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Archive for the ‘Finding your Self’ Category

Crossing the Dark Threshold . . . . . . into the Light of Day

“Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth . . . .”    (W.H. Auden, September 1,1939)

Plato described the transition from the old self to the authentic Self as moving from out of “the cave” of isolation, where life is observed as confused reflections on the walls of the cave, into the light of day where one is fully engaged as a liver of life rather than an observer only.

Crossing the Threshold                                                    

This passage of the soul from out of the dark cave and into the light of day is made much easier with the assistance of a “spiritual midwife,” or mentor.  One need not go it alone these days with the many spiritual guides and personal transformation facilitators available. 

 One such spiritual midwife, and “guru” to many, is Dr. Joan Borysenko, clinical psychologist and medical scientist, who has done much work in body-mind healing and spiritual transformation.  She offers some professional insight into this process of transformation in a tape series entitled, “The Power of the Mind to Heal.” With her permission, I would like to share with you now an excerpt from these tapes, primarily for the grounding in the work-a-day world her words provide, but also for the profound gift she brings into the healing field through her expression and her deep and compassionate understanding of humanity’s state of amnesia, out of which many today are awakening and struggling to make sense out of the events of a dawning new age which we are all seeing and experiencing in a new way.

From Dr. Borysenko’s tapes:

   “The events that call us forth from Plato’s ‘Cave’ are different for each of us, and perhaps the best prayer in times of trouble is not to pray for the troubles to cease but to pray that our hearts and minds stay open to change so that we’ll emerge from our crisis transformed, wiser and more loving.

   “Unfortunately we’ve lost our cultural understanding of the value of darkness. Suffering and pain are downright unpopular in a culture that’s addicted to ‘positive thinking.’  But a lot of what passes as ‘positive thinking’ isn’t positive at all . . . .  A lot of us slap on a veneer of positivity and phony faith to hide a heart full of pain and fear.

   “The psychologist Carl Jung put it very clearly when he said that we can’t find the light by imagining good things.  The only way to the light is to go back out through the darkness.  Then we can emerge transformed with truly changed minds. 

   “The mythologist, Joseph Campbell, said, ‘one thing that comes out in myths is at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.’”

This has certainly been true in my own experience of dark times.  Another way this has been expressed is “The darkest hour is the one before the dawn.”  Some of my best days have been after two or three days of internal void and mental cloudiness, passing through layers in the veil. We may be fortunate to have had someone represent the light of Being to us so vividly and powerfully that we are able to forge a path all the way to the most sacred and holy place within us and perhaps even fuse in rapturous union with the Beloved, losing ourselves to the world and entirely into the arms of Love.  Sometimes, in such ecstatic experiences “in the light,” the path we forged with the help of another’s light closes up behind us and we lose our way back out into the world.  We leave the world to ascend the mountain of spiritual attainment and enlightenment, where we stay for a season knowing that we must return to the world we left behind.

Often we have to find our way back out on our own through a heart cluttered with fears and doubts and a mind rigidly structured with beliefs and prejudices of sorts we never even imagined were there.  This time, however, we have only our own light, which by now we have learned to shine, to light up the path leading out into the world of hard facts and experiences. For me, finding my way back out into the light of day where I could be of real value and service to others has been the greatest test of my spiritual awakening and transformation.  The most difficult of tasks has been to learn how to reach out and to touch people where they are.  I could not have done it without help, without someone to at least provide a sounding board for clarifying issues and validating my own gut perceptions and new-found sense of true self-worth.  One way and the other, both in going in to find oneself and in coming out to reveal the wonderful one I discovered my Self to be, one has to traverse the darkness of the cave where the false, isolated self spent its entire life wandering around in a solitary way.

Dr. Borysenko describes this transitional period from her professional point of view as represented quite often by physical, mental and emotional symptoms of so-called “dysfunction.”

   “Not only have we lost our appreciation of the value of darkness as an authentic path to the light, we’ve also lost the priesthood whose function it was to bring us through the transitions.  All too often our religious priesthood is as out of touch with sources of wisdom as is our secular priesthood—therapists and psychiatrists [and I would include here health care physicians] who think more in terms of pathology than they do of growth and potential.

   “We can learn a great deal about approaching these times of transition by observing how the priesthood of more primitive societies treats people in transition—whether the transition comes unbidden or whether it is set into motion by a special ritual or rite of passage.

   “The anthropologist, Victor Turner, is well known for his study of the ritual process in different cultures.  He defines a ritual as a ‘rite of passage,’ a transition between two distinct states of being, or stations in society.  The traditional rite of passageway in primitive cultures consists of three distinct stages: the separation from one’s previous state of being; the liminal period during which you dwell between two worlds, not here and not there; and the reincorporation afterwards into some new role or status in the society.

   “The ambiguous intermediate state of liminality is a kind of dwelling at the threshold of a new life.  It’s often compared to being in the womb, in a state of darkness and invisibility, or ‘wandering in the wilderness.’ The Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years when they left bondage in Egypt, a time of dwelling at the threshold before they were re-born to a new life in Palestine. Jesus, too, wandered for forty days in the wilderness when he died to his old self, the carpenter, and was reborn to his God Self.

   “Each of us, in that very same movement from our separate ego to our God Self, has to do some wandering in exile and in this period we may feel confused, unhappy and like we have nothing left to hold onto.  If our culture hadn’t gotten so out of touch with the meaning of ritual and myth, we would know that this ‘no-man’s land’, the ‘dark night of the soul’ between the death of our old self and the birth of our new Self was grace, not ‘mental illness’ or ‘PMS’.”

What a wonderful and empowering attitude to hold toward a health crisis, or a life crisis, that might come our way seemingly just about the time we thought everything was going so well in our lives. I know for a fact, just from my own personal experience with physical illness, that unresolved inner issues come up to be addressed when the physical body is undergoing a viral cleansing, for example. One is compelled to be thankful for such interruptions sent by life perhaps to get one’s attention. It is believed by some psychologists that our own sub-conscious minds create the symptoms of dis-ease in order to alert us to the need to address important issues in our lives.   We can rest in assurance that all is well during times of crisis rather than tense up in fear of the unknown.  Healing can come quickly as we listen to our inner voice for the very specific message that will open the door to us for transformation. It is there if we are quiet enough, and honest enough, to hear it. Joan continues:

“The collective hypnosis—our unconscious adherence to the familiar beliefs that guide our lives—is broken in the liminal period, in that time of exile, in exactly the same way our own uncelebrated life crises strip us of what we know, delivering us to the threshold of the unknown. In times of transition we awaken from the familiar terrain of life and find ourselves in alien territory.  If we know that this frightening, unknown period was a necessary transition, like the transition period of labor, we could more easily ask for whatever help was needed, and more patiently hold on and wait for the birth.  We could take comfort that the process was natural, not pathological.    Each dark night and each little death peals away a layer of conditioning, restoring our sight so that we can see more clearly.  What a difference it would make if a person in the throes of a life crisis were called an ‘initiate’ and then skillfully led to a rebirth. Instead, our psychological initiates are often labeled neurotic, psychotic, addictive or character disordered, labels that create helplessness and low self-esteem. These labels reinforce the fearful story that we are damaged and less than whole.    Some of the power of the ‘Twelve-Step Recovery Program’ comes from the context in which addiction in placed. In anonymous programs, addictions are transitions between a life where the person was out of touch with a higher power and one in which the reality of that power becomes not only the force for recovery but also a renewal of the meaning of life. Addiction as a liminal experience, for those who are willing to see it in that light, creates excitement, empowerment and even gratitude for the addiction as a guide to a new, more self-aware and fulfilling life.”

It is one thing to admit that one’s physical body is addicted to a drug, such as alcohol, and to take the necessary steps toward sobriety and non-dependency.  It is another thing entirely to take on the label of “alcoholic” as one’s identity.  The statements “I am an alcoholic” or “I am a drug addict” can serve to dispel patterns of denial, but it isn’t the truth of who one is.  Such firmly held fixations in consciousness could come to hide awareness of one’s real identity.  This can set up a circular codependent relationship between condition and treatment in which one must continue being an “alcoholic” in order to participate in the process of treatment, and vice versa.  Further, one might be prone to think that, without that identity, one would become as nothing.

In the health field, similar situations arise where one becomes identified with the “disease” for which one is being treated.  To continue saying, for example, “I am a diabetic” fixes the condition of diabetes even more firmly in consciousness, which in turn creates the vibrational terrain that determines health and dis-ease in the body-mind continuum.  What if one were to say instead, for example, “I am fine.  My body, however, is having some difficulty handling sugar at this time, so I will withhold sugar from my diet until such time as I have corrected the reason(s) for the difficulty?” This, in my view, would be more accurate as well as the intelligent and cooperative first step to take toward a holistic approach to healing while engaging orthodox, traditional disciplines and therapeutic methodologies.   (Excerpted from Sacred Anatomy)

I will continue with this theme in my next post.  Thank you for sharing my meditations. I would love to share any thoughts you may have. Until my next post,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

“Who Am I?”

“Man is unique not because he does science, and he is unique not because he does art, but because science and art equally are expressions of his marvelous plasticity of mind.” Jacob Bronowski

In the PBS concert presentation of Les Miserables earlier this past Summer, Jean Valjean seeks an answer to the ancient question: “Who am I?”– to which Marius, the young man whose life he had just saved, responds “You are Jean Valjean.” But that answer doesn’t seem to satisfy Jean Valjean’s deeper query, as he keeps repeating “Who am I?”– as though asking “Who is this man I’ve become? What fate has brought me to this end? What have I done in past lives? What karma have I brought with me to this life? Why am I here now? WHO AM I?”

These questions stir deep currents in my soul. I will speak candidly here. Whether or not these were Jean Valjean’s deeper queries, they are mine today.  Oh, I can give answers to them, answers that I’ve learned during my spiritual awakening, but they somehow do not satisfy the deeper query of the mind — and it is the mind that is asking.

know who I AM.  My mind, on the other hand, has its uncertainties, as though it has a separate identity and history from who I Am — even a collective one.  After all, my personal intellect will evaporate with my physical body’s last breath. However, the Body of Mankind is still around after all these thousands of years, and the collective Mind, which we all share, is still alive and active in this world, having acquired its own separate identity as the “human ego.” 

But why are these questions visiting my mind now in this day and time — and they do seem personal. Is it my Catholic upbringing that has made it so easily susceptible to guilt and blame when things fall apart? Whence is this guilt that lingers in my mind — and in my heart? Has my mind poisoned my heart with guilt and blame?  Why the feelings of guilt over ancient failures and catastrophes, as though I was there and responsible for them? Was I there?!  Is this voice in my head the voice of the collective Mind awakening from its coma wondering what’s been going on all these eons of time while it slumbered in amnesia, and now asking “WHO AM I?” 

Lucifer — Light Bearer — Morning Star

The archaic word “Lucifer” has been with me for several decades, much like an archetypal presence, ever since I heard my spiritual mentor speak of the return of this “fallen angel” to its rightful place in Heaven as the “Light Bearer.” I have thought long and hard about this over the years, as something within me identifies with Lucifer.  My role in life seems to be associated somehow with Lucifer? Am I simply one of many incarnate angels whose role it is to be a Light Bearer in this world? 

Here is a passage from the Gospel of John that poses a question for me:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

Was the Evangelist John a Lucifer?

I’ll take this a step further and ask: Why is Lucifer also the name given to the Devil and Satan? And how can Satan, who is also called the “Prince of darkness” be a bearer of Light?  The prophet Isaiah had some words to say about Lucifer:

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” For thou hast said in thine heart, “I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.”   

Yet, thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying: “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?” (Isaiah 14:12-17)

This sounds more like a celestial event involving comets and planets than a biblical one involving angels and men — given the cataclysmic upheavals in our planet’s ancient history where, in one episode, the planet Venus, for instance, was given the name “Baal Zevuv” (which later became Beelzebub), and “Lucifer,” the “Morning Star,” due to her brightness in the early morning sky before she was “cut down to the ground” to become a comet for several terrifying decades until she was restored to the status of planet.

This all makes it obvious that one cannot take biblical accounts literally, as men in those days didn’t know what to make of the cataclysmic events occurring in the heavens and on the earth. So they made up stories to pass on to their offspring . . . and to record in the history books, which the Bible is, “The Story of Man.” 

The word Lucifer was not always associated with the Devil and Satan.  In one of the Gnostic Gospels, for example, Jesus calls Mary Magdalene “Mary Lucifer” because of her brightness of spirit, her mental acuity,  and her passionate love for him.  He was the Light of the world and she his “Beloved Companion” in their shared mission, his Light-bearer, the “Apostle of apostles.” She knew and understood him while the other disciples only believed in Him — except for John the Beloved, who also knew and loved him. They both shared a conscious awareness of his mission and purpose, his divinity, as well as their own.

Who and what is Lucifer?

Here’s my take: Lucifer in Heaven was a bearer of the Light of Truth, and after his fall from grace, from Heaven, he became the Devil and Satan, the “Prince of darkness” and “the Prince of this world.” If this is so, Satan is no longer in Heaven but on Earth; no longer an invisible but a rather visible entity on the material plane of this world, which we should be able to see. I believe we do — and not in the television series.

Where is this Satan, then? Is he embodied by Donald Trump, perhaps? Some may think so. Maybe by the Koch brothers and the Cabal that rule the world economy from Wall Street and the World Bank? Is he in Russia as Vladimir Putin, or more likely in the murderous dictator of Syria, Bashar Hafez al-Assad — who, by the way, was born in Damascus on September 11, 1965. Did Assad bring down the World Trade Center to celebrate his 36th birthday? The number 36 can be interpolated as three sixes — 666, the “number of the beast, which is also the number of a man.” The number 666 is also the address of the Jared Kushner Tower on Fifth Avenue, which was recently bailed out by Qatar in Saudi Arabia, where Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lives in decadence. Perhaps he is the “Prince of this world.” Maybe the Devil is all of the above. So many “evil men” at which to point the finger.

Here’s something significant:  The Hebrew for the blamer is shatan, or obstacle; the Greek for divider is diabolos. Hmm….  

I don’t believe the Devil is anyone or anywhere “out there.” I believe that we humans are devils when we cast blame and pass judgement on one another, and are hateful and cruel toward ourselves and one another.

(I just learned today that human trafficking is the number one illegal money maker, a near forty-billion-dollar-a-year business globally — with illegal drug sales second and gun sales third.)

In my early years, while studying for the Catholic priesthood, my father used to advise me not to try and save the Devil, as he was lost forever. As I awakened spiritually, I began to understand more about who the Devil is, and I found myself doing exactly the contrary. This has been a central part of my life’s mission and purpose: saving Lucifer from perdition by inviting my own mind, drawn by its love for the beauty of Truth, to ascend to its appointed place in Heaven as the Light Bearer it was designed to be. This is my whole purpose for writing: to shine Light on the path of our sojourn through this “valley of the shadow of death.” 

I see light shining in this valley as more and more angels incarnate, emissaries of Light, are using their minds to shine the Light of Truth into the consciousness of mankind, enlightening us about our true state and that of our world — but also about our humanity and our true identity:  Be Your Humanity: Know Your Divinity

Life in this chaotic world is beginning to be brightened a bit because Lucifer is being restored to its heavenly role as Light Bearer . . . shining Light as well on our self-active past: 

The Ascent of Man such celebrated “great minds” as Dr. Jacob Bronowski, and Sir David Attenborough on Overpopulation, speak of is more about the awakening of the mind to its reckless past and to the stark realities of existence on a rather small planet that has limited accommodations for its voracious appetite for more of everything, including people. It is precisely man’s “marvelous plasticity of mind,” along with his wild and evil imagination, that are responsible for the dire straits in which we find ourselves today. 

I believe the so-called “Devil” is simply the self-active mind of man, and that Lucifer is the Truth-active Mind of Man, neither of which has a separate identity from who I AM.  For it is with our minds that we shine the Light of Truth in this darkened world full of hate and lies.  The mind is a wonderful capacity when used as a lens to refocus the Light of Truth from within and not as a reservoir of “knowledge” that, given its rather thin substance, can easily become overwhelmed and fragile with too much information and so-called “knowledge.” And its rightful place is not up front leading the way with its bright ideas and empty promises, but behind us, with our Spirit, the Light of Love that we are, leading forth in our lives.  This is the truth of our humanity and our identity, a truth we must come to love and cherish in our hearts.   

I’ll leave you to ponder these words of Lloyd A. Meeker (Uranda):

The Truth, through the mind, through the working of intelligence, provides the design, the factors of form in concept or belief; and Love, through the heart, animates that which is accepted by the mind. And the physical body receives that which is so established, for the body as such has no choice but to receive that which is imposed upon it. . . .

Human beings accept certain things in the sense of intellectual beliefs, but that which is animated in the actual expression of their lives takes form on the basis of resentment ideas, fear ideas, rebellion ideas, or hate ideas. The real feeling manifests in the range of something which carries a critical, condemnatory or destructive attitude, and that which is of the Divine Design, even though it be seen, is not animated in the individual life because there is no particular feeling in regard to it. . . .  

Illumination comes when the mind accepts the Truth idea, and the Dominion idea, in a manner which allows the heart to animate the Dominion, Kingdom idea. Any constructive idea which becomes animated through the heart brings some degree of Illumination—vividness of comprehension and appreciation; for Illumination is simply comprehension coupled with due appreciation. By reason of appreciation there is the acceptance of value.  (Uranda)

I  will continue with the series on the spiritual significance of the Thyroid gland in my next post.  Until then,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com

My Heart a Sea of Glass. . .Mingled with Fire

ATTUNEMENT WITH THE ONE I AM

When my heart is quiet and my mind is still, my inner landscape becomes a sea of glass clear as crystal, mingled with fire.  Upon this crystal sea of quiet stillness is reflected the light of my spirit divine.  And I am immediately in love with what I see and what I know of who I am.

Then my heart wants to sing and I hear the sounds of light in heaven begging to be sounded on earth . . . the music of the spheres.   Thus am I guided in my quest for the sacred harmonies of the cosmos that make this world, my form, so beautiful, so magical.

I connect these two realms of heaven and earth with the music of the Soul of my soul. The inaudible becomes heard, the invisible  seen, the unspoken finds words in my heart, which alone understands the mystery of the Word made flesh.  The mystery of God is finished in my earth . . . and I know the awful power and sublime bliss of attunement with the One I Am.

Attunement with Sacred Sound

Sound is a natural carrier wave for spirit and for consciousness.  I have found it very useful in my attunement healing work.   I use tuning forks, singing bowls and voice to create sound waves.   Over the years I have collected several such tools for sacred sound. (Click on the above link to obtain a copy on my book exploring this methodology in depth.)

When I found an “A” bowl forged of Tibetan metals that sings a pure tone when stroked with the soft leather-bound end of the baton, I could then play three complete harmonious chords during attunement with sacred sound sessions. They are:

1) the A Major chord (A C# E) for the Spirit of the Womb (Pituitary and Crown Chakra),

2) the F Major chord (F A C) for the Spirit of Purification (Thymus gland and Heart Chakra), and

3) the D Major chord (D F# A) for the Spirit of the Single Eye (Adrenal glands and the Chi power center and/or Root Chakra).

Sacred Anatomy

Now, these pitches and chords are not etched in stone as the pitches and chords for specific energy sites in the body.   Like our physical forms, this is a work in progress, and as we continue to evolve spiritually in consciousness, the flesh of our body temples will continue to spiritualize, the cells that comprise the flesh thus oscillating to higher and higher frequencies, ascending as they shift frequencies.

This said, however, I am inclined to embrace my original inspired realization that the harmonic tones of the light of the sun and the light of love are comprised of relative frequencies, seven in number, and since our physical bodies are created by love from out of the vibrational substances of light and sound, and are positioned at the crossover point between these two creating forces of sunlight and lovelight,  the frequencies of the sacred energy sites of the seven endocrine glands and the seven Chakra are relative harmonics of the tones of these two luminous realities. Indeed, they are prisms for refracting the light of the Spirit of Love into seven spirits and the light of the sun into seven colors and musical pitches.

This is what I mean by the term “sacred anatomy” in my book by the same name. All of the anatomy of our body temples is sacred and connected to everything in heaven above and earth below, as are all things in the Universe. So, I’m not saying anything new here.   I only wish to emphasize the special role the seven hormonal glands of our endocrine system play, in concert with the seven chakras, grounding sacred energy and therein bringing the Creator in touch with Creation . . . God incarnate in human flesh.  Is there anything more special, more mystical and mysterious, more enjoyable than this?!  We have the best seat in the House of many mansions to enjoy the Symphony of the Music of the Spheres.

Is not this something worth being and living in attunement with?!  Worth keeping my heart and mind a sea of glass clear as crystal and mingled with the fire of my love for life?!  Surely it is.

How to do that and still live in the world of turmoil and strife?  The key lies in finding the still point of one’s turning world.  For once one finds it, one will never want to leave it, and once it finds you it will never let you leave it.  One can find it through attunement.  One can find it through meditation.  Of this be assured:  while you are looking for it, it is looking for you, for a creation without a creator is impossible and will always seek out its origins for sovereign benediction and for attunement with the Light of the Creator. Creation also seeks its creator for change and renewal.  Should it not find its creator, it will disintegrate without the blessing of its creator, and that is truly sad. This is why evening and morning sanctification, where one takes one’s world into one’s heart and hands for blessing and forgiveness, is so uplifting.  Because it’s also centering.

I start an attunement session by asking the person to come into the present moment completely with no thought of doing or accomplishing anything other than simply coming into the present moment and being now here.  Putting these two words together we have nowhere.  To help them I suggest they get in touch with the feeling that they will be here for the rest of their life with nothing demanding their attention, either from yesterday or tomorrow, not even in the immediate future after the session.  Be here now forever.  I take that attitude myself so that I can offer the greatest possible blessing.  I then assist them to come to a place where that is the truth of the matter, for the here and now can be taken into every moment of life.   Or, more accurately stated, every moment of living can be brought into the here and now.

So thoroughly can one become absorbed into the here and now and be present in the center of one’s turning world that one can lose the sense of going anywhere, as on a journey, and gain the sense that somewhere is always coming to where one is. One may have to don an automobile or a jet liner to accomplish this task, just as we had to don a physical body in order to walk in a world of space and time. But one no longer sees oneself as moving out of the present here and now at the center on one’s revolving world.  This simple change in perspective is the resolution of all forms of stress, for it puts to rest the desire to be somewhere other than where one is now, and to have anything more than what one has now. All things come to one who waits in patience upon the creative cycles that move one’s world toward the center where I am. And they come at a rate that I can easily handle them appropriately and successfully with the greatest of ease and to the blessing to all concerned.  Above all, it creates the unhurried atmosphere inside of a sea of glass clear as crystal mingled with fire.

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gnosis: A Return to Our Roots

(Preface: As much as I’ve tried to shorten this post, no part of it could be omitted without a loss to its impact and meaning, as well as the spirit of the authors of the excerpts. I think you will agree after reading it.)

GNOSIS is the experience and knowledge of spiritual truths. In essence and in practice during the Early Christian era, it was the experience of knowing God within.  The experience of Spirit. Of Divinity. 

According to the Gnostic Gospels, which included the gospels of Thomas and Philip, Jesus had given “secret knowledge” to some of his apostles of the way to ascend the “Tree of Life” and come to know Spirit as one’s Self.  The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, in which she describes her personal ascension up to the “crown” of this tree that Jesus said had its roots in her body, does not belong to the collection of thirteen Gnostic Gospels that were discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. The Gospel of Mary was discovered earlier in 1896, also in upper Egypt. It stands alone as a testament to the true experience of Gnosis. 

The Son of Humanity

I will conclude this series with a passage from The Gospel of Mary Magdalene by Jean-Yves Leloup, followed by the author’s commentary. It begins with a question posed by the apostle Peter about the nature of matter:

[ . . . ]What is matter? Will it last forever? 

The Teacher answered: “All that is born, all that is created, all the elements of nature are interwoven and united with each other. All that is composed shall be decomposed; everything returns to its roots; matter returns to the origins of matter. Those who have ears, let them hear.”

Peter said to him: “Since you have become the interpreter of the elements and the events of the world, tell us: What is the sin of the world?”

 The Teacher answered: “There is no sin. It is you who make sin exist, when you act according to the habits of your corrupted nature; this is where sin lies. This is why the Good has come into your midst. It acts together with the elements of your nature so as to reunite it with its roots.”

 Then he continued: “This is why you become sick, and why you die: it is the result of your actions; what you do takes you further away. Those who have ears, let them hear.

I will let the author give his commentary on this passage first, because he offers such profound insight into the dishonest human condition and into the path the “Son of Humanity”set before us for our return to our “roots” in Source. 

Lack calls for fullness. Thirst calls for the Source. The Good has come into our midst because the nature of matter involves lack. Humans as we know them are beings who feel a lack of Being. The process of corruption begins with their own identification with this lack. They then confuse themselves with the matter of which their bodies are composed, which ultimately leads to an experience of their own vanity and emptiness. Thus they may finally become open to that which can fill them.

The Original Sin of Adam was a fall from identity with Spirit to identity with form that left us with a feeling of profound lack which gave rise to a deep desire and longing for redemption, ironically creating a void for a Savior to fill. “Blessed fault of Adam, that gave us such a Redeemer,” the traditional chant for the Easter Vigil says. “What is it that transforms matter, adama, a lump of clay, into Adam, the true human being capable of this essence of desire,” the author asks. What can we do now to make room in our hearts for Spirit to come and fill the emptiness there?

Meister Eckhart, a Christian whose metaphysics was very close to the Gospel of Mary, said it more simply: “If you do nothing, truly nothing, God cannot help but come into you.” Unfortunately, in those who are full of themselves, there is no place for the Other. This is why he added, “If you leave, God can enter.”

This means that we must leave the illusion of taking ourselves to be something, some thing, an object that exists in time. We must return to our true being as Subject, living in wonder at its manifestation in those transient objects that it calls its world, its body, its emotions, its personality.

When we leave behind the illusion of belief in a permanent thing, the Good can then come into our midst. In the heart of this finally accepted impermanence shines the presence of this unborn, unmade, uncreated “Nothing that can be found in the All of which It is the cause.” This is the clear light unimpeded by the opacity of all the things with which we are identified. In the midst of the heavy, the light is revealed.

According to the Gospel of Mary, the Teacher came in order to help free us from the ignorance that is identification (corruption). For he is the very countenance, the incarnation, and the practice of this Good.

The Good is the manifestation of the famous triad of the ancient philosophers: goodness, truth, and beauty. The Good in this sense does not have evil as its opposite, for it means the unity of these three, the One that embraces the multiplicity of all qualities through which it is expressed.

What does goodness become when separated from light, consciousness, and truth? A softness that is the gateway to hypocrisy and compromise.

What does truth become when separated from goodness, love, and beauty? A hardness that is the gateway to fanaticism and persecution.

What does beauty become when separated from truth and goodness? Art for art’s sake, an aestheticism that is the gateway to a brilliance that clarifies nothing.

Beyond the realm of opposites, the Good is the One, the doorway to Being. This Being can only manifest in a heart, body, and mind that have been emptied of all illusion, meaning all inflation and presumption; for it cannot fit into the straitjacket that they offer.

“This is why the Good has come into your midst. It acts together with the elements of your nature so as to reunite it with its roots. “

The radiance of Presence has come to us, and “we have seen its glory,” or its kavod, as the Hebrews called it — the glory of the Son, “full of grace and truth,” which is also that of the Father, or Source.” [The author’s footnote: “The Metaphor of Mother could just as well be used for the Source.”]

By planting the seeds of his knowledge (the sperma Theou, in Greek) in the elements of our nature, the Teacher restores us to our own true heritage and ushers us back to endless resonance with our uncreated Source, the “Father whom none has ever seen, and none can know,” but who is revealed to us through the monogenetic Son, the Good that unites the ancient philosopher’s triad. This invites us to live a life of glory, a life of love and consciousness, just as he did.

This reunion with our roots is not a mere event in time, but an ever-renewed relation with the Source engendering us in every instant. It is our ignorance that creates our distance from it, and this distance involves all sorts of sickness and suffering. By an ever-new act of knowledge that is both metanoia (in Greek, passing beyond the known, beyond the mind and memories of which we are composed) and teshuva (Hebrew for the act of return, a turning about of our consciousness from our externalized, objectified being toward our inner Being), [the literal meaning of the word “repent”] we act from the deepest heart of our lack, from the intimate space of our desire of desires. This is the space where we receive the inspiration of the Teacher and his teaching.

 Then he continued:

 “This is why you become sick, and why you die: it is the result of your actions;  what you do takes you further away.  Those who have ears, let them hear.”

Having spoken of matter and its impermanence, and of attachment and identification with this impermanence, the Teacher now shows the consequences of ignorance and attachment.

Sickness, suffering, and death are the consequences of our acts. There is no one to blame for this, and it is vain to complain and expostulate about the evil nature of matter, the world, and humanity. There is no room here for hatred of the world, for it has been clearly stated that there is no sin, no evil. Evil and sin arise from the blamer in ourselves.

(The “blamer” in Hebrew is the shatan, which means “obstacle.” In Greek the word is diabolos, which means “divider.”  I find this most interesting and revealing of what is actually happening in ourselves as we point a finger of blame away from ourselves.  

Attunement with Source

In a word, the Teacher came to offer attunement to the Body of Humanity through the open hearts and resonant substance of his disciples in order to reunite the flesh Body of Humanity with its roots in Source by drawing forth the Spirit of Love, the Father, from within them.  His own incarnation as the “Son of Humanity” set a precedent for the whole of Mankind. 

But he didn’t do it alone. Mary Magdalene, who brought the Divine Feminine into their shared mission of redemption, was his companion. Together they restored the sacred union between Man and Woman and their union with the Father.  They shared the ultimate Attunement with Love.

The revelation of Love, the Father within, through Humanity was his expressed purpose for incarnating. He was on fire with this purpose, as was his companion. It is our purpose as well.  This excerpt from a talk given by Lord Martin Exeter, who was my spiritual mentor for twenty years, speaks passionately to this purpose: 

Until God’s Love comes into the individual and sets the individual on fire, the physical substance of his body, the substance of his whole outer being, remains subject to the destructive burning of the fire. It is only as he is actually set on fire, while he is living here on earth, that there may be a purification and transmutation into a state of being in attunement with the core of Being – which is God’s Love – so that the form is not destroyed. We can recognize these basic principles. Only as there is lust, so that the individual lets himself be set on fire by God’s Love, can he be consumed by God’s Love instead of destroyed by God’s Love. Being consumed by God’s Love there is no loss, because every level of Being is supposed to be the means by which there may be a manifest revelation of God’s Love, and this level where we are was so designed by God not to be destroyed by God’s Love but, being consumed by God’s Love, to reveal it….

…The body of Truth is lust, that all-consuming hunger and thirst, that depth of feeling, that longing, that which springs from the intensity of aloneness, an opening of the heart to God without reservation, without holding back anything, in a surge, a constant surge of passionate lust. And until we do open ourselves so, we cannot know the reality of God’s Love as it is; we can only know it as a painful fire, whereas in fact God’s Love, received into the true body, is the resurrection and the life of the body.

I think this well encapsulates who Mary Magdalene was and the pivotal role she played with her Beloved Lord that made Jesus’ mission on earth at all possible. She gave him her all, an open heart through which he could enter and plant the seed of Love in the Body of Humanity.  She was the true founder of Christianity — “The Woman at the Heart of Christianity,” as Cynthia Bourgeault identifies her in the subtitle of her profound book, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene.  

There is much more that I could share from the pages of these three books However, I feel complete in this series. If you feel inspired, and in the least bit inclined, to obtain copies of these thought-provoking books, I certainly encourage you to do so. Until my next post,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

All of the books and many more are available at Amazon.com/books 

The Gospel of the Beloved Companion

I interrupt this series to bring forward into the light of day something new and enlightening, something I have never seen in the Canonical Gospels of the New Testament Bible. It’s found in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which reveals a different view of the life and public ministry of Jesus — whose historic name, by the way, was “Yeshua.” I found this while reading THE GOSPEL OF THE BELOVED COMPANION  by Jehanne De Quillan, who translated her gospel directly from the original Greek.

The setting for these words spoken by Mary Magdalene is a room in the “House of Bethany” where the disciples of Jesus had gathered just after the crucifixion and resurrection of their Master. As the Canonical Gospels relate the story, Mary of Bethany – whom Jesus had called “the Migdalah” (which means tower of strength and courage) – went to the tomb where Jesus’s body had been placed and found the stone rolled back and the tomb empty. Mistaking a presence in the garden as the gardener, she asked where he had taken the body, at which point Jesus called her by her name, “Miryam,” to which she answered “Rabbouni.” Being moved to embrace her Beloved, Jesus said to her “‘Miryam, do not hold to me, for I am not of the flesh, neither am I one with the spirit….'” He then asked her to go to his disciples and tell them the good news of his resurrection so that, as he put it, “‘all would know that my words are true and that any who should choose to believe them and keep to my commandments will follow me on their last day.'” [These words are packed with historical significance – which I may unpack in a future post.]

So Mary went to the disciples and told them how she had seen and spoken with Jesus. They apparently were a bit disbelieving and even jealous of her intimate rapport with their Master, especially Peter, who said “‘Sister, we know that he loved you more than any other among women. Tell us the words of the Rabbi, which you remember, which you know and understand, but we do not, nor have we heard them.'” 

And here is what she reportedly answered them:

What is hidden from you, I will proclaim to you. 

My Master spoke thus to me. He said, “Miryam, blessed are you who came into being before coming into being, and whose eyes are set upon the Kingdom, who from the beginning has understood and followed my teachings. Only from the truth I tell you there is a great tree within you that does not change,summer or winter, and its leaves do not fall. Whosoever listens to my words and ascends to its crown will not taste death, but will know the truth of eternal life.” 

Then he showed me a vision in which I saw a great tree that seemed to reach unto the heavens; and as I saw these things, he said “The roots of this tree are in the earth, which is your body. The trunk extends upward through the five regions of Humanity to the Crown, which is the Kingdom of the Spirit.

There are eight great boughs upon this tree and each bough bears its own fruit, which you must eat in all its fullness. As the fruit of the tree of the Garden [referring to the “fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”] caused Adam and Chav’vah [Eve?] to fall into darkness, so this fruit will grant to you the Light of the Spirit that is Eternal Life. Between each bough is a gate and a guardian who challenges the unworthy who try to pass.

“The leaves at the bottom of the tree are thick and plentiful, so no light penetrates to illuminate the way. But fear not, for I am the Way and the Light, and I tell you that as one ascends the tree, the leaves that block one from the Light are fewer, so it is possible to see all more clearly. Those who seek to ascend must free themselves of the world. If you do not free yourself from the world, you will die in the darkness that is the root of the tree. But if you free yourself, you will rise and reach the Light that is the Eternal Life of the Spirit.”

She continues to relate how she ascended the tree, bough by bough, entering gate by gate, until she reached the top crown of the tree. Each bough had its own unique requirement and its own unique gifts.

On the first level, she had to release all judgement and wrath in order to receive the nourishment of the gifts of love and compassion.

On the second bough, she had to release ignorance and intolerance to receive the gifts of wisdom and understanding.

To enter the third gate on the level of the third great bough, she had to release duplicity and arrogance in order to receive the gifts of honor and humility.

At the  level of the fourth great bough, she had to confront and free herself of the weakness of the flesh and the illusion of her fears. Here she received the gifts of strength and courage.

Then she says this about her remaining ascent upward:

Only then, my Master told me, when you have rejected the deceiver, can you pass through the hardest gate of all, to attain the fifth bough and the fruit of clarity and truth. Only then will you know the clarity and truth of your soul and, knowing your Self for the first time, understand that you are a child of the Living Spirit. And as my soul moved upward, I realized that I could no longer hear the voice of the world, as all had become as silence.

Then in the Light above, I saw the sixth bough, the one that bore the fruit of power and healing. My Master told me that when you truly have eaten of the fruit of the clarity and truth of your Self, then could you partake of the fruit of power and healing. The power to heal your own soul and thereby make it ready to ascend to the seventh bough, where it will be filled by the fruit of Light and Goodness.

And I saw my soul, now free of all darkness, ascend again to be filled with the Light and Goodness that is the Spirit. And I was filled with a fierce Joy as my soul turned to fire and flew upwards in the flames from whence my Master showed me the eighth and final bough, upon which burned the fruit of the grace and beauty of the Spirit.

And I felt my soul and all that I could see dissolve and vanish in a brilliant Light, in a likeness unto the sun. And in the Light, I beheld a woman of extraordinary beauty, clothed in garments of brilliant white. The figure extended its arms and I felt my soul drawn into its embrace and in that moment I was freed from the world and realized that the fetter of forgetfulness was temporary. From now on, I shall rest through the course of the time of the age in silence. And then, as if from a great distance, I heard the voice of my Master tell me, “Miryam, whom I have called the Migdalah, now you have seen the all, and have known the truth of your Self; the truth that I Am. Now you have become the completion of completions.” And thus the vision ended.

“This is what my Master has told and shown me, and only from the truth I tell you, that all that I have revealed to you is true.”

When the Migdalah had told of all the Yeshua and said and done, she fell silent, since it was in that silence that Yeshua had spoken with her and revealed these truths.

And she has remained silent ever since. The Catholic Church and all of Christianity has kept Jesus’s Beloved Companion, along with the feminine in general, suppressed and silenced. But she is silent no longer. It’s no coincidence, I feel, that this Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Beloved Companion has surfaced in this day and at this specific time of the rise of the feminine movement. It may even be vibrationally causal relative to that movement. 

This passage bears much fruit for meditation. Just the revelation that the Spirit is feminine, “a woman of extraordinary beauty, clothed in garments of brilliant white,” is thought provoking in the context of a male-dominating world and religion.  Here is the Divine Feminine revealed to the world through Mary Magdalene, Jesus’s beloved companion.  Earlier in the text of this Gospel, Jesus refers to the Spirit as “she.” I felt a refreshing breeze blow through my soul as I read his reference to the Spirit as feminine — my own feminine energies, no doubt, stirring with recognition and acknowledgment.

In rejecting the Divine Feminine, the Church rejected the Spirit, leaving it spiritless and dead – my own personal impression of the Catholic Church and its priesthood, to which I once aspired as a young man. There is more spirit expressed in the Pentecostal religion, and in the worship service of the Black churches I’ve visited, than in all of Catholicism – in my humble opinion anyway.  

I will leave you to your own thoughts and realizations and return to share some of my own in another post.  Until then,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

Read my HealthLight newsletter online at LiftingTones.com.  

 

“The Secret of Light” page 5: Cosmic Consciousness

This excerpt from Walter Russell’s 1948 book The Secret of Light is from chapter four. It’s brief and speaks plainly for itself. The second part of this post is an excerpt from THE DIVINE ILIAD by Walter Russell which also speaks profoundly for itself. Enjoy the wisdom of this clarion voice from out of the past.

Walter Russell

Beyond the genius is the mystic.

The mystic is one who has attained cosmic conscious­ness by a complete severance of the seats of conscious­ness and sensation. He is then almost totally unaware of his body and is totally aware of the Light of God center­ing him. Omniscience comes to him in that timeless blinding flash of light which is characteristic of a com­plete severance. This experience was described in the illumination of St. Paul. Every timeless flash of intense inspiration which comes to any man is a partial illumination, for inspiration is the manner in which new knowledge comes to man from the cosmos.

Of all mystics, Jesus was the outstanding example of all time. He was the only One in all history to have known complete cosmic-conscious unity with God.

The Bible refers to cosmic-conscious experience as “the illumination” or “being in the Light” or “in the Spirit.”

In all history less than forty cases of partial cosmic consciousness are known, and probably not more than three of these anywhere nearly approached the complete state of illumination experienced by the Nazarene.

Cosmic consciousness is the ultimate goal of all mankind. All will know it before the long journey of man is finished, but there are many in this new age just dawning who are ready for it in part, if not fully.

Many desire it fully, but it is best that it come bit by bit for the complete severance is very dangerous. The ecstasy of this supreme experience is so great that one does not wish to come back. The power of severance of
soul from body is within easy accomplishment, but to step back into the body is very difficult.

The way to gradually attain cosmic consciousness is to intensify one’s conscious awareness by much alone­ness and companionship with God while manifesting Him in every moment and in every task of life.

Moment-by-moment companionship with God brings with it so great a realization of Oneness with Him that the transformation into that full realization of unity is apt to take place at any time.

The deterrent to cosmic consciousness is the feeling that God is far away instead of being within, and that we can reach that far away God only through sources out­side of ourselves.

From The Divine Iliad

“Man alone of all My creating things hath begun to hear My whisperings. Since his beginning My still small Voice hath whispered within him that I am he and he Me; but even now barbaric man on thy small new world heareth dully, and maketh idols which he trea­sures before Me, for he is still new. He is still but in the ferment of his early brewing.

“For I say, that all things which floweth from Life of Me have Life of Me flowing through them, e’en to the least of these; but, I say, that e’en though My Light of immortal Life floweth through those mortal symbols of My thinking, It toucheth them not in Its pass­ing .

“When they shall know the Light of Me in them, then they shall be Me and I them. ” 

 I have no words or thoughts to add. See you next weekend with the sixth post in this series. Until then,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

Read my HealthLight Newsletter online at LitingTones.com.

The Journey Within

This is such a timely, clear and simple message.  Enjoy!

Hunger for Meaning

“…the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning.”

“The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two “hungers”. There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning…
There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.

There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you’re happy or unhappy. You are content – you are not alone in your Spirit – you belong.” –Laurens van der Post (Photograph of Sir Laurens Van Der Post, with a Bushman in the Kalahari Desert.)

A friend posted this on Facebook this morning and it resonated with what I have been thinking deeply about this week in the wake of my grandson’s graduation from High School last month up in Ashland, Oregon. I sent him my blessing in a letter in which I offered a few morsels of wisdom and insight into life. I wrote

As your paternal grandfather, I bestow upon you the blessings of your forefathers and mine. With this blessing comes the responsibility to be fruitful in your life. Your life will bear fruit as you pursue what it is you love doing that also serves and benefits others, and you have plenty of examples and role models in your immediate family of fruitful living. You can look to them, to us, for guidance along the way at any time. I am available to you for as long as I am present in this world.

Throughout my life and professional career as a holistic practitioner, I have found much meaning in serving others. The meaning of my entire life has been in serving others. It has been for me as though there are no “others” but only One being with many diverse and colorful faces, of which I am but one such expression. As I gave to others I was giving to myself. For me, there is no greater meaning one can find in life than giving of oneself in service to others.

Lead forth with Spirit

Further on in my letter I offered this assurance and encouragement to my grandson:

You are 18 now, and that number resolves to a 9 in numerology. Nine is the symbol of a completed cycle bringing forth. The circle on top represents the cycle completed, and the line coming down from the circle represents the One you are coming forth into your world to begin a new cycle, a new day. What you will create in this next cycle is entirely up to you. You have all that you need in yourself to achieve your presence in this world and to bring forth your gift. Always remember that Life provides for your needs at all times. All you need do is ask and you will receive from within; seek and you will find what you are looking for; knock and the way will open up before you. Just keep moving and your life will take form as you go forward. Lead forth with your spirit. All else will follow. . . .

Spirit. How many youngsters graduating from our scholastic institutions come away with an awareness of the importance of their spirit? “Lead forth with my spirit? You’ve got to be kidding. It’s my education that will get me what I want and need out of life: success, money, identity and meaning.”  That’s what we were taught, and look where it’s got us.  Mark Twain had a way of saying things that made people think: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”  The school of life is the one that matters, and one lives with or without a higher education.  Spiritual education matters most. As we lead forth with our spirit, with our hearts through which spirit works, our minds with their concepts and ideas will follow to help in providing form for our dreams and aspirations born of spirit. But it’s spirit, vibration, that shapes our worlds.

The word education has the Latin root Educare which means to draw forth.  What is there to be drawn forth by our teachers? Obviously that which is already there within the student: genius, creativity, something that’s new and unique, that’s not yet been given or seen! Something the world is waiting for and for which the times are ripe! Something that will make a difference in the world.

When our older son was setting out to make his life, he told me he just wanted to make a difference in the world. And so he has indeed. He didn’t go to college either. For as long as I’ve known him, he has led forth with his beautiful and creative spirit and zest for life. He is truly, and in every practical way, the light of his world. And his world gathered around him in rich abundance, pressed down and running over. Our younger son is having the same experience in his life. “Stuff” has a way of coming to those who love what they are doing in life, and in good measure and balance.

You see, the world is nothing but coagulated energy, made of light and sound vibrating at a myriad of frequencies. Energy is vibration and vibration shapes our worlds. The vibration of the light of love originates in spirit and is an attractive energy that draws substance together in a cohesive whole. The vibrations of greed and competition, on the other hand, originate in ego and are dissipating energies that require great effort in order to hold onto the stuff one accumulates to fill one’s world and hopefully give one a sense of meaning and value. Only it doesn’t. Meaning and value are not to be derived from stuff. They are inherent within our very being. We are human beings not human doings. Our meaning and value is in who we are as creators and not in what we do and create in our lives — and the nature of our meaning and value has very much to do with the times and places in which we were each placed.

We were made for these times and this place!

I said this in my letter to my grandson that I hope will give set him in search for his meaning:

And remember to give thanks in all things, no matter how hectic and turbulent things may get – and they will. Just keep looking up and, like the proverbial bar of soap, you will go up when squeezed. You can handle whatever comes to you, for you were made precisely for these times.

I am proud of you for simply being who you are, for who and what you are is enough. Always remember that. You are enough. As you mature spiritually, you will come to discover and reveal your Higher Self, that which we all seek to know more fully: our Self. But for now, you are enough. Now, go forth and shine your sweet and beautiful light, your unique gift to us all and to the world. You are the light of your world. Shine brightly so that you can see the way before you.

A wise teacher once said “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” We live in dark times, but it doesn’t help any to complain about them. We were each and every one of us made precisely and purposefully for these times. It doesn’t take a college education or a degree to see what is needed in our times. Should we need a reminder, we have the Peace Prayer of St. Francis to revisit from time to time. I’ll leave you with it.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

Just reading this prayer ignites and fans a flame in the heart. “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” Yes! There is genuine meaning and purpose in these words. May they be a light in the world unto our young boys and girls of this new generation who face greater challenges than I know I did when I graduated from high school and college a few decades ago. God bless them each one and keep them safe.

Until my next post,

Be love. Be loved

Anthony

Read my HealthLight Newsletter online for helpful guidance and information.

 

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