the heart of the lotus is one

"Ye ask, who are those that draw us to the kingdom, if the kingdom is in Heaven? ...the fowls of the air, and all beasts that are under the earth or upon the earth, and the fishes of the sea, these are they which draw you, and the kingdom of Heaven is within you; and whoever shall know himself shall find it. Strive, therefore, to know yourselves, and ye shall be aware that ye are the sons of the almighty Father; and ye shall know that ye are in the city of God, and ye are the city."

We are living in a time when it is possible for us to take control of our destiny as a species. The transition from child to adult, from novice to initiate, from human to superhuman, does not occur by itself. It requires dedication, the conscious exercise of will, and a rigorous process of constant self-improvement through self-examination. Exposing oneself to the scrutiny of the mind's eye is not easy, but it is necessary if one wishes to refine one's consciousness.

'AUM'- so chanted, in parable, the ancient Indian Seers-
Is the three-fold basic vibration, the musical sound
'To Be', Being, and Ceasing-from-being.
Unfolding as a lovely flower, eight-petalled,
An octave of consequential notes:
Seven the grades, the inter-locking ratios,
The fellowship linking the Many in the One
With the bond of brotherhood, of a common Father as sons.

As humans, we are all living in a state of violence. The primal urge for violence finds expression in anger, in hate, in resentment and suspicion of one's fellow beings and is satiated only when it returns, magnified manifold, to its originator, in its pure form, as violence. The instinct for self-preservation is a throwback to an antediluvian period in our development. It is one of the many outmoded 'instincts' holding us back from achieving our full potential. The Golden Rule, in its many forms, teaches us the secret of peaceful co-existence- empathy. Only when we reconcile ourselves with the world, and the people around us, can we truly be happy. The instinct for self-preservation has no basis if we eliminate the concept of 'self' from our lexicon. Us and them; You and I; are both one and the same. Love thy neighbour as you would love thyself. We are all made from the same dust, breathe the same air, and are all destined to return to the same Source.

'A', they said, as they chanted solemnly,
Is the sound of building up,
'M', they said, is the sound of breaking down,
And 'U' is the bridging sound of serialization
Sustaining, extending, holding in balance
The ebb and the flow of Being's course
-The 'Yang' and the 'Yin', the Chinese poets called it-
The relation between that we know as Time,
As Space, or as Consciousness,
Enabling the 'I' to conceive a 'Thou'.

'God' is a fountain that flows back into itself. The concept of eternal return is crucial to this understanding. Nothing ends that does not have a beginning, and nothing begins that does not have an ending. All is governed by the law of cause and effect. All causes bear the seeds of their effects, and all effects bear the mark of the cause that set them into motion. The final nullity is also the birthing ground of infinity. The space between is where one who seeks can hope to find a trace of our divinity.

Gayatri, the Indian sages called this measure,
The 'bird' Gayatri, swift hawk, flight of the Eagle to the Sun,
Bearer of the Plant of continued life
From generation to generation, spanning Time.
Said they, who hummed this mantra Sound,
Seeking thus to demonstrate
The Wheel of the law of progression:
Within the Cause lies the Effect,
Within the 'I' the seed of 'Thou',
Within that inconceivable, the limitless Eternal,
Lies Time, Space, what is, and what is not,
The germ of generation.

The urge to communicate, to make our thoughts apparent, is what drives us. We are unique, as a species, in the sense that we are the only ones to have codified a system of communication, a method by which we can relate to our fellow beings. We have created the glorious mystery of language, and have become captivated by it. Enchanted by the words we speak, we lose sight of the meaning those words convey, and a crucial element is thus lost in translation. The pointing finger is not the moon. There are other, more subtle means of communication available to us, if only we choose to perceive them.

The 'Heart' that 'speaks', the Egyptian Seers called it-
That utters the 'Word' we know as 'Creation'.
'Thoth', they named it, Tongue and Messenger,
Executive of the Power TO BE.

The world is not as it seems. All that we perceive is not all that is. There is an unseen dimension to the world, one that cannot be made apparent by relying on our five senses alone. But when all our senses are in harmony, and when we learn not to rely on one at the expense of the others, we are able to access a 'sixth sense', as it were, one that is composed of all five senses feeding into the mind together, simultaneously. This is the state of nirvana alluded to by the ancients, and accessible to a Buddha. To perceive the world in such a manner is to see the All as it really is, not in part, but in whole. And with this opening of the third eye, the last remaining door of perception is thrown open, and the Mind-of-the-One is allowed to become one with the Mind-of-the-Many. Savitri, Gayatri and Saraswati; Srishti, Stithi, and Vinash; the balance represented by Yin and Yang, between Being and Not-Being, and the creative chaos represented by the Spirit, which, in turn, arises from the tension between any two opposing values; are all reconciled within the Logos.

Eight-petalled Lotus, City of the Eight,
Octave of potentiality, all things containing,
Maintaining, and at the end resuming:
Lovely Harmonia's musical manifestation,
Source and Sum of Number,
Father and Mother of Doing, Being, and Knowing-
Within thy cup, O Flower, those Seers saw enshrined
The Golden Seed of Being's cycle:
Verily, they sang, the Heart of this Lotus is ONE.

But don't just take my word for it. Look within and without, and see for yourself :)

"Let not him who seeks... cease until he finds, and when he finds he shall be astonished; astonished he shall reach the kingdom, and having reached the kingdom he shall rest."

Dreaming at the wall of mystery

Hm. Haven't posted on the blog in a while. Well, here's another exciting segment of Rev. Joshi's Travelling Salvation Show; Storytime!

The Wall of Mystery [as retold by Anne Twitty; Parabola 1986]

Far in the East there was once a wall of mystery. Few people approached it. Occasionally, however, someone more daring than the rest made his way to the wall and began to climb. It was not easy to climb to the top of the wall, but some persevered. Those who reached the top of the wall and looked over to the other side were seen to smile; then they slipped over the wall and were never seen again.

After a while, the people of that country learned to recognize the signs that told them someone was about to approach the wall. That person's eyes would begin to stare through and beyond his surroundings. He grew forgetful, and would often fail to answer questions put to him, seeming absorbed in other questions, the nature of which was obscure to those around him.

Though the people did not want to risk climbing the wall themselves, they very much wanted to know what lay on the other side of it. The next time they noticed someone with staring eyes and the look of inner vision, they brought chains and waited beside the wall. As the young man began to climb, they seized his feet and fastened chains to them. Still, he climbed upward, until at last he reached the top of the wall.

He looked over. He smiled, just as the others had, a smile of rapture. The men at the foot of the wall, overcome with curiosity, pulled on the chains, and pulled him back. Eagerly, they began to question him. What was it like on the other side? Why had he smiled? What had he seen? But none of their questions were ever answered. By the time the young man's feet touched the ground, he had lost the power of speech.

~end sermon~

Obligatory, obfuscated hidden link here.