early 20th century.

Nisargadatta – a quick-tempered cigarette bidi vendor in Mumbai’s red light district – held vehement ‘socratic’ dialogues in his room.   Ranjit was a bar tender and accountant, with an old fashioned elegance of manner.  On their retirement, both taught a pure Advaita or non-dual philosophy: “I am That” … “You are already That” … but Ranjit’s way was more traditional.  Their teaching attracted many westerners.

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15 January 1999 – Rob Durkee and Ranjit’s other disciples found their Shepherd.  I like seeing their Shepherd, his mother-Goddess gentle nobility.  When he started talking I couldn’t understand a word, and was hot and uncomfortable in his crowded room.  But I am moved at the depth and intensity of the shepherding these lambs receive.   Gently reared in the USA and tossed into Girgaum Village curry-pot in the noisy heart of Mumbai, they are homed and centred and advised how to live in dedication and service.  The devotees live and travel together – the very opposite of “adrift”.

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I remember Girgaum a little – an Indian village in the middle of the city, an oasis, a coterie sufficient to itself;  a labyrinth of colourful old buildings, fretted balconies, and flying kites.

Ranjit lived in Room 45, Narayan Building on Dubash Road – a crumbling tenement in the congested locality.  We climbed to his landing. Mildewed windows framed a sudden rooftop vista, occupied by rasping old crows and wheezing sparrows.  Each floor was a busy village street – the childrens’ shouts, the washing hanging out across the landings, the births, the dramas and the deaths.  In the midst of this teeming life, the devotees waited quietly at a door, to kiss the feet of their guru inside.  I see the shining cookpots in his room;  and garlanded pictures of his guru on the sweating walls.

16 January 1999 – Thoughts:  split second, deep sleep, eyelids flicker as I dream mountains and rivers thousands of millenia old:  babies are born – it goes on for ever.  The view of God is already here.  It keeps still with God, and is dynamic for the dreamer.  That is why you are not God, because you would be bored!

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While attempting to resolve this drawing of Ramesh, a thought arose – because a peaceful expression appeared – something beautiful, even if the likeness is not quite right – “Do not take the sage/Guru for granted.” 

I realised suddenly how this life style takes in visits to supreme Teachers and Gurus as a matter of course – that were so longed for – and now complains about having to travel and the disagreeableness of Indian city life!   But – it says – “Take care of this accessibility to the Sage.“

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Nisargadatta Maharaj

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**

My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link – posts on Master R

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

The Mythology behind Ramana’s Thirty Verses

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The material for my next Sacred India Tarot Archive post  contains a reflection on Ramana Maharshi’s Thirty Verses.  I feel it should be given on its own, then followed by the Knight and Queen of Lotuses in the Tarot archive, as originally planned.

The Sanskrit title for the 30 Verses was “Upadesa Saram“.  This means “The Quintessence of Instruction.”  It draws near to the ineffable.  At the same time, it raises the bar in a practical way, for tackling any situation where we have wined and dined out and become a little noisy.    Meditation is Life:  our body and breath are Earth’s gravity.

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Ramana with Arunachala’s children, including his nephews Sundaram, Mani and Ganesan

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The Mythology Context of Ramana’s “Thirty Verses”
first published in the Ramana Foundation UK Journal “SELF ENQUIRY” April 2001

MY EARLIER SITA post, (9 and 10 of Lotuses) includes “The Birth of Skanda” – a colourful Puranic account of Siva and Parvati’s yogic courtship and marriage, leading to the birth of their son Skanda,  who, it was fortold,  alone had the power to destroy the demon of the reactive mind, Taraka asura.  

It will be recalled that Agni, the god of sacred Fire and sacrificial offerings, had been tricked into swallowing Siva’s semen, which burned intolerably within him.   He was advised by Siva to go to a certain pine forest on the banks of the river Magha, where dwelt seven ascetic Rishis and their wives:  the wives would receive the fiery seed,  relieving Agni to return to his natural flame state,  and enable the saviour to be born.

This story, like a crystal, is retold from numerous different facets.   In one of these, it is Siva Himself who visits the unsuspecting ladies, and who, chastising their husbands for their sterile ascetic practices,  gives them the teaching on the laws of Karma which, in our day, we find in Ramana’s Thirty Verses on the Quintessence of Instruction (Upadesa Saram).    The poet Muruganar, when writing this legend in Tamil verse, on coming to the instruction given by Siva to the Rishis, asked Ramana – as Siva incarnate –  to write it for him,   Here first is the setting, and then the Thirty Verses :

CERTAIN ASCETICS in the Pine Forest had obtained great powers by their prayers and sacrifices.  In order to conserve these, their hearts had to be permanently pure, as well as the hearts of their wives.   Siva heard about the beauty of the womenfolk, and resolved to seduce them.   Taking the form of a beautiful young beggar, he invited Vishnu to dress up as a voluptuous woman and accompany him on this prank.    Vishnu went first, to arouse the ascetics.  He excited all of them out of their minds.   They abandoned their sacrifices and ran after the siren as moths fly about the light they see in the night.

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Meanwhile Siva made his appearance among the resinous pine trees, half naked, dishevelled, with begging bowl.   The women abandoned their housework and ran after him, half undressed, begging him to remain there with them.   Siva slipped away into the shadows, and they followed him.

The Rishis began to notice that their rituals became less effective, and their powers were no longer what they had been.   They conferred among themselves.  They suspected the handsome beggar who disordered their wives, was none other than Siva,  and that she who seduced themselves was Vishnu in disguise.    They were enraged.   They conjured up an elephant and a tiger by magic rites, and sent them against Siva.   Siva slew the creatures easily, and took the elephant’s skin for a robe and the tiger’s for a wrap.   They tried likewise in vain, a disembodied head, a giant, a brace of writhing serpents, and fire.   Finally they sent all the waning power of their prayers and tapas against him.   These forces came forth like a mass of fire, beat against Siva’s genitals, and detached them from his body.   Siva, full of indignation, made to burn up the entire earth with his genitals, but Vishnu took shape as the female organs, receiving those of Siva,  and prevented general conflagration.

Moved by the prayers of the Rishis – for Siva is never indifferent to His devotees – he consented to hold his fire, and to give them “The Quintessence of Instruction”.

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In the closed Hindu universe, described as an egg, nothing is ever lost.  Things are transferred, reborn or transmuted.   The law of karma – literally, “action” – is based on this world-view.  The sum of one’s past actions is embodied in the force of karma, which is considered a discrete, transferable quantity.   One Upanishad describes a mystic view of the sexual act, and then concludes,  “The man who practices intercourse in awareness of this view, takes to himself the good karma of the woman.   He who does it ignorantly, loses his good karma to her.”

Briefly, a host of nuances concerning the fertility of the inner life and creativity, the generative power of thoughts, and the sterility of those who cling to the letter alone, are touched on here.   In the Pine Forest, Siva had excited the women and infuriated their husbands, but he didn’t actually do anything.   He was chaste, and made others believe him to be a lecher, a false ascetic in reverse.   He served as a mirror.   He chastised the Rishis for their dishonesty and barren self-seeking rituals;  he awakened their real nature to them.

Researched from Wendy O’Flaherty’s book Siva the Erotic Ascetic

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                  THE THIRTY VERSES by Ramana Maharshi

ACTION yields fruit,  for so the Lord ordains it.
How can action be the Lord?   It is insentient.

The fruit of action passes.   But the act leaves behind the seed of further acts 
leading to an endless ocean of reaction :   not to liberation.

A disinterested act, surrendered to the Lord 
purifies the mind and points to liberation.

This is certain:  worship, praise and meditation, 
being work of body, speech and mind,  are steps for orderly ascent.

Ether,  fire,  air,  water,  earth,  Sun,  Moon  and living beings –
worship of these, regarded all  as forms of life,  is perfect worship of the Lord.

Better than hymns of praise is repetition of the Name ;  better quiet than loud; 
but best of all is silent meditation – reflective in the mind.

Better than spells of meditation is one continuous current 
steady as a stream or downward flow of oil.

Better than viewing Him as Other – indeed the noblest attitude of all – 
is to hold Him as the ‘I’ within – the very ‘I’.

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Abidance in pure being,  transcending thought through love intense 
is the very essence of supreme devotion.

Absorbtion in the heart of being,  whence we sprang, 
is the path of action,  of devotedness,  union,  and of knowledge.

Restraint of breath controls the mind like a bird caught in the net. 
This gentle regulation helps absorbtion in the heart.

Mind and breath (as thought and action) like two branches forking out 
both spring from a single root.

Absorbtion is of two kinds:  submergence and destruction. 
Mind submerged again arises:  mind dead revives no more.

With even breath,  and thought restrained, 
the mind turned one-way inward,  fades and dies.

Mind extinct,  the mighty Seer to his natural being returns 
and has no action to perform.

Wisdom turns away the mind from outer things 
to behold its own effulgent form.

When unceasingly it scans itself,  there’s nothing there. 
For everyone this direct path is open.

Thoughts alone make up the mind,  and of all thoughts,  the ‘I’ is root. 
What we call ‘mind’ is but the notion ‘I’.

When we turn within and search whence this thought of ‘I’ arises, 
the shamed ‘I’ vanishes —  and wisdom’s quest begins.

Where this ‘I’ notion faded,  now as I,  as I,  arises here 
the One,  the very Self,  the infinite.

Of the notion ‘I’,  the permanency is That.  For even in deep sleep 
where we have no sense of ‘I’,  we do not cease to be.

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Five faces of Arunachala Siva … the “i – i ?”

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Body,  sense,  mind,  breath,  sleep – all insentient and unreal – 
cannot be I,   I, who am the Real !

For knowing That which is,  there is no other knower. 
Hence being is awareness;  and we are all awareness.

In the nature of their being,  creature, and creator are in substance One.
They differ only in adjuncts and awareness.

To free oneself of attributes is to see the Lord, 
for He shines ever as the pure Self.

To know the Self is to be the Self,  for it is non dual.
Knowing thus,  one abides as That.

That is true knowledge which transcends both knowledge and ignorance,
for in pure knowingness,  is no object known,

Our nature known,  we abide as being with no beginning and no end
in unbroken consciousness and peace.

Abiding in peace beyond bondage and release 
is steadfastness in service of the Lord.

All ego gone,  in peace as That alone 
is penance good for growth,  sings Ramana
“who sports in the Self”.

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A NOTE BY ARTHUR OSBORNE:  “The Tamil poet Muruganar wanted to write 100 verses on this theme, but he could not readily proceed beyond 70 verses.  It then occurred to him that Ramana was the proper person to write the verses relating to Siva’s instruction.  He therefore begged Ramana to compose them, and Ramana accordingly composed 30 Tamil verses.  They were subsequently translated by Ramana into Telugu and into Malayalam.  He himself later translated them into Sanskrit;  the Sanskrit version known as Upadesa Saram (the Essence of Instruction) was daily chanted before him, together with the Vedas, and continues to be chanted as a scripture before his shrine.  He grades the various paths to Liberation in order of efficiency and excellence, showing that the best is Self-enquiry.”

Arthur Osborne, founder-editor of Ramanasramam journal The Mountain Path

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The relationship of Siva, Lord of the Dance, and seed of fire, with Agni,  god of the sacramental fire itself,  is explored with great subtlety in various streams of the mythological delta.   In some of these stories, Agni becomes the servant, object or representation of Siva’s will.   The fire both creates and destroys.   Arunachala is primordially a “Hill of Fire”,  and the Temple there,  among those dedicated to the elements in Southern India Saivism,  represents fire.   The Deepam Festival of Lights in the winter season is the biggest of the regional festivals.   The flame is rekindled at the summit and at the root of Arunachala, amid general celebratory pilgrimage.   Siva’s ancient Vedic form was as Rudra, the Wild Hunter,  the fiery Archer, who interrupted the coitus of the Father Creator with the Dawn  (He Emerges from the Poem of Ancient Power).

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Agni – Skanda

The interplay of these currents across the sleep of spacetime awakens paradoxical archetypes of awareness.   They resonate like rhythmic chants of a kind, or music.   The opposites tasting one another, in mutual annihilation give birth.   Ramana, a child of these traditions, points to the fiery heart within us:  our warmth and love of being.

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This was my first attempt, yesterday when tired. Next morning I found his left eye was wrong, so I moved it a bit. I drew him often in the past, but I now find it very difficult to approach his likeness.

A sketch … when staying there itself. The perfectly proportioned, primordial Mountain of fire.

Note how the sanskrit “Agni” and the Ram vehicle, resonate the French word agneau – the Lamb or young ram; and the wealth of Biblical symbolism for the archetype. In this SITA card, I was requested to portray the publisher of the deck, Gautam Sachdeva, and the author, Rohit Arya

Alan Jacobs in his spiritual home. He wears a sivalingum badge on his beret

Ramana’s teaching often spoke of the cinema screen and the events we believe and get lost in – which are projected onto its surface and upon each other. The Seer is the scene: the light itself illumines and is the Real life.

… and finally this, which I began by turning the photo upside down, for the “helpful” distortion which sometimes occurs surprisingly to life – this didn’t happen today. A long whittling towards an approximation! The photo is rather shadowy. I found it on Alan Jacobs’ facebook advaita-vedanta group. Ramana’s facial expressions flowed like water over the absolute stillness of a mountain. At the same time, he cooked, bound books and helped Annamalai the ashram builder with the brick laying.

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

A Stanza from Aurobindo’s “Savitri”

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Vesica Pisces, with the four elements, and a stanza from Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem “Savitri”

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While looking around the house for a picture frame, I came across this “illumination” of a fragment of Aurobindo’s great epic poem.   I made it more than 20 years ago, and it was now much faded, so I inked it in again.  You may need to zoom in to read the script – the drawing together of Savitri the Sun and her lover Satyavan, as soul mates.

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In his words:

“The tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; ….

Still this is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life.”

From Aurobindo’s Introduction to the poem

Here is a link to download “Savitri” in full:  [PDF] Savitri – Sri Aurobindo Ashram.  

Be warned – it is the longest poem ever written in the English language!  A good way is to savour a little at a time.  It can be used as an oracle, read slowly – a random page, a few lines or stanzas for reflection.  Sri Aurobindo also wrote some fine sonnets.

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And here is a beautiful depiction of Rati and Kama – (see the Sacred India Tarot Archive, suit of Lotuses series) – for which I thank:    http://lunesoleil23.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/sur-les-pas-de-karma-et-kama/

Kama the god of desire, and his wife Rati

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I will draw this, very soon …  perhaps for the Knight of Lotuses.

This week is janeadamsart‘s first birthday!  I celebrate it with some pictures of Saint-Germain – The Mystery of Master R – over on Aquariel.  A big warm thank you to friends and readers and fellow Word pressers!   Thank you so much, for reading, and for contributing.  You are inspirational.

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

aquariel link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012-2013. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

Stump the Guru – Santa Robert Xmas

This is part 1 of a sort of big Xmas card.  Part 2 is in my other blog, Aquariel.

I visited the late Robert Adams (21 January 1928 – 5 March 1997) in Arizona in 1996.  You can find the story of that journey (also in two parts) in this blog, last June.

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Robert found it very hard to speak, because he had Parkinsons.  But he was irrepressible.  Here are some of his words:

“What I teach is utter nonsense – gobbledy gook.  It has no meaning, except to my Self.  I have no teaching.  It is simply my confession.  It is useless for most people, because I’m not giving a direction.  I’m not telling you to meditate twelve hours a day, or to stand on your head, or to watch your mantras.  There’s no instruction.  There’s just my personal confession … the way I feel.

“Now, it does some people good, these invisible instructions.  By just being here:  by opening your heart, something happens.  So don’t listen with your head, do not try to analyse or judge, or come to any conclusions.  As I always say – ‘do not believe a word I say.’  Why should you?  Who am I?  I’m nobody!  nobody important.  Listen to your own heart.  I’m a sort of mirror.  What you see in me is yourself … I can truthfully say that i am ultimate oneness, absolute reality, emptiness – unborn – nirvana.  I am that I am.

“When many people read spiritual books on Advaita vedanta, or on jnana marga, they immediately try to act out the part, and they memorise many of these quotations and sayings.  They become useless!  You have to go through spiritual disciplines to get to the place where you wake up.  In my own experience, I probably did these disciplines in a previous existence; for when I was very young, I felt these things.  I had no idea what it was, until I read the books.  So the reading of books confirmed my experience, and then I went to see Ramana Maharshi – but I had already felt this. 

“There is a difference.  I have to be very careful what I say, because this path sometimes gives people license to become arrogant, obnoxious  It’s just the opposite.  If you have jnana, knowledge, you show loving kindness, compassion, joy – and you express yourself as that.

“… You look for a reason … a solution – a cause?  But there is no reason, cause or effect.  There IS emptiness.  Emptiness is the Self, and I AM that.  Now, when I speak of I AM, I’m not referring to Robert.  I am referring to omnipresence.   I AM is that;  therefore when I utter ‘I AM’, I am speaking for all of us, for there is only One – and we are all ultimate Oneness.  There is no distinction. 

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“They say that there is a Central sun.  All of the galaxies in the Universe revolve around the Central sun;  one revolution takes 24,000 years.  The closer the galaxy gets to the Central sun, the more evolved a planet becomes;  and the further away from the sun, the greater the dark ages on that planet. 

“But where did the Central sun come from?  Who gave it birth?  Since the beginning of time, there have been individuals who pondered this question.  Where did creation come from?  Out of what did it evolve?  Great rishis in India, great seers in Japan, in Egypt, thousands of years ago, sat beneath trees pondering these questions.  If God created everything, where did God come from?  Who created the God? … 

“So these olden day rishis and seers pondered. And something very interesting happened.  As they pondered externally the cause of creation, all of a sudden they found themselves becoming introverted.  They began to look within themselves.  They began to realise – I AM.  And inadvertently they pose the question, “who am I? Who am I?”  without knowing what they were doing.  They didn’t even voice it verbally.  They just felt it – who am I?  And as they did this sincerely, religiously, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, something happened.  And it came to them – I am That.

“They were amazed.  Remember, these great thinkers from the past did not know each other; they did this independently, and in Egypt, Africa, India, Japan they all came up with the same answer, I AM THAT.   In other words, there is no external world.  There is no thing but mind.  And because there is mind, there is a Universe.  Therefore I am the creator of the Universe:  because the mind exists, everything exists.  They came a long way, for they realised that everything was an emanation of the mind.  They didn’t stop there.  They pondered, ‘what is mind?  If my mind is the cause of creation, where did it come from?’

“… They enquired, ‘then who am I?  Who am I?’ and they abided in themselves … They were not in a state of samadhi, because they were awake.  During their awakened state, they became no thing.  There was no mind;  no Universe, no God, no body.  There are no others.  And they realised this is the Self – not my self, but the Self;  and they were absorbed in the silence.  From that moment on, the world still appeared to them, but they were able to see right through it.

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“Now, these ancient rishis were unable to share this with devotees or disciples, because it’s a personal experience.  Since it’s beyond words, beyond mind and beyond thoughts, how can one actually share this?  Therefore, these ancient rishis became silence.  They never spoke.  Yet such power emanated through them, that if the right devotees came to them and just sat with them, doing nothing, saying nothing, wanting nothing, desiring nothing, they too achieved that state.  It was amazing.  This was passed down through the ages.  It was commonly called Advaita Vedanta, or Jnana (the path of wisdom) – and it is still the supreme truth. 

“Now, let’s talk about you.  As long as you want to become enlightened, you’re making a grave mistake;  for there is no one to become enlightened.   As long as you want to end your problems and change your problems from bad to good, you’re making a grave mistake, because there are no problems.  As long as you think there’s something wrong or there’s something right, or right overcomes wrong, and we have to try to correct the condition or situation, you’re making a grave mistake.  You see, whatever has to happen, HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

“There’s nothing you have to do;  yet your body will do it …  Do not be concerned over your affairs, for right actions will always take place.  By right actions, I mean the Dharma – that which is supposed to happen.  Some of you will still feed the homeless, will still have your jobs, will still do what you’re doing.  But it will not be ‘you’.  Unlike yogic achievement, when you know this for yourself, you cannot prove or show anybody anything. 

“Time for questions – stump the Guru.  Why do you want to become free … ?”

 

Merry Xmas!

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.

Aquariel Link

All art and creative writing in this blog is copyright © Janeadamsart 2012. May not be used for commercial purposes. May be used and shared for non-commercial means with credit to Jane Adams and a link to the web address https://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

The Miasms, Karma & Homeopathic Healing

The Fool in the flower

In my view, homeopathy is a philosophy, inseparable from a working knowledge of Karma:  the Law of cyclic action and return.   This Law works through the seasons, the centuries and our daily selves.

To understand homeopathy, we need to think outside the box of tick tock time and into Kairos, depth.  The homeopathic principle is a mandala, All-Present.

In the “sixth sense” of his healing ministry, Jesus struck at the root of the miasms in his day.  Homeopathic practitioners recognize these as conditions we inherit and build up by subconscious resonance.  The law of action and rebound prevails through generations and through incarnations, and often baffles modern medics.  A symptom may reflect in a polar-opposite way, a hidden previous life in the collective memory, which cannot be accounted for in the present one.  Equally, an unexplained self-healing may occur from that source;  or even from a green fig’s future ripeness.

“The Principles and Art of Cure by Homeopathy” by Herbert A Roberts, lists at least six principle miasms in our society:

psora – desire to live. Conditions such as psoriasis, overheated blood, adrenal rush and imbalance. This includes the opposite: inertia, depression, fatigue.

syphilitic – self destruct, around love, and destroying the capacity to love oneself. Addiction, boils, eruptions, eczema, bone degeneration.

psychosis/gonorrheal – split between head and heart, or I-ness and Am-ness: loggerheads, manias, mood swings.

tubercular – mother cow, milk, respiratory problems. Sacred cows and superstition.  The relationship to our own mothers, the maternal principle and earth.

carcinoma – Alienation from the natural environment, and from parts of ourselves. Vulnerable to ancestral and system imbalances and their bankruptcy. In allopathic cancer treatment, one virus is set to combat the other virus: a mere exchange of hostilities.

immune deficiency – AIDS, ME.  The planet ecology is compromised, which afflicts ourselves. Alienation from the natural order weakens the strain, and so does “genetic engineering” in the plant and animal kingdom.

Deliverance:   JHShVH – “Jah Liberates”

When a schizophrenic splits apart, the aura opens for another energy to enter it.

When Jesus was at work in Galilee, the schizophrenia miasm was all over the place; but he as the Son of Man was more so. When he said “offer the other cheek” he taught a spiritual judo or martial art –  let the miasm cast itself out by destabilizing it, as you – the personal ego – step aside.  The power of the Logos “throws” an opponent over your shoulder through space and into perdition.  The Name vibrated enough authority for his disciples to do the same.   Extreme psychoses of the schizophrenia miasm – possessions, walk-ins, dibbuks and hysterias –  were rampant in those times, as in ours – our fascination with sociopathic horror and the supernatural. Down the centuries, the Church as it gained power and wealth, did all it could to burn out and suppress them; the same dibbuks re-surface to this day, in more materialistic forms.  Repression and cruelty fed them.

The homeopathic principle abides. We cannot “medicate” an invading force in any way reliably. But with the greater power which is Consciousness, we can turn to face its nature as it afflicts ourselves.  It is like turning to face the wind.  In the same manner, Jesus allowed the dibbuk to blow straight through him and out.  The confrontation – in any difficult and painful detail of life – is aware.  It changes the particles.  The healer stands near, to hear.  When we are by ourselves, and need inner strength, it is like standingunder the waterfall.

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It is my observation – as I am not a practitioner – that the broad homeopathic principle runs through other forms of healing – Tao, ayurveda, acupuncture, dream-work, black box telepathy, counselling, ad infinitum.

Homeopathic healing comes under Solomon’s six petalled lily.  “Similia similibus curantur” – by establishing an astral contact between the sufferer and the remedy, homeopathy treats a symptom with a dose of “what it is like“;  for as above so below, the ascending and descending triangles reflect each other.

Our life’s molecular chemistry forms binaries and compounds – the notion of separateness. Atomic particles on the other hand, are “of the One”. They develop individual character when they clump by number into molecules. On the extended Tree of Life in Kabbalah practice, the atoms are Beriah (Creation) and the molecules are Yetzirah, entering forms. 

For more information on the Four Worlds of Jacobs Ladder, see Halevi, Kabbalahsociety.

Homeopathy dilutes a poison until it is more “atomic” than “molecular”.  From subatomic Oneness, the same poison becomes a remedy, whose pure potency drives out its own symptom in the physical world.  Homeopathy addresses “the invisibles`’ and treats beyond the surface … the Face before we were born.

As in all forms of healing – including allopathic – the process is two-way.  It works through a bond of trust between practitioner and patient, established subconsciously, and calling on the cosmic Will-to-good.  All healers pick up the voltage of the Father or the Mother – a higher “divine” frequency.  Jesus’s ministry amplified and earthed it:   “Not I but my Father speaks through me.  Go in peace, your faith has healed you.”

These words when I stop with them, are extraordinarily beautiful.  They ring out here and now, as they did 2,000 years ago.  A healer/therapist worth her salt, learns to discard the delusion that he or she is the doer.

polarity staff

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The miasms are living installations in our general landscape.  Holistic and conventional medicine each have strengths and limitations.  They work best together by mutual referral, according to the case.  Naturopathy and holistic medicine cannot perform surgery or cure a toothache, but it goes to the root, and can take a long time.  Allopathic medicine and psychotherapy can successfully alleviate symptoms and establish a more hygienic life style, but do not reach the underlying causes for un-named grief and fear in the human race.

This drawing is titled “Baruch & Balthamos” after the angels in “His Dark Materials”, but is a copy from Botticelli’s painting of Christ being taken down from the Cross.

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We each hold humanity’s entire history in our DNA, and may be susceptible to one or more of these collective conditions.  The miasm underlies a host of symptoms and states – physical and psychological – of fatigue, unease and deprivation.

The contemporary AIDS miasm is immune deficiency.   Not only ourselves individually, but the planet as a whole suffers a current decline of the immune shield.  The holes that open in our “firewall” emphasize an increased vulnerability to anxieties and cancers of all kinds, and to illnesses relating to addiction.  Cancers seem to thrive on a “voltage overload” between our subtle and  physical sheaths – an input/output imbalance. Where neural transmission is poorly regulated through the energy field, an over-compensation or excess may build up:  a culture for toxic dictatorship, as in the political sphere.  It is no different from the economy and the banks.  In the biosphere, our interaction with environment is under affliction;  a collective anxiety and lack of strength.  Each nation as a body suffers its own disability to regulate the  economy concertedly.

At the same time, the condition is generational, part of an evolutionary curve.  As seed to the ground, and chrysalis to butterfly, It is inevitable that for new growth to occur, older systems and their worldview break down.  The new cannot be predicated from within the old ways of thinking.  The homeopathic quantum is minute, being of the other dimension.  As Consciousness, the tiniest portion is equal to the sum of the mass.

Madre de dios ’03

Reflecting on:  “What am I here to heal, in myself?   What have I taken on?”   throws light on afflictions, emotional and physical, which otherwise make no sense, and helps to clear them.   The miasms – the Karmas coming forth, collectively or individually – have one agenda:  to become conscious, and find release.   All the demons in the Yoga Vasishta ultimately become Divine.  As Ramana Maharshi used to say:  “It is its nature to come up.”  So long as a condition or dis-ease remains unconscious, its pressure will recycle through the generations.

Karma means “action” – and action upon reaction.  Each one of us has the capacity to act – to become more conscious and to hear ourselves, as we would a troubled friend.  It is helpful to identify “where it hurts” close to home.  Otherwise, we are magnetized to events “out there” which we have no power to alter, which deplete us; and avoid relationship.

“Avoiding relationship?” is a question Baba Free John used to ask himself, and it is a good one.

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The following extracts are from my essay – “What is Karma?”.  Broad principles pictured, can alter the mindset of a problem:  the idea of gaining altitude.   Our subconscious is stubborn against the wordy faith, but responds to images.

 

 Child mother ’03

What is Karma?  Why do we have acute pains of life?

The literal translation of Karma is “action”.  Karma, the law of cause and effect, seeks equilibrium.  We observe it throughout nature, in the weathers and elements, as well as experientially.  To gain some insight, we need altitude.  From inside the corner grocer shop, or The Vic in East Enders, I cannot see the city.  As I rise higher, the street plan, the river, the Dome and a host of interconnected neighbourhoods come into perspective.  Perceiving my life’s thread within that overview, I receive and hear likewise a brother or sister’s enigma, even a nation.  Compassion encompasses our myrad lifetimes.  It does not react from, attach to, or try to “fix it” until it has received sufficient information.

This takes time, as a fruit will ripen in due season.  It takes time and space to truly love ourselves.  To love another, gives space to allow them to be who they are.  To love unconditionally is to receive his or her humanity fully – but with clarity, not as a doormat.  “Keep practicing”.  “Let go, let God.”  Let the wheel turn unobstructedly.

Karma is the eco-system of the human psyche.  It interlaces our soul Laws and social structure, like the web of root systems and nitrates throughout the biosphere.  Collective racial Karmas have a distinct character, like a rock, a vineyard, or a wood of tall beech stems and connecting fibres.  Tribal, ancestral and creative Karmas arise, settle, change and decay:  as do Karmas of the workplace, of families working out patterns of abuse, and of towns.  From an airplane we see the pattern of fields and cities move slowly past, and apprehend the actual stress of landing into life.

Mother & Child 1985

Karma is a force seeking consciousness.  It has an urgency to transform – it is blind and tries to see.  It repeats until a tendency is recognized, regenerated and freed.  That means not acting from it, but  “taking responsibility” for the way it feels – especially in our given relationships.  The force of Karma moves through human rivers as the current, eroding the banks and creating whirlpools, rapids and still waters.  The Tree of Life is just one of various working tools to reclaim the unconscious swamp, and heal the root miasms.  It is for us, a universal challenge to inherit human awareness – “I am receiving the full dose of being abandoned or rejected or hurt, which I gave” – and to grow up:  to forgive, and be forgiven.

Though we do not reincarnate as the same individual, the soul Law propels the recycling of a memory into renewed forms of expression.

The Theosophists’ theory of the human root races is based on the same general principle.  A new “root race” is established in the decaying of the old.  We can observe the evolutionary process anywhere in nature.   The tree each spring puts out the same leaf, but different ones.

Yeshua ben Miriam

Collective and personal Karmas are a multidimensional web of cross-currents.  Karma is an unbounded watery surface moved by the wind;  the warp and weft from every direction.  Some actions generate lifetimes of harmony;  other wave-trains recreate havoc.  The chaos seems eternal – thus the punitive old doctrines of Hell – but is temporal, a matter of voluntary adjustment from within.  The key to Karma is transformation;  for no act of cruelty can stand, if understood.

The woman mourning ’03

As we are pulled through aeons of fire, rock and ice, the divine atoms of our human birth awaken in the plane of Middle-Earth.  Our evolution is in the marrow of our bones, and easily eludes analysis.  There is a word for our entirety:  ruach – the Divine breath, breathing us, en sof, without end.

From Manishya – on Being Human (2010) by J.Adams and P.Taylor

The Sun through water and fire:  Photos of fish and volcanic landscape from pinknpurplelizard.com, article.wn.com & pocketburgers.com

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Ibn Gabirol of Malaga – 11th century Kabbalist sage and poet

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books) – along with many other creations in house.  

I write, illustrate, design and print my books.   Watch this space.

More Sketches of Ramana & Advaitins

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From the mountain which is a humanity, rivers flow, sculpting ridges, valleys and relationships.  The young Ramana scampered all over the mountain like a goat.  As he grew old, he became its teacher.

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Mani and Sundaram greet visitors at Ramanasramam

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Sunyata, (Emanuel Sorensen) a Danish sadhu, with his Tibetan dog Sri Cho Chu Wuj.  He wrote:

“In this life play I have not been in quest of Guru, God, Truth, Grace, Salvation, nirvana, or power lust.  I had no ambition to be different from what I am.

“Blessedly, I had escaped headucation, and was free of any imposed knowledge. I had no property.

“I did not marry. I did not belong to any cliques or creed. I was not attracted to their magnetism.

“I felt all is within our Self.  I had nothing to assert or resent.  Nor had I anything to boast about or regret.

I was fully contented.
I had joy in that which is.”

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Catherine Ingram on her first teaching visit to London.  Poonjaji of Lucknow liberated her strong Buddhist practice to “dialogue the dharma” around the world, watching storms in the clear sky.   We don’t run from the pain and breaking heart of life.   We witness and keep quiet with it, hearing it speak, seeking the true, as it begins to flow and the cloud dissolves.   “Let our words” said she, like a Taoist – “be well placed stones.”

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Isaac Shapiro, another of Poonjaji’s earlier Western messengers:  Satsang, company of the wise and merry in the Self.

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Papaji:  Peace

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Harilal Poonja

This is how I imagine him as a young man.  I didn’t meet Papaji, but knew some of his messengers.   The three volumes of “Nothing Ever Happened” which he dictated to David Godman, narrate his long and adventurous life as a yogi, siddha and modern master.  In his travels he helped countless people to become aware of ‘the impersonal reality that underlies the world and all phenomenal experiences”.  Often he was a “mystery man”, appearing on the mountain, on a train or in the jungle.  Young westerners adored him, and he as a bhakta couldn’t help falling in love with their Self.  His diaries explore the guru disciple relationship.

Ramana with Poonjaji and a devotee

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It is amazing how much the Advaita people like to talk.

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Mouni Sadhu from the western occult tradition, visits Ramana “In Days of Great Peace”.

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Spreading the good news – V.Ganesan, founder-editor (with Arthur Osborne) of Ramanasramam Journal The Mountain Path

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This is Ranjit Maharaj of Mumbai;  he and Nisargadatta Maharaj (Ramesh’s teacher) were initiates from another old Advaita lineage, which flowed fruitfully alongside Ramana and the Hill.  I have many drawings of Ranjit, because once I was commissioned by some of his devotees in America, to do a portrait of him … and none of my efforts to draw their beloved guru were successful in their eyes.

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Ramesh Talks

Sketches from life of Ramesh Balekar – these appeared in an earlier post, I think;  certainly the one on the right.   But they speak well enough, here.

 Out of a pile of newsletters fell Ramesh’s devotee Wayne, the other day …

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and here are Douglas and Catherine Harding built open for each other, exchanging billets-doux of the Obvious.

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From Papaji’s “stable” – Bernardo (Satyananda) enjoying a good meal at Osho Leela in Dorset, and …

… Neelam, who gave him a name to sign his letters with.

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books) – along with many other creations in house.  

I write, illustrate, design and print my books.   Watch this space.

Dion Fortune and Paul Foster Case

A word of explanation may be helpful for readers of today’s previous post “Dove”, which mentions Brean Down.  I am a fan of Dion Fortune’s novels, (which she wrote to complement her books on Qabalah) – particularly The Sea Priestess and Moon Magic.

Tarot priestess of the Moon, with pomegranates, 2003

The Sea Priestess‘s setting is the landscape around Brean Down in north Somerset, near the Mendip hills.  Dion Fortune grew up in that region.  I also know it quite well.  In the novel, a temple to Isis is built and consecrated at the end of Brean.  The landscape is telescoped through interior astral vision, with Glastonbury Tor brought much closer to the sea – as indeed it was at one time.   From either of these eminences today, the subtle curve connecting them, can be discerned.

Dion Fortune founded the Society of the Inner Light at Glastonbury in the 1920s and 30s, parallel to Paul Foster Case’s Builders of the Adytum in the States.  Both, in their own ways, set out to regenerate and evolve the rituals and teachings of the Golden Dawn, for the new dispensation.   They made them more practical, with an informed psychology as the under-carriage.  Paul Foster Case was a gifted musician and writer on Rosicrucan and masonic themes.  He received the ground-plan for the Builders through his direct contact with a great Master of the Inner School.

Dion Fortune was a trance medium.  She and her colleagues “brought through” the maggidim (inner plane teachers) of the Society of the Inner Light.   Gareth Knight became an active member of the Society in 1953 after her death, and particularly since 1998.  His biography of her and the School gives a vivid account of this process, and of the way the esoteric community has moved with the times. Much more is accessible to us, than at the beginning of the 20th century, when the work was heavily veiled.   This is due to the global emergency:  an acceleration of the inner process.  Many souls incarnate nowadays, who are already fully trained.  The trend is to simplify, and ground the practice.

Here is my sketch of Glastonbury Tor with the mudras (hand gestures or signs) which the Inner School revealed to Dion Fortune, while she was in trance:

I use these gestures in a fluid motion, when invoking the Tree of Life.  The Tor has a spiral path to its summit, and a small stone tower. The tower is drawn as a vesica, forming a chalice, with an astral “stone circle” around it.   In the tower is a window, whose broken silhouette suggested to me a winged being.

In this sequence of drawings – done during a period when I was learning to perceive and portray the inner plane maggidim – is the following pair:  the first in 1988.  The second is the same, updated, about the Fool, the King of Swords and the Priestess.  I worked with these archetypes for a long time before I really got going on the Tarot.  The Fool is the adventurous seeker.   The King’s psychological reactions …

… defend his terrain, and the well, in which the Priestess rises to the bait.   The globe in which the Fool travels, is in perpendicular dimension to the well, for the Fool has no concern with time:  the King is the guardian of the in-between.  The house is the soul, and the libra-sign over the Cup is equilibrium.   The shorthand was based on a very early Tarot reading, which showed me my path for years to come.   In 2003, I re-drew the scene:

… the King keeps his crown, but has turned into a Rosy Cross;  the grain is sprouting.

Now here is the Great Sphinx …

… as I imagined he may have looked, before the face was shot away.

For sketches of Dion Fortune, see my 15 September post On Power and the Dragon’s Tale.

Finally, here is :

Paul Foster Case, builder of the inner Sanctuary.

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My adventure invites fellow travellers.  I am a poet, an artist and a seer.  I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is  a vehicle to promote my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books) – along with many other creations in house.  

I write, illustrate, design and print my books.   Watch this space.