Sacred India Tarot Archive – Creation of Pradyumna, King of Lotuses

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Sacred India Tarot – Vishnu, detail

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Concluding the Suit of Lotuses in the Sacred India Tarot Archive, by Jane Adams and Rohit Arya.   The Suit of Arrows (Swords) will follow in this series.

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Rohit’s Notes – Pradyumna, Son of Krishna and Rukmini

“Pradyumna was Kama reborn, after Siva withdrew his curse.  He was born to the greatest devotee of Siva, who was Krishna, as a gift after his favourite wife Rukmini, considered to be Lakshmi, had been childless for many years.  This ties in the water element very well, as Lakshmi is the wife of Vishnu, i.e. Krishna who is also Narayana ‘he who sleeps on the waters’ – and one of her names is Padma ‘the Lotus’.  Their son therefore is ideally placed to be the King.

Sacred India Tarot – Kama consumed – detail

“Pradyumna is Kama – (the deity of desire and lust) – healed, the aggression and arrogance being tempered in the next generation.  The sins of the father are literally redeemed by the son.  He should be depicted as a Krishna clone, but dressed in lotus garlands instead of the peacock feather crown.  The same blue skin and captivating smile.  A river of sorts should flow near him, as he was kidnapped at birth and cast into a river from which he was rescued by the faithful Rati.  The Water element always predominated his story.”

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Jane’s Notes

The same thought runs through the Suit of Lotuses as a whole:  the transmutation of sexual desire into a realisation, that the root feeling which creates the world, the galaxies, the stars, the Laws, human beings and all creatures, is sacred.  Every manifestation is Siva Shakti.  It is not put on an altar to worship, because we are the potential walking altars:  reverence for Life.

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Rohit’s Notes continued – from his Book with the Deck

“Pradyumna is the son of Krishna and the father of Aniruddha.  He is also Kama reborn, with all the swagger and insolence rubbed out of him.  Being incinerated by Siva seems to have that kind of effect.  He is an almost perfect, positive role model – there is hardly much that is negative about him.  That is admirable, but it makes for boring appraisals of character.  

“The King of Lotuses has to go very much to the dark, before the shadow side takes hold.  The name ‘Pradyumna’ means ‘conquers all foes’, so it gives some indication of his stature and prowess.  He suffered the fate of all great men with even greater parents – an admiring obscurity.  It does not seem to have disturbed him at all.  Kama would have been shooting arrows in all quarters in frustration at being denied the limelight. 

“Kidnapped at birth by the fearful Sambara and thrown into the ocean to die, he was rescued and brought up in the circumstances already narrated in the Queen of Lotuses.  This rough beginning was residual negative karma from his action against Siva, but once that worked out, his life was smooth sailing. 

Sacred India Tarot Krishna restores dharma – detail

“This characteristic of turbulent origins settling down into the placid longterm, is typical of the nature of the King of Lotuses.  When Krishna was off on his frequent adventures, it was Pradyumna who by sheer reputation alone, protected the kingdom.  He was also a skilful administrator, and unlike Kama, there are no salacious stories about him.  When the power of desire is harnessed to worthy and nourishing ends, somebody like Pradyumna exemplifies that noble state. 

“… Friendly and helpful, but slightly remote.  Spiritual authority, teacher, guru, mentor, guide.  Likes to work with children.  The wisdom of emotional maturity – a true psychological adult is a wonderful thing to see… They read people well. Ability to take risks because of that talent,  Of all Tarot personalities, the most in touch with the feminine side.  

“(Shadow side) – Ends up creating dissonance instead of harmony when irritated or provoked … Without being outright dishonest, is still a misleading sort of personality … Seeks power by manipulation, never overtly.  Refuses to ask for help or even admit it is required.  Insight of the card: Is your life really as good and on track as you think it is?  Are you becoming complacent, even smug?”

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Jane’s Notes continued

I come to this card with a clean slate.  No current agendas or past material arise, to stick to it;  except whatever flows over from my Krishnamurti posts.   The sage, eternally young, has the high mountains at his back:  the roots and seeds of trees are his body:  a little river flows past his feet – the soul’s irrigation channel.   The pebbles along the bank are earth-jewels.  He holds two small blue lotuses – Krishna! –  in the Indian way, at his naval and heart chakras.  Otherwise he is the Lotus personified, rather like the Ace.

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Sacred India Tarot Siva Ace of Lotuses – detail

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Perhaps we all can try this:  sit here on the spot, as the lotus flower whose root is held in the earth, and watch the river flowing by.   Every meditational method advises to watch the river … watch the content of the mind, and let it pass.   Watch the breath, and discover the CALM.  Perhaps hold the breath for a while, and then let it go (this is kumbaka):  or inhale and exhale through each nostril alternately, closing the other with a finger against it.  Every little bit helps, to slow things down and gain perspective and … the peace.

Ramana recommended to watch the normal breath without fuss, like a rider on the horse.  He also taught “diving into the heart” – inhale, hold for a few seconds, dive into the ocean for the pearl ;  then let go, exhale.  It is non-verbal, and helps to clear out shadows in the subconscious;  it drives them up into the open.   Or dive inward after the emptied outbreath.   The shining sands are revealed for a moment before the water swells and the next wave comes.   Thought and breath share the same root.

Hridayam

He whose thoughts, embodying being,
sally forth, points to the heart.
To describe, may merely image mental part,
so realise your mind’s source is ‘I’. Then seeing
that, from which thought springs – Thou Art!

“If my heart is single, stem and shoot, 
whence my Yoga, in the root?”
“The heart of all, the whole receives. Start
near the pump:  hridayam as hrit,
in-draws, exhales the Universe, by Ayam lit.

“Your Self is One, you understood!
Let your heart’s ease – to right of centre is best –
sushumna’s stream to sahasrara flood,
and bow your flower in heart to rest.”

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(A play of sanskrit words:  hridayam means Heart.  Ayam is “this I”, and Hrit is “who?” – the base of Self enquiry.  Sushumna is the nadi or nerve current which passes through the spinal column from the root chakra to the Sahasrara (crown) chakra – ‘thousand petalled lotus”.  To make a picture of these things, is good.)

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Sacred India Tarot – Pradayumna King of Lotuses

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The Grail

Awareness flows from heart to body whole,
as impressions of the world arise.
Beholding these apart from sky, the soul
enmeshed in samsara’s snare, becomes unwise.
In Cup of Cups, by petals of pure light,
a circling moth’s consumed and swiftly dies.
In Light, by power of mind and sight
are limned and lost, the differing eyes.

Samadhi state, one pointed, firm, beholds in all,
sahaja – in nirvikalpa is their absence.
The wide world on body sense does fall
like rainbow prism;  and in heart is Presence.

The universe entire and myriad formed, is mind
whose origin is heart, here now to find.

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Samsara is the repetition of births and deaths – the process of worldly life.  Samadhi is peace and joy all-knowing, in meditation.   Sahaja samadhi is unconditional, and participates in the world without altering the bliss.  Nirvikalpa samadhi is like a trance – the worldly life is absent during it, and the samadhi is limited.  These two poems are from Sonnets on the Ramana Gita, composed by Alan Jacobs and Jane Adams for their better understanding of these teachings.   The Ramana Gita was a series of sanskrit verses – the young Ramana’s early discussions, collected and written down by Ganapati Muni, the sage with “poetry in his throat”.

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A princess being crowned 1956 – after botticelli

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It is not much use following sages and gurus unless I am prepared and inspired enough to apply their teaching to the First Person I inescapably am.   “If you see the Buddha on the road – kill him!”  Why?  Because he might be a glamorous projection or ideal, distracting attention from the First Matter – the Buddha nature I am given, to work on honestly.   This said, there is tremendous inspiration and grace in the company of a Realised one, not to mention Love – the core of human evolution and gravity.   The Elder Ones all agree on the paradox – to hold an I-thought (aham-vritti) and follow upstream where it dissolves … goes together with letting go our local ‘me’, when we serve and are fully present for others or for the One.   The first is raja-yoga;  the second blends karma-yoga and bhakti-yoga.   It goes on being very difficult!

At this point, I see how the Indian Self teaching draws together with the First Matter in alchemy, and with J.Krishnamurti’s gift for hearing a problem without comment, until it becomes conscious, dissolving and resolving itself.   Attentiveness is what it requires;  and patience.   “Keep practicing.”

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Sacred India Tarot 3 Empress

Sacred India Tarot – Visnu the Magician card

Lakshmi and Vishnu, from whom came Rukmini and Krishna, the mother and father of Pradyumna.

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For other Sacred India Tarot posts, look under Recent Posts, Sacred India Tarot in the Categories, or Archive of All Posts in the title bar. Rohit Arya Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}. He has also written A Gathering of Gods. He is  a corporate trainer, a mythologist and vibrant speaker as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga.  Earlier posts about the deck, including the first 15 Major Arcana archives are in http://aryayogi.wordpress.com   The deck is copyrighted (c) 2011 to the publishers, Yogi Impressions Books pvt, and available on Amazon and internationally.

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Jane

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/

Sacred India Tarot Archive: Creation of 2, 3, 4, 5 of Lotuses/Cups – Siva & Parvati

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Blue Lotus by Bahman Farzad

These four cards cover the early stages in Siva and Parvati’s courtship.  To subdue Tarakasura – a demonic force in the Universe – the Dharma required Siva to sire a son.  As an ascetic Yogi, he had to be beguiled.   On her part, Parvati, Daughter of the Himalaya, would undergo intense spiritual practices to match him energetically.   The suit of Lotuses or Cups unifies the male and feminine natures:  the Lord recognises and honours his half who is Woman.

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Rohit’s Notes 2004 – “Two of Lotuses – Narada announces Parvati’s Destiny.  The visual reference in the comic strip is clear enough, though we could have Parvati offering two lotuses at the feet of the divine sage.  

“Upon learning that she was destined to marry Siva, Parvati in typical Indian style, falls in love with him!  This is romance Indian style, which is the message of the card. There could be a great face of Siva hanging semi transparently in the background, between the sage and the girl.”

Visual reference, for 2 of Lotuses – Parvati receives Narada’s news

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Jane’s Notes – The visual references I was given, were in a comic-strip picture book called Tales of the Mother Goddess.  The courtship of Siva and Parvati can be viewed romantically or cosmically.

“In the Hindu pantheon, Siva represents the supreme Consciousness as well as the male principle which acquires the power to create and destroy the elements only in conjunction with Shakti, the female principle.  Thus Siva’s consort is the manifestation of the supreme Consciousness, and that was why Vishnu and others were keen to see Siva married to Sati. 

“Sati was reborn as Parvati, who wooed and won Siva, never to be separated from him again.“

Tales of the Mother Goddess

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In the elder mythos, Sati did away with herself because her father did not show Siva/Rudra sufficient respect.  Siva the ascetic plunged into the waters of life for an aeon and unwittingly fathered the vegetable kingdom and the teeming seeds of life.   In time, these harboured asuric tendencies or demons.  They rose against the divine upholders of cosmic Law.  Only a son of Siva could subdue these, his earlier offspring – but he was immersed in Yoga.  The gods’ efforts to beguile him into taking a bride, make a long and racy tale.

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Here, the great sage Narada brings to Parvati the message of her destiny:  intuiting the invisible, she worships the visible, or rupa – the bearer of the tidings.

Sacred India Tarot 2 of Lotuses

Correspondence, Rohit to Gautam, 18 October 2004

“Dear Gautam, I love the first two cards.  I LOVE THEM.  They are perfect.  Such a Siva has never been seen before, and such a Narada too. Parvati looks tremendous also.  We are doing so well with this.  Jane has hit an inspired vein and I just do not want to give any sort of instructions.  The three yogis with Siva is a superlative touch, and the jaunty Ramana Maharshi brings an aspect of joy to the card that is beautiful. 

(See earlier post, SITA Ace of Lotuses for the first card – this also contains some extracts from Stella Kramrisch’s work on Rudra).

“If we continue like this, we will have the best suit of the pack, including the Pentacles.

“The little Kundalini snake activating over Parvati when it is announced that Siva is fated to be her husband, is a magnificent touch, Shakti rising, ascending to meet Siva.  Jane is to be commended for it, it is a spiritual touch that I had overlooked, but she intuitively sensed. 

“I love these cards… I am a hard core Siva fanatic, but they are still tremendous.  

“Rohit.”

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Rohit’s Notes for 3 of Lotuses – The Bliss of Service

“Parvati and her friends serving Siva.  In the Indian context, the greatest happiness comes from serving a great person, and the boost to one’s self image and self worth is incalculable, indeed incomprehensible if not actually Indian. 

“The entire comic-strip page can be used as a reference.  Offerings of lotus flowers to Siva are the obvious way to get them in, but if you feel they are better off elsewhere in the card, please feel free.“

Visual reference for 3 of Lotuses

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Sacred India Tarot – 3 of Lotuses

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Siva and his attendants.  Above the Himalaya is a core Siva Shakti Yantra.  The ascending triangle is Siva, unity.  The two descending yoni triangles are Shakti, duality, multiplicity.  The bliss of service is in following the Higher Law, and realising one’s natural state.

Correspondence – Gautam to Jane, 20 October 2004

Dear Jane – feedback as under: 

“This card is very good too.  It is a terrific card, but who is Parvati, the one with the fan or the one doing puja?  Both are equally good candidates.  

“I do not think Siva has ever been depicted with such majesty and grandeur, outside of our temple sculptures before.  Please forward this point to Jane.  Hindus do not cover their heads when praying or worshipping, except the punjabis, and that is the sikh-islamist influence.  The head is normally left bare, you actually take off whatever headgear you have.  It does not seriously affect the Three of Lotuses, but it might be worth noting for future cards.

“Rohit” 

Correspondence – Jane to Gautam and Rohit:  “Yes, glad you have this.  I think Parvati is the one doing arati, as she is still ‘veiled’ to him.  Point taken re head coverings for following cards!  Regards, J.  Hope you like 4.”

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Rohit’s Notes for 4 of Lotuses, October 2004

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Visual reference for 4 of Lotuses

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Sketch for 4 of lotuses

Jane’s Notes – Here below, is the published version of the card:  Siva was deep in meditation; Kama the god of desire aroused him at that point, to the earthly beauty of Parvati, the dark daughter of Himavat, the Mountain.  Kama depicts a state of urdhvalinga, his erect phallus indrawn yogically.

Compositionally, I had always a problem with the long narrow cards, how to compress into them the wide landscape of cause and effect.   With Siva, cause and effect, time and space, are simultaneous.

Sacred India Tarot, 4 of Lotuses – Kama’s Arrow

However, there was an earlier version! – as the correspondence shows:

From Gautam (20 October 2004) – “Dear Jane, herewith feedback from Rohit.  You seem to be on a roll!   Warm regards …”

From Rohit – “Dear Gautam and Jane, we cannot use the pic of Kama in Lotus Four as he is depicted, as the phallus points straight at Siva.  Some joker or other is bound to take offence.  Otherwise it is a fantastic card, and captures the essence of what I sought to convey.  This is great work.  But we need the phallus painted over.  The rest of the card stays unchanged.”

Original version, Sacred India Tarot 4 of Lotuses

Kama transmits to Siva by eye and by arousal, the image of lust, as he pierces Siva’s heart with the arrow.  In the published version, Kama looks at Parvati, conniving-ly.  Either way, his psychic proximity to Siva is seductive at that moment.   The god – awakened into the earthly kingdom from his blissful crest – responded as in Card 5.

The yogic linga flame in front of Lord Siva is a combination of Akasha-Tejas tattva (the Saturn and Mars chakras whose equilibrium enters the heart centre) with the triple-line mark of Siva’s devotees.   As in the elder Rudra mantras, Siva sustains the bliss for aeons, until precipitated into an involuntary creation-destruction cycle by Kama’s wiles and Parvati’s beauty.

Parvati is subliminally aware of the Lord’s sudden focus upon her.  Her accelerated awakening to womanhood goaded her to a long period of spiritual austerities, to match the nature of her beloved.

The monkeys in the tree are the chat-line of every age:  the outraged prurient press.

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What followed?  here is the romantic view of the event …

Visual reference, 5 of Lotuses

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Siva slays Andhaka, Elephanta caves

Rohit’s Notes 2004 – “The Andhaka Asura Vadha Siva sculpture in the Elephanta caves, is just perfect.  You can reproduce it ad verbatim, with merely a blaze of light coming out of the third eye and falling upon ashes of what used to be Kama, the god of love.  Parvati is shocked and devastated at what has happened.  Rati has fainted away in a corner.  It is a scene of heartbreak and desolation.  The particular sculpture captures the wrath of God better than anything else I have seen, so it is most apt, especially as it is a wrath against Andhaka – the darkness of desire which Kama was trying to awaken in Siva.”

Jane’s Notes – (Rati was Kama’s wife) … and here is the cosmic event itself:

Sacred India Tarot, 5 of Lotuses – Siva destroys Kama

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Correspondence from Rohit – “…Card number five is equally beautiful.  I was expecting a more wrathful Siva, but I think that Jane’s interpretation of a calm Siva slapping down such effrontery is terrific.  The Kama and Rati angle are marvellous, and so is the shock on Parvati’s face.  I wouldn’t change a single thing in it.

“In card number 10, Siva agrees to restore Kama, I want an ARDHANARISWARA, which we can scan from the Presence of Siva book.  In the case of the card, the reconciliation and restoration of eros to life can happen only by an integrated male and female energy – in short, the Ardhanariswara (Lord whose half is Woman).  The figure standing by the bull is perfect to use.

“I want to get this across to Jane now, because the speed at which she is hurtling along, we might have the card ready before we can talk to her.  

“I also want Jane to do a Dattatreya.  I do not know where we will use it, but it certainly has some scope in the pack, perhaps as a bonus.

“With regard, Rohit.”

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Here, in the Sacred India Tarot book with the deck, is Rohit’s resume of the four cards: 

“Narada’s proclamation is actually a diksha – spiritual initiation.  Narada is the guru here, who arouses the dormant spiritual fire personified in the serpent of the Kundalini, and fans it into a mighty blaze that will consume all karma.  For while marrying Siva may be her destiny, it does not mean Purushartha – human purpose – is not necessary or that there will be no obstacles.  All spiritual rewards come only after effort, and what is at stake here is the future of the world.  Parvati will be required to rise to heights she cannot currently comprehend.  She is the Mahashakti, great active power of the universe, to Siva’s role as All pervading Consciousness.  Of all the methods of attaining a spiritual goal, bhakti or divine Love is the swiftest.  Narada speaking with characteristic eloquence and cunning, has managed to imprint Siva in Parvati’s heart.  She will have no other husband.

“Reasoning that proximity is a prerequisite to awakening passion, the Mountain King offers to send his daughter and her friends to aid and assist Siva in his sadhana and his daily rituals of worship.  Lost in his immense meditation, Siva Chandrashekara (the Moon crested) wears the universal lunar symbol of marking time, to signify his conquest of Kaala or Time.  In this spiritual state, he inhabits a zone outside of Time and can barely distinguish between male and female – seeing only the in-dwelling soul which has no qualities.  He has no objections to such service which, for Parvati and her friends, is a wonderful experience.  Out of him flows a blessing to Parvati that she gain a husband fully worthy of her, who will never love another.  Yet Mahadeva, his consciousness turned inwards, continues to be oblivious to what is obvious to everyone else.  The gods, still exiled from their heaven, writhe in agony.

“… Kama quakes with fear.  Then he sees Parvati’s incomparable beauty, and his confidence comes flooding back.  All that lives is in thrall to Kamadeva – why should Siva be any different?  Kama shoots his burning arrow of desire into Siva’s heart.  He has made a calamitous blunder.

“… For an infinitesimal second, desire flares within Siva.  This snaps his unbroken flow of meditation and makes visible the Atma Lingam – the Soul Lingam that is his inner reality, and is also the Primal Ellipsoid, the first vibratory form that emerges from Primal Sound (pranava or om), to set Creation in motion.  The Atma Lingam being manifest and distinct from Siva even for a mere moment, is for him a fall from Pure Consciousness to the chaos of thought.  (But) the devas have outsmarted themselves.  The power of desire could not overwhelm Awareness.

“Siva erupts with the essence of incandescent rage.  Kama’s shabby little trick provoked the opening of Siva’s dreaded third eye – the Ajneya Chakra, seat of viveka, discrimination.  The frightening, paradoxically calm wrath of utter clarity, blasts and devastates Kama in fire.  This is not rage any more – it is Divine retribution for insolence … Only being grounded in Consciousness can vanquish desire.  This form of Siva is known as Kaala Agni Rudra – the howling fire that devours time – a triumphal moment in the evolution of Consciousness.

“Kama’s wife Rati faints in shock and terror … Siva is the kindest God, but trying to provoke lust in him was like dancing on volcanoes.   Parvati is appalled and awed – she was about to utilize Siva’s blessing for a husband, and instead of love she gets this hurricane of anger.  Siva is splendidly unperturbed about the chaos he has just caused, and he vanishes from the sight of all created beings, to resume his meditation.  Parvati is left heartbroken and humiliated in front of the world.   Of Kama who used to boast he was the god with most power over life, there is naught left but ashes.”

Rohit Arya

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For other Sacred India Tarot posts, look under Recent Posts, or Archive of All Posts in the title bar.

Rohit Arya

Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}. He has also written A Gathering of Gods. He is  a corporate trainer, a mythologist and vibrant speaker as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga. 

Earlier posts about the deck, including the first 15 Major Arcana archives are in http://aryayogi.wordpress.com   The deck is copyrighted (c) 2011 to the publishers, Yogi Impressions Books pvt, and available also on Amazon and internationally.

..

Jane Adams

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/

Meditation is Great Fullness

Here is a link to a crazy shack near Mount Rushmore where the field of gravity went inexplicably crook!   (By the way, Pahari’s blog is a FEAST of beautiful pictures, travels and reflections.)

http://paharidotme.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/cosmos-mystery-area-rapid-city/

Meditation is here – the moment loaded with gravity;  the inrush still – Lord Siva dances with his toe on the bow …  while Shakti prepares to bathe.

What is meditation?  Thanksgiving.  It may shine in, burst through the cloudy bubble of my whats-going-on.

Meditation?  Stop and stand, like a road worker easing his back.  The warmth of sunshine.  I am not a formal meditator (cushion, lotus legs) because the moment it happens, creation wells up, knowing it is actually Silence, the dew.

The moving focus is empowered.  The urge to share, leaks out of the mountain side.

These paragraphs – written in 1991, revised last year – appear at once on my water-table:

On the Tree of Life – Yesod and Daat.

“Yesod at the Tree of Life’s Foundation, is a Sefira of establishment, the attachment of fertilized egg to uterine wall.  Daat within the Tree is the nuclear current which catalyzes and dissolves the meaning of “me”:  unknown cognition.   Daat is the shadow I cannot wear!

“Daat in the physical body is a mysterious encounter.   In the central nervous system, through capillaries which exchange molecules of mutual nourishment, mental consciousness takes root, picking up signals from the human collective which saturate the field.  From this point of support, an image – “I am” – appears on screen, as sentience stirs and stretches.  From the neural fabric of interwoven worlds, the everyday mood music arises.  It draws up for itself vitality, from the ground of bone, viscera and breath.  Memory’s depth of field ignites and is claimed.

“When photo sensitive paper is placed in a bath of developer after exposure, the negative or shadow of light appears through a white mist.  The dark lines or narrative of a world-picture form.  They are the impact.  Light underwent an inversion – on the retina, as on the camera film.  Light darkened the exposed film, to become available to our description.  Physical light – sunlight, the event on retina and optic nerve – is the inversion of a metaphysical radiance:  its shadow or negative.  An image is fixed at the speed of photons of light.  In the valley of the dark, the physically blind, a latent vision gestates, which is not of the ordinary senses but perhaps in between them.  (See also Alchemy & Self enquiry, 2 July)

“Let there be an introversion.  Collapse the senses inward, into the well of the dark, the untold.  Let the eye be directed not outward onto the world, but into the interior perception.  Wait for the sensitized plane to manifest.  It is a shy but seamless process.  Landscapes may come, if mental imaging is active, and sky-like radiance may spill into them.  If the mental imaging is  quiescent but alert,  infinite space … through all objects and densities … to all sides effulgent, strangely shines, like unoccupied sky.  Or none of these, but a blank, the dynamo of thoughts.

“What does the radiant landscape have in common with the sky-like aliveness?  the busy internal street?  the view of my room, the window, the trees, the passing trains, the town?   Who or what is the seer? 

“Let the wide petalled lotus in her green stem open, holding attention to the point.  

“Vision records interior and exterior thought forms freely, the same mind stuff passes through with the breath.  Vision resonates the abundant forms which precipitate into the field.  Vision is the quickening of their beauty and of their pain.  Vision records what emerges, settles, changes and vanishes. 

“Daylight in the mind, fixing the image, installs a belief.  The image fixed as in exposure to the darkroom light, no longer grows.  It is captured, and like a plucked flower it blooms, dies and is clung to.  That from which it arose and arises, alone un-changes, in the heart of the Tree.   Wood rises from and around the water of Life in the well.  ‘To be silent’ is good, for it does not prematurely precipitate information.”

When a Universe
big bang
beginning and all
begins like torn white paper 
dispersed from I, 
to shred grey matter 
floating outward, 

a golden dancer
breathes in and out
the cleft seed. 

Siva, child of Siva 
at play! 
around the core thou art 
the instant of unbounded 
being
of which no thing
is composed.

 Bhagavan Ramana.   Bhagavan means Lord of Light, and is a term of love.  “Guru” means dispeller of darkness – letting in the light.   Ramana was not a conventional Guru.  I am not a follower in the traditional way, but I am a devotee to his being.  His map and mountain are deep in my life and delight.   Ramana shared his Self – he had no choice – and let it become contagious, like the sun.

Now here is some more from the earlier writing in 1991:  The Lightning Tree

 

“Lightning strikes, fusing Above with Below down the Sefiroth of the Tree electro magnetically, but only if the root is in Earth.  Our roots were ancient people of the trees.  The Essenic people were trees which walked in the desert and made it bear fruit.   The branches of the Tree, its Sefiroth and paths, are raised to the heavenly Father.  The roots of the Tree, mirroring the branches and seven angels, penetrate the earthly Mother.

 

“My  hands at a right angle, bring the instrument close to my eye.  It shields from excess light and directs the focus.  It is like looking out from a cave.  I rest in the cave of my heart, looking out on the world.  The landscape inner and exterior, is seamless as the flowing thought stuff.   Restlessness comes under the contemplative dominion.  My mind, that bundle of habits, on entering the ashram, is trained to focus.  Vital and alive is the current which fuels my intellect:  the tool of life.

“There is my literal bundle of firewood – the Karmas and Samskaras of many a lifetime:  and there is the cosmic Intelligence which, like a song of love without words, consumes the wood in the flame.

Young ramana & mother

“She is his mother.  She squats on the ground by the cave of her long-nailed shaggy-haired emaciated young son in the hot sun.  With every persuasion the eloquence of her voice and pliable brown hands, bangles-a-jingle can employ, she weeps, implores and begs him to come back to his family like a good son and have a square meal.  They will build a little temple over him, if that is what he wants.

“Her young son replied to her with a silence which, pouring from those dark eyes, at last one day drew her into the cave of the heart with him … whom she had never left.

“The whole cosmos is received back into Siva, into the ALEPh – its child.” 

**

“In the ashram is a well, around which many insects buzz back and forth;  people gather.  Over the lip of a well sunk deep in cool, clear wisdom – a dark eye – is drawn a creative activity:  tools of the artist, the lover, the Magus.  The insects flit and sip the moist nectar rising from the dark deep into air and light.  Worries.  Sadnesses.  Old sores.  Muddy pools with bedraggled lotuses in them.  Conversation, how hot it is, laughter and sorrow and fury, the shouts of children, the musings of old men, the prayers of grandmothers, the jingle of conjugal bangles, a damp forehead to wipe with a corner of sodden sari, the smell of cooking and of cows, the longing for cool water in buckets, the fever of the day.  Much noise.  Many celebrations.  It is all thrown into high relief by the gentle potent Presence:  the power of attraction the sage has upon insect thoughts.  The Karmas of many lifetimes present beautiful coloured costumes , like butterflies for alchemy.  So it will quieten and deepen with time, and in surrender to the Hill of Fire:  Arunachala.  The butterfly flies to the flame.

"Silence is the even flow of electric current.  
Speech obscures the current for lighting and other purposes."  
                                              (Ramana Maharshi)

“The Will to be Silent is a “tao” of the Great Action in alchemy.  A time of great Yang dawns from a saturation of Yin.  The inner darkness, filled to the brim with its own nature, is the Light of itself, and spills.  How could I ever delay or quicken it?  

“What are all these things?   They describe the sage before we meet.  They are the feeling that the sage will come into my life, is in my being.  A sound of drums and flutes, banners and dancing elephants, is borne softly towards me on the breeze from an approaching carnival.  In everything I explore of Yin and Yang and beauty and trees of life, is the play of light over his features, moving from expression to expression like a river.   It is only like drawing.  Why not draw … what I love?  Labour apprentice, with your bits of wood and stone!  So close comes the sage, a little closer than before, my eyes start to overflow.   As a spring, the sage arises from within my mountain.”

Ganesa

**

Returning to today’s long breath:

Meditation is when peace and fullness comes, in any form.  Meditation is Great Fullness.  As meditation is empty it is full.

As I touch a key, and a fellow blogger’s writing or impression arrives into a moment where I am at:  so the roving finger filaments out there find and touch my keys, one that is right for their day.

The process as I learn, is beautifully sensitive, capillary interlacing like branches in the sky, and birds singing in them.

It copies the real software of the Universal Mind-Self, the human lattice-work.  It helps me let go of what order I’d like people to read me in.   Realisations are soft, deep waves of prana, rhythm of life.  The mother giving birth feels the same – the instinct wide and deep.

Polish the Stone:  polish the mundane:  gratitude.

**

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Oh – by the way …

Sonnet on the Beach at Leigh-on-Sea

To detect my indwelling Sovereign everywhere 
in mud, bird and ungainly human continent, 
praise the Sun in whom all hidden share - 
one field, my self's soul questing element.

Compassion opens to each inward light. 
Should I judge the mystery, his currency 
through darkroom eyes that strive for sight? 
Sea-birds nesting on sea bed touch clemency. 

Abandon prejudice!  Heart questing into other 
is bright hermit's lantern; behold
your coloured cloak, my brother-
sister Self Divine; shadows of our hidden gold. 

The Sovereign eagle winging shore-less ocean, 
scribes the Great Circle - our unseen completion.

1993, from “Tailor of a Field”  …  still working on it!

**

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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.