Nesting Tetrahedrons – the Point from In Between

Posted on June 7, 2014 by janeadamsart

When a triangle’s centre point is produced into the 3^rd dimension, perpendicular to the plane, it forms a Tetrahedron – whose sides are four equilateral triangles, the most stable form in platonic geometry.

nesting soul tetrahedrons

Nested Tetrahedrons: Unity of Above/Below, Point, Centre, Sides

Existentially, the 4^th dimension extends individuated consciousness, to encompass as a whole, the world, the passage of time and space, community and nature’s eco-system.

The Tetrahedron in this sketch, contains a small inverted Tetrahedron. The four points of the inverted Tetrahedron touch from inside, the centres of the upright four surfaces. This demonstrates connectivity through centre-point, faces and polar opposites, as a philosophical tool.

In India, as in western Alchemy, the ascending triad is male, Siva. The descending triad is female, Shakti. Upon their equal inter-wovenness rests the lattice of our universe – nature, conception, orgasm, childbirth.

This Sri Chakra Yantra (from my drawing, tattoo’d on someone’s wrist) shows the interwoven lattice, through nine horizontal “strings”. The centre dot, the bindu, comes from in between the lines which form the triangle-bases: yet upon it, the whole design depends, for the point is infinite. Around it, the womb triangle (flattened shape) holds the Siva Shakti pattern in place, and draws the consciousness inward.

Sri chakra yantra – tattoo’d on someone’s wrist

We can enhance our relationships, our work and our human tantra with these contemplative models, which touch on the 4^th dimension, perceptually. The mysterious point from in between, touches itself always.

From triad, the extended 4^th point includes awareness of the breath, and unique centre of gravity – as shared with every human being, creature, flower and rock.

This factor through empathy, liberates.

“Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light!”

Being the point from in between our mother and father, forces us to be honest – the capacity to receive both sides. True to the point from in between the “mores” , we are vulnerable, unfixed and fluid – a spiritual and human growing-curve.

Philosophically, the Triad is a realization of the One through Two. The One is always dynamic, like the child through the parents.

My contacts with friends, colleagues, society and serendipity are interrelated. The same deep connection flows through all. The contemplation is a Oneness? … moving towards oneness.

Jung’s therapeutic aim was to journey with his client, into the “don’t know” point – into the mysteries of existence and the creative potential they release.

In my portrait painting days, a “connection” became tangible in the space between myself and my sitter. It was like a let-down reflex. I knew then that the work could be handed over to its Knower in the centre field. However hard it might be, it would turn out well … because it was already Known.

The connection feels like a third entity – where my subtle body receives and welcomes the other’s “imprint” – and it is full of life. Something relaxes inside.

When A (a healer) and C “connect”, they arise out of duality in the same way. They embody and share this aim:

The moment where past and present converge, holds its own future. We receive our “future” through integrating time and being in time.

What is “past” is the deep well beneath my feet: the root of my tree. Past and present together are a paradox through which I move forward, and empathise more with others …

– “the intra-connectivity: an observer’s ripple through the human quantum field – the butterfly wing effect” –

Sketch for Ushas, the Vedic Dawn Goddess

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/

The Chakras with the Tarot Keys

Posted on April 25, 2013 by janeadamsart

This post, concluding my Chakra journey, partners Vishnu, the Covenant and Exodus in my other blog, Aquariel.

(Hence, my new drawing of Vishnu in this one also.)

The Builders of the Adytum Tarot cards are supplied as line drawings, uncoloured. We colour them in “by the book”, to take them into our own energy field, as co-creators. The colour relationships speak louder than words. In this set of windows into the inner plane, each colour has its musical tone, Hebrew letter, number and vibration. Very long ago, when the teaching of the Ageless Wisdom was endangered, it was put into coded picture form, to protect it from abuse and persecution. Additionally, the subconscious responds to images rather than words: the pictures as living archetypes were circulated underground, and survived. In the Middle Ages they surfaced as a deck of playing cards. In the 19th century, Eliphas Levi and others revived a Kabbalistic Tarot, and re-discovered the key to the Greater Mysteries.

Eliphas Levi (1989)

Eliphas Levi referred to the Tarot as a divine algebra, and wrote, “A prisoner devoid of books, had he only a Tarot of which he knew how to make use, could in a few years acquire a universal science, and converse with an unequalled doctrine and inexhaustible eloquence. The oracles of the Tarot give answers as exact as mathematics, and measured as the harmonies of nature. By the aid of these signs and their infinite combinations, it is possible to arrive at the natural and mathematical revelation of all secrets of nature.“

The 22 Tarot Keys are a full Alchemical process, a western Yoga method. Not only does each one have its special path on the Tree of Life: pictorially they illustrate the Chakras for westerners. This illustration shows the sequence from left to right – the root chakra being The World, the sacral chakra The Tower, and so on.

7 Tarot Keys and Temperance

Crown: Key 1, Magician –Mercury

Each Chakra has its specific planetary vibration. Of the 22 Tarot Keys/Hebrew letters, 1,2,3,10,16,19 and 21 are traditionally assigned to the alchemical properties of the planets. If we want to practice the instrument more deeply, this colour scale is equally related to musical tones and frequencies. Therefore, when we look at those colours in sequence, or study the Tarot Keys together, their picture language messages those centres in our subconscious.

The Indian Yoga system energizes the subtle/physical centres more subjectively. This science of the nadis is ideal for a culture where a meditative life style apart from life’s muddle is – or has been – supported.

The Western Alchemy system disapproves of this, because it can overload and imbalance the physical
organs and endocrines.

Third eye Chakra, Key 2 The Priestess – Moon

Our system is based on the mutual information of self
conscious and subconscious. It therefore views the chakras objectively, as pictures to observe and meditate on.

The Indian emphasis is on purification and immediate deliverance from caste restrictions. The Western emphasis is on acceptance of life’s rough and tumble, and that things take time to ripen.

So with the Builders of the Adytum, we lay out the Tarot Keys for the seven chakras, and contemplate them one by one, and in relationship. Each one is designed to “message” or illumine its assigned centre. There is an elder wisdom of subtle anatomy in this.

Throat chakra: Key 3 The Empress – Venus

My rainbow spectrum for instance (discussed in the last 4 posts), is a view of the chakra principle all in one – the white light fountains up through the colours of the rainbow, as Ruach; as Kether: the cleft of the seed. To go into more detail, we need to adopt a system which suits us. It doesn’t matter which one, for their destiny is the same. The Indian system for instance, is very elaborate, with gods, colours and Sanskrit intonations for each one, and I have not studied it.

I think the inclusion of gods and prayers helps to protect and guard the physical centre so transposed and energised. It does not do to gloss over any esoteric system superficially. Nobody can play certain kinds of music till they have practiced the notes, the keys, the scales and arpeggios. Those musicians who are natural and brilliant improvisers, inherit the fruit of previous lifetimes’ practice! – built into the cellular and subtle memory.

Heart Chakra: Key 19 The Sun – Sun

So called spirituality is a detailed map of anatomy, physiology and psychology rolled into one. Coming to us from the ageless wisdom, it not only instructs: it creatively inspires, and kindles the secret of health, vigour and love.

The proper description of a Chakra is “vibration”. Without the primal vibratory wave or concentricity, no organ, no physical function can come into being, or operate, or be coherent with the rest. When we are awake to our chakral centres, we move a little upstream, into their potency. We reflect on the potency rather than on the visible area or physique.

This is a homeopathic practice. We move upstream from the molecules to the atoms. (The atoms clump together in numerical patterns to form binaries and thus the molecular lattice.)

Solar Plexus chakra - bota Key 10, The Wheel

Solar Plexus chakra – Tarot Key 10, The Wheel – Jupiter

As mind and body are interwoven through the organic capillary of Daat, the Tarot Keys as archetypal pictures of each centre, bring clarity to the way we think and live.

The Tarot Keys are codes. They are cylinder locks, whose numbers open the inner room.

It is a waste of time and energy to try to resolve the different Chakra systems and “prove” their different colour notations together. It is best to work with whichever one you respond to best, and to respect the way other systems – according to culture – teach the Word, with a different spelling.

Sacral Chakra – Tarot Key 16 The Tower – Mars

rainbow spectrum sketch 1

Root Chakra: Tarot Key 21, The World – Saturn

rainbow spectrum sketch2

Fontanel – Chakras/Tarot Keys/Tree of Life – new today

“Churning”

He displaced his passionate mind.
His quest into the nadis churned
from nadir’s night, the nectar; then turned
to embrace undying spark, refined.

Reversing dark to light, the dross to burn,
he suffered his painful insistence.
In Self, the Self is all existence
consuming resistance: in Atma born.

Within and without, the same lamp shines.
He saw as One the world,
so broke the nexus, knot of nadis furled.

In my dwelling, light enshrines
my bond of body, Self empearled:
the churning is the Sun itself, pure gold.

From 55 Sonnets on the Ramana Gita, 2011

Notes from a Group Discussion, 21 April 2013

In Key 14 Temperance or Probation, the Archangel appears like a white Fountain, shining through the rainbow spectrum and the worlds.

Key 7 the Chariot, is a stepped-down voltage of Key 1 the Magician: to form an enclosure or vessel for the seed of light.

NOTES ON KEY 14: Why are the sky, crown and seven point star coloured gold? To prove the Work of the Sun. Yellow, and thus also gold, are the Eagle’s beak (speech) and feet (walkers of the Path) and the lion’s eyes (sight). Eagle and Lion are otherwise earth-brown, the mixture of the primary colours as solid clod. Gold gleams through life’s clouds, like it does through Earth’s mineral veins. Gold within our bodies and within the planet, is “petrified sunlight”.

The path just visible behind the lion, is also gold. In the distance, this golden path reaches the twin peaks Binah and Hokhmah. Above and between them shines the Crown of the Sun – Kether on the Tree.

Clearly, we can study each Tarot Key from Malkuth subjectively, as a map of the Tree looking upward into the living Sefiroth.

The Archangel who pours the fire which flows and the water which burns, is clad in shining white. Over him is a rainbow corona. The whiteness fountains up through the apparent rainbow spectrum. The Archangel’s wings are designated red, but I have coloured this redness to contain the shine of the rainbow itself, through it. Light plays and dances this way, everywhere.

The seven point Star on the Archangel’s breast cannot be exactly measured by our earthly geometry. 7 does not divide exactly into 360 degrees. Each angle of arc from centre to two points of the star, is just over 51 degrees. This is the same angle of inclination in the Great Pyramid. The correct figure can be found by tying knots in a druid’s string.

In other words, the attempts to measure things exactly by our geometry, do not adequately reflect the Cosmic pattern. If we force the issue, the result is discordant. If piano keys are tuned logically, each at an exact interval from its neighbours, the result is discord – it clangs. A piano tuner works concentrically from centre or middle C, adjusting the relationships of octaves, intervals and chords till they “chime”. Each key has three strings: the adjustment of the resonance, to ring. Every occult and esoteric system through our history is based on the triad – the primary circuit of electric power.

The tetrahedron is a circuitry – with its new cycle emerging from the “produced” fourth point, whichever way it turns.

Tuning a part in relation to all its surroundings is a way of Mandala – the way a keyboard tuner checks the chords around and fore and aft, to harmonise. Such are our individual lives in relation to all the other parts being played. It is the Sri Chakra web, constantly being tuned.

How do we tread the path? Start walking into Nature’s mirror! What is the Great Work? We keep plodding. Our subconscious and selfconscious learn to converse, rather than to collide.

Yehudi Menuhin was born with an old Talent or passion. As a child, he played without practice, and could perform anything. It was all embedded in his cellular subconscious. As a teenager, he became self-conscious and the faculty disintegrated. He became a notoriously unreliable musician, because his tutelary subconscious was not yet working consciously. The levels were in disharmony. He played wrong notes, he fell out of rhythm, he was Out of Tune! So he had to re-tune. Yehudi’s autobiography about his re-tooling process, is very moving. Falling off the adult pedestal of Prodigy, he had to learn like a child, the scales, fingering and arpeggios. Gradually, the fully in-formed musician emerged. Kabbalistically, we have to balance the right and left pillars in our Ground.

This calamity and the dark valley it took him through, led him to study Yoga and be a messenger for Iyengar in the west. Similarly – like Barenboim – Yehudi became an ambassador for Israeli cultural consciousness, and the healing of the holocaust. He took world citizenship; he spoke out about ecology; he expanded his musical horizon to India and to jazz; he experimented and played his fiddle with Ravi Shankar and with Grapelli – not very well, some think: how could he keep up with these Masters? His enthusiasm was contagious.

Stephane Grapelli in 1973

Ravi Shankar & tabla, circa 1967

Galactic Core and 2012

Key 14 – the Arcanum of Probation, the testing of the spirit – is assigned to Sagittarius. Viewed from Earth, the Sagittarian constellation is superimposed on Galactic centre. Sagittarius is called Mula in Indian astrology. “Mula” means the root, and Muladhara (root hari …) is the name of the base chakra in the Indian system.

“Mula” is likewise darkness and death, according to our projection – the unseen black hole of an Unimaginable Light behind billions and billions of stars and years of light. Great sages perceive, in the core of our galaxy, the root of the multitude whirlings (gilgalem), a Sun so vast our physical eyes cannot see it. The American seer, Robert Adams spoke often of it.

Now, at the end of the Mayan calendar, 21 December 2012, our Sun transitted this degree of Mula forming an exact alignment with it. At all other times – as the galaxy is not a disk but three-dimensional and moving as a spiral – this transit rocked above or below the point.

This time, on that day, there was a kind of eclipse, rather like in our microcosmic scale, the biannual alignment of earth, sun and moon.

We all were aware subconsciously, of the gathering moment of the dark crossing, and each culture projected its own tensions upon it: there was a concerted belief, deeper than usual -(due to the transit and to long projections onto the telescoping of time) – in the Worlds’ End.

This tension had built up over several decades, and is now released in the way tidal waves travel through the cosmos as unseen ripples. Only with many decades’ hindsight will we be able to discern the effect. We are still inside its “eye”. We are affirmed to drop some of our bundles which bind, and look through a window to a simpler way of life. It is as if what bothered us so much before, gets unknotted and drops away. What we seem to agree on, is a new and multi-dimensioned perception of Time. Time is not a line, but a sphere – a flower of spheres.

The shift is timeless, but in our terms it doesn’t happen overnight. More likely, we enter a process of facing each of our restrictions and working through them: conflict resolution.

On the whole, and in planetary fashion, there is a reduction of general tension, a slowing of the breath. We passed through the centre of the hourglass.

Netzach Hod Temperance

Key 14, Temperance, illustrates the fact that “the Sun, the Crown is coming to find you.”: “equilibrium is the royal road to gnosis”. To the left is the cool current (water on lion) – inhale; to the right, the warm current (fire on eagle) – exhale.

The teaching advises: if we want to achieve something, try focusing on its complementary or polar opposite, to allow it to grow. Our wishes often overload and incapacitate the desired object. Cushion the billiard shot! Most esoteric methods are cunning billiard shots. The cue hits the ball into the pocket by bouncing another one to it, from off the edge.

The Great Work is:

the way of an Eagle in the air,
the way of a Serpent on a rock,
the way of a Ship on the sea,
the way of a Man with a maid.

As all the medieval Alchemists agreed: when our eyes are open to the Inner Gold, or work of the Sun – unbrokenly aligned to the whole galaxy – we shall never more know poverty of means or spirit.

This fact, engendering awe, love, freedom and reverence – the sacred Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh – is Brahman, the Tathagata, the Buddha Nature, Yeshua, the Arc of the Covenant.

Vishnu at rest

As the Age of Aquarius matures, the Arc is delivered from priesthoods, into our hearts’ response-ability; into these feet which do walk the Road, into these hands which touch, this heart which speaks openly. Thus, there are more born on Earth at present, than ever before; containing by homeopathic proportion, a larger number of the Awakened incarnates.

We who awake traverse a valley of great shadow where the Sun is rising over the mountains. We sow glow-worms in the abyss … seeds of gold.

A Great Dream – 1969

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 Chakras on the Tree of Life

Posted on April 9, 2013 by janeadamsart

Commenting on my sketch of the Chakras on the Tree of Life, (see Violet Woman and the Hermit) … / Peter asked me if I could write a detailed post on this topic.

Well ! I shall try. That sketch was done in 1992, and I seem to remember, there was some written material with it … (which I located yesterday! See further down). But first, some warm-up flourishes with the Tree:

General – the Tree and Jacobs Ladder

The Chakras embody the seven levels of the Tree of Life.

More than enough has been written about the Chakras, their tonalities and symbols in different systems, for a student to become thoroughly confused! It feels superfluous to compare or reconcile cultural viewpoints – they all come back to the same principle. Bridging the traditions, I intend to pick up on a few of my insights which accumulated experientially here.

The Chakras are seven beads strung upon a thread. Like our classical planetary octave to which were added for the modern era, the outer planets, supplementary beads appear among the basic seven.

In Tarot and Alchemy, the Chakras are called the “Interior Stars”. Our spine is a stem for their expression, like a flute or a fountain.

The Tree of Life is a fountain: root and shoot: a gravitation of Light into earth. The lightning flash upward or downward, completes an electric circuit. It unites the polarities through centre. From the heart the shoot ascends; the root descends.

On this foundational principle is based the Cup and Blade, Feminine and Masculine triads, the interplay of Grace and Kundalini, the Book of Changes. Rise and fall.

At the heart, Tifareth (Beauty) – is sustained through Kether (the Holy One) and our Ground (Malkuth). The cosmic song of Kether, Tifareth, Malkuth is: “I AM THAT I AM”.

The Tree’s centre pillar is sometimes called KAV. This inner thread unites galaxy to earthworm through DNA and atomic lattice. When the Tree extends into Four Worlds (dovetailed through the upper and lower ‘faces’), the KAV forms – up through the centre pillar, or stem – a vertical Jacobs’ Ladder of 11 Sefiroth – Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, Netzach, Tifareth, Gevurah, Hesed, Daat (which is a non-Sefira), Binah, Hokhmah, Kether. Or in physical terms – body as vehicle, the persona, mind-stuff, desire, beauty(heart centre), constraints, opportunities, unknown-cognition, understanding, wisdom, the Divine thread. The language is refined through the 3 higher worlds, and becomes archetypal. The psychological world – Yetzirah – penetrates our physical organs – Assiyah – through Daat (union, unknown cognition, capillary) and “rests its feet”/Malkuth, in the heart/Tifareth of the physical world. And so on.

The KAV feels like a tweak of the divine Thread through fontanelle and soles of feet: sky to earth – the Tree is strung upon it, as I am.

The Four Worlds

In his autobiography The Path of a Kabbalist, Halevi writes:

“Jacob’s Ladder is the Kabbalistic version of the Chain of Being or interacting Worlds, well known to the ancient and medieval mystics and philosophers. In the Zohar, the Ladder is spoken of symbolically as one reality inside another, like a nut within its shell, which in turn is inside another nut and shell: (or the brain inside the skull). In the extended diagram of interlocked Trees, the lower ‘face’ of a higher Tree overlaps the upper ‘face’ of the next Tree below or World down, and so on.

“However, this metaphysical diagram was never openly revealed in the public domain, although it was hinted at in many Kabbalistic texts.

“The nearest reference I have seen is a document from Yemen in the late 15th century. In this, a chain of eleven interlocked circles clearly define Jacobs Ladder, but without the sefiroth or paths. This meant the original scheme of what was called the Great Tree, running down the centre, was not shown. The KAV or middle column line of Divine Presence that permeates existence, makes up what is seen as the fifth ‘Great Tree’. Together with the forty Sefiroth of the four Trees, they make the Fifty Gates spoken of in some texts. The eleventh, mysterious non-sefira, Daat or Knowledge, representing direct experience, adds the eleventh circle of the Yemeni Ladder which is composed of Biblical verses.”

(See drawings of Jacob’s Ladder – the 4-World Trees – in this post, below.)

Halevi continues: “Jacob’s Ladder was rediscovered by my Instructor and another member of our circle. The latter brought him the reproduction of a modern painting of kabbalistic Trees, set inside one another. The idea, that within each Sefira there is a little Tree, and within that, another, and so on until there are ten, is well known but not in terms of a Ladder. The painting had several Trees telescoped inside one another, but in no obvious order. My colleagues then saw that if this image could be pulled out like a telescope, it might make more sense. They redrew the model in terms of the Four Worlds (Ezekiel’s vision), and suddenly Jacob’s Ladder was there with the Great Tree on the central column. When the Kabbalah group was shown this scheme, we were stunned. It explained many of the obscure texts in Kabbalistic literature where a ‘Ladder of Ascent’ is mentioned.

“The Yemen manuscript (in the British Museum) was confirming evidence for the metaphysical model spoken of, in symbolic terms. Discovering it (at a later date) was a great relief, as it backed the interlocked Ladder, as against the generally misunderstood view that the Worlds were joined by the bottom and top of their Trees. This view did not explain how they interacted, whereas the overlaying and underlying upper and lower Trees did.”

Zev ben Shimon Halevi 2010

(My grandfather Jim Ede had a bas-relief this same shape, carved out of dark greenish stone. He played with the curves between his thumbs, and said it was very ancient and he could make it “bend”, but of course it didn’t. I grew up with it. But I cannot find a photo of it anywhere in his book of Kettles Yard “A Way of Life” – perhaps he carried it in his pocket. It had at least five circles. Not surprisingly, when I was first shown Jacob’s Ladder in ’88, I felt at home.)

This sketch is by his friend Dino Valenti:

Gallery 1 – click on any image to view

Jacobs Ladder, the Tree extends to 4 worlds, showing the central KAV

The figure is turned round into the Tree, so that her left is the tree’s right, as in a mirror image. This is the custom for some theurgic practices

jacobs ladder, 7 heavens yetzirah:beriah

Note in one of these, the Seven Kabbalistic Heavens on the KAV – a numerical correspondence with the Chakra stem. The Four Worlds are Aziluth (Emanation), Beriah (Creation, archangelic laws), Yetzirah (Formation, the psyche and astrology archetypes) and Assiyah (material world). Our worldview is in general where the two lower worlds, Yetzirah and Assiyah, overlap. The worldview alters radically as we ascend the Ladder and gain altitude and objectivity.

Rose Tree Tifareth

So what is a Chakra?

The Sanskrit word for this is “wheel”. The wheel turns slowly at its hub, and moves faster around the rim. The galactic wheel in which our solar system travels, moves at a rate we cannot conceive. All originates from “spin” or torque: the beginnings of the whirlings, or GILGALEM. Waves for instance are spiral rotations; and concentration of any medium, curves gravity towards and around itself. The Sun as a gravitational focus, travels along a vast galactic spiral: the planets spiral around him. Any singularity produces a curvature of time and space – like water around a plughole.

A Chakra embodies this principle. It has no speech or theory. It is life – the thread pulled from above and below, vibrates, and the universe spins. At school we made and played with spinzips. We cut a disk out of card, coloured it, and threaded a loop of string through two holes (like a button) in its centre. Grasping the loop’s two ends, we whirled the disk round and round, and when it was all wound up, we played the length of string like an accordian, in and out, watching it whirl and twist each way, watching the colours – and it made a wonderful whooshy spin-zippy sound. Try it.

A Chakra, like a tree, grows up through its own concentric rings. A chakra has a simultaneously horizontal and vertical movement – like the Sri Chakra Yantra.

Mandalas and Yantras are Chakras, as are concentric wavelengths and sound-waves. A Mantra is a vibration of consciousness. A Chakra vibrates from centre which is still, to circumference which is active: from formlessness to form: from the core of a tree through yearly rings, to the outer bark and upper leaf and birds. A Chakra is everything we see around us, as our vision moves through the sphere. Our spatial geometry is the sphere, whose limitless fluidity is supported by interior Tetrahedrons – the stability of existence.

diagram by Nassim Haramein, Resonance Project

A chakra is, experientially, EXISTENCE: with – if we are fortunate – consciousness and peace: sat chit ananda.

The sequence of seven interior Chakra notes in the subtle body, aligned to the spine, implies the Octave. Normally, they are obscured by life. Practices of Yoga and Alchemy assist and attune our Chakral consciousness – like cleaning a window: a lens.

The seven Chakra tones suggest a spectrum with higher and lower tones beyond our sensory field: and therefore, the rainbow.

Pure white light, growing up through the stem from ground, is a hidden treasure whose crest is the thousand petalled lotus.

The rainbow’s primordial refraction of light (fire) through water (rain) – converts white light to our seven perceptual tones (and all the shades between). In this drawing, the seven Chakra centres in our body are aligned to seven levels – (or “heavens”) – in the Tree of Life. The encircling “fountain” through our auric field, has seven sheaths, and is brown, the colour of Earth. With conscious breath, we inhale while visualising a fountain or a waterfall: root and shoot: the interpenetrating triangles, male and female, of the Seal of Solomon.

4 January 1992 – What did I write, with this sketch ?

Surprise! It was the first draft of Tsim Tsum, a “landmark” essay which I found and blogged last summer, 18 July:

“In Genesis, And There Was Light was the handwriting of space, time and matter visible to the eye – how it ballooned over the aeons. To withdraw into attention – lotus, stem and flower – is to centre a radiating concentric ripple. The infinite centre emits signals of itself. A centre which emits a signal, concentrically, is a creation of time – relative to the receiver. But the ripple which is the signal, is a wave, leaving the centre at the speed of light, perhaps.

“Sudden gleam of realisation in half-sleep last night: if I emit rays of speed of light, then I myself travel (away from the emitting) at the speed of light. What moves and what is moved is purely relative, in the universal constant of 186,000 miles per second … … Listen carefully. Matter is formed at the speed of Light, wherever on the circumference of the sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere!”

There follows my then favourite passage (slightly abridged) from Leo Schaya’s The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah:

“When Baal-Shem says that ‘God the infinite brings about a contraction and makes room in himself where the worlds can be created’, he is alluding to the Kabbalistic doctrine of tsim tsum … ‘The Holy One, blessed be he, withdrew his powerful light from one part of himself and left a void to serve as a place for cosmic expansion’; it concerns ‘that part of the divine essence in which the light was weakened to allow the existence of souls, angels, angels and the material worlds.

“In reality, God the absolute One, has no ‘parts’, but an infinity of possibilities of which only the creatural possibilities have the illusory appearance of separate forms. … The part from which the light has been withdrawn to make room for the cosmos, is nothing other than God’s receptivity which actualizes itself in the midst of his unlimited fullness. This receptivity has a transcendent aspect and an immanent aspect. ‘Above’, it is identified with Binah the supreme Mother, eternally filled with the infinite and luminous emanation of the Father Hokhmah. ‘Below’, it is Malkuth (substance), the lower Mother or cosmic receptivity of God.”

He is talking about Binah the Dark Mother inseminated by Hokhmah, wisdom; and Malkuth the realm of Earth – the field.

“Malkuth absorbs the influx from the Sefira of Benevolence, luminous and overflowing, and the influx from the Sefira of Severity (Rigour), dark or empty.” (This is like the tide, the breath, the chambers of the heart. Malkuth realises tangibly, the principle.)

“Thus, in contrast to Binah (the Understanding) which is always revealed as filled with the infinite, Malkuth the divine Immanence can take on the appearance of a dark void in the midst of its radiant fullness.

“Indeed, Binah is … without all rigour, though rigour emanates from Her, while Malkuth receives the emanations of rigour (Gevurah) together with those of grace (Hesed) to produce and dominate the cosmos and hold it in equilibrium through the interpenetration of two simultaneously opposite and complementary influxes.

(In other words, where was ever a big bang or beginning?)

“Through the effect of tsim-tsum, the divine fullness withdraws from the ‘lower Mother’ and awakens creative receptivity in her. This takes on the aspect of the Void or ‘place of the world’, ready to receive cosmic manifestation. Then all creative possibilities spring up from the existential seed which is left behind by divine Fullness on its withdrawal – as a luminous residue in the immanent emptiness. Thus, thanks to the divine contraction and the void it brings about in the Shekhinah, the expansion of the world takes place; and everything living in the immanence of God, is a small world created in the image of the macrocosm. It is a void to which life is given by a luminous residue of the One Reality: a central and divine spark which projects onto it the reflection of some eternal archetypes.”

(As we saw in my earlier post, the balloon can only expand with an emptying lung.)

Tree of Life showing Tarot arcana in the Sefiroth

Tree of Life showing the 22 Paths, hebrew alphabet, and the Tarot arcana in the Sefiroth

“Kabbalah expresses the same process as the pargod, or curtain. The Idra Rabba Kadisha says of the Ancient of Ancients that he draws a curtain down before him’ through which his kingdom begins to take shape.”

(The curtain is a starling’s breast, a raven’s wing, the High Priestess or veil – daughter of the stars.)

“This image and that of the tsim tsum not only point to the same truth, but complement each other. God appears to withdraw himself from himself to the extent that he draws down a ‘curtain’ before him. The curtain hangs before him like a darkness; this darkness is none other than his cosmic receptivity, which allows his Reality to appear through it as a light. But his Infinite Light appears through the dark veil only in a weakened, fragmented and limited way, which is the mode of existence of the finite.

Gallery 2 – click on any image to view

sahara mirage By Melinda ^..^ flickr.com

Do visit this sequence – http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/simulations/inf-mir/Kaplan_photos.html

mirage photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolframburner/7994951448/

http://www.crystalinks.com/mirage.html

“God is hidden in everything he creates, the way light is contained in the innumerable reflections which produce a mirage … The desert where the mirage is produced, represents the Void or Place of the World made by tsim tsum. The (imperceptible) screen on which appear the vanishing forms that lead the pilgrim astray, is the pargod, curtain or mirror of Shekhinah (holy Bride, or Presence).”

Leo Schaya

avocado stone ’94

“This passage parallels Ramana Maharshi’s analogy of the screen as the Self, on which are projected the movie-pictures of the world. The movie-picture is the curtain. That which is unchanging, onto which the world pictures are produced, is the Self, Brahman, the Holy One, I AM.

Major Chadwick’s wallet, and Ramana Maharshi

“The speed of light, perceptible as a physical constant, is but a pale echo of the Holy One’s effulgence. For the speed of Light, written everywhere in the universe – the Signature – is not … the Scribe! It is only what appears on the curtain, the spectrum of the Rainbow.”

January 1992

The Chakras on the Tree of Life, rainbow spectrum

Now follows the sketch, and this explanation:

Embodying the Chakras on the Tree of Life

“1. EARTH. Malkuth. Awareness in physical organs, and of surroundings. Base of spine. Tail. Root of the Tree of Life. Connection with the ground, through any part of the body, to the planetary core. Lotus roots in soil. Snake (Kundalini coil). RED, fiery or rosy red.

“2. MOON. Yesod. Edited image of ‘I’ the doer. Conception and infancy. Scenario which changes with conditions. Screen of consciousness. Picture of self. Feelings and urges, emotions, appetites, ideation. Sexual, naval, reproductive reservoir. Personality. Foundation of the Tree of Life, where the branches begin. Conditioned censor (filter) of material from within or from without. ORANGE.

“3. MERCURY AND VENUS. Hod & Netzach. To left and right, the child’s mother and father branch out from Yesod, as their type of interior chatter. Observe mental activity, processing, and the rhythms of breath, pulse and desire, hunger or habit, generating energy and nature’s warmth. Awareness and submission to the dance. Seat of everyday mind-stuff and response to stimuli, reactivity, fears. Internal politics, environmental information, sights and sounds. Solar plexus; kidneys; YELLOW.

“4. SUN. Tifareth. “I” that AM. Hod & Netzach converge through Triad of Awakening, upon the Heart of the Tree, its centre stem (green sap) of the Lotus through which all light travels up, down, receiving above as below, the wisdom. Beauty and rest. A decisive factor through lifetimes. Concentration, freedom, acuity, detachment, enquiry. The heart, to both sides of sternum, a depth of green transparency: solutions. Esoteric Sun of the soul. From the seed, the shoot grows upward and the root downward. Source. Heart chakra – GREEN.

“5. MARS AND JUPITER. Gevurah & Hesed. Branching again to left and right, becoming blue; throat area. The balance of rigour and grace (benevolence), centred upon Tifareth forms the Triad of the Soul where we are tested. Faculties for discrimination, taste, equilibrium, evolution. Force and Form. Parental archetypes – the archway. (“All experience is an arch where thro’ gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades, for ever and for ever as I move.”) Pillars Jakin and Boaz, of Solomon’s Temple. Throat chakra and expression – BLUE.

“6. SATURN AND URANUS (OR STARRY SKY). Binah & Hokhmah. Quantum leap through deep indigo effulgent darkness, over the abyss of Daat, forms with Tifareth the Great Triad of the Spirit – a curtain filled with stars.

“Daat is a non-Sefira beyond and yet within the whole Tree, and even encompassing it. In each Sefira, the worlds meet – tetrahedral vesica pisces – and so Daat is called “Union”. Daat’s region is the subatomic worlds.

“Receptive cosmic intellect – creation’s blueprint or understanding – and the wisdom-flash of Light before it congeals to the speed of light. Intellect receives Light as a cable receives and contains the current. Third Eye chakra between the brows: intuition and prophecy. Luminous VIOLET, like sapphire crystals.

“7. NEPTUNE. Convergence upon Kether, the Divine. Lord Mother, thou Art God. Just above crown of head or infant fontanelle – source opening, white light unadorned, thirty thousand petalled lotus. WHITE.

“8. PLUTO. Daat: completion of musical octave, by turning within the Tree. The in-turning suggests the Primordial One’s withdrawal or interiority, to yield a place for Creation. In Vedanta and Yoga, the third eye bows to the heart. The thread on which the worlds are strung, is called sushumna – the nerve current from muladhara (root) to sahasrara (thousand petalled lotus) through which Kundalini is made to rise.

“The centre stem of the Tree, between Kether and Tifareth, central and upper spine column, carries the vast collective mystery, quantum factor, key hole to death, birth and the interpenetration of the Worlds. See through a glass darkly. The white lotus bows as the veil of embodied identity sunders. Path of return from the Crown to heart’s Source. Contact with the deep. INDIGO.

(In this context, The Seven Year Cycles on the Tree of Life may be of interest also.)

“I found that to have viable wings – the subtle opening between shoulder blades when all the Worlds connect (heart chakra and Daat) – a viable Tail must connect my dragons’ Head to Earth. The Tail performs the functions of balance and rootedness, and is formed from the two base chakras, Earth and Moon (Malkuth, Yesod, red and orange.) Elder lizard vertebrae!”

January 1992

This is not a traditional view of the chakras: the colour scale is not that of the Builders of the Adytum, nor of Vedanta, theosophy or G.D., nor of the Tree School. It made sense to me because it is simple, and takes me up the Tree; it fits the bill sufficiently, and is beautiful. These concepts with the colour were germinal, and helped me to build. They are not rigid. So nowadays I do not worry when esoteric models appear to disagree, nor try to reconcile them, but place them side by side – as languages for the same thing.

1992 Concludes:

“I perceive the rainbow Chakra column “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” within the centre of the Tree, enhancing the structural Kabbalah. The Tree and its 10 Sefiroth are a Mandala, a concentric circle or auric egg/seed of light around the rising pillar of the rainbow which centrally cleaves the seed. In the same way, our orbit around the Sun travels with it as a dimensional spiral.

“Sap rises through the stem to the Sun, through osmosis. Moisture, lifted from the ground through absorbtion and evaporation, travels through a semi-permeable membrane – the stem cells. It is drawn up to occupy the ‘vacuum’ of varying fluidic densities in neighbouring cells. It is drawn up to the light against terrestrial pressure. It is green in leaf, and embraces the Sun.

“Physically – world of Assiyah – the ground-level where the growing Tree or plant appears, is Hod-Netzach, and at Tifareth the green grass flourishes. Below this membrane of the physical world, the psyche exists vegetatively – according to habit and to the seasons. The soul, questing upward through the earthy membrane like a blade of spring crocus, discovers air. Deep under the ground, where roots quest delicately in the dark towards their antipodes, it is red or rose-red – the warmth of Mother Earth’s inner fire. No tall Temple spire can be built without a foundation equally deep. If the root does not penetrate the earth to stabilize it in the sky, it will crack and fall down. If we get caught in the astral sky ungrounded, we wrap illusory demons of guilt, pride and fear around ourselves; for we still dwell underground, a prey to unconscious forces.

“So see to the root. Then ascend the mountain path.”

January 1992

Paths of Awakening. Colours of Sefiroth are shown in BOTA Queen scale, not as the Chakra spectrum discussed here. As the rainbow, we are looking at: Malkuth red. Yesod orange. Hod-Netzach yellow and Tifareth green.

Gallery 3 – click on any image to view

concentric sefiroth with seal of solomon

Finally: what is practical? When strong images of colour and growth are generated, they link with the ageless prototypes. Everything we touch is vibrational. Words are initial tetrahedral processes to support our understanding. After they are built into colour and sound and light, we no longer need to remember them. The key then is intention, love and goodwill. So we can be seated, or out walking. We can make ourselves a fountain, a channel to receive and to give. We can savour the colours and their resonance. Through red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, is threaded the KAV, the white brilliance, the light everlasting.

Aahh! Those far off days at art school …

Gallery 4 – click on any image to view

These were done in 1968, looking at an object or picture through a tilted magnifying glass or lens – the light spills out of the earth’s dark cloth: the tones are dragged apart.

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.

Aquariel Link

Sacred India Tarot Archive: 5,6,7 Pentacles – Buddha’s Enlightenment

Posted on December 8, 2012 by janeadamsart

What is a Chakra? The word means literally – “wheel”.

Chakra spiral, centrifugue and OM

The seven chakras in the Yogic body are centres where the Life-force flowers. Chakras are transmissions of energy in the Earth vessel. The story of the Buddha’s enlightenment aligns the chakras, bringing them into the sublime cosmic harmony which is compassion – the natural state.

This post will cover the creation of SITA 5,6 and 7 of Pentacles, or disks. Here is A E Waite’s traditional interpretation for Five of Pentacles: “Two mendicants in a snow-storm pass a lighted casement … It foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated – that is destitution – or otherwise. For some cartomancers it is a card of love and lovers – wife, friend, husband, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized. Reversed: Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.”

We will therefore reflect on the Sacred India Tarot 5 of Pentacles as the misfortune and sense of deprivation which shadows and precedes a realisation of the Truth which is 6. In 7 of Pentacles, the realisation is mature and mobilized. It becomes a transmission.

Rohit’s Notes 2003

“The starving Buddha is a famous trope in Buddhist art. We include a few visual references! Basically a sort of pastoral scene under a tree would be ideal. The discs would be a little difficult to fit in easily, perhaps in a ring around the tree? He is usually depicted as clean shaven, though if he was not eating for weeks, perhaps shaving was not his highest priority.

“The skeletal gauntness and meditation are important here – mental peace at the expense of physical torment, which he realized was not an adequate tradeoff. It is a mistake to torment the body.”

Meditation – the withdrawn Buddha

Sacred India Tarot 5 of Disks: the Buddha Fasts

Rohit’s Notes:

“The Five is a very unusual depiction of the Buddha in the starving state, but I realised that actually this is more liable to be the truth than the traditional representations. He did tapasya as a Hindu, and the beard is more likely to have been his true condition, than the gaunt clean-shaven skeleton so beloved of Buddhist art.

“The disk as the solar plexus chakra is another beautiful touch, linking Buddha up with his nature as an incarnation of Vishnu, solar god. (See Vishnu The Magician in Sacred India Tarot Archive series, http://aryayogi.wordpress.com).

“I just love the composition of the card; the manner in which the disks form the quintessential question “Why?”, seen in the card as the giant letter Y, which after all was the purpose of such starvation, to find answers to the whys of life.

“That banyan tree is one of the most remarkable things I have seen drawn.”

Jane’s Notes

The banyan was inspired by the trees at Ramanasramam – the shaggy condition of the sadhu in full tapasya. The sheer force and focus of the meditation is given back to Nature. Nails, hair and beard grow unimpeded! In the end Buddha fulfilled the whole history of Hindu spirituality by showing that the via negativa has its limitations.

To reverse the laws of inertia, a sage at first backs up into them, against the body’s need for nourishment. Towards realisation, that effort becomes irrelevant, and reverts to a more natural alignment with the Fountain of Nature. The 5 pentacle disks are arranged to suggest the growth of the life force through the tree. In the autumn, it falls to the ground, like the fountain, and circles through winter, up into the stem, year upon year.

The physical body no longer denied, blossoms as the bodhi tree in all its beauty; for the impending enlightenment is seamless: no separation.

Visual reference – The bodhi tree

Rohit’s Notes 2003

“6 of Pentacles/Disks should be a dynamic sort of card, as the moment of Awakening, becoming the Buddha, arouses the last attack of the Evil One, Mara. He sends his daughters, along with natural calamities, wild beasts and venomous things, to disrupt the massive shift in Consciousness that was about to be achieved.

“While all around the Buddha there can be chaos, he should be depicted in stillness at the centre of course, under the famous Bodhi tree!! His fingers should touch the ground in the mudra shown in the illustration, the famous Bhoomi Sparsha mudra, calling on the Earth to witness his attainment and confirm there was no ego present.”

Visual reference for Buddha’s enlightenment

Here is a recent impression in my companion blog, Aquariel:

So who are you then, whomever I meet and fear? You look like Mara’s face, in the SITA Buddha enlightenment card. Mara is the Buddha’s opponent – the force which tried to stop the enlightenment. So get it out, and look at the devil, sex and death. Through all the blandishment, Buddha sits under his tree and keeps touching the ground with his open hand … the same as FOOT – keep walking, feel the ground – (like baby Buddha did when he was born – straight out from under his labouring mother. If you turn to the Ace of Pentacles, she too is hung upon a tree!)

Mara goes BLAH …

When I am tense and full of think, I am frightened of this stranger – Mara going BLAH – and above all, ASHAMED of admitting anything about it here, ashamed and scared of my panic and projection, lest it get worse. My panic and projection is a disguise – a whirling dust devil. But go to the root – does it really exist? No wonder it harries and drives me away from telling about it. Does it exist? Look at Mara, depicted below. Has he a body? Is he not just my scurrilous mind going WAH from behind a bush? Has he any root at all? Why, no ! just confusion. That is what he thrives on, when I let him settle in my city; and just about anything can inflate to look like him and drive me nuts. Confusion is the disorder. Confusion is the tension – giving it the power to damage and hijack my life.

This is seen in all the world’s trouble spots, cancelling Consciousness.

Well, good, good, keep going, this inner exercise will help my mind to clear. Mara forms a Grand Trine around Buddha, with a sly serpent and a siren woman. The serpent and the woman proceed through chaos, but the Buddha’s serenity is firmly established in the green and golden ground as Tifareth of Pentacles – his spine with the bodhi Tree of Life: the wheels of the cosmic Law. Death’s skull leers from behind the woman. Men consider Eve to be the gate of death because she gives them birth.

The Sacred India Tarot 6 Pentacles/Disks – Buddha’s Enlightenment

Enlightenment on whatever scale seems to follow on a jolly good clearout of the Shadow in one’s cupboard. Enlightenment happens as the projections clear. Every obstructive interior terror from his innumerable lifetimes must have bombarded Buddha as he quietly attained his peace. For the lower mind is in love with its own drama.

Such is the Great Wheel depicted here – the card itself is a life-mandala. The design was inspired by the film Little Buddha, starring Keanu Reeves.

Correspondence 2003 – Rohit to Jane

“… The Six is a spectacular composition, depicting the triumph of the Buddha over all the forces of Evil and negativity; and what forces they are!

“At the moment of his greatest challenge, he calls upon the earth to witness that he has transcended, he is Awake. The card captures that feeling perfectly, as well as the futility of attempting to shake one who is awake. This is really beautiful.”

Rohit’s Notes 2003

“7 Pentacles/Disks. The first sermon ever given is regarded as the complete Buddhist teaching in itself. In the deer park at Sarnath, verdant surroundings seem to be mandatory.

“Traditionally, he has always been shown as being much larger physically than the students in religious art – his stature being gigantic as a representation of his achievement. It is famously called ‘Setting the Wheel of Dharma into Motion‘ – so one disc could perhaps be rotated. We need to convey that he was radiating immense energy from that point on… a sort of translucent skin…?”

Buddha 7 of Disks, visual reference

7 of disks visual reference

This is the pose I used for the card: his former disciples felt a little shocked and betrayed by their Guru’s illumined evolution to full stature. They preferred to go on starving.

Ramana Maharshi’s story followed the same general pattern. When he was very young, his continuous samadhi remained detached from the world. After his second conscious death experience on Arunachala, his state became “sahaja” – that is, unconditional. The realisation unbroken, he engaged fully in everyday life, as chief cook, bricklayer, engineer, bookbinder, poet, counsellor and friend.

Sacred India Tarot 7 of Pentacles/Disks: The Sermon in the Deer Park

Jane’s Notes 2012

7 in Tarot is The Chariot. On the Tree of Life, the 7th Sefira (emanation) is Netzach, the Life power – a spark which wakes the physical and emotional worlds. The Wheel/disk in Buddha’s hands indicates the binary force turning the chariot wheel – an upward and a downward pressure – as in the Sri Chakra Yantra: duality.

Sri Chakra Yantra - 4 Siva triangles through 5 Shakti triangles form a radiation which is simultaneously concentric and up/down.

Sri Chakra Yantra – 4 Siva triangles through 5 Shakti triangles, forming a radiation which is simultaneously concentric and up/down. It is like the sap through the seasonal cycle of a tree’s rings.

As the One however, every point radiates concentrically – the rings of a tree, a ripple on water, a sound-wave. The point has a spherical geometry, for it is infinitely reducible, as well as expanding to an atom, aura, planet or star.

The nature of the Enlightened One is everywhere, in all places, all times: Tathagatha.

Buddha teaching in the Tree of Life, showing chakras

Rohit’s Notes – 2003

“The Seven is yet another creative breakthrough, in that all the disks are spinning, as the Great Wheel of Dharma has been set into motion with this first sermon. I have an idea, should we call the suit the Suit of Chakras then, as that is what the disks seems to represent?

“I particularly like the touch of the Buddha’s halo being a Great Wheel too. I have seen many representations of this pivotal Buddhist event, but I feel that Jane has managed to capture something new and fresh about it.

“This suit is turning out marvellously. Again the Vishnu/Solar element is conveyed in the placement of the disk in the hands of the Buddha.”

The blue “Buddha light” – a healing radiance – enters these russet-brown, Taurean waters.

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 creation of 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.

flower sermon

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.

Sacred India Tarot Archive: 2,3 & 4 of Pentacles – The Awakening of Buddha

Posted on November 26, 2012 by janeadamsart

What are Pentacles?

In the Minor Arcana, the Tarot Pentacles are its “Earth” suit – the plane of manifestation. A Pentacle is a conscious mark or sigil. The cross-section of a tree with its concentric rings, is a sigil, a Yantra. Flowers and their sacred geometry are sigils; so are the Fibernacci series, the spiral, and the laws of growth. In every mark of nature, and everywhere in life, if we care to look, the sigils are engraved. They appear also as omens. They require intelligent reading. Intelligence is of a deeper order than “cleverness”.

Fibonacci series pentacle, by Keith Critchlow (“The Hidden Geometry of Flowers”)

A Pentacle is classically a five-part pattern or circle, embodying humanity. The Coins, by which this suit is also known, are Currency. They bear the mark of trade. Financial currency with its gold or paper standard, is a “promissory note”. It is no more visible in essence, than electric current, the current of life: our imagination gives it power. Our coinage is a symbol, with its own temples, altars and acolytes. It depends what we believe in; but without adequate means and/or a nourished belly, it is hard for the Great Work to touch base. The Currency is the undercarriage – monetary, linguistic or psychic – which helps us/the Great Work, to survive; a relative freedom from anxiety. Best is a balance of all three. The Currency is a balanced state of health.

shell spiral

For the Sacred India Tarot minor-arcana, the Pentacles or Coins are “disks”. Vishnu and other gods within Brahman the All, carry a diskus in one of their many arms. The diskus is a sport, a weapon, a wheel. It is thrown, it spins like a planet, it reaches target, comes to ground. The Wheel of Karma likewise comes around, to wake us up. Justice is the Law of action upon reaction.

Wood bird yantra

In the Buddha’s story, we decided to let the Disks be wheels. The Buddha, who overcame the traditional habits of denial, and touched the ground all through his enlightenment, is often called The Wheel Rolling King. He has the Wheel of Dharma; what comes around, comes round, as a Kalpa, seasonal leaf through trees, or an insect life-cycle. What comes round comes around, in our life, to help us untie the knot.

Paul Foster Case

The Buddha Nature is itself a sigil: right conduct, compassion, the Great Middle Way. The shining Pentacle of Gautama Buddha’s lifetime among us, was and is his awareness and concern for human suffering, disease and death. What can be done? How can freedom be found, through these vicious and perpetual circles? He applied himself to pioneer a way which was practical, and – like Jesus a few centuries later – overturned rigid, doctrinal tables in the temple of the One.

The Buddha’s long life and teaching is supremely practical. Practice is the way of the Pentacles, the Suit of Earth.

Two of Pentacles

Rohit sent me this in 2003, as an early image-reference marked “Two of Pentacles”. It is the only one I have. I am not sure what he had in mind. A woman offers fruit – or sea-urchins? to another woman. They share a Mona Lisa smile, or secret. Perhaps it is the Buddha’s feminine nature – the women who surrounded his pampered youth; his early sexuality and experience. The most beautiful portraits of the Buddha all have a heavy-lidded cosmic tenderness – the smile which just suggests an invitation.

In his instructions for the Suit, Rohit wrote to me:

“A prince in the lap of luxury, surrounded by beautiful girls, in a garden, walled off. There is poverty sickness and suffering on the outside but his father has kept him from unpleasant sights, determined he will never know of pain and decay – to the extent of removing dead leaves, branches and flowers at night!

“He is a very capable and intelligent young man but he is also being stifled in this curious ignorance he is being kept in.

“Compositionally this is not going to be easy – I know.”

My solution is graphic – the young man in his garden of delight, is disturbed by an intuition beneath the surface of things. He awakes uneasily. Is not this so also, if we give too much attention to a meditative bliss, and not enough to where we are? What are we starving or neglecting? Balanced spirituality must be embodied. The Buddha found this out by trial and error: first, through sheer empathy, he would endure his own period of starvation.

His eye of Consciousness – rather like ancient Egyptian profiles – opens sideways from the eyes of life. It is; it will be; it always was.

In many teachings, the blind lead the blind. Studying this card, makes me reflective.

The Wheels are the old teaching: as above so below. The beggar woman touches the wheel as if to implore divine grace. Her baby hasn’t milk – her husband is blind.

Correspondence March 2003 – Gautam (the publisher), Rohit and Jane:

“Dear Gautam – got yours and Rohit’s … Re Ace Pents, I certainly did not know that the ladies should be dressed Vedically. I will see if I can reduce them. Maybe they are not needed at all?” (Later, the extra ladies, or birth-helpers, were removed, so the Buddha’s mother is on her own – see the Ace of Disks Birth of Buddha (earlier post.)

“I’ve started on Two of pents, and plan to send it to you when I’ve done one or two others as well. Am recovering from bronchitis and not quite up to scratch, but much better this week. I would like from you just a few more hints on the ‘teaching’ in each one. The idea of using the Dharma wheel as the coin, came spontaneously, and can be used in each card of the suit. But I would like indications from you as to where you would like them placed geometrically. For instance in Two of pents, the design has Prince Siddhartha in the garden, top half, with a (smaller) wheel in the background, rather like the sun – and two less fortunates (whom he senses but cannot see) in the bottom half. They also have a golden wheel above them, and are divided from the Prince by a wall.

“As I said before, I’m doing the minor arcana in a slightly simpler style than the major – otherwise it will take years. In most decks, the minor are more symbolic and less literal than the major; some are purely geometric. My aim is to try to keep a consistent formal design and colour scheme through the suit. Any suggestions?”

“Dear gautam and jane – I have nothing to add to what jane says here, it is all great stuff. There is no message or teaching coming forth from each card in the suits, unless it is the key-word association. Perhaps that would help. I will send off a list.

“Jane’s ideas on card no.2 in Pentacles is great. I do not wish to get in between her and her obviously inspired streak! she is on the right track. I agree we need to keep time in mind, but still, the minor arcana cannot be a dip or drop in the quality of effort. We are aiming to compete with the best in the world. The Mythic Tarot would perhaps be the only real competition we have. A few extra months does not matter – this pack is for being done to last many centuries! Since each suit is a theme and story inspired one, it will take some time, more time than if we just drew the pentacles or wands. That is an acceptable slow process. With regard, ROHIT“.

Fragment from Rohit – “… would indicate, in fact sometimes wearing considerably less. (You could not possibly be expected to know this, and I missed communicating it, because it is simply taken for granted, and not even part of normal consciousness.) In fact India was a gorgeous and sensual place then, the richest country of the ancient and classical world. The pentacles suit should reflect that spectacle and grandeur. You cannot possibly overdo the ‘effects of opulence’, especially the use of gold ornamentation, if you wish to draw it that way. The south-east Asian and Indian visual references we sent, will help here. For the whole pack in fact, we should keep Opulence, Splendour and Gorgeousness as keywords. I think we are doing very well indeed, and creating something genuinely valuable for the world here.”

3 of Pentacles

Rohit’s Instructions: “Curiosity drives the young prince out of his faux paradise. He sees Four Sights from his chariot , Disease, Old age, Death and a Sage who seems to have found peace in his meditation.

“Again to cram all of this into a rectangular space is going to be difficult, but I trust you will find some way round the difficulty. It is regarded as a great victory in Buddhist literature for the human spirit, so the sense of potential and urgency the prince feels is central – not the harrowing sights.”

Visual References for SITA pentacles/disks 3 – The Four Sights. Note the Wheel

The Earth disks tip the scales from the Sky disk, with the desire to see and understand the reality of suffering: poverty, disease, old age and death. These “sigils” (pentacles) shocked Prince Siddhartha profoundly, and altered his course of life from the local to the universal plane. On his fourth sally from the palace, he met a sage whose serenity (despite starvation) sustained a blessing on the piteous human condition. There must be a way …

Rohit’s Instructions for Card 4 –

“The story explains the context but it is very clear he left when his wife and newly born child were sleeping. He left on horseback instead of his chariot to confound any pursuers. Again the situation is regarded as a huge triumph for consciousness.

“There has always been a tension inherent in this episode, he is refusing to do his duty to follow his entelechy! If that can be conveyed it would be great…”

Four Sights, Signs, Wheels … the Law is aligned, and the household sleeps. The Prince rides forth on muffled hooves, in an etheric shroud to protect his destiny. Yet he bears in his mind, his wife and child. In due course, they became his devotees. The Buddha’s tempo of evolution is seemingly accelerated, in relation to theirs.

Throughout sacred and esoteric history, we come across different time-signatures in tandem, like a raga with two or more rhythms through it.

Correspondence – April 2003

“Hi jane – card one looks much better now. We’re very happy with 2,3 and 4, and suggest u just ‘go with the flow’. … Warm regards, Gautam.

Rohit: “It perfectly captures the sense of luxurious blindness to reality and the imperative for change, which is the message of the Two in the suit, anyway.

“Three is dramatic, even somewhat harrowing, but that is exactly what the young prince must have experienced in the Four Sights – something that knocked the bottom out of his shallow ‘successful’ world. It is a very strong composition indeed, made all the more powerful by substituting a skull, which has archetypal resonance, over the more obvious choice of a corpse.

“The Four has a somewhat Mughal miniature feel to it, with its split perspective to indicate simultaneity of action in different places. I think the prince has never looked so regal as at the moment he is going to renounce all the trappings of royalty. As always, Jane draws animals marvellously! It is a poignant card, not a dramatic one.”

“Painting the Buddhist Wheel of Life”, photo by Scott Aaron, 2divineways.com

Shyam-Kali Yantra, 18th century Rajasthan. Yantra with magic pentagon symbolizing the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether – may be vitalized as a safeguard against destruction and evil, and for good fortune.

Sri Chakra Yantra created in an electronic vibration field, an experiment in the translation of sound into vision. A similar experience is ‘sensed’ during ritual worship when the yantra pattern ‘dematerializes’, appearing to dissolve into a sound-pattern or vibration field of spoken mantras. Still for a film by Ronald Nameth.

These two Yantras are not of the Buddhist tradition, but they serve to demonstrate the universality of the Wheel: the precious seeds we bury in our lives.

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

Rohit Arya

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

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).

Published recently online: The Reckless Fruit in two parts
– here are the links to click

Jyotish – Drawings of the Vedic Astrology Deities

Posted on November 19, 2012 by janeadamsart

Jyotish means “the science of Light”. This term is applied to Indian astrology, and particularly to its Vedic pantheon. The science of Light is rooted in Earth’s relationship to the constellations. Our western astrology, due to the precession of the equinox over the millenia, is not aligned with the constellations. It has shifted about 23 degrees from them, so far. It interprets the Zodiac signs as phases – segments of the arc – of Earth’s journey around the Sun.

Both approaches however, deliver profound experiential insights.

In 1998, I was asked by Andrew Foss, president of the British Association for Vedic Astrology, to draw for him a set of the grahas, or planetary deities.

Six months later, Andrew’s mentor David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri) of the Vedic Institute in New Mexico, commissioned from me another set of the grahas, to illustrate his book The Astrology of the Seers.

On both occasions I sat down to draw the gods consecutively, one each day of the week, Sunday through Saturday, and the North and South Nodes: Rahu and Ketu.

Here are both sets, with accompanying notes. The first set was drawn for Andrew who is now about to publish them in his own book; they are his copyright, and here is his link: http://www.LearnVedicAstrology.com <http://www.LearnVedicAstrology.com>
http://www.VedicSoftware.com <http://www.VedicSoftware.com> .

The 20 sketches of the grahas became an inspirational basis for The Sacred India Tarot.

Firstly, Ganesh. No enterprise begins without invoking the auspicious creativity of the Elephant God, a son of Siva:

Sunday

Notes on Surya: Vishnu means “the one that pervades”. Thus the Surya – SUN – resonance.

As well as his benevolence, Surya’s is a destructive, cleansing, Self-willing power. In Indian culture, he is drought, fire and death as well as truth and creativity. In Egyptian initiations, it was said “Osiris is a Dark God.” To grow, we must confront.

The Sun is the power of light (Jyotish) – the translation onto the negative-film of the material plane. The real Light appears as darkness on our retina.

Surya’s beauty has an awesome simplicity – a pitiless and denuded dharma. He is wheel-rolling. In Surya, all orbits and revolutions turn at different angles to one another, merely to hint at the Whole dimension of his mandala. The black in his yantra suggests the corona, and sunspots: solar flares and magnetic bursts.

His yantra here, is tilted. His force arises out of its centre on a different plane. He has a superb innocence. Aruna the Dawn drives his chariot, but It could be as well be Krishna; because Surya is akin to the Vishnu archetype, the Sustainer, the all pervading.

Light is generated in Surya, to every direction and field of space. Nothing reflects or is reflected. It is all Self creating. There is no polarization or “effect” in the intoxicating nucleus of the Oneness.

In Jyotish, a Sun ruled personality may lack sensitivity to others, and is also not very impressionable in the astral field, i.e. does not have occult “experiences” – particularly if Earth and Saturn are strong in the chart.

Monday

Chandra, the deity of the Moon, is also SOMA, the nectar of the gods.

Fluidity, receptivity, clouds, sea, an infinite series of crescents, reflected light … let us form a vessel; attunement, watery, childlike – a polarized light is drawn across the heavens.

The foundation of Vedic Astrology has 27 Lunar Mansions and 108 segment/divisions (27 times the 4 lunar quarters). The fast mover around the constellational field, absorbs every resonance, and determines the constellar imprint at birth, for a lifetime’s cycles. In India, the Moon is the central significator, more so than the Sun. Indian and Western astrology have varying cultural and climatic nuances, and a different “harmonic” chart structure, but interpretation brings forth the same principles, like different sides of the same leaf.

The grahas or gods are all represented as male – even the Moon and Venus. This is because it is taken for granted in Indian metaphysics, that every god has his Shakti or feminine half, and cannot operate without her. So some of them are profoundly androgenous.

Chandra carries a mace and a white night lily. Chandra’s complexion is silvery white. His mystic vehicle is drawn by a young antelope; the three wheels are lunar-phase Yantras. The ten horses are the seminal energy of Brahma’s child Atri, spilt in all the 10 directions (damsels) and received by earth.

Chandra expresses the love of children, of the young in all the Universe. Light giver, boon bringer, he touches surfaces, moving the lunar tide.

Chandra is “the son of Varuna (the winds) Lord of the Oceans, from which the Moon rises.” During the waning half of the month, (moonth) 36,000 gods feed on his nectar and exhaust him. During the waxing half, Surya feeds him with the water of the Oceans, and he regains strength and fullness.

A Lunar ruled personality is highly sensitive, receptive, yielding: susceptible also to shadow persuasions and deception.

Tuesday

Mangala, Mars, is the son of Earth. That is why he does well in Capricorn. For all his energy and drive, he represents aspects of the tamas-guna – i.e. enclosure, systems, the trained warrior, control and obedience, skill. The tamas-guna gives form to the fiery, centrifugal rajas-guna. (See Tree of Life, Three Gunas, at the end of this post.)

Mangala’s spear, club and the demon-destroying Skanda on peacock, are the spirit of war and of self defense. The negative side of this is: wilful destroyer, tamas-inertia, road rage (chaotic or cold), ignorance. Note his sensual facial features: fire in earth. Mangala carries his Shakti on his lap. His hands gesture “freedom from fear”. The Shakti is also the spear. The feminine Shakti is the Kundalini of which Mars when in his exaltation, is Lord.

Big muscular body, but also stillness. The alert spear is at rest: law-sustainer, the balance which is sattva-guna. The red energy is kept still and quiet.

Wednesday

Budha, Mercury. Intelligence is budha, a faculty which quicksilvers the mind, but is not the mind, it is the Universe. Sweet mischievous winged one, hears the speech of birds, blesses, delivers, playful chameleon, has lived as a woman – the son/seed of Chandra(moon) and Tara, goddess of the Word. Thus Budha’s Ardhanariswara curve, his sensitive androgenous grace.

Budha’s vehicle is a Lion with an elephant’s trunk – rather a surprise. The Lion is the king of beasts. The Elephant is the remover of obstacles, and very Indian. The Lion is the power of grace, and the Elephant – who grows SLOWLY – is the power of speech and memory.

Budha’s aura is gold. He is like Hermetic gold, clear, sparkling and childlike. The most adaptable and amenable of archetypes, he can take on also the colouring and power of the asuras – demons. He carries a short sword and a Tara Yantra shield.

Thursday

Guru: Jupiter: Brhaspati is the protector of the hymnology of the Vedas – teacher of the science of Light – controller of the Sun and Moon.

His western counterpart is Jove, or Zeus. Brahma is his tutelary deity. He holds rosary, mendicants’ staff, sacred water-pot, and his gesture disposes boons. Auspicious, except when reversing.

He has a yellow-white complexion, and sits on a golden lotus. His hair and beard are matted, and he wears an antelope skin. He is the preceptor of the Gods. Eight horses – or lotus petals, the directions of space – pull his chariot. The Great Swan is Paramahansa. In Vedic symbolism, the swan churns nectarine Light from the dark water – the cream from the milk.

Friday

Sukra: Venus. An androgynous figure. “Sukra” means “white”. The preceptor of the demons was Kavi – he brought destroyed asuras back to life. Bull Nandi found this out, and told his Master, Siva, who ordered Kavi before him, and gobbled him up. Inside Siva’s stomach, Kavi sang hymns in Siva’s praise. Pleased, Siva let him out through his penis, and told him (Kavi) he is his own Son, now called Sukra the white.

Like the Nilakunta/Kalakunta story, an atomic homeopathy comes into play: the transformation of the demonic at the root, by Siva

This tale of alchemic transmutation has strong resonances with the mythology of Uranus and Aphrodite. Uranus engendered so many Titans (cosmic demons), that he was castrated by Chronos (Saturn) by order of their mother, Gaia. His organ fell into the sea where it burst into a great froth, out of which emerged Aphrodite, goddess of love … comely as in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, brought to shore. No wonder, many believe she’s the cause of all the trouble.

In the Solar system, Venus and Uranus both rotate around their axes at right angles to the rest of the planetary universe.

Sukra/Venus had agreed earlier to be the preceptor of Demons, because he had feelings of envy and ill will towards Bhraspati (Jupiter), the preceptor of Gods. The Vedic psychology is as precise and informed in its symbolism of dark and light, as any Jungian analysis. The demonic vitality, when regulated, becomes an auspicious servant.

Sukra/Venus enjoys white flowers, and to ride a red lotus; favours water, carries a water-pot, staff, rosary and boon-bestowing gesture, like Jupiter. The tutelary deity is Indra; the vehicle is pulled by the 8 white horses of the sea.

Saturday

Sani – Saturn – has a dark complexion, and carries lance, dart, spear and bow. Sanaischava was the second son – the firstborn was Manu, scribe of the Laws – of the shadow wife of Surya. Surya’s actual wife (Samjna) couldn’t bear Surya’s brilliant Light, so she left her shadow-replica for Surya to conceive with.

Sani keeps his head bent, for fear of causing injury to living beings. This is because once upon a time, being engaged in austerities, he failed to notice his lovely wife – who cursed him henceforth, that whatever he looked at, would be destroyed. So when the Gods persuaded him to visit Siva and Parvati and their new baby Ganapati (Ganesh), he kept his head bent, and wouldn’t look.

(Some say that he did look, and that is why Ganesh has an elephant head. In general the Vedic Divine behaviour has much in common with Olympus.)

But if Sani averted his gaze, he lost the ability to behold good fortune and the removal of obstacles, and grew gloomy. So he has a sadness, a darkness in his heart about the intolerable brightness of Surya; and a compassion with the living beings – the burden of their Dharma.

Sani’s tutelary deities are Prajapati, Lord of Creatures and their Procreation, and Yama the Lord of Death. His ornaments are a very dark sapphire – the colour nila. His ikon is black iron installed on a pedestal the shape of an arrow. Sani is slow moving, and tends to be lame. He has the face of the Sun, but rides a crow. He is a philosopher of the wheels within wheels which themselves are turning.

David Frawley’s book says Sani’s Vedic vehicle is an Ox. So I gave him a pair, yoked and slow moving. Sani has musicians’ hands. Saturn is the musical discipline, the harmony of the spheres, the subtle intelligence, or cosmic intellect.

Sunday/Monday

Rahu, the upturned glyph, is the Dragons’ Head with a serpent body. Rahu is a wide ranging break-dancer, with a passion for manifestation and reverse modes. He chases the Sun and Moon to eat them, but whenever this begins to occur, there is a strange resonance of alignment along the ecliptic planes: the Oneness, the silence in all the Universe … which Rahu dreads.

Paradoxically, Rahu’s dark path around the petals of the Light, cancels every difference.

Rahu most resembles Uranus. Vedic astrology, with galactic archetypes to deal with, as well as planets, dispenses with Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. As with Uranus, Rahu’s multi-dimensioned visit apparently breaks apart the known world, manifesting and destroying islands of aggrandizement … to reveal, as in Holst’s The Planets: Nothing. Ringing silence. Or Magic! Rahu’s energy field is a clash of cymbals.

His vehicle is a Lion and eight trotting horses, as black as beetles. He occludes and occultates the Sun: thus his power to promote illusion, magic and worldly gain, political tyranny and wealth … which break apart. He is pure Hollywood glitz. On a sundial, the principle of Time the all-devourer, faces the Sun: Rahu is the shadow the Sun throws behind Time. He carries sword, shield, spear, gesture of protection and gesture of boon disposal. He is worshipped by black flowers, and his face is tiger like. His tutelary deities are Kala – great Time – and Sarpa, the Serpent queen. Kala is another name for Yama, Lord of Death.

[NB: The KaLAs (accent on second A) are fractions of the Moon’s orbit. The Nitya Shaktis are 16 moon digits around the cycle of its waxing and waning.

KaLA is a manifestation (through the unfolding of Sri Chakra Yantra) of material force, along with sound (Nada). See also the similar root words: KaLA meaning root; KALI yuga, materiality, and KALAKUNTA, the great black demon churned up with the gods’ ambrosial butter, which Siva swallowed and turned peacock blue in his throat.

So KaLA suggests “materiality” and also “part or fraction” – which is what the materiality-projection turns out to be. KaLA is said (in Sri Chakra Yantra writings) to limit the infinite power of Siva who is formless. KaLA forms and separates.

KAla is the god of Time, carrying noose and cudgel. This also limits and materializes.]

In Rahu’s story, he was an Asura – a great Demon. He pretended to be a god, and came to drink Soma with them in their revels. Surya and Chandra (Sun and Moon) detected him, and reported him to Vishnu, who cut off his head with his Discus. But Rahu’s mouth had already tasted Soma and become immortal; so Brahma had to reluctantly make him into a planet. Rahu is hungry for ever, for the bliss. He pursues the sun and moon during the period of eclipse. Rahu, the North node, is a point of intersection of the orbits of moon around earth and earth around sun; this point travels counter-clockwise around the zodiac. It makes a complete circuit every 18.6 years.

Rahu rules the constellations Ardra, Svati and Satabhishak. His nature is feminine-absorbing, with Jupiter and Venus influences. He is exalted in Gemini, rules Virgo, is harmony in Libra, discord in Aries, detrimental in Pisces, and falls in Sagittarius – the story of his life. He “contributes to worldly prosperity”.

Tuesday

KETU – the Moon’s South Node – is the body chopped away from the Asura – from the serpent who tasted nectar, and remained for ever addicted.

Ketu favours spiritual development, Yoga and “the party is over”. Ketu is what got left behind Rahu’s binge, and is the situation of most of us. Rahu assists the general razzmatazz, but Ketu is much smaller than that giant head, and his tendency is to concentrate and distil, rather than to expand. Core-wise, he isn’t interested in externals.

Ketu is exalted in Sagittarius, rules Pisces, is harmony in Aries and discordant in Libra, causes grave detriment in Virgo and falls in Gemini. In some representations he is two-armed, with his left hand on his knee.

In the centre of the wheel is stillness. The tail end of the dragon seeks stillness. I feel blindfold with this KETU. I cannot see, he is a great mystery, and there isn’t much to read about him. He rides on Pigeons. His ikon is banner shaped. His tutelary deities are Brahma and Chitragupta. Chitragupta is an attendant of Yama. Thus: the Creator and the Destroyer are his guardian angels. He winnows out the excess. His head is deformed, and his complexion and ornaments are ashy. NAM YAR – who am i?

David Frawley’s book explains: RAHU is the shadow of the Moon; KETU is the shadow of the Sun. Ketu is contractive, centripetal, like Saturn. Ketu tends to use up one’s vitality – overwork and isolation, but … the most wonderful insight from past lives, aligned with Mercury. KETU means “a flag”. He boosts all the planetary powers. He is most like Pluto – trans-formative, the Light of the dark.

“Rahu and Ketu indicate the factors which block out the light of the great luminaries.”

In this general context, I am reminded of a classic photo of the world’s second highest mountain – taken on the Duke of Abruzzi’s expedition to the Karakorum in 1909: K2, known locally as “Ketu”, as seen from the Baltoro Glacier:

Here are now the second sequence of the Grahas, six months later – without notes, as published in David Frawley’s book, The Astrology of the Seers. It gave me an opportunity to develop all the ideas:

Sunday, Surya

Monday, Chandra

Tuesday, Mangala

Wednesday, Budha

Thursday, Guru

Friday, Sukra

Saturday, Sani

Rahu, Northnode

Ketu, Southnode

Dattatreya, the Guru of Life

Dattatreya, at the finale of this sequence, complements Ganesh at the beginning. Dattatreya is the Guru of those who no longer walk holding the hands of someone more grown up. Dattatreya is the unconditional preceptor through nature and through every situation in life: puja to the sacred art of Life.

Bridging principles of Kabbalah and Vedanta: Tree of Life, Four Worlds and Three Gunas

NB – for contemporary and wonderfully accessible teachings on Vedic Astrology (Jyotish), look up or google The Vedic Institute (David Frawley), British Association of Vedic Astrologers (BAVA – Andrew Foss), and Komila Sutton, who writes and lectures brilliantly. Andrew developed a Vedic-astrology software which is friendly to western tropical chart users.

TO VIEW SLIDES, click on any image and wait for gallery to upload

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.

Listening with the Oracle

Posted on October 18, 2012 by janeadamsart

Some of my journal from a week ago has been sitting in the pipeline. Upon these images and impressions were “floated” my recent posts on Karma, Kundalini Shakti and the Tree.

Woman by the Sea 1987 – drawn with my eyes closed

What is Oracle?

The oracle is a quirky thing. It is a way – an ear to the ground for footsteps or the pulse of things. The same root becomes orator and orifice. “Ora” means “now”, in Italian, and also Or is gold, and the ore of metals: the aura of the dawn: the oral tradition.

An amphitheatre is shaped like an ear in the ground. The oracle speaks at Delphi – where a peculiar configuration of the rock and waterflow condenses human receptivity. The oracle is also a coracle – a little Celtic boat shaped like a nutshell.

Firstly we learn to perceive the omens – affirmations and resonances which pattern human affairs.

It takes a long practice to become reliably “oracular”. It is clouded by anticipation, hope, fear and superstitious tension. To some extent we need to undo our education. It is clarified by human whole response, moving with nature. The Australian aborigines’ “Dream Time” perspective and way of life is a seamless oracle with the landscape.

For the oracle we use formally, Tarot cards, I Ching, astrology, scrying and countless other devices. We use whatever forms for us, an adequate lens. Leaves on the ground would serve, if we give them that meditative focus. The key to the oracle is a moment’s concentration: peace. To that concentration, the universe mysteriously responds, with picture language, the language of the subconscious; and things are revealed which only ourselves can privately know. It is the psychic law of gravity.

You-night: from Owl-Fox shaman series 1986

The little fox comes through the long grass, near magic mushrooms; and a distant owl is in the tree. This is an oracular painting, because I let it lead me. I had a dream that the owl, my familiar, came and stood on my shoulder. Our profile is along the borderlands.

I use the oracle as and when moved: usually for a reflection on what is going on. As the waters become still for a moment, I look. It is like the trees by a pond, as ripples which broke up the surface, fade. Actually the oracle never ends. If I ask it specific questions, it may give me answers to others. I use the Tarot and the I Ching, as and when moved. My daily writing is my invocation and my divining rod. It leads me where I didn’t know I should go. It digs the earth, finds the well, and raises the spirit level.

Mischief can easily enter the oracle. Alliance with a tried and trusted teaching, such as the Tree of Life helps to guard the truth. Above all, we develop our ability to discriminate the Maggid (inner plane teacher) from the Flatterer or Tyrant. The hallmark is: the “inner plane” does not opinionate or give orders. It shows cosmic and ethical principles, and in the light of these, our own decision ripens.

Ebony shakti, siva, elephants

Journal 12 October 2012 – After Acu-pins

It is truly very marvellous to know human beings: the individual treasury to savour.

I’ve been dipping in Nothing Ever Happened – and do you know? Wonderful as that view is, and Poonja’s great stature and humanity, and him with Mira … it is to me, quite flimsy. Now you’ve got it, now you haven’t, listen to the teacher and keep quiet, there is no thing, be happy … it is very Indian, but cancelling out the Vedas and all their intuition of Nature. It is OK for a time of rest. Poonja had power of presence and siddhis and laughter. People wanted relief from their Stuff.

Wood lamp

The teachers’ personality and presence is fascinating at all levels.

But my devotion doesn’t go there! All that enlightenment is a carnival. It is not reliable, without a sound working grasp of the way the mind and the imagination work. Voluntary de-nutrition is not the way either. All the paths come to the same Thing, unthinged as the sea, whatever the texture and weave. How deep does it go? Self realization in the cave of the heart, assists the whole humanity in a way transcending any teaching or banners. At one time I tried to give up diary keeping, so as to toe the advaita line. No way! Ramesh Balsekar put me right. He said enjoy and honour what you are.

Light crossing the brook at Buckland Filleigh

I am guided by the Shakti, an elder feminine discarnate, and at this moment, the current is running in tune to her sharpness, my projection onto her. The woman births what the man built up over the years. The flavour of attunement has soft needles, for I went and had acupuncture yesterday. It prickles and yet it is a white flowing cloud, a magnetic fluid. It is the reality of my Sun mandala.

The sharpness is the way the Maggidim perceive. It is within and under their eyelids, like the core of the rose. The rose is a profoundly female organ, flag of desire, invitation. The pattern under her is both disbanding and integrative – (see dakini oracle pictures, below). She is a spider, yet she does not devour, she takes the dark staff and heals; that is her DNA.

What may I call you? Rosa? Maria Rosa?

Jupiter and Rosa

My history of Rosa is that she – I – was a moon of Jupiter Zeus, and he sent great charges of gravitational shift through my orbit, like lightning bolts. Thus were my initiations, and the acupuncture reminds me of them. I had a series of Watershed dreams during the 1970s; the initiations discharged their shock during them. I did a crash course of catching up.

sun wood yantra

I use the Secret Dakini Oracle (by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger) for reflection. These 64 cards are a collage of Tantric and Tibetan deities – wrathful and joyous – with modern western archetypes.

When I ask it a question, it gives me picture-poems like Lyra’s alethiometer in His Dark Materials. Usually I lay out just the top cards of three piles, the present moment, centre, with its past and its future. This time, I also laid them out as “JHVH” – with the three cards which underlie each one.

Present moment: “Rose Garden“, with “Cutting Loose“, “Ganesh (in spider web, Lord of obstacles)” and “Mercury/Caduceus“.

and past …

… and future

The past is “Recall“. With it are “Last Laugh“, “Fuschia/As Above so Below” and “The Wish fulfilling Gem“, which corresponds to the Lovers. (You can see these better if you click on them.)

The future is “Self preservation“. With it are “Centering the Present“, “Solar Return” and “Joker” (Fool).

In “Recall“, big sea shells in the sky hear the sea and sands. “The Rose garden” has pure perfume shells like kisses. The Egyptian was an ancient priestess in the winds of time. I feel with her, the stars, anterior to swirling sands … and how they become dutiful bubbles and subconscious blots – the dreams and forgettings, the lifetimes of being human through millennia to come.

The cards under her are symbols of the Sun Mandala, dark and light. “Sri Chakra” is the ultimate Yantra. In the Secret Dakini Oracle, it is called “Centering – the Present“. “Solar Return“ is a new moon sun-eclipse: poems of eclipse and confrontation; enquiry into roots; dark night of the soul: astrology. The “Joker/Fool“ wears a solar swastika mandala, rosebud in paper hat, little world – doesn’t god play dice?

Are they dancers? or pillars? Wood like stone and elephants

The oracle – the underbeing: the tempo slows down and comes in with the tide

“We say you have your threads together now, and so you spin them out, concentrically. Speaking to you in this element while you are here, and hear, we instruct. Mandala, chakra, web, the fuscia and the gem; cut loose, lay down the axe and smile.”

Woman entering the sea ’87

“Recognise that this strata has nothing to do with life-form thoughts and troubles. It transcends and antecedes them. It has its own tempo.”

“Each oracle lets go baggage – 49, 64 and 0. Let out the reservoir. The reservoir was a meridian behind a closed door. The door is open. The reservoir flows out in a controlled way. We are its handlers where she goes.”

“There is no more to dictate from this level; it is all stored. Lean back into here, rest and be silent. Trust me. I rain and I shine. I AM my way of writing you.”

“As the reservoir flows out, the acupuncture pings: your dolmens and dancing dragons.”

wood lamp pings

“There is a conversation between practitioner and client, which doesn’t need speech. He can see and she can feel the dolmens. So it is with us.”

brook by Henlys Corner: snake water stone

“Your silence is my speech. I am the goddess of your being; the daughter of the Himalaya and of the stars. I am Parvati and Isis and Annapurna. I make you a dancer, a temple dancer slender, curvy and supple. I recommend you dance, to clear your weight off the front. I am your commonsense. I am the knowledge of your body and her renewal. I am X X criss cross. I am the crossing over of the rivers of Time. I am ALL WAYS the centre of the Flower. I flow the centre of the flower. Follow. Following.”

“Transmission is absolutely continuous to and in itself; register the blips and pin points.”

Young tree of life upon the old

Midwinter dancing with Pan ’87/88

I am that I am.

I put on Dead can Dance, and danced with and as the She. So now the nadis sing in the back of my head. The Ancient World is a worship like the storm in a tree.

Recall those nadis, amrita, sushumna, and shankini. They are dancers.

3 nadis dancing with Pan 1989

She dancing with Pan ’89

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.

Beyond the Box

Posted on September 23, 2012 by janeadamsart

Sarada Devi, the wife of Ramakrishna

“Put to good use, the powers of the astral plane, to reign with heaven.”

Reflect on “conscious participation”. This is what an artist does, who generates “new” images and astral temples and landscapes. (Nothing is new – just freshly reconstituted!) All the astral plane’s brilliant beauty and terror and muck is made up of what the human psyche has installed there and impressed to believe. It is the realm of the embedded Imagination.

On a visit in a dream, when the landscape has that tell tale illumination, colour and clarity, it was travelled in by a soul, perhaps recently, perhaps repeatedly, perhaps in very ancient history. It is something their life, their delight and their problem made, and it is there for ever.

Similarly I visit nightmare, panic, depression and loss when I am vulnerable or in transition. And I learn by trial and error solve and coagula – what I truly wish to sponsor, and to withdraw from what I would not add to. This last is difficult, because anxiety and violence – co-dependency at any level – are truly attractive and compelling.

The Age of indelible inputs which we have now (by cyberspace network) only copies and makes a little more manifest what is there already and has been for unknown millenia – an infinitely expanding backlog. Governments get all excited and think they can exploit and control it to keep tabs on everyone, and people are furious; but it makes a small difference only to those who magnify the idea. A government is no different from myself or any individual. Any detail dwelled upon, becomes all-encompassing and engulfing – a universe, a MAYA. That is why sages and Masters touch on life lightly. “The situation is desperate, but it isn’t serious.”

Theatre Arunachala Vichara

The shape and consistency of “me” is extraordinarily powerful, to counteract and disregard the universal borrowing that goes on. Each individual is a Clapham junction. Trains – individualities, traumas and long life histories, themselves shiploading souls containing eggs and sperm – zoom in and out in shades, occupying an hour or a day or a passing breeze. Learning to identify the moods as persons or flourishes of the Goddess, may help to release from “identification”; and to begin travelling consciously within the dream… like Castaneda.

Paradoxically, identification happens when we do not have good, clear boundaries.

The dreamer in the dream! Which is which? Visually, we are cocoons, dreamily interacting with other self absorbed cocoons – a mutual fog. At a party in a garden, coastlines chat to coastlines of the dark continent and cheerfully restrict each other. “Here be dragons.”

Coastlines meeting socially

The raised eyebrow of Ramana and the sound of water pouring through Skanda-ashram, reminds me to dislodge the cocoon and ask who … ? Unanswerable! My “touch-base” with Ramana has no ashram enclosure. Ramana “who sports in the Self” … helps me to navigate the quicksand and return to space and base.

In bird watching mode

Ramana Maharshi’s life and atmosphere is embedded in my hard drive, with the Tree of Life. I hardly notice it! Why did these useful friends get embedded so? Not by sitting meditation, but by years of hands-on apprenticeship to a craft. In my case … drawing, writing, and then learning to use a mac to archive things.

The computer copies the neural mind. It demonstrates psychological menus and the way the memory base works. So the screen is fascinating. It is a self portrait. It reflects faithfully, our obsessions. It displays our private subconscious in full view… to the extremities of twitter fallout.

wood bird yantra

Then it is up to us to select … what to bind, and what to loose.

The universal snapshot is oblong, like a house, a car, a phone. As three-dimensioned beings, the oblong and – (with a stretch of imagination) – the Cube … is how we view life and ourselves, habitually. Conscious participation lifts the lid a little. Conscious participation accepts Life above and below the screen, and to each limitless side; and fore and aft. Conscious participation invites a larger spectrum.

The Cube of Space. See Builders of the Adytum for the course work

Habitually the planetary orbits around the Sun are viewed as an ellipse – a thin slice across a hard boiled egg.

Conscious participation intuits – “above” and “below” that plane – the Solar system as the egg-in-shell of nesting spheres … feel it, taste it, be it. An electron wave-pulse enspheres the atom so, and gives it number, weight and significance. The planets in the physical plane, are points: positions in the Heisenberg position-or-motion principle. The observer’s consciousness “collapses” the observed into one or the other, and records the observation locally.

The energy-field of each planet – whose physical globe we perceive – does not encircle but enspheres the Sun. This concept releases an entirely different information: such as the elder science of astrology: the interconnectivity of the solar system with galactic wheels, eggs and atoms.

The concept uplifts the interior life to walk tall. A Yantra is a cross-sectional projection of the tree of life’s organic and actual growth. The tree – our body – grows up through the Yantra, root, stem, sap, crown and birdsong, through the seasons.

tree yantra

Truth is largely hidden from the daily grind. It is unavailable to the general news media and entertainment, because it is perpendicular to our limited sensory horizon. I do not go along with the idea of “conspiracy theories” keeping the human race asleep. I know too well the pattern of my own inertia momenta to keep me asleep (by habit), to pass the buck! It is natural, given the habitual pathways, tensions and comfort zone, for this to happen. The half-conscious state is indeed susceptible to crossroads of bacteria, cancers, ancient kundabuffer (see Gurdjieff), space invaders and what-have-you. But to imagine a conspiracy is part of the fantasy. It has no real substance. It finds no grip.

Are we not, each of us, responsible to …? Doesn’t each plant wrestle with resistant earth to reach the sun? – (often over many cycles, many lifetimes.) And are we not buds on the same tree, all destined to open, but not at the same time? What am I to do, right now? To pass the buck to anyone else, any country, society or government, is day-dreaming and depletive. Right here, and no where else, is where the quantum leap begins.

Quantum physics knows the morphic resonance of atomic particles. Where one bows, or hops to a higher orbit, others distant beyond the reach of light and space, behave simultaneously. We are never alone. I am never alone.

Sri chakra yantra

I do accept I am hypnotized by what I am conditioned to believe. Where do I put my concentration … that is the training – which in due time, manifests? Esoteric and occult schools drum in the alternative way, by REPETITION. By repetition is how we view ourselves from infancy, by repetition a musician rehearses, and by repetition we learn. By repetition the seasons turn. That makes the scriptures and schoolbooks of Ageless Wisdom seem very boring!

The dimensions: point (dimensionless) to line, plane, solid, spatial (after Ouspensky). The Point, its infinite potential in any direction, inward as outward, is the geometry of the sphere, and is perhaps the fourth dimension.

In all the teachings, the Fourth dimension – the grasp of the Whole – is perpendicular to our time and space, inward as outward. The box falls open!

A tapestry or Sufi blanket is woven into patterns horizontally – lifetimes: but the thread entering it vertically, at any point, is Consciousness. At the heart of the thread is pure lambs’ wool, undyed.

The Tailor of the Dark Field

Needles' eye!   
My heart's thread sews   
heaven into fields   
of day and night.   

The point!   
In fragrant flowering night   
are drawn in paths of light   
those patterns of the bright   
sapphire sky.    

Creating the One!   
Passing through point's eye   
into unbound and brilliant hour,   
I AM the sacred thread    
of dim, dark lifetimes gathered   
O Lord of Caves   
and of the meeting rivers!   

Listen to the sound   
unseamed   
where waters meet;   

my point opens   
the way a diamond   
shines.

from Siva Poems, circa 1994

Tetrahedral Tree of Life (1993)

Mouni Sadhu – (in Meditation, chapter 33 The Possibility of Miracles) gave a useful exercise to train the mind to step out of the box:

“(1) Take a small box, a match-box will do. Look intently INSIDE it and study it, so that every detail will be firmly impressed on your mind, and you can then recreate it in your imagination in full when you are not actually looking in the box. It is not easy, I know, but no important undertaking which is rich in results has ever been easy!

“(2) When you have finished with the ‘inside’ of your box and can build an exact picture of it in your mind, pass to a study of its OUTER surface, exactly as you did with the INSIDE. Check the results carefully, so the new picture is just like the first (1), clear cut and definite.

“(3) Now comes the actual test: try to get a SIMULTANEOUS picture in your mind of the inside and outside of your match-box. If you succeed, you have enriched yourself with a certain enlargement of consciousness, which leads to a realisation of the possibility of higher dimensions.

“This exercise may take a lot of time (weeks or months) if it is to be performed as intended. And it is quite possible that you will feel yourself completely unable to perform it. Then leave it alone, nobody can exceed his actual powers, and it is not essential.

“Most probably, you would like to hear how a unit of say, the FOURTH dimension may look in relation to its predecessor, the cube. Well, it must be built by the creation of a body, which will be simultaneously perpendicular to all the surfaces of our cube, as our former deliberations about the three known dimensions and their formation have shown us. Only a mathematically skilled mind may see such a possibility clearly.

“The problem is up to you to decide and try it for yourself.

“Incidentally, this ‘fantastic’ four-dimensional unit, derived from a cube, is often called ‘THE TESSARACT’.”

Mouni Sadhu

Orbits meet

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.

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

Sacred India Tarot Archive: Creation of World Shakti & Nataraja

Posted on September 17, 2012 by janeadamsart

The Sacred India Tarot Archive, by Rohit Arya and Jane Adams

ardhanariswara at elephanta, mumbai

Rohit’s Notes: Autumn 2003

“The World – Nataraja but as Ardhanirishwara.

“This is an easy card in the sense that we need only the classic Nataraja dancing figure as shown in the illustration. The dwarf under the feet of the dancing god should NOT be left out, it is a vital part of the process. The choice of Nataraja as Ardhanarishvara is to indicate the completion of the Fool’s journey to a transcendence beyond the roles and attitudes of gender.

“What I would like in the arch of flame that surrounds the Nataraja, is to turn it around into Ourobouros The Serpent of Time, eating its own tail. It is also called the Worm of Time, or the Dragon of Time. Ideally I would like a dragon-like snake around the Ardhanariswara, but it should clearly be made of flames. The picture we send you should be of some help in creating this flame circle round the dancing god.

nataraja serpent dragon ref

“The background can be the consistent cosmic background we have used in all the other cards. This card should be kept simple, as the archetypal imagery is so powerful, we need nothing else.”

nataraja ref

Jane’s Notes: September 2012

This card dictated its own evolution. We ended up eventually, with TWO World cards – Siva Natarajan and World Shakti.

first Natarajan Ardhanariswara

Jane’s Notes: 2010

The deck’s first version of the World had Nataraja Ardhanariswara (Lord whose half is Woman) inside the dragon Ourobouros, and dancing on a demon. The illustration was somewhat cramped. It lacked space, and none of us were very pleased with it. Later on, an Ardhanariswara occurred spontaneously in the Minor Arcana, in the Lotuses suit (Cups).

In 2005, when completing the Suit of Lotuses, I painted the Queen of Lotuses, Rati the wife of Kama, as we planned. But Rohit and Gautam decided to upgrade this exciting Kundalini goddess to the World Shakti Herself, and to commission a new Rati for the suit of Lotuses.

As a result, we have a male AND a female “World” – Siva and his Shakti.

Shakti is the Sri Chakra Yantra herself, centred on the linga sarira around which is coiled the World Serpent. The design was inspired by an 18^th century tantric ritual painting.

ritual painting 18th century ref

In the palms of her hands are yonis which look like seeds. The serpents emerging from behind her breasts are the Sun and Moon – ida and pingala. The kundalini force, wrapped three and a half times around the Siva Lingam, is just awakening; the lotuses are a fountain of life, and so are the daisies.

World Shakti

What is expressed here, is the male vertical penetrating the female horizontal plane, timelessly; the living combination of chakra (wheel or mandala) with the uprising sap of the tree of life. Egg and sperm … the one crosses the other; they are unity.

Here also is the mystery of prakriti – the substratum of all manifestation: the ‘lattice’ of our world, in Solomon’s Song.

In the Western deck, the World card is traditionally and mysteriously hermaphrodite, being a return to the Bride dancing within the atom – the rotations of our world.

JA’s hermetic Tarot 21, The World (1991)

Correspondence: Rohit to Gautam – 6 April 2005

“Gautam – I think the queen is the best card ever done till today, but it is probably a waste for Rati. We could easily put this up as a World card. Rati is not so powerful, but we can rename this the Tripura Sundari – the essence of feminine supremacy, the female World card. The male World card could be the Nataraja, not the Ardhanariswara, so we will have two World cards which is okay. Hinduism is conflicted as to whether the ultimate form of god is male or female … … (correspondence continues regarding the Knight and Queen of Lotuses) …

“… it is the ultimate female Shakti depicted there, so we use it as one World, the Nataraja becomes the male World card, completing the journey of the Fool Rudra Siva – now Nataraja.

“It will be a slight drag for Jane, but really this card is too powerful, there is also a lingam which completes the Siva imagery which began the Fool card. I think Jane has reached an inspired vein in these last two cards, the Kama is actually the ithyphallic hunter Siva who has dalliances with the wives of Rishis in the forest of reeds near Chidambaram.

(Minor Arcana -Kama, the god of desire)

“I think Jane has to be troubled to draw the Queen once more, but it is her own fault for being so brilliant.

“This feminine Shakti is the best card till now, perhaps the new Nataraja will match it. Let her draw a Nataraja as she deems fit; I am certain something amazing will emerge, and that will be our second World card. Perhaps she could incorporate a Mahamritunjaya yantra in it, but beyond that I do not want to make any suggestions while she is in such an inspired state. Rohit.”

ardhanariswara ref: sculptures

As the Sacred India Tarot has a male and female death, similarly we continue to break new ground with a male and female World.

Shakti’s consort is Nataraja. So our new Nataraja – Lord of the Dance – was done a considerable time later than the other Major Arcana – almost the final painting in the whole project. His face is indrawn to bliss of the newborn, like a sustained orgasm. Like Rudra, the divine prototype through The Fool card in Sacred India Tarot, he holds aloft the drum and the flame, which infinitely open and close our kalpa – (aeon) – with a cymbal crash.

Natarajan

His other pair of arms bestow blessing and protection. In his lower right palm are the red and white triangles of the Sri Chakra Yantra. His left hand points inward, balancing his stance. His body is smooth and ageless, empowered by the emanations from planetary Kundalini and the cosmic yab-yum yantra created by his lower body.

This Yantra is – I think – of Bagalamukhi: the hypnotic power of the Goddess. It is a six-point star of Siva and Sakti triangles, with an added Shakti-feminine triangle.

David Frawley writes of Bagalamukhi: “A very beautiful woman walking by can make a man stop and lose his breath. The cosmic feminine power has a capacity to stun, stop or paralyse. These are aspects of the Goddess Bagalamukhi … Bagala means literally a rope or bridle – Mukhi means ‘face’. Bagala is a Goddess of speech, and as such is related to Tara and regarded as a form of her. When sound becomes manifest as light, Tara becomes Bagala. When the brilliant light of speech comes forth, then Tara gains the effulgence of Bagala and causes all things to become still. Bagala is thus the stunning radiance that comes forth from the Divine Word and puts the human or egoistic word to rest. … … What is our Self nature? What is the I Am in itself once divested of all transient identifications with which we confuse it? Such enquiry will bring the mind to rest.”

From Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddesses

In the deck itself, you may notice the serpent foreground is replaced by the traditional demon which was in the earlier design: Siva makes the personal ego his dance floor. In the new Natarajan however, the serpent power IS Siva’s laid back rotational ecstasy. They turn perhaps in opposite directions like the figure of eight: an electron’s double rotation through manifest and virtual states.

Note: the World Serpent was introduced to the deck through Vishnu, the Magician.

Correspondence: Rohit to Gautam – 16 April 2005

“The World is now a stunning card … What is there to say? It is as good as the female World, the kundalini snakes add an inspired touch to this composition. I think this card is a genuine achievement. I am deliriously happy. Rohit.”

The Sacred India Tarot Archive, cards 0 – 14 can be found at http://aryayogi.wordpress.com SITA cards 15 – 21 are on janeadamsart.wordpress.com also. TO BE CONTINUED/

Rohit Arya

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.

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

Drawing the Sri Chakra Yantra: some early Notes

Posted on September 13, 2012 by janeadamsart

The most visited post in this blog is the one which “began” it – “How to Draw the Sri Chakra Yantra” in early June. This exercise was foundational to my creative projects down the years. The wedding of Siva and Sakti through the cosmic lattice – whether subtle or physical – is the groundwork. It underwrites and ensures a healthy lotus.

I discovered the other day, the following sequence of drawings and diagrams, which may be of some interest.

In 1993, I kept (with my beloved of that time) a log-book. We were laying foundations for a spiritual dwelling. So to begin with, the two pages which follow are thoughts of the Sun, from Maitri Upanishad chapter 6:

“(1) – the Self bears himself in two ways, as he who is breath and he who is the Sun. Therefore, two, as true, are these paths inward outward. They both turn back in a day and night. Yonder sun is the outer self; the inner self is breath. Hence, the course of the inner self is measured by the course of the outer self.

“For thus it has been said:

“Whoever is a Knower, who has freed from evil the overseer of his senses, is pure minded and firmly established in that which is locked away from outward objects, is even so, the Self. Likewise, the course of the Outer Self is measured by the course of the Inner Self. Now that golden person who is within the Sun, who looks on this earth from his golden place, is even he who has entered into the lotus of the heart and eats food.

“(2) – Now, he who has entered the lotus of the heart and eats food …

The action of the Sun in all directions, inward as outward

Following this, the Upanishad says: “There are two ways of contemplation of Brahman: in sound and in silence. By sound we go to silence. The sound of Brahman is OM. With OM we go to the End: the silence of Brahman. The End is immortality, union and peace.

“Even as a spider reaches the liberty of space by means of its own thread, the man of contemplation by means of OM reaches freedom.”

A cutting for the logbook, with a quote from the Yoga Vasishta

Here are the early Sri Chakra diagrams from 1993. The method is from Saundarya-Lahari – The Ocean of Beauty by Sri Shankara-Bhagavatpada, a translation by the Theosophical Publishing House in Madras, 1937. The method opens the hymn as a whole. I tried it out, and simplified it just a little, to understand it.

Note: alchemical sulphur (fire) is represented also by a triangle atop a cross – see next drawing. In the “trinity”, sulphur is rajas-guna, salt is tamas-guna, and mercury their balance is sattva-guna. The alchemical qualities corresponding to eastern gunas are an interplay of elemental humours – dry, damp, ardent, and so forth. Water mixed with earth is damp: earth mixed with air is dry. Each element inclines to fire or to water. It all embodies prana, breath. Upon these very basic qualities the universe is woven.

Flame is an upward triangle: water a downward droplet. Flame is phallus and water is womb.

A reference to the same interpenetrative law, in the Tao philosophy: I Ching Hexagram 11 with Earth over Heaven: Peace. When Heaven-creative trigram (three Yang lines) stands above Earth-receptive trigram (three Yin lines), they draw apart – the static “Standstill” hexagram. But when they are infolded the other way round, the Heavenly power ascends through gravitational Earth – the male through the female – fertility – which is “peace”.

This archive is by way of an embellishment. For the method to draw it yourself, see How to Draw the Sri Chakra Yantra 12 June.

This was used as the logo for the Ramana Foundation UK journal, SELF ENQUIRY.

More recently, in 2008 I drew this version, as part of an Ananga-Ranga series …

The Sri Chakra Yantra, fountain of eastern wisdom, combines here with the Tree of Kabbalah. The lovers are seated at Tifareth: Consciousness. Crucial to spiritual development, world peace and all good intentions, is health and loving-kindness in our sexual nature (whether active or sublimated) and relationships. We are on and in this earth for the Great Work. The flasks, retorts and pelicans in alchemical engravings, contain the lovers at every stage of the “cooking”. Their prana breathes the Divine One in and out.

SOUL PARTNERSHIP SELF TOUCHING:

Inner and outer Tetrahedrons. A Tetrahedron is a triangle with four sides. The fourth point is a fulcrum – the dimension of volume or understanding, in any relationship.

The points of the interior, inverted Tetrahedron, touch the sides of the exterior Tetrahedron. Extending through the sides to equal size, they form with it, the Platonic Seal of Solomon.

Star of David/Seal of Solomon/Cube of space – 3dimensional tetrahedron structure

Finally, another newspaper cutting …

… from the logbook in 1993. “Kate Adie” (celebrated war correspondent) was my bossy persona … anxious to keep myself updated on the militant-esoterickal scene.

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.

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