“I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.”
Sunday, December 31, 2023
Manly P. Hall
Solar Deity Each year the sun comes back to the world. Each year the world is just a little different. Each year the sun performs a slightly different service, and over the period of ages, these services vary greatly.
The sun is the cleanser, the purifier, and the eliminator. It will come every time to carry on this particular task. Sometimes it will find a dark world waiting for it, heavily burdened with its own errors. Sometimes it will come to a better world where things seem right. But always the sun in its cycle is working toward the one great end and that great end, of course, is the final illumination of all that exists, that all things in, by, and for themselves shall be fulfilled or be perfect in their needs and in their operations.
As the sun produces the symbol of the sprouting of the seed, so the light within ourselves produces the ripening of all the inner values of consciousness. And the sun which brings the harvest to the earth brings a light to the minds and hearts of human beings so that they may have the harvest of their years and have a great and wonderful future.
The astronomical Christmas is based on the old solar mythology. The (Soular) solar deity is born at the winter solstice and substitutes for the three broken spokes of the wheel. It attains victory over darkness at the vernal equinox. The Christ principle performs a Pentecostal mystery by bestowing its powers upon the twelve disciples who personify the signs of the zodiac. While most of this esoteric meaning of the annual birthday of the sun is no longer remembered, it constitutes justification for the study of astronomy. Some day it will dawn upon the conventional astronomer that he is involved, not merely in a scientific project, but one of the sacred sciences dealing with the mysteries of birth, life, death, and resurrection.”
The First Yagna – Sarvahut
The initial sacrifice was that of the divine being sacrificing himself to become the universe. The ancient Vedic hymn Purusha Sukta tells of the transformation of the eternal, infinite being into the finite cognizable material world, initiating the eternal cycle of creation. So the spirit of sacrifice came to be recognized as the source of creation, the heart of all creative forces.
Sogyal Rinpoche
“Light must come from inside.
You cannot ask the darkness to leave; you must turn on the light.”
Robert Adams
The power that knows the way will take care of you. The one who makes the sun shine, the grass grow, the apples grow perfectly on apple trees, the food that sustains us, nourishes us. Everything has been lovingly provided for us. Have faith, trust the power that knows the way.
This is the first step, to have total faith and total trust in the infinite, the one. You may call this God, if you want to. Makes no difference what you call it. It is within you. It is without you. It is everywhere. All you have to do is to surrender to it. Surrender all of your doubts, your frustrations, your fears, everything that has besieged you for so long. Give it all up. It doesn’t belong to you. Be free of it.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
"My prayers turn towards a sacred world we seem to have forgotten. This prayer sometimes feels as if the Earth itself were crying through me, imploring us to remember it at this time of need. Maybe in this darkening something can be born, a new way of being that respects all of life, that sustains the whole of creation. Maybe once again we can remember our love for the Earth, our reverence for what is sacred within all of creation, and honor all of its inhabitants. Then our hearts can open and sense the divine that is all around us -- our prayers turn into praise. Once again we can live in an ensouled world that nourishes us everyday with sacred meaning."
Agni
The worship of fire purifies the fire element in the body and also purifies the consciousness by amplifying the mantras. Our many senses and their objects are collectively offered in the fires of self-control (tapas, austerity) and purification. The senses are offered in the yoga of self-control, the higher meaning of yagna. The fire of yagna purifies negativity; thus ego, jealously, hatred, vices, ignorance, superstition and other ignoble aspects of the self are offered.
Socrates
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
WILLIAM SAMUEL
"Let the beliefs go. Let what 'they say' go. Drop all the old personal opinions no matter how near and dear they seem. You start anew, turning within to the heart. Then when you arrive at your own meaning of God, you happily find you are also discovering your own real Identity and its childlike simplicity."
RAMANA MAHARSHI
We have not got to attain bliss. We are bliss. Bliss is another name for us. It is our nature. All that we have to do is to turn the mind, draw it from the sense objects every time it goes towards them, and fix it in the Self.
KALI IS THE TIME BEYOND TIME
Then Kali (as supreme Shakti) assumes the responsibility of creating the names, as well as of their evolution.
Kali is also known under the name of ADIMAHAVIDYA, the first of the Great Cosmic Wisdoms, but this should not mislead us, as it does not imply any hierarchy, but rather the idea of order in the cosmic evolution.
Kali is also named ADYASHAKTI, in her quality of energy and terrible Cosmic Wisdom who impels humankind towards action and the universe towards manifestation.
Kali’s representation reveals her nakedness. This is not a trivial manner of representing a deity, but instead this fact stands for the transcendence of all limitations.
Her action in the manifested world implies the destroying and in the same time purifying action of time (Kala). This aspect is suggested by the human head she holds in one of her hands.
Kali’s dance...
Shiva is white because he signifies the infinite divine light (prakasha), inert because the absence of movement and action reveals the consciousness pure, homogenous and compact.
On the other hand, Kali’s dance signifies the dynamic, active aspect of the Divine, and the dark color of her skin indicates that the processes of the creation are disolved in Kali.
Nonetheless, Kali performs her actions in the divine light and harmony, knowing that this is the best thing to do. Those who manage to pass all the tests and go through all the stages are in truth spiritual heroes, and they will be rewarded with Kali’s spiritual grace.
However, until God’s will does not manifest the creative impulse, the divine infinite energy (Shakti) lies potential, but unmanifested, inseparably united with Shiva, in his purely transcendent aspect.
Eckhart Tolle
As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease; you cannot be at peace or fulfilled except for brief intervals when you obtained what you wanted, when a craving has just been fulfilled. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly.
The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.
Do you find this frightening? Or is it a relief to know this? All of these things you will have to relinquish sooner or later. Perhaps you find it as yet hard to believe, and I am certainly not asking you to believe that your identity cannot be found in any of those things.
You will know the truth of it for yourself. You will know it at the latest when you feel death approaching. Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die” — and find that there is no death.
Adyashanti
When the eternal and the human meet, that’s where love is born – not through escaping our humanity or trying to disappear into transcendence, but through finding that place where they come into union.
The good old days...
A beach in 1970. There are no tattoos, no plastic surgery, etc.
There are also no beds on the beach, umbrellas, sunglasses, and self-tanning creams...
There are no cell phones, so people talk to each other.
There is nothing, but there is everything in reality!
Yama and Niyama – The Hindu Commandments
The truth that reflects the Ultimate reality does not represent the exclusive possession of one person, group, or spiritual system. God revealed this Supreme Truth to certain human beings, whom transmitted them to humanity orally or in the form of writings, according to the needs, temperament, level of consciousness and the degree of development of mankind in a certain moment.
The divine messengers (named saints, sages, prophets, or initiates), regardless of the geographic space or religion, have enounced certain rules (guiding principles, or commandments), which allow human beings to feel and manifest the Universal Harmony, when respected.
Thus, in the West there are the Ten Commandments, while in the East there are the Ten Rules of the ethical and moral plan (Yama and Niyama in the Hindu tradition). Such guiding rules are characteristic to any spiritual path.
It is not a coincidence that in each case, there are ten such commandments, and nor that the inducement of these commandments is essentially identical, expressed only with a language specific to each civilization and tradition. This identity is based on the fact that behind these laws there is something unique and everlasting – God.
Saturday, December 30, 2023
The end of Kali Yuga
One of the most important phenomena of our age is the reunion of scientific research and cosmological theory, an effort to understand the nature of the world in which there is a continuity between the physical, metaphysical and spiritual levels and is opposed to the dogmatism of the religions inspired by Arihat.
The end of Kali Yuga is a time particularly auspicious to seeking the genuine science.
“Certain people will attain wisdom in a short time, because the merits obtained in one year of Treta Yuga can be obtained in one day of Kali Yuga” (Shiva Purana, 5.1., 40-40).
“At the end of Kali Yuga, the god Shiva will manifest Himself to re-establish the just path in a secret and concealed form.” (Linga Purana 1.40.12)
The gate leading on the path of wisdom is opening. Will people have the right discernment and the courage to become involved and to slow down the time?
Kali
Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time. In Tibetan Buddhism her counterpart is male with the name Kala. Mother Kali is the most misunderstood of the Hindu goddesses.
It is partly correct to say Kali is the goddess of death but she brings the death of the ego as the illusory self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the Hindu stories is she seen killing anything but demons nor is she associated specifically with the process of human dying like the Hindu god Yama (who really is the god of death). It is true that both Kali and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. This is not to worship death but rather it is to overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition. Shiva and Kali are said to inhabit these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the eternal I AM and not the body. This is underscored by the scene of the cremation grounds.
Tantra
In order to learn the tantric lessons, we should understand the analogies between the human being and the Universe. Thus, sexuality imitates at a lower scale, a permanent and extatic cosmic process, that manifests the whole Universe from the Divine Transcendent Absolute.
In this new perspective, sin disappears, it doesn’t really exist, and it is replaced by extatic happiness and infinite love.
Intercourse becomes a deeply spiritual act, in fact, it can take the form of a meditative discipline. Thus, in tantra there is no pornography, only symbolism and refined beauty.
The image of a man and a woman making love is not considered impure. On the contrary, it is the image of a veritable cosmic ritual. The man that worships the woman has a completely different attitude from a common person having intercourse.
In Tantra the woman is sacred.
In Tantra SHAKTI, “the cosmic feminine force”, is raised to the position of Divine Mother who sustains the Universe and all the beings, the multiple manifestation of gods (the angelic entities).
It is called UMA, The Virgin, in its primordial hypostasis that precedes the Universal creation. In this case SHAKTI is the highest pe..ak of all worlds, pure and untouchable. Once it manifests the universe, SHAKTI becomes the maintainer of space and time and all subtle and physical worlds.
In its final hypostasis she is the destroyer, KALI, the one who absorbs into the divine everything that is incomplete and limited in order to prepare a new Creation. KALI wants to make the entire manifestation to have an evolutionary sense.
Lucy H. Pearce, Burning Woman
The Feminine Mystery
In Tantra the woman is sacred.
“For some she came in a dream. For others in words as clear as a bell: it is time, I am here. She may come in a whisper so loud she can deafen you or a shout so quiet you strain to hear. She may appear in the waves or the face of the moon, in a red goddess or a crow.”
Ramana Maharshi
Solitude is an attitude of the mind; a man attached to the things of life cannot get solitude, wherever he may be. A detached man is always in solitude.
Socrates Geens
Sat
Sat is the first aspect of Satchitananda, describing the qualities of the Absolute as experienced by a liberated yogi. The Sanskrit word Sat means existing and discribes the really existant reality or true being. Chit Chit is the second aspect of Satchitananda, describing the qualities of the Absolute as experienced by a liberated yogi. The Sanskrit word Chit means consciousness and discribes the true seeing sense. Ananda Ananda is the third aspect of Satchitananda, describing the qualities of the Absolute as experienced by a liberated yogi. The Sanskrit word Ananda means bliss.
-Ranchor Prime
"Reality is made of God's energies. The material world is formed of his external energy, which is temporary, illusory, and sorrowful by nature. We conscious beings share the same nature as God and belong to his internal energy, whose natural qualities are sat-chit-ananda—eternity, knowledge, and bliss. The difference between ourselves and Krishna is that he is unlimited and independent, whereas we are small and depend on him for our existence, as sparks depend on a fire. God and the living entity are one yet different."
Maya and the Path to Liberation
Maya
Another deity associated with Maya is Kali, the goddess of time, death, and destruction, who is also the consort of Shiva, the destroyer of the world. Kali is the source of all power and transformation, and also the power of fear and anger, which are the means by which Shiva dissolves the world and transforms Maya into its original state of potentiality. Kali is also the power of detachment and liberation, which are the means by which we can destroy Maya and realize Shiva. Kali is usually depicted as a fierce woman, wearing a garland of skulls, and holding a sword, a severed head, and a trident. She is also associated with the lion, the jackal, and the cremation ground.
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