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Thursday, November 29, 2012

shadow and light


 
The opposites of shadow and light
Our initiation into new clear seeing and knowing is not complete until we have mastered
or until we have been mastered by the sacred marriage of the opposites of the shadows and the light.
Achieving this is not obvious and simple as we are confronted everywhere
with the polar opposites of joy and sadness, poverty and abundance, rage and peace and
the space between these polar opposites seem to widen every day as one gazes
into the world of mankind.

Here I am, living in a world where children are conditioned from an early age that Chicken Little
actually wants his throat slit for you to have him for dinner;
where the bottom line is always profit and profitability and therefore
it is sanctioned to treat farm animals without kindness or mercy
and it is acceptable to torture animals in order to put a new kind
of hair shampoo on the market, and the list goes on and on.

And on the other hand, I experience bliss (ananda) whilst sitting in my garden,
listening to the birds in the tree above me;  bliss as in all-consuming,
rapture that makes every nerve and every cell and my soul scream
with the ecstasy of the gods;  this world and its shadows
disappear as I become a humming, vibrating pillar of living
bliss and everything is light and only light.
and not just light, but that which is Go-od, beyond words,
beyond intellect, Go-od.

And then I return and I am back in this world
seeing beggars at every robot;
listening to other's emotional and mental pain;
and I cannot find the words
and I lack the fire to create art that may explain
that which I have come to know
as the Infinite Heart
which is the tabernacle of this world
of polar opposites of shadow and light.

And for those who are seeking the infinite within themselves
and this life,  evidence of the Shadow is obvious. 
They struggle with their own seeking for that fleeting moment
of peace and joy;
they are confronted with a mind that undermines their own efforts
and yet, and yet
 each time they return to that deep center, each fleeting moment that they 
glimpse the possible joy and freedom, the potential for bliss,
each time that they taste the bliss during meditation.
they are convinced that it is there, within reach
beyond
the suffering and the pain.
 
 
Every time that I am pervaded and posssessed by ananda, by living ecstatic bliss,
I am overtaken by the knowing that I am linked to an
immaculate power which pervades my consciousness and carries
my body and soul and heart to levels of rapture that
can only be translated as divine ecstasy.
 
And thus I live in two worlds,
the one sacred and the other profane
and I move between the two
like a revolving door
 
And I understand that by abiding in this reality,
by my body and soul becoming ananda,
living in two worlds simultaneously,
I am a bridge between divine and human,
that which connects
that which unites
in other words,
a living sacred marriage.
 

 
 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The Sacred Marriage

The Sacred Marriage - Living with the Tension of the Opposites

First moonflower to open in the Mary Garden
and it did so during the Full Moon this November '12


Duality implies that there is always a perception of two.  As long
as there are two, a polarity exists.
The mind believes it cannot stand both, so it always chooses
'a corner', one of the two.  

Your wholeness lies in seeing both sides of the polarity.

When you are caught up in an uncomfortable position,
or you are stuck in a painful behaviour pattern, ask yourself
'what is the opposite of this?'  'what is the other side
of this polarity that I am not seeing?'

This world is one of duality.  It is polarised
into negative and positive poles and like a
pendulum, it swings,  What comes around, goes around.
What goes up will come down again.
The poles spin and so positive behaviour will turn into
negative behaviour and vice versa.
We are attracted to the positive and repulsed by the negative.
With the result that the negative gets suppressed and denied
and pushed down into the subconscious.
As long as the negative or positive is suppressed, it will attract
and repulse, hidden from your consciousness.

The transformative work is to bring the unconscious into the conscious.
to become aware of patterns, addictions, stories, belief systems,
and undesired feelings.

The work is to remember that you are infinite consciousness,
capable of being with everything as it is.

The work is to release you from your limiting personality
structure which is keeping you locked into a straightjacket
of shoulds and shouldn'ts.

The work is also to let go of the idea of a separate self that exists outside
the will of God or the Divine True Self.

'I am whole, complete and unlimited'

As you look at any given situation from both the positive and both
the negative;  when you look at both sides of the polarity
and when you live with the tension of the opposites,
that tension becomes a suspension bridge
which carries you over the valley of death.

Monday, November 26, 2012

The Sacred in the Ordinary



You and your ordinary life is sacred and it contains 
everything that you have been searching for.

All the sages and mystics over time have always pointed this out with stories
and poetry.  But very few ever believe them.

Often one seeks the sacred and the glorious in places other than
the present, ordinary humdrum of daily living. 
Often the seeking is driven by a longing to escape the humdrum
of ordinary living;  or one seeks in order to prevent disaster
from striking again or to prevent the feelings of loss, betrayal, humiliation and
death.

But the truth of the matter is that discomfort, unhappiness, boredom, death,
dying, pain, cruelty, injustice and more is an intrinsic part of life.
The so-called spiritual life does not exempt you from this.  Enlightenment
does not mean that you no longer feel the pain of the world.  It is probably
true to say that  that the less self-centred you are, 
the less self-absorbed and the less occupied with
your own self , the greater the sensitivity, the greater
the empathy and the deeper you feel the pain in the broken heart of the Mother.

But then it is also true that he deeper and more intense you feel, 
the greater the call to add to the world in some way or another;  
not for glory and fame, nor power and money, 
but to add beauty and wisdom in some form to this world.

And herein lies the crux of the matter.
As the selfish heart is crucified, it flowers with Love and Mercy.


Once again quoting Thomas Merton :  It is precisely anguish and 
inner crises that compel us to seek the truth, because it is
these things that make clear to us that we are sunk in the hell of our
own untruth.


Moments of absolute bliss and joy are the golden children of a sacred marriage. When the heart truly
feels, the heavens open.
When the flesh and Spirit meet, a transformation takes place
 and the profane is no longer ordinary, but sublime!

The sacred and the profane affect one another - the two circles intersect - two worlds meet
and join


or sometimes shown as the triple



and we see the
mendorla of the Mother





The world is the very ground for our experience of the sacred.

But in order for the ordinary to become luminous and to have
meaning, we have to infuse it with meaning.

Thomas Merton writes about the loss of symbolism as follows :

All classic shapes have vanished
from alien heavens
where there are no fabled beasts
no friendly histories
and passion has no heraldry

I have nothing to translate
into the figures of night
or the pale geometry
of the fire-birds
If I once had a wagon of lights to ride in
the axle is broken
the horses are shot

As we spiral inwards into ourselves, to find the Immanent God, we 
simultaneously spiral outwards to meet the Divine in the world. As we
clean the glass that is darkly veiled with the ideas of being an individual,
focusing only on me, myself and my own suffering, 
believing ourselves to be unconnected to everyone and everything else, 
the seed is watered and fed and we grow into that
tree that gives shelter and food to an entire village.

In order to find the sacred in the ordinary, to spiral inwards
to meet the immanent Self, two seemingly separate and opposing
worlds have to collide in order to meet


In order to enter into the Nothingness within,
a death has to be embraced as the egocentric life
dies in the Void

As we strip the layers and layers of self-absorption
and self-delusion
and we come alive to the ordinary, the small profane
acts of living and ordinary life
as we become poor in spirit, 
and humble in mind,
we meet the Sacred in the Ordinary.

And here, from this place,
your every act is an act of devotion and worship
here you live your passion
without expectation of an appreciative audience,
you sing your song for nobody.


Let my every word be a prayer to Thee
Every movement of my hands a ritual gesture to Thee
Every step I take a circumambulation of Thy image
Every morsel I eat a rite of sacrifice to Thee
Every time I lay down a prostration at Thy feet;
Every act of personal pleasure and all else that I do,
Let it all be a form of worshipping Thee.

From verse 27 of Shri Aadi Shankara's Saundaryalahari

From the Underworld to the Next



an exciting new blog from one of the members of The Temple of Mary .......


The Journey Begins
This blog crept up to you from the vast echelons of the collective we like to call the internet. This is how it starts. They ask me to give you descriptions of what it is that is happening here, but who am I to try? I can't, wait...No, it has nothing to do with what I believe I am capable of: I won't, I will it not. However, I am not so stupid as to believe that this entry will evade being forced to represent the greater whole it forms part of, so I will allow that and maybe even embrace it, a little, for a while.

Great men are seldom spoken of and I do not wish to change that truth. In fact, what you will find offered here is always, probably, mystifying and sometimes maybe even disenchanting. This disenchantment will not be my fault, as you will see: here, I indulge in the moral frivolity of guilt not because I wish to apologise but rather because I would like to allude to, what I believe right now, is imminent.

I, here, believe that the words found in this entry will be demanded of to represent what is and what will be. I don't actually care if it does or does not. I cannot express this better than a man we are best to be cautious of, if we trust what they say is best, but as you will see, I believe, I have little regard for what they say must be considered "best".

What I am saying here is this: the reader of my blog is expecting a wall which does not want to be climbed to be constructed here. This is what we expect from any being which takes itself to be an authority or, in other words, human. They tell you that you are ruled by what they call nature and its "laws". You must accept these laws to live well, live good. You must not fret at the insurmountable walls posed by its laws, there is no point in this, you are better off accepting it. Just accept it. Just accept that you are descended from apes and are ruled by the same, normal, natural, desires. Accept that two times two is four, it is the law of mathematics, do not bother challenging it.

But, we may ask, and here we encounter one of the men I would like to speak of against all good reason, what if...what if "I don't happen to like those laws and that twice twice two is four?" Here, we encounter the "lazy devil" and he is not the laughing kind. A brooding, miserable, being who has very little consideration for what is "best" for him. We will encounter more of these men here, you can be sure, one may even say that this organisation you are, here, encountered with aspires to the heights of these type of men (and be sure that I, as do they, shed no regard for the "gender" here). However, caution to those who trust my words: what do I know? Indeed, I have caught myself listening to Nietzsche's, another man we are best not to speak of, "malicious bird" who twitters: "What do you matter? What do you matter?". Now, I hope you see, this wall does not care if you will to climb it or not, whether you will to believe that you may or not. If you will: do, be dared!

Now you know why I do not apologise and why I do not, here or anywhere, matter. I do not wish to place upon you the curse of law. This you may question, this you may vehemently disagree with: you demand this curse! "Well, so much the better".Here, you are presented with an entry as a disgusting agreement with the man who wishes to dismiss nature and its laws as becoming "too human" becoming a calculable, necessary, path. We will find nothing as light as what they consider to be "best" here, we will not find humanity here. Instead, we will find wanderers such as the great Zarathustra who knew that: "There are a thousand paths that have never yet been trodden—a thousand healths and hidden isles of life. Even now, man and man's earth are unexhausted and undiscovered." Then, there is walking to do, then: let us walk!

I commit myself to the inhumanity of these dangerous men and in this you witness my siding with the promises of lovers. Here, you find me straying from The Path. Come one, come all, this is a sight appreciable to anyone: if you dare. This my journey from the underworld to the next! I start my journey with a parable, read it...my friends. Will love and be willed love:

"Wake and listen, you that are lonely! From the future come winds with secret wing-beats; and good tidings are proclaimed to delicate ears. You that are lonely today, you that are withdrawing, you shall one day be the people: out of you, who have chosen yourselves, there shall grow a chosen people and out of them, the overman. Verily, the earth shall yet become a site of recovery. And even now a new fragrance surrounds it, bringing salvation—and a new hope." By: Friedrich Nietzsche. From: Thus Spoke Zarathustra: On The Gift-Giving Virtue: 2.


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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Prayer to Sophia

SoulCollage(R) image made by Bhakty Hettienne Ma.
for more on SoulCollage(R) www.path-of-divine-love.com


Prayers to Sophia
by Joyce Rupp

O Dancer of Creation,
the earth awakens to an urgent call to grow.  In the hidden recesses of my 
wintered spirit, I, too, hear the humming of your voice,
calling me, wooing my deadness back to life.

..........

Tell me, Wise Awakener,
why is it easier to believe in a stem of new grass,
or the opening bud of a fresh purple crocus,
than it is to believe in the greening of me?