New Year's Gift: The Real Ring

It was late on New Year's Eve. I was sitting on a mat, and, by the light of a lamp, was sorting through the contents of an old ebony box. The box, whose wood shone with natural lustre, had been in my family for years, and the objects it contained, even longer. These were precious heirlooms.

My mood at that moment was, however, more frantic than reverent, for among the old scarves, kerchieves, and pouches, which flooded my mind with thoughts of my ancestors and parents, one object of particular importance was missing. In desperation, I was unfolding and folding, untying and tying, opening and closing, searching for that one thing I could not find.

"What are you looking for so intently?" I heard a voice say from behind me.

I knew it was You, but because of my anxiety, I answered, without turning my head, "Excuse me for a minute. Please sit down." Immediately, I felt ashamed. I looked at You, and You were smiling at me without admonishing my folly.

I gathered most of the precious hoard between my hands and shoved it into the box, collected a few stray odds and ends and threw them in after, with the exception of two small pouches, one of which I distractedly jammed into my shirt pocket. I closed the lid on the box, and then turned to show You the piece that I had kept out. This was a very old, very fine silk pouch with a pink rose embroidered on it. Your eyes lit up when You saw it, and You expressed Your admiration of it.

"I embroidered the pink rose on it myself last year," I informed You, not without some pride. "Unfortunately, the thing I made it to hold isn't here. I haven't been able to find it anywhere. That's what I've been searching for this past hour.

"And what is it?" You asked.

"A ring," I answered sadly.

"A valuable ring?"

"Valuable! The best of its kind! It was an heirloom, my most precious possession! It was made of seven metals! It was set with gems in the pattern of the rising sun! Very charming and very auspicious too!"

"But why did you happen to be looking for it tonight, at the last hour of the year?"

"Because," I explained, "it is my custom to hold that ring in my hand at the beginning of every New Year. It seems to help me let go of the stress of the year passed, and to fill my heart with joy and energy for the coming year. It is a very significant symbol for me, and now that I have lost it, I feel as though my dream has died."

You looked probingly at me, seeing my turmoil. Then You asked calmly, "Is it the loss of the ring — the symbol — that distresses you? Or your attachment to it that worries you?"

The question stumped me. "Sorry," I said. "I'm not sure I understand You. Is there something wrong with the symbol of the rising sun?"

"The symbol is not bad, but your dependence and attachment to it is not good. When you imbue any symbol with rigid meaning, a personal interpretation, and isolate yourself in your fancies, the significance of the symbol is defiled."

"Perhaps there is something wrong with symbolism altogether," I ventured.

"I never condemn anything," You replied. "I am everything. But I want you to understand the proper role of symbols in your life, so that you will neither over- nor underestimate their importance."

"You are saying that I don't have a balanced view of this. But how am I to acquire it?"

"By not allowing the symbols to dominate you. The loss of your ring — the heirloom — should not have disturbed you so much. The One who gives symbols knows when to take them away. The right attitude toward symbols is to understand that they are directing you to something real that is beyond them. So don't try to fill your life with them, or cling to them, but when they come to you, respect them without being overly influenced by them."

"Are there certain categories of symbols which are especially significant?"

"Countless, but you have to have an eye to discern them. Then a time may come when every pebble can be a jewel for you, and its shape and color convey unspoken messages."

This was too much for me, and it must have shown in my expression, because You smiled indulgently.

"What I mean," You continued, "is that you shouldn't become bound by ideology, of which there are many. Ideology constricts your understanding of the real potential of symbols."

I still felt I was in over my head. "Your words often land me in deep waters," I said, shaking my head hopelessly.

You looked amused. "But if you know how to swim, you may dive as deep as you can and return to the surface, bringing the significance with you as part of your life."

"Maybe I'm grasping at straws while I should be diving, but could you just tell me, of all the symbols, is there one in particular which is the greatest?"

"Yes," You answered at once, and with a natural east. "There is. And you already have it."

I was amazed. "I have it? Are You joking?"

"I am not. The greatest symbol of all is the ring."

"The ring? What sort of ring?"

"You always look outward, and so you are not aware of it, for this ring is within you, within everyone. At the time of birth, I breathe life, My Spirit, into your being. The ingoing and outgoing breath that circles and sustains your life is the ring and the matchless symbol. If this breath continues to circle in My remembrance, it becomes the Real Ring, truly worth seeking. It is this to which all symbols, and all signs, are pointing."

Radiantly beautiful, Your gaze fell upon me benignly. I sat there gaping, speechless, overwhelmed by Your presence.

You broke the mood by asking, offhandedly, "By the way, what's that green string hanging out of your shirt pocket?"

I glanced down and noticed a strand of dyed wool cord with a ball and tassel at the end of it. "An empty pouch," I answered, feeling glum again. "I must have stuck it in my pocket while I was putting things away." Saying this, I took the pouch out of my pocket, and, to my amazement, felt something solid inside of it.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Eureka! It's here! It's here!" I cried.

"What?"

"The ring that I was desperately searching for!"

My spirits soared. I remembered in a flash that while I had been embroidering the pink rose on the silk pouch the year before, I had placed the ring in this other, plainer one, and obviously forgotten it.

"Are you happy now?" You asked.

"Happy! I'm ecstatic!"

And You responded casually, with a remark that has stayed with me every since. "The end of real seeking is to know that nothing was ever lost."

I still have not fathomed the depths of its meaning.

Then You smiled and added, "If you are happy, may I go now?"

Almost at once, my eyes clouded with tears. "How can You ask me that? How could I wish You to leave? But ... yes, goodbye. But don't stay away too long. And please forgive me for my impudent greeting." Tears of sadness were now mingled with tears of joy and gratitude. "Today You have disclosed to me the Real Ring You gave me at my birth. Please guide me to be aware of it in my day to day life in Your playful remembrance."

You gave me a smile of reassurance which transmitted absolute certainty. Like a soft feather, it gently touched the breath sustaining my being, and I felt the real Ring circling within me. At that very moment, the bells in the tower chimed in the New Year. What a peerless New Year's gift!

With your grace may I be worthy of it!

The bells were ringing loudly
to herald the New Year.
My heart was singing softly,
ushering in a new rhythm, so sure.

-- Bal Natu, Conversations with the Awakener (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Sheriar Foundation, 1991), 92-98.

Hail Mary, Eastern Form

The Angelic Salutation, from the East:

Θεοτόκε Παρθένε, χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη Μαρία, ὁ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ. εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξί, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας σου, ὅτι Σωτήρα ἔτεκες τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν

Theotokos Virgin, Rejoice!

Mary, Full of Grace, our Friend is with you.

Blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit of your womb,

for you have borne a Guru of our souls.

Judge for Yourselves

Jesus said to the crowds,
“When you see a cloud rising in the west
you say immediately that it is going to rain -- and so it does;
and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south
you say that it is going to be hot -- and so it is.
You hypocrites!
You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky;
why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?
If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate,
make an effort to settle the matter on the way;
otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge,
and the judge hand you over to the constable,
and the constable throw you into prison.
I say to you, you will not be released
until you have paid the last penny.”

     -- Luke 12:54-59

Willing and Ready

Brothers and sisters:
I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.
The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
For I do not do the good I want,
but I do the evil I do not want.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it,
but craving that dwells in me.
So, then, I discover the principle
that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
For I take delight in the law of Śiva, in my inner self,
but I see in my members another principle
at war with the law of my mind,
taking me captive to the law of craving that dwells in my members.
Miserable one that I am!
Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Thanks be to Śiva through Jesus Christ our Friend.

     -- Rom 7:18-25a

27 Nakshatras and 108 Padas

27 Nakshatras and 108 Padas

1.       Asvini (1-4)

2.       Bharani (5-8)

3.       Krittika (9-12)

4.       Rohini (13-16)

5.       Mrigashira (17-20)

6.       Arudra (18-24)

7.       Punarvasu (25-28)

8.       Pushya (29-32)

9.       Ashlesha (33-36)

10.   Magha (37-40)

11.   Purvaphalguni (41-44)

12.   Uttaraphalguni (45-48)

13.   Hasta (49-52)

14.   Chitra (53-56)

15.   Swati (57-60)

16.   Vishakya - Radha (61-64)

17.   Anuradha (65-68)

18.   Jyestha (69-72)

19.   Mula (73-76)

20.   Purvashadha (77-80)

21.   Uttarashadha (81-84)

22.   Shravana (85-88)

23.   Dhanishtha (89-92)

24.   Shatavishakya -Shatataraka (93-96)

25.   Purvabhadrapada (97-100)

26.   Uttarabhadrapada (101-104)

27.   Revati (105-108)

Papal Infallibility (I)

The following is a short summary of the doctrine of papal infallibility

When the Pope (1) intends to teach (2) by virtue of his supreme authority (3) on a matter of faith and morals (4) to the whole Church, he is preserved by the Holy Spirit from error. His teaching act is therefore called "infallible" and the teaching which he articulates is termed "irreformable".

To be free "from error" does not mean that one is "totally correct" or that one has spoken "the last and complete word on the topic".  It means that one has made a statement that corresponds, to one degree or another, to the relevant reality (in this case, the "matter of faith and morals").

What this also means is that, the very doctrine of papal infallibility, free "from error", is not "the last and complete word on the topic".

To be "irreformable" is to be free from being reformable. However, to be "irreformable" is not to be free from being clarified, or more deeply understood, or incorporated within a larger philosophical framework.

At Every Depth

"You must trust the process of your own life, whether it is to go mad, to become ill, to work, to succeed, or to die. Be free of fear. Surrender to the Person of God, the actual Living God. Trust the Divine altogether. Give yourself up emotionally to God. Do it to the point that the physically based fear of death vanishes on the basis of trust alone. Practice complete devotion and absolute surrender. Do not just tread the path of gradual attainment in your emotional and ceremonial approaches to God. Give yourself up completely in this moment. Give up everything at every depth and in every area of your life. Allow life to be the theatre of God, in which what seems to be appropriate and necessary in your case will be accomplished spontaneously. Allow all of life to be God’s business. Whatever arises, high or low, such a life will simply be surrendering to the point of happiness, giving up to God completely. If you will do what I urge you to do, then this instruction is sufficient. You do not really need to know all the technicalities of yoga and the cosmic subtleties of the higher planes of the phenomenal worlds. You need not know anything. You need not become convinced of anything except that you are suffering a contracted state of existence. Feel the force of that contraction, its emotional force, its physical force. Feel the quality of contraction and realize that it is your own action. Realize that you can exist in a totally different condition merely by recognizing your own separative activity and transcending it in each moment. Just surrender emotionally and completely."

-- Da Love-Ananda

Secret Message

Mani — I feel that the three persons are indeed one – Jesus Christ, Chaitanyadeva and you – are one person.

Sri Ramakrishna — Of course, one. What is there except one? It is He alone who dwells in this body.

After saying this, Sri Ramakrishna points to his own body – as if to say that the Lord has incarnated Himself and is dwelling in his body.

The Sefirot

Correspondences between the Sefirot and Jyotish:

Keter: Ketu

Chokhmah: Sun

Binah: Moon

Chesed: Mars

Gevurah: Venus

Tiferet: Saturn

Netzach: Jupiter

Hod: Mercury

Yesod: Rahu

Malkut: Lagna

The Man of Understanding

The man of understanding is not entranced. He is not elsewhere. He is not having an experience. He is not passionless and inoffensive. He is awake. He is present. He knows no obstruction in the form of mind, identity, differentiation and desire. He uses mind, identity, differentiation and desire. He is passionate. His quality is an offense to those who are entranced, elsewhere, contained in the mechanics of experience, asleep, living as various forms of identity, separation and dependence. He is acceptable only to those who understand.

He may appear no different from any other man. How could he appear otherwise? There is nothing by which to appear except the qualities of life. He may appear to have learned nothing. He may seem to be addicted to every kind of foolishness and error. How could it be otherwise? Understanding is not a different communication than the ordinary. There is only the ordinary. There is no special and exclusive communication that is the truth. There is no exclusive state of truth. But there is the understanding of the ordinary.

Therefore, the man of understanding cannot be found. He cannot be followed. He can only be understood as the ordinary. He is not spiritual. He is not religious. He is not philosophical. He is not moral. He is not fastidious, lean and lawful. He always appears to be the opposite of what you are.

He always seems to sympathize with what you deny. Therefore, at times and over time he appears as every kind of persuasion. He is not consistent. He has no image. At times he denies. At times he asserts. At times he asserts what he has already denied. At times he denies what he has already asserted. He is not useful. His teaching is every kind of nonsense. His wisdom is vanished. Altogether, that is his wisdom.

-- Franklin Jones

All Conditions

No matter what is arising in your life, within, without, in between, every instant of it is another condition in which understanding is appropriate. Under no conditions is obsessive involvement, positive or negative, with conditions. themselves appropriate. All conditions are sadhana for one who is understanding, and all are forms of bondage to one who does not understand. You must begin to become a little sensitive to your capacity for illusion, your capacity for fascination, for obsession, for distraction, for unconsciousness. You must begin to be responsible for that.

-- Bubba Free John

No Thought

No thought or figure or any perception arising in the mind is, in itself, God. No thing, no body, no moment or place, in itself, is God. Rather, every moment, place, thing, body, or state of mind inheres in God. Whatever arises should be recognized in God, not idolized as God. Then all conditions become Reminders that draw us into the ecstatic presumption of the Mysterious Presence of the Living One.

-- Da Free John

Prapatti

When Bhakti becomes intensified, it leads to whole-hearted surrender to God. This final stage is called Prapatti.

-- M. Narasimhachary

The Beginning of Spiritual Life

When I began to take up my teaching work, I clearly understood that I was going to have to bury myself in the world in order to awaken devotees. If there were to be devotees ultimately, I would have to pass through the lower, ordinary life with them, and make lessons in that play with them, make lessons out of all the possibilities of conventional fulfillment. That conventional fulfillment includes everything from typical life pleasures to conventional, so-called spiritual and psychic enjoyment. So all of my work has been a process of engaging in play with people on the basis of conventional possibility, living it, exploiting it, allowing it to show itself altogether as experience, as consequence, in order ultimately that you might enjoy that revulsion to the destiny of this birth that would enable you to take up the spiritual process truly.

There is no spiritual culture here, practically no culture whatsoever. Look at the street you came up out of tonight. That is where you all come from, and that is where I teach. Not in order to recommend all of that bullshit, all of that terror and disease and delusion and stupidity and obsession and craving and torment, but to live with people in such a way that they might enjoy a revulsion to all possibility in itself, all fulfillment, high or low, that is latent in the tendencies of this birth. And so, at various stages in my play with individuals, you have seen me live and work in every possible way. At one or another time, everything from the most exotic psychic and conventional experience to the most ordinary fulfillment of social life was, in one or another way, represented, communicated, lived among you, and never at all for the sake of those things in themselves.

You have not understood me if that is what you thought I was up to. These experiences are not the point, they are not Truth. Every way of life that you pursue on the basis of experience, high or low, making experience the principle of your future, is ordinary destiny, the usual life leading to death. It is not spiritual in any sense whatsoever, whether its content is psychic and more subtle or very gross. The lessons of your life with me should be very clear to you in your own body-mind. And yet I do not think they are very clear to all of you, because I see so many of you intending to persist, righteously persisting, in a way of life that has nothing whatever to do with spirituality.

Everything is passing, all this flesh, all this mind. There is no freedom from rebirth and illusion unless while alive you are literally existing in another dimension. Literally! Such an existence is not a matter of philosophy, of feeling good, of all the conventional horseshit that people put together. You may return to this human kind of birth after your next death, if you are lucky, but you will return to it without any recollection, without any more capacity than you now enjoy, driven as you are now, confused, obsessed, without the least distance in you from this arising here, bound to it, craving on the basis of it, having no capacity whatsoever to be distinguished from this body-mind. This will be true of you unless while alive you literally begin to exist in another condition, in another "place." Then, at death, and also while alive, you may go there and not come back here.

But, you see, in Truth it is not a matter of just being able to go to some dimension or other. There are countless dimensions above and below this! The Truth of the matter is to come to rest in God, not in this ego-soul, the separate one that is your destiny until the heart is broken. Other worlds have no significance whatsoever. They are equally tormenting after you have been there a few moments! There is a great struggle in every being that comes into contact with the Divine demand, because the Divine does not fulfill this life. The Divine Power draws you out of this life, draws attention out of it, reduces the mind to nothing, frees you of the illusion of being identical to this body, not just philosophically, but literally. The Law is sacrifice. If you do not fulfill it, you will become a sacrifice in any case, grudgingly, unconsciously. You will be eaten.

Until the Divine Power, Grace, and Demand is accepted, you will not fulfill the Law. You will not become a sacrifice of the whole body mind. Until this heart comes to rest, there is only contraction, this separate and separative consciousness, whose mind is separative, obsessive, bewildered, pursuing fulfillment on the basis of what is apparently possible in the midst of this puny limitation we wake up to each day. To take up a Divine life, a spiritual life, you must yield that principle of separation, but not just philosophically and not through conventional willfulness. Your yielding must be a real process, and it must represent real adaptation in you.

-- Bubba Free John

The Maharshi and His Message

It seems to me that the presence of men like the Maharshi ensures the continuity down history of a divine message from regions not easily accessible to us all. It seems to me, further, that one must accept the fact that such a Sage comes to reveal something to us, not to argue anything with us. At any rate, his teachings make a strong appeal to me, for his personal attitude and practical method, when understood, are quite scientific in their way. He brings in no supernatural power and demands no blind religious faith. The sublime spirituality of the Maharshi’s atmosphere and the rational self-questioning of his philosophy find but a faint echo in yonder temple. Even the word “God” is rarely on his lips. He avoids the dark and debatable waters of wizardry, in which so many promising voyages have ended in shipwreck. He simply puts forward a way of self-analysis, which can be practised irrespective of any ancient or modern theories and beliefs which one may hold, a way that will finally lead man to true self-understanding.

-- Paul Brunton, on Ramana Maharshi

Desire and Anger

Desire and anger are objects of the mind, but the mind is not yours, nor ever has been. You are choiceless awareness itself, unchanging - so live happily.

-- Ashtavakra, the Crippled Boy

Compassion

Therefore, if one has seen and felt and Understood the common and universally tormented state of living beings, one should surrender to the Truth and practice the Way of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness. Compassionate Understanding of the fear and delusion of all living beings moves one to practice this Way. Thus, one may, by one's manner of living, support the illusions and intensify the torment of living beings, or one may transcend all illusions and bring Transcendental Peace into the world.

-- Santosha Da

The Practice

Happiness is the responsibility.

Freedom is the discipline.

-- Bubba Free John

The Only Way

The statement that Christ is the Only Way, is not contradictory to the statement that Muhammad is the Last Prophet, that the Noble Eightfold Path is the only Path to Nibbana, that the Fullest Avatar is Krishna. Such statements of exclusivity are not statements of empirical fact. Such statements of exclusivity are statements of intention, attitude, and energy: they are meant to focus one’s intention on God and Truth, to direct one’s attitude towards surrender of self, to intensify one’s energy in sadhana. Such statements are statements of Spiritual Warfare, not statements of merely intellectual and philosophical curiosity. Let all such statements increase the intensity of your own sadhana.

August 24, 2010: Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle

Philip found Nathanael and told him,
“We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law,
and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
But Nathanael said to him,
“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
“Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no duplicity in him.”
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Avatar of Śiva; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”
And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of Śiva
ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

(Jn 1:45-51)