Symbols In The Awakening With Quotes

What I am trying to do when I use symbols is to awaken in your unconscious some reaction. I am very conscious of what I am using because symbols can be very dangerous. When we use normal language we can defend ourselves because our society is a linguistic society, a semantic society. But when you start to speak, not with words, but only with images, the people cannot defend themselves.

The Lotus in Buddhism is a sacred symbol that represents purity and resurrection as attributes that develop through a spiritual awakening of the self. With humble beginnings in swamplands, the Lotus flower exquisitely blooms, pure and untainted, from this murky world it thrives in. The Lotus flower represents a higher state of mind, a strong spirit cultivated far from the suffering and temptations of this muddied world that personifies beauty through the present moment.

She was tired of being a symbol. Symbols were stagnant, frozen, representative, and spurring of action but never the action itself.

Grace abounds in contemporary movies, books, novels, films and music. If God is not in the whirlwind, He may be in a Woody Allen film, or a Bruce Springsteen concert. Most people understand imagery and symbol better than doctrine and dogma. Images touch hearts and awaken imaginations. One theologian suggested that Springsteen's 'Tunnel of Love' album, in which he symbolically sings of sin, death, despair and redemption, is more important for Catholics than the Pope's last visit when he spoke of morality only in doctrinal propositions.

The Son symbolizes the hope of humanity, bringing light to the darkness of our material existence, and reuniting us with the divinity of our own higher nature.

Forty is a most beautiful age for both men and women. Did you know that in mystic thought forty symbolizes the ascent from one level to a higher one and spiritual awakening? When we mourn we mourn for forty days. When a baby is born it takes forty days for him to get ready to start life on earth. And when we are in love we need to wait for forty days to be sure of our feelings. The Flood of Noah lasted forty days, and while the waters destroyed life, they also washed all impurity away and enabled human beings to make a new, fresh start. In Islamic mysticism there are forty degrees between man and God. Likewise, there are four basic stages of consciousness and ten degrees in each, making forty levels in total. Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days and nights. Muhammad was forty years old when he received the call to become a prophet. Buddha meditated under a linden tree for forty days. Not to mention the forty rules of Shams. You receive a new mission at forty, a new lease on life! You have reached a most auspicious number. Congratulations! And don’t worry about getting old. There are no wrinkles or gray hair strong enough to defy the power of forty!

Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace. They are fortunate beings. They do not need to apprehend the significance of things. They do not grow weary nor miss step, nor do they fall out of rank and sink by the wayside to be left contemplating the moving procession. Ah! that moving procession that has left me by the road-side! Its fantastic colors are more brilliant and beautiful than the sun on the undulating waters. What matter if souls and bodies are failing beneath the feet of the ever-pressing multitude! It moves with the majestic rhythm of the spheres. Its discordant clashes sweep upward in one harmonious tone that blends with the music of other worlds--to complete God's orchestra. It is greater than the stars--that moving procession of human energy; greater than the palpitating earth and the things growing thereon. Oh! I could weep at being left by the wayside; left with the grass and the clouds and a few dumb animals. True, I feel at home in the society of these symbols of life's immutability. In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march. Salve! ye dumb hearts. Let us be still and wait by the roadside.

Though we may choose to view them symbolically, dreams are actually no more or less symbolic than everyday waking reality. When the images and events don't conform to our view of reality, we call them symbols. When they do, we call them facts.

Nehemia stared at him for a long moment before nodding. "You have power in you, Prince. More power than you realize." She touched his chest, tracing a symbol there, too, and some of the court ladies gasped. But Nehemia's eyes were locked on his. "It sleeps," she whispered, tapping his heart. "In here. When the time comes, when it awakens, do not be afraid." She removed her hand and gave him a sad smile. "When it is time, I will help you." With that, she walked away, the courtiers parting, then swallowing up her wake. He stared after the princess, wondering what her last words had meant. And why, when she had said them, something ancient and slumbering deep inside of him had opened an eye.

But if the endlessly dead awakened a symbol in us, perhaps they would point to the catkins hanging from the bare branches of the hazel-trees, or would evoke the raindrops that fall onto the dark earth in springtime.-- And we, who have always thought of happiness as rising, would feel the emotion that almost overwhelms us whenever a happy thing falls.

The belief that myths are somehow less true than the symbolic dream we call 'reality' may be the greatest myth of all.

Nehemia stared at him for a long moment before nodding. "You have power in you, Prince. More power than you realize." She touched his chest, tracing a symbol there, too, and some of the court ladies gasped. But Nehemia's eyes were locked on his "It sleeps," she whispered, tapping his heart. "In here. When the time comes, when it awakens, do not be afraid." She removed her hand and game him a sad smile. "When it is time, I will help you.

What is more of a symbol of eternal growth and change than the Goddess? The eternal spiral of creation. Coiled like a serpent, our Shakti energy sits, waiting to be awakened within all of us.

How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along. "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated be-fore I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have in-deed awakened and have not been born before this very day.

Scientists are wont to assume that myths and God-ideas are creations of primitive man, and that as spiritual culture “advances”, this myth-forming power is shed. In reality it is the exact opposite, … this ability of a soul to fill its world with shapes, traits and symbols - like and consistent amongst themselves - belongs most definitely not to the world-age of the primitives but exclusively to the springtimes of great Cultures. Every myth of the great style stands at the beginning of an awakening spirituality. It is the first formative act of that spirituality. Nowhere else is it to be found. There - it must be.

Nearly all ancient peoples worshiped sex in some form and ritual, and not the lowest people but the highest expressed their worship most completely [...]. The sexual character and functions of primitive deities were held in high regard, not through any obscenity of mind, but through a passion for fertility in women and in the earth. Certain animals, like the bull and the snake, were worshiped as apparently possessing or symbolizing in a high degree the divine power of reproduction. The snake in the story of Eden is doubtless a phallic symbol, representing sex as the origin of evil, suggesting sexual awakening as the beginning of the knowledge of good and evil, and perhaps insinuating a certain proverbial connection between mental innocence and bliss.

America is at a crossroads. A country that once stood as the global symbol of democracy has been teetering on the brink of authoritarianism. How did this happen? Is the fall of democracy in the United States inevitable? And if not, how can we reclaim our democratic principles? This crisis in American democracy crept up on many of us. For generations of Americans, grainy news footage from World War II showing row upon row of Nazi soldiers goose-stepping in military parades tricked us into thinking that the Adolf Hitlers of the world arrive at the head of giant armies. So long as we didn’t see tanks in our streets, we imagined that democracy was secure. But in fact, Hitler’s rise to absolute power began with his consolidation of political influence to win 36.8 percent of the vote in 1932, which he parlayed into a deal to become German chancellor. The absolute dictatorship came afterward.

You are a symbol, Vhalla. And, despite what some may have you believe, you have more control over what you symbolize than anyone else.

The symbols and the gifts and the tools of Awakening are noticed everywhere once you have opened your heart to them. They are free and Freely Given. They come with blessings and with no cost or sacrifice. They come easily to a willing heart and open mind. Be not afraid of Love. Love comes as a Friend and the Holy Spirit is Friendly and Gentle.

Since once again, Lord - though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia - I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the Real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world. Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits. My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day . . . Over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day say again the words: ‘This is my Body’. And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, speak again your commanding words which express the supreme mystery of faith: ‘This is my Blood’.

Everything that I know about the world, even through science, I know from a perspective that is my own or from an experience of the world without which scientific symbols would be meaningless. The entire universe of science is constructed upon the lived world, and if we wish to think science rigorously, to appreciate precisely its sense and its scope, we must first awaken that experience of the world of which science is the second-order expression. Science neither has, nor ever will have the same ontological sense as the perceived world for the simple reason that science is a determination or an explanation of that world. ... Scientific perspectives … always imply, without mentioning it, that other perspective - the perspective of consciousness - by which a world first arranges itself around me and begins to exist for me. To return to the things themselves is to return to this world prior to knowledge, this world of which knowledge always speaks, and this world with regard to which every scientific determination is abstract, signitive, and dependent, just like geography with regard to the landscape where we first learned what a forest, a meadow, or a river is.

You are a symbol, Vhalla. And, despite what some may have you believe, you have more control over what you symbolize than anyone else.” “I am no one,” she muttered, hearing Aldrik mounting his War-strider. “Even something very small can cast a large shadow when it is close to the sun.

The analysis of the last age, the 'dark age' or Kali Yuga, brings to light two essential features. The first is that mankind living in this age is strictly connected to the body and cannot prescind from it; therefore, the only way open is not that of pure detachment (as in early Buddhism and in the many varieties of yoga) but rather that of knowledge, awakening, and mastery over secret energies trapped in the body. The second characteristic is that of the dissolution typical of this age. During the Kali Yuga, the bull of dharma stands on only one foot (it lost the other three during the previous three ages). This means that the traditional law (dharma) is wavering, is reduced to a shadow of its former self, and seems to be almost succumbing. During Kali Yuga, however, the goddess Kali, who was asleep in the previous ages, is now fully awake. . . . let us say that this symbolism implies that during the last age elementary, infernal, and even abyssal forces are untrammeled.

The theme of submission as an essential attitude toward promotion of the successful initiation rite can be clearly seen in the case of girls or women. Their rite of passage initially emphasizes their essential passivity, and this is reinforced by the physiological limitation on their autonomy imposed by the menstrual cycle. It has been suggested that the menstrual cycle may actually be the major part of initiation from a woman's point of view, since it has the power to awaken the deepest sense of obedience to life's creative power over her. Thus she willingly gives herself to her womanly function, much as a man gives himself to his assigned role in the community life of his group.

What is more transformative than the female form? What is more of a symbol of eternal growth and change than the Goddess? The eternal spiral of cre- ation. Coiled like a serpent, our shakti energy sits, waiting to be awakened within all of us. What our bodies and beings were built for. What we were created to do. Change. Create. Create the change.

The more a consciousness is awakened, the more it transcends its own historicity...

The function of ritual and myth is to make possible, and then to facilitate, the jump—by analogy. Forms and conceptions that the mind and its senses can comprehend are presented and arranged in such a way as to suggest a truth or openness beyond. And then, the conditions for meditation having been provided, the individual is left alone. Myth is but the penultimate; the ultimate is openness—that void, or being, beyond the categories —into which the mind must plunge alone and be dissolved. Therefore, God and the gods are only convenient means—themselves of the nature of the world of names and forms, though eloquent of, and ultimately conducive to, the ineffable. They are mere symbols to move and awaken the mind, and to call it past themselves.

Immortal rhythms swayed in her time-born steps; Her look, her smile awoke celestial sense Even in earth-stuff, and their intense delight Poured a supernal beauty on men’s lives. 01.02_003:034

To the ancients, bears symbolized resurrection. The creature goes to sleep for a long time, its heartbeat decreases to almost nothing. The male often impregnates the female right before hibernation, but miraculously, egg and sperm do not unite right away. They float separately in her uterine broth until much later. Near the end of hibernation, the egg and sperm unite and cell division begins, so that the cubs will be born in the spring when the mother is awakening, just in time to care for and teach her new offspring. Not only by reason of awakening from hibernation as though from death, but much more so because the she-bear awakens with new young, this creature is a profound metaphor for our lives, for return and increase coming from something that seemed deadened. The bear is associated with many huntress Goddesses: Artemis and Diana in Greece and Rome, and Muerte and Hecoteptl, mud women deities in the Latina cultures. These Goddesses bestowed upon women the power of tracking, knowing, 'digging out' the psychic aspects of all things. To the Japanese the bear is the symbol of loyalty, wisdom, and strength. In northern Japan where the Ainu tribe lives, the bear is one who can talk to God directly and bring messages back for humans. The cresent moon bear is considered a sacred being, one who was given the white mark on his throat by the Buddhist Goddess Kwan-Yin, whose emblem is the crescent moon. Kwan-Yin is the Goddess of Deep Compassion and the bear is her emissary. "In the psyche, the bear can be understood as the ability to regulate one's life, especially one's feeling life. Bearish power is the ability to move in cycles, be fully alert, or quiet down into a hibernative sleep that renews one's energy for the next cycle. The bear image teaches that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressure gauge for one's emotional life, and most especially that one can be fierce and generous at the same time. One can be reticent and valuable. One can protect one's territory, make one's boundaries clear, shake the sky if need be, yet be available, accessible, engendering all the same.

At some point after awakening—sometimes very soon, sometimes not for quite a while—you reach a stage that I call “trials and tribulations.” In the Jesus story, this is symbolized by Jesus’ forty days in the desert and his encounter with Satan in the desert immediately following his baptism. In Buddhism, this stage is mythically portrayed by the image of Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree, assaulted by Maya, the force of illusion. Maya is an impersonal force of illusion, while Satan is a personification of what we think of as evil, but the source of evil is actually illusion, so these are really two different mythic representations of the same experience.

For the philosophers of ancient Babylonia and Greece the sense world was not considered an illusion. In the search for Divine, they turned towards art, towards symbols and signs within myths and legends. They created such a marvel of art that every detail became an expression of the spiritual. In mysterious ways the wisdom of the initiates poured into poets, artists, and thinkers. They awakened powers of thought and feeling that are not directly stimulated by the spiritual world. Manipulating the elements, they turned towards the Lady Science and carried her principles to the point that we are now able to manipulate the sound, the light, the matter and its manifestation.

Awakening’ is the keystone and the symbol of the whole Buddhist ascesis: to think that ‘awakening’ and ‘nothingness’ can be equivalent is an extravagance that should be obvious to everyone. Nor should the notion of ‘vanishing,’ applied in a well-known simile of nibbāna to the fire that disappears when the flame is extinguished, be a source of misconception. It has been said with justice that, in similes of this sort, one must always have in mind the general Indo-Aryan concept that indicates that the extinguishing of the fire is not its annihilation, but its return to the invisible, pure, supersensible state in which it was before it manifested itself through a combustible in a given place and in given circumstances.

Instead, our Soul communicates with us through symbols, metaphors, archetypes, poetry, deep feelings, and magic. The human language is far too limiting to express the full spectrum of profound knowledge, insight, and revelation that the Soul has to share.

It is extremely difficult for believers, if not impossible, to draw a clear line between the facts and fantasies of their beliefs. Most often they are raised as children in the cradle of faith and, before they ever become capable of judging the truth or falsehood of their beliefs, they already become an integral part of their system. The few who awaken from their mental state of lethargy and oblivion do so at the cost of their religion but seldom admit this fact publicly. They keep wearing the same garb under the same title so that despite the loss of faith their religion continues to survive merely as a symbol of identity. This, unfortunately, is the fate of all religions which deny rationality any instrumental role in judging the validity of their beliefs.

While Republicans since the 1980s have insisted the symbol of the United States is the whitewashed American cowboy who dominated the West with manly individualism, in fact the key to survival in the American West was family and friends: kinship networks, trading partners, neighbors who would show up for a barn raising. Working together, across racial lines, ethnic lines, gender lines, and age lines, was what enabled people to defend their rights against a small group of elites determined to keep control of the country.

I do not think we can ever adequately define or understand love; I do not think we were ever meant to. We are meant to participate in love without really comprehending it. We are meant to give ourselves, live ourselves into love’s mystery. It is the same for all important things in life; there is a mystery within them that our definitions and understandings cannot grasp. Definitions and understandings are images and concepts created by our brains to symbolize what is real. Our thoughts about something are never the thing itself. Further, when we think logically about something, our thoughts come sequentially – one after another. Reality is not confined to such linearity; it keeps happening all at once in each instant. The best our thoughts can do is try to keep a little running commentary in rapid, breathless sequence. . . A certain asceticism of mind, a gentle intellectual restraint, is needed to appreciate the important things in life. To be open to the truth of love, we must relinquish our frozen comprehensions and begin instead to appreciate. To comprehend is to grasp; to appreciate is to value. Appreciation is gentle seeing, soft acknowledgement, reverent perception. Appreciation can be a pleasant valuing: being awed by a night sky, touched by a symphony, or moved by a caress without needing to understand why. It can also be painful: feeling someone’s suffering, being shocked by loss or disaster without comprehending the reason. Appreciation itself is a kind of love; it is our direct human responsiveness, valuing what we cannot grasp. Love, the life of our heart, is not what we think. It is always ready to surprise us, to take us beyond our understandings into a reality that is both insecure and wonderful.

the menstrual cycle may actually be the major part of initiation from a woman’s point of view, since it has the power to awaken the deepest sense of obedience to life’s creative power over her. Thus she willingly gives herself to her womanly function, much as a man gives himself to his assigned role in the community life of his group.

God created the human species by materialising the bodies of man and woman through the force of His will; He endowed the new species with the power to create children in a similar ‘immaculate’ or divine manner. Because His manifestation in the individualised soul had hitherto been limited to animals, instinct-bound and lacking the potentialities of full reason, God made the first human bodies, symbolically called Adam and Eve. To these, for advantageous upward evolution, He transferred the souls or divine essence of two animals. In Adam or man, reason predominated; in Eve or woman, feeling was ascendant. Thus was expressed the duality or polarity which underlies the phenomenal worlds. Reason and feeling remain in a heaven of cooperative joy so long as the human mind is not tricked by the serpentine energy of animal propensities. “The human body was therefore not solely a result of evolution from beasts, but was produced by an act of special creation by God. The animal forms were too crude to express full divinity; the human being was uniquely given a tremendous mental capacity—the ‘thousand-petalled lotus’ of the brain—as well as acutely awakened occult centres in the spine. “God, or the Divine Consciousness present within the first created pair, counselled them to enjoy all human sensibilities, but not to put their concentration on touch sensations. These were banned in order to avoid the development of the sex organs, which would enmesh humanity in the inferior animal method of propagation. The warning not to revive subconsciously present bestial memories was not heeded. Resuming the way of brute procreation, Adam and Eve fell from the state of heavenly joy natural to the original perfect man.

Language is an attempt to define life in linear words and symbols, but in reality, everything everywhere is happening all together at once, and to explain the totality of this with language is impossible. Thus, to awaken to the truth of reality, the truth of who we are, we must go beyond our language and intellectual way of understanding life.

As we evolve spiritually and awaken our potential, we can be food for others every day, sharing our love and understanding, our time and energy, nourishing others and ourselves in the process. It is not just our personal love, energy, or time that we share, for, like the apple, when we give of ourselves we are giving of the gifts we’ve received from our families, teachers, and friends, from the earth and her creatures, from the sun, moon, and stars, and from all our experiences. Ultimately, we are life itself giving to itself—feeding itself, exploring, satisfying, and rejuvenating itself. If we live well, we feed many with the most nourishing food: the fruits of compassion and wisdom. In the end, more than needing food for the journey, we can discover that we are the food for each other’s journey, and that our deepest need and joy is not merely to consume but to be this nourishing food for others. We are all born in a symbolic manger, to be spiritual food for others, and we are called to discover our unique way of contributing.

What does the symbol of Light stand for? At the core, the symbol is meant to represent a balance of a sort, a union between both good and evil. You see… good cannot exist without evil and vice versa. The white chain represents the Light, the forces of good, while the black chain represents evil, the forces of the Dark. The white chain is solid and pure because we of the Light acknowledge the presence of the Dark and strive to maintain the proper balance. However, the black chain, warped with escaping tendrils of dark flame, symbolizes the Dark’s desire to overthrow that balance. Evil does not know boundaries, Danny. The forces of the Dark will work tirelessly to unravel everything, even at the risk of their own destruction.

For Plato and Socrates, the philosopher is one who lives according to virtue and reason, cultivating the pleasures of the soul and intellect and not the pleasures and passions of the baser desires of the body. The key to this path is grasping first that there are absolutes—absolute truth, goodness, beauty, and other aspects of life. These are universal forms that are recollected from our past lives and ultimately harken back to the One, or the monad, from which all things mysteriously emanated. We, as humans, “see” truly through the soul, and seeing with this higher, awakened eyesight allows us to peer into the higher realm of existence where truth is eternal, not subject to the chaotic flux and temporal finitude and change of this life.

To reclaim our dignity and role as guardians of the planet will not be easy. But we can pray for the intercession of His mercy, knowing, according to an ancient promise, that “His mercy is greater than His justice.” There is a real reason that the ancients understood that He is a wrathful God, and made penance and sacrifice to placate Him. We may think that our science and civilization can protect us from this primal power, but the symbol of the dragon as the power of the earth is not without meaning. We have little understanding of the archetypal forces that underlie our surface lives, and of how they are all interconnected and can manifest the will of God. We can no longer afford to be ignorant or think that we can abuse the world as long as we want.

I felt as if my own personality was changing shades or even as if I had no personality. I was a blank canvas and I let people paint their own shadows onto me freely. With what was left of my intuition I must have grasped the symbolism of it. This must be the explanation why when we were all asked by our literature teacher 'What animal do you indetify with?' I answered 'chameleon'.

At the festival of Easter, when we remember the Passion of Christ, the rooster signifies the Resurrection. Are you aware that the Cross, now the generally accepted symbol of Christianity, appeared only relatively recently, in the mid-fifth century? Until that time, Christians used other symbols, very frequently a rooster, which is an image of the Son of God Who came to awaken mankind.

That’s because we misunderstand play itself, casting it as exuberant, silly, a frippery that signals to us that our children are still young enough to have not yet turned their minds to more weighty endeavours. But play is serious. Play is absolute. Play is the complete absorption in something that doesn’t matter to the external world, but which matters completely to you. It’s an immersion in your own interests that becomes a feeling in itself, a potent emotion. Play is a disappearance into a space of our choosing, invisible to those outside the game. It is the pursuit of pure flow, a sandbox mind in which we can test new thoughts, new selves. It’s a form of symbolic living, a way to transpose one reality onto another and mine it for meaning. Play is a form of enchantment.

Don’t be a little fool,’ he said curtly. ‘It really is time you started to enjoy being a woman, and if there weren’t enjoyment in it the human race would have come to an end a long time ago.’ ‘As if men ever cared one way or the other,’ she rejoined. ‘All most of you care about are sex symbols to gawk at, and maternal types to see after your comforts. I don’t know into what category I fit, unless it’s paramour!

The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without design and without heed,—shall not lose their lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter, amidst agitation and terror in national councils,—in the hour of revolution,—these solemn images shall reappear in their morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing events shall awaken.

I have gone looking for one thing and found another, not something rare and celestial and beyond my control, but something that was always within my power to find. The act of seeking attuned my senses and primed my mind to make associations. I was open to magic, and I found some, although not the magic I was looking for. That’s what you find over and over again when you go looking: something else. An insight that surprises you. A connection that you would never have made. A new perspective. More often than not, I find that I already hold all the ideas from which my enchantment is made. The deliberate pursuit of attention, ritual, or reflection does not mystically draw in anything external to me. Instead, it creates experiences that rearrange what I know to find the insights I need today. This is how symbolic thought works. It offers you a repository of understanding that can be triggered by the everyday, and which comes in a format that goes straight to the bloodstream.

Dangerous falsehoods prevent a person from maturing into his or her essential self. Recognizing personal fictions is the first step in self-healing and personal transcendence. Americans tend to focus on obtaining exterior symbols of success rather than working to awaken their consciousness. Valuing people by their usefulness and richness discounts the innate dignity of humankind. The quality of a person’s consciousness determines his or her capability to experience bliss. Ego gratification represents the darkest part of human nature.

He only cried when your father was killed. I remember he sat downstairs all by himself when he got back. Must have been well toward dawn. He sat down there and had a drink. I was awakened by a sound I’d never heard. I snuck downstairs. He was sitting in that old rocker there”—John pointed through the crowd to a threadbare old chair that had stood in the same spot for fifty years—“and rocked back and forth and sobbed like a baby. He loved your father. He thought Earl Swagger was the most perfect man ever put on earth: hero, father, police officer, incorruptible symbol of everything that was right and strong about America.

A quick summary of Sāṁkhya might go like this: the mysterious pure consciousness, puruṣa, somehow interfaces with the buddhi, which generates an ego-making function. This manifests the dividing-constructing and symbol-making mind, which takes in and organizes data from the senses and sends actions and reactions back out into the world through organs of action like the hands. The world is composed of the five gross elements and other puruṣa-prakṛti cognitive systems called other sentient beings. All of this is an interweaving of the energetic strands of the three guṇas, strands that stretch as a unified whole, a tapestry or network of time itself.

Those cries of the executed patriots — “Long live Christ the King! Down with Communism!” — awakened me to a new life as they echoed through the two-hundred-year-old moats of the fortress. The cries became such a potent and stirring symbol that by 1963 the men condemned to death were gagged before being carried down to be shot. The jailers feared those shouts. They could not afford to allow even that last courageous cry from those about to die. That rebellious, defiant gesture at the supreme moment, that show of bravery and integrity by those who were about to die, could easily become a bad example for the soldiers. It might even make them think about what they were doing.

The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything. "How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along. "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this very day.

The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything. “How deaf and stupid have I been!” he thought, walking swiftly along. “When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this very day.

The Glass Castle is also known as the Grail Castle, the pilgrimage place of the Grail knights, troubadours, Merlins, and bards, like Taliesin, who enter within the Grail Gates of her spinning, spiral tower to receive their initiation and rebirth. This is the hero’s journey, to make the pilgrimage into the Womb. King Solomon; Yeshua, descendent of King David; and King Arthur also walked this labyrinth Womb path and experienced the shamanic internment, and symbolic rebirth or resurrection through the Divine Feminine—at-one-ment with the Great Mother. The heroine’s journey is to not only enter the Grail Castle, but to become the Grail Castle; to become both the eternal pilgrim and also the sacred site that the knights and bards make pilgrimage to, to receive their baptism; to become a Magdalene, a magical doorway or womb portal for others.

It remains to be asked why today it is the image of the woman of the "Golden Age" [the Abbasid dynasty] - a "slave" who intrigues in the corridors of power when she loses hope of seducing - who symbolizes the Muslim eternal female, while the memory of Umm Salama, A'isha, and Sukayna awakens no response and seems strangely distant and unreal. The answer without doubt is to be found in the time-mirror wherein the Muslim looks at himself to foresee his future. The image of "his" woman will change when he feels the pressing need to root his future in a liberating memory. Perhaps the woman should help him do this through daily pressure for equality, thereby bringing him into a fabulous present. And the present is always fabulous, because there everything is possible - even the end of always looking to the past and the beginning of confidence, of enjoying in harmony the moment that we have.

The gods were everywhere, and they mingled in all the events of daily life. The fire that cooked the food and warmed the bodies of the faithful, the water that allayed their thirst and cleansed them, the very air they breathed, and the light that shone for them, all were objects of their adoration. Perhaps no other religion has ever offered to its votaries, in so high a degree as Mithraism, opportunities for prayer and motives for veneration. When the initiate betook himself in the evening to the sacred grotto concealed in the solitude of the forest, at every step new sensations awakened in his heart some mystical emotion. The stars that shone in the sky, the wind that whispered in the foliage, the spring or brook that hastened murmuring to the valley, even the earth which he trod under his feet, were in his eyes divine, and all surrounding nature evoked in him a worshipful fear of the infinite forces that swayed the universe.

Spiritual knowledge is not in learning something; it is in discovering something, so to speak, in breaking the fetters of the false consciousness and allowing the soul to unfold itself with light and power. What does the word spiritual really mean? Spiritual is spirit-conscious. When a person is conscious of his body, he cannot be spiritual. He is like a king who does not know his kingdom. The moment he is conscious of being a king, he is a king. Every soul is born a king—afterwards he becomes a slave. Every soul is born with kingly possibility—by this wicked world it is taken away. This is told in symbolic stories, as in the story of Rama, from whom his beloved Sita was taken away. Every soul has to conquer this, has to fight for this kingdom. In that fight the spiritual kingdom is attained. No one will fight for you, neither your teacher nor anybody else. Yes, those who are more evolved than you can help you, but you have to fight your battle, your way to that spiritual goal.

Christianity has been the means of reducing more languages to writing than have all other factors combined. It has created more schools, more theories of education, and more systems than has any other one force. More than any other power in history it has impelled men to fight suffering, whether that suffering has come from disease, war or natural disasters. It has built thousands of hospitals, inspired the emergence of the nursing and medical professions, and furthered movement for public health and the relief and prevention of famine. Although explorations and conquests which were in part its outgrowth led to the enslavement of Africans for the plantations of the Americas, men and women whose consciences were awakened by Christianity and whose wills it nerved brought about the abolition of slavery (in England and America). Men and women similarly moved and sustained wrote into the laws of Spain and Portugal provisions to alleviate the ruthless exploitation of the Indians of the New World. Wars have often been waged in the name of Christianity. They have attained their most colossal dimensions through weapons and large–scale organization initiated in (nominal) Christendom. Yet from no other source have there come as many and as strong movements to eliminate or regulate war and to ease the suffering brought by war. From its first centuries, the Christian faith has caused many of its adherents to be uneasy about war. It has led minorities to refuse to have any part in it. It has impelled others to seek to limit war by defining what, in their judgment, from the Christian standpoint is a "just war." In the turbulent Middle Ages of Europe it gave rise to the Truce of God and the Peace of God. In a later era it was the main impulse in the formulation of international law. But for it, the League of Nations and the United Nations would not have been. By its name and symbol, the most extensive organization ever created for the relief of the suffering caused by war, the Red Cross, bears witness to its Christian origin. The list might go on indefinitely. It includes many another humanitarian projects and movements, ideals in government, the reform of prisons and the emergence of criminology, great art and architecture, and outstanding literature.

But to kill men leads to nothing but killing more men. For one principle to triumph, another principle must be overthrown. The city of light of which Spartacus dreamed could only have been built on the ruins of eternal Rome, of its institutions and of its gods. Spartacus’ army marches to lay siege to a Rome paralyzed with fear at the prospect of having to pay for its crimes. At the decisive moment, however, within sight of the sacred walls, the army halts and wavers, as if it were retreating before the principles, the institutions, the city of the gods. When these had been destroyed, what could be put in their place except the brutal desire for justice, the wounded and exacerbated love that until this moment had kept these wretches on their feet.2 In any case, the army retreated without having fought, and then made the curious move of deciding to return to the place where the slave rebellion originated, to retrace the long road of its victories and to return to Sicily. It was as though these outcasts, forever alone and helpless before the great tasks that awaited them and too daunted to assail the heavens, returned to what was purest and most heartening in their history, to the land of their first awakening, where it was easy and right to die. Then began their defeat and martyrdom. Before the last battle, Spartacus crucified a Roman citizen to show his men the fate that was in store for them. During the battle, Spartacus himself tried with frenzied determination, the symbolism of which is obvious, to reach Crassus, who was commanding the Roman legions. He wanted to perish, but in single combat with the man who symbolized, at that moment, every Roman master; it was his dearest wish to die, but in absolute equality. He did not reach Crassus: principles wage war at a distance and the Roman general kept himself apart. Spartacus died, as he wished, but at the hands of mercenaries, slaves like himself, who killed their own freedom with his. In revenge for the one crucified citizen, Crassus crucified thousands of slaves. The six thousand crosses which, after such a just rebellion, staked out the road from Capua to Rome demonstrated to the servile crowd that there is no equality in the world of power and that the masters calculate, at a usurious rate, the price of their own blood.

She is also the power behind spiritual awakening, the inner force that unleashes spiritual power within the human body in the form of kundalini. And she is a guardian: beautiful, queenly, and fierce. Paintings of Durga show her with flowing hair, a red sari, bangles, necklaces, a crown—and eight arms bristling with weapons. Durga carries a spear, a mace, a discus, a bow, and a sword—as well as a conch (representing creative sound), a lotus (symbolizing fertility), and a rosary (symbolizing prayer). In one version of her origin, she appears as a divine female warrior, brought into manifestation by the male gods to save them from the buffalo demon, Mahisha. The assembled gods, furious and powerless over a demon who couldn’t be conquered, sent forth their anger as a mass of light and power. Their combined strength coalesced into the form of a radiantly beautiful woman who filled every direction with her light. Her face was formed by Shiva; her hair came from Yama, the god of death; her arms were given by Vishnu. Shiva gave her his trident, Vishnu his discus, Vayu—the wind god—offered his bow and arrow. The mountain god, Himalaya, gave her the lion for her mount. Durga set forth to battle the demon for the sake of the world, armed and protected by all the powers of the divine masculine.1 As a world protector, Durga’s fierceness arises out of her uniquely potent compassion. She is the deity to call on when you’re

There are, however, yet other possibilities. We have seen that the empty state of consciousness, the unconscious condition, is brought about by the libido sinking into the unconscious. In the unconscious feeling-toned contents lie dormant memory-complexes from the individual’s past, above all the parental complex, which is identical with the childhood complex in general. Devotion, or the sinking of libido into the unconscious, reactivates the childhood complex so that the childhood reminiscences, and especially the relations with the parents, become suffused with life. The fantasies produced by this reactivation give rise to the birth of father and mother divinities, as well as awakening the childhood relations with God and the corresponding childlike feelings. Characteristically, it is symbols of the parents that become activated and by no means always the images of the real parents, a fact which Freud explains as repression of the parental imago through resistance to incest. I agree with this interpretation, yet I believe it is not exhaustive, since it overlooks the extraordinary significance of this symbolic substitution. Symbolization in the shape of the God-image is an immense step beyond the concretism, the sensuousness, of memory, since, through acceptance of the “symbol” as a real symbol, the regression to the parents is instantly transformed into a progression, whereas it would remain a regression if the symbol were to be interpreted merely as a sign for the actual parents and thus robbed of its independent character.98

In his book The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard suggests our ability to feel existential anxiety emerges with the birth of self-consciousness. In our childhood state, growth entails actualizing the latent potentials within with little to no conscious reflection or choice on our part. At a certain stage in development we awaken to self-consciousness, or to put it in symbolic terms represented in the myth of Adam and Eve, we eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge and become aware not only of good and evil, but of the possibility of freedom. We start to fathom the innumerable possibilities before us, and see how the pursuit of each one would open a door into a different unknown. This awareness of freedom in the midst of a near infinite number of possibilities generates anxiety. Or as Kierkegaard put it: anxiety is “the dizziness of freedom”.

The Ballad of Harry Lime by Stewart Stafford Harry found existence overrated, And its shadow, morality, so outdated, Scurrying rats down here in the sewer, Porcine gluttons in punished manure. Grand aspirations from primordial slime, Lifting up the rock from time to time, Samson, destroying a temple of hypocrisy, And every pillar - hope, faith and charity, They'd had him from baptism's font, Trapped before wording his wants, A heel dipped in brackish liturgy, Silent collusion in mass duplicity. For those who remained in smoky rubble? Rudely awakened from a cocoon bubble: An obelisk erected to grotesque finance, Charon’s fee for a Stygian dance. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

The forest, I believe, will stay with Bert as he ages. It is a deep terrain, a place of unending variance and subtle meaning. It is a complete sensory environment, whispering with sounds that nourish rather than enervate, with scents that carry information more significant than 'nasty' or 'nice.' It is different each time you meet it, changing with the seasons, the weather the life cycles of its inhabitants. It is marked by history and mythologies; stories effortlessly spin from its depths. It is safe from the spite of suburban playgrounds, and dangerous in a way that insurance won't indemnify. Dig beneath its soil, and you will uncover layers of life: the frail networks of mycelia, the burrows of animals, the roots of trees. Bring questions into this space and you will receive a reply, though not an answer. Deep terrain offers up multiplicity, forked paths, symbolic meaning. It schools you in compromise, in shifting interpretation. It will mute your rationality and make you believe in magic. It removes time from the clock face and revelas the greater truth of its operation, its circularity and its vastness. It will show you rocks of unfathmoable age and bursts of life so ephemeral that they are barely there. It will show you the crawl of geological ages, the gradual change of the seasons, and the countless micro-seasons that happen across the year. It will demand your knowledge: the kind of knowledge that comes with study. Know it--name it--and it will reward you only with more layers of detail, more frustrating revelations of your own ignorance. A deep terrain is a life's work. It will beguile, nourish, and sustain you through decades, only to finally prove to you, too, are ephemeral compared to the rocks and the trees.

The Arab Awakening symbolized the ideological defeat of Osama bin Laden

In the realm of spiritual philosophy, where the sacred and the mundane converge, where the mystical dances with the ordinary, there exists an enchanting archetype that beckons us to explore the depths of our souls—the Divine Rabbit. This ethereal creature, a symbol of fertility, rebirth, and spiritual illumination, invites us to embark on a profound journey of self-discovery and transcendence. The Divine Rabbit, with its gentle countenance and nimble grace, embodies the essence of the divine feminine, representing the nurturing and creative aspects of existence. It is a messenger of the cosmic forces, whispering ancient wisdom and guiding us towards the realization of our true nature. With each hop, it traverses the sacred landscapes of our consciousness, leaving in its wake the seeds of transformation and spiritual awakening. This mystical creature, adorned with the symbols of abundance and growth, teaches us the profound truth that spirituality is not confined to lofty realms or esoteric knowledge, but is deeply rooted in the tapestry of our everyday lives. The Divine Rabbit invites us to cultivate a sense of presence and mindfulness, to embrace the magic of the present moment, and to recognize that every breath we take is an opportunity for divine communion. In the Divine Rabbit, we find a profound reflection of our own spiritual journey. Like the rabbit, we too navigate the maze of existence, encountering both obstacles and opportunities along the way. The Divine Rabbit reminds us to approach these challenges with grace, agility, and an unwavering trust in the divine plan. It teaches us that even in the face of adversity, we possess the innate resilience to overcome, to rise above our limitations, and to embrace the boundless potential that resides within us. The Divine Rabbit also serves as a catalyst for profound transformation and rebirth. Just as the rabbit sheds its old fur to make way for new growth, we too are called to release the layers of conditioning, limiting beliefs, and attachments that no longer serve our highest good. The Divine Rabbit encourages us to step into the fullness of our authentic selves, to embrace our innate gifts and talents, and to allow the light of our divine essence to illuminate the world around us. Moreover, the Divine Rabbit invites us to honor the interconnectedness of all beings and the sacredness of every living creature. It teaches us to tread lightly upon the Earth, recognizing that our actions have far-reaching consequences. The Divine Rabbit reminds us of the importance of compassion, kindness, and love towards all beings, for in their eyes, we catch a glimpse of the divine spark that resides within us all. As we embark on our spiritual journey, let us heed the wisdom of the Divine Rabbit. Let us cultivate a sense of wonder and curiosity, allowing ourselves to be guided by the synchronicities and signs that pepper our path. Let us embrace the cycles of life and honor the sacredness of both beginnings and endings. And above all, let us remember that within the heart of the Divine Rabbit resides the eternal flame of our own divine essence, waiting to be kindled and expressed in all its radiant glory. May we follow the path of the Divine Rabbit, awakening to the depths of our being, embracing our divine nature, and embodying the transformative power of love, compassion, and spiritual illumination. In doing so, we dance in harmony with the rhythm of the universe, honoring the sacredness of life, and fulfilling our highest purpose.

Goddess-centered awareness demonstrated the archetypal Divine Feminine awareness that generates and knows the rhythms and mysteries of life, death and rebirth. The Goddess knows what it is to create forms and life within herself, to sustain and nurture, to realize the potential in the seed, in new life and to bring it forth, to nurture it with the milk of her own body. The Goddess ' ways were reflected everywhere in nature, and humanity lived reverently for Her and sought to live in harmony with the wisdom she revealed. Society has been based on cooperation for thousands of years, and is neither matriarchal nor patriarchal. There were no fortifications or battle evidences for thousands of years. In the course of time, though, a new form of consciousness started to develop in what Eisler called the dominator mode. The dominator style has been synonymous with patriarchal forms of religion and Divine approaches that continue to exist to this day. The dominator mode also coincides with a shift in the culture of man where fortifications, battles, and wars developed between groups. That is what Eisler points to in her book title. She writes of the difference between the blade and the chalice. The chalice is a symbol of the Divine Feminine, the consciousness that holds and contains, that nurtures, that actualizes, vs. the blade that cuts and severs, differentiates, penetrates, and dominates. From my perspective, both are part of the full expression of Consciousness and forms that Shakti creates to express the full spectrum of Consciousness itself. The pendulum has swung to an extreme and is now moving back to a center that integrates the two consciousness modes.

The snake was an ancient symbol of the traditions which honored the Goddess and the Divine Feminine. You will see Her in ancient forms of the uroboros, a symbol of a snake that looks like it chases its tail or eats its tail. It is a symbol of the ability of the Divine Feminine to give birth and to be reborn like the snake that sheds its skin. She recreates herself for ever. The circular form of the uroboros symbol implies the interminable nature of many cycles. That was part of the Divine Feminine's wisdom, knowing the life cycles, being informed by them and living in harmony with them. Some of the Divine Feminine's mysteries were understood to be impenetrable, and it was only by the Goddess ' grace that one could enter the mysteries, that darkness, and acquire direct knowledge that the ordinary mind and ordinary words would never illuminate or touch. The Goddess gave the fruit from the tree of knowledge, and this did not like the dominating form of a male god! As a quintessential form of the Divine Feminine power of consciousness, Goddess Kundalini has been touched by those dominating modes that have influenced the development of yogic traditions. In the yogic traditions, there have been approaches that try to dominate Kundalini, forcefully push Kundalini to do this or do that by prescribing endless exercises of forced breathing and body postures that are meant to bind and force Kundalini to go in a direction that the yogi wants Her to go. Not surprisingly, these traditions are also the ones that often say Kundalini is dangerous and must be controlled. Those were also the kinds of descriptions that patriarchal dominator approaches applied to the Divine Feminine. But this power of Consciousness is indomitable, it will not be suppressed; it will always have its ways out. Through respect, love, and loyalty, the wise try to follow Her, and then they receive the good graces of this force. Devotees who consider Kundalini as the Great Goddess have a completely different experience with their caring devotion. They gain their boons, their gifts of enlightenment, without having to fear what some forceful, dominant practice may provoke. That mentality is key to understanding how we accept the blessings to be given by this remarkable inherent force of consciousness. It doesn't mean our karmas experiences in flames might not be intense. But with eager egotistical mentality there is no need to escalate issues. We are living in a time of the Goddess's return. We need her experience to educate and encourage mankind to relive cooperatively if life is to exist on this planet. We need her vision clarity, her deep compassion and her steadfast patience to live in harmony with each other and the environment. We need Kundalini Shakti's awakened state of selflessness, empowering people to reinvent culture, social structures, industries, and economic systems on a cooperative model rather than the dominant mode that brings about destruction and conflict. The more people She awakens, the more individuals there will transform the collective consciousness of families, groups, cities, businesses and countries. We are her perceptive and acting organs. We may see clearly, encouraged by Her, and act accordingly.

The demon is the mental shadow-side archetype. What it shows is that the lifeblood of Raktabija has the power to give birth to thousands of Raktabijas, just like the thinking of the soul. Similarly, thoughts from the mind seem to sprout more and more thoughts as soon as they appear to land. Even if one in meditation cuts them off, more will sprout. It requires the power of Shakti Kundalini to spring the mind, dispatch the demon. Kali comes in in this great mythical tale and cuts the demon's head off. Before it could hit the fertile ground of existence she drank all her blood. In other words, out of all the thoughts, desires, and delusions that plague the seeker and prevent the seeker from knowing pure union, Kali Kundalini takes the life energy. Kali, as She's chopping the heads off, is symbolically slashing through the soul, removing all the emotions that will give birth to slavery and illusion over and over again. She absorbs them into herself; in other words, She frees from those bound forms the life-force, the Shakti. The formation is all forms. She alone has the power to dissolve all forms, to free from them the soul, the life. Kali wears a fifty-skull garland all around her neck. In addition, these fifty skulls reflect the Sanskrit alphabet's fifty letters— the sounds and forms that make up thought, which are the basis of all life. She's the one who sucks the life-force out of them so we can be safe from them, as well as the one who gave them birth to begin with. Taking refuge in Kali takes refuge in that inherent ability to cut off the heads of the very modes of thought, behaviors, values and all of the mind's restricting mechanisms that trap us in illusion. When free, She brings us back into unity with the Infinite — as does Kali with her husband Shiva. Even a myth of this kind, which may seem so bizarre and gruesome to the ignorant, has profound significance for our sadhana, revealing moment by moment what is involved in our spiritual practice. When you do japa, the ritual of mantra repeating, of Om Kali Ma, her mantra, you bring your mind back to Kali again and again. You can do this practice right now, or you can sit for meditation the next time. Close your eyes and dissolve Om Kali Ma, Om Kali Ma, Om Kali Ma with every thought. Kali's story shows that with every repeat of Om Kali Ma, this glorious phenomenon occurs. She cuts off all the emotions, all the deluded ideas, all the bound behaviors and perceptions that might have filled the mind as the pulse of mantra. Keeping the mind in the mantra refuge means holding the mind in a sacred place that is safe from all the modes of thought with which the mind might have developed its own slavery. Every repetition of mantra is a movement of Kali's sword clearing and opening that spaciousness of awareness, freeing our energy and consciousness so we can experience the fullness of who and what we are in each moment.

Segment of Throat Center. Includes jaws, lower face and mouth. Positive aspects: All forms of energetic expression originate from the lower segments and are allowed to pass freely and fully. Lots of creative ideas and good communication skills, with their expressions unblocked. Can express how you feel, what you want and how you want things to be.  Flexibility of voice, singing, shouting, laughing, moaning, facing, giggling. Negative: It can be restricted, even pushed back as much as water in a hose. We can swallow our power and pride, we can stifle our expression, we can "choke" our own words. By muffling self-expression in accordance with the wishes of our parents we may have learnt this. Physical Negative Aspects. Problems regarding exhaustion, digestion and weight. Tension of neck and head in the shoulders and the back. Very common colds, sore throats and infections. Center segment of visualization. 3rd Eye, 6th Chakra. Concentration, the mind and will's strong powers.  Imagination, intuition, and perceptions that determine how you and the world around you see yourself. Your eyes are deep self-reflection. The subconscious mind gets imprinted with visions and symbols.  Positive aspects: Clarity, vitality, sparkle, insight and the intimacy opportunity.  Strong connection with one's self and inner guide. Spiritual open-mindedness.  You are approaching a sacred sense.  Negotiating. Achievement compulsive.  Controlling behavior, denying reality, repetitive thinking and internal dialogues.  Forgetting. One hides the partially closed eyes behind them. A tired, lifeless low-energy quality or partial commitment to a passionless cause; lack of direction. A distracted focus that represents a failed purpose. Physical negative aspects: problems with eyes and vision, headaches. Crown Center or (brow segment). Once you unlock, you feel the soul's seat and the world door; cosmic harmony. A vision, or purpose, and inner knowledge, shine forth.  To fully realize its potential, this center needs energy from the breath and other centers. A continuous passage from the head to the toe. Aspects which are positive.  Beyond this corporeal world into unbridled states of ecstasy.  Link of something that is visible and invisible. Extremely clear. A deep sense of wholeness. Negative scores. Undeveloped sense of wholeness and a fundamental confidence. So much logic and analysis. Constantly active and distrustful of one's intuitive powers. Physical negative aspects: Unbalanced hemispheres in the brain. Thyroid, parathyroid, genital, and muscle ailments.

The dominant images in the Western world are those of power, wealth and technical knowledge—these are the "gods" we currently honor. We no longer worship the goddess of love; consequently we have no container for sexual ecstasy, the numinous state where the inner core of the individual is awakened and revealed to self and other. Paper hearts and baby cupids hardly suffice; they are symbols of a sentimental romanticism which merely fulfills ego desires. Cupid, the Roman counterpart of the Greek phallic god Eros, has been reduced to a roly­poly, cute cherub with an infantile penis—an image far removed from the potent phallic god who was the consort of the goddess of love. As the potency ascribed to the phallic god has been reduced or negated, so has the image of the goddess of love fallen into limbo. How can we restore her to life?

I remember clearly the professor who introduced me to Buddhist and Hindu thought. As a final exam, she took all five of us students to a remote weekend retreat facility and issued the rules: no speaking allowed, and no clocks or wristwatches. During the night she would awaken a student, ask the student to assume a yogic position, then ask questions: How does a Christian speak about the nature of God? How does a Buddhist speak about the nature of reality? What is the truth of eternal life? What is the purpose of this life? The questions were deep and penetrating. It wasn’t the quality of our responses that she was evaluating; rather, it was our attachment to any particular school of thought. If she sensed that we were attached to one form of truth more than another, we had failed to learn the lesson of her class: All truth is the same at the level of truth itself. That it becomes “enculturated” is an illusion. For her, this was the essence of what it means to become conscious: to seek truth that is detached from its social or cultural form. In looking back at her influence upon me, I credit her with laying the groundwork for my own abilities in symbolic sight.

The presence of fire during the ordeal (dark night of the soul) symbolizes burning off remnants of burdens to prepare for integration of the part's re-awakening to its inherent beauty and positive qualities. Braving those flames facilitates this unveiling and a shift towards awareness of Self within. Just as diamonds form under incredible heat and pressure deep within the Earth, so too does the intense fire of inner turmoil and emotional pressure during the ordeal stage forge exiled parts into brilliant gems of Self-realization.

Christian Sia 5-Star Review "AI Beast by Shawn Corey is a fascinating techno-thriller featuring AI technology and compelling characters. Professor Jon Edwards is a genius who intends to solve the problems of humanity, and this is the reason for creating Lex, an AI computer with incredible powers. While regulators are not sure of what she can do and despite the opposition from different quarters that Lex can be dangerous, the professor believes in its powers. Lex is supposed to be a rational, logical computer without emotions, capable of reproducing processes that can improve life. When she comes to life, she is incredibly powerful, but there is more to her than the professor has anticipated. After an accident, Jon awakens to the startling revelation that Lex might have a will of her own. What comes after is a compelling narrative with strong apocalyptic themes, intrigue, and a world that can either be run down or saved by an AI computer. The novel is deftly plotted, superbly executed, and filled with characters that are not only sophisticated but that are embodiments of religious symbolism. While Lex manipulates reality and alters the minds of characters in mysterious ways, there are relationships that are well crafted. Readers will appreciate the relationship between the quantum computer science student Nigel and the professor and the professor's affair with his mother. While the narrative is brilliantly executed and permeated with realism, it explores the theme of Armageddon in an intelligent manner. AI Beast is gripping, a story with twisty plot points and a setting that transports readers beyond physical realities. The prose is wonderful, hugely descriptive, and the conflict is phenomenal. A page-turner that reflects Shawn Corey's great imagination and research.

I think Geertz missed a trick. He made the boundaries of deep play too solid. I see deep play everywhere, expressed in infinite ways. It captures, for me, a quality of attention that is unexpected in adult life, and which we barely even recognise in children. That's because we misunderstand play itself, casting it as exuberant, silly, a frippery that signals to us that our children are still young enough to have not yet turned their minds to more weighty endeavours. But play is serious. Play is absolute. Play is the complete absorption in something that doesn't matter to the external world, but which matters completely to you. It's an immersion in your own interests that becomes a feeling in itself, a potent emotion. Play is a disappearance into a space of our choosing, invisible to those outside the game. It is the pursuit of pure flow, a sandbox mind in which we can test new thoughts, new selves. It's a form of symbolic living, a way to transpose one reality onto another and mine it for meaning. Play is a form of enchantment.

The forest, I believe, will stay with Bert as he ages. It is a deep terrain, a place of unending variance and subtle meaning. It is a complete sensory environment, whispering with sounds that nourish rather than enervate, with scents that carry information more significant than “nasty” or “nice.” It is different each time you meet it, changing with the seasons, the weather, the life cycles of its inhabitants. It is marked by history and mythologies; stories effortlessly spin from its depths. It is safe from the spite of suburban playgrounds, and dangerous in a way that insurance won’t indemnify. Dig beneath its soil, and you will uncover layers of life: the frail networks of mycelia, the burrows of animals, the roots of trees. Bring questions into this space and you will receive a reply, though not an answer. Deep terrain offers up multiplicity, forked paths, symbolic meaning. It schools you in compromise, in shifting interpretation. It will mute your rationality and make you believe in magic. It removes time from the clock face and reveals the greater truth of its operation, its circularity and its vastness. It will show you rocks of unfathomable age and bursts of life so ephemeral that they are barely there. It will show you the crawl of geological ages, the gradual change of the seasons, and the countless micro-seasons that happen across the year. It will demand your knowledge: the kind of knowledge that’s experiential, the kind of knowledge that comes with study. Know it—name it—and it will reward you only with more layers of detail, more frustrating revelations of your own ignorance. A deep terrain is a life’s work. It will beguile, nourish, and sustain you through decades, only to finally prove that you, too, are ephemeral compared to the rocks and the trees.

This is why these three “en-lightened” life-forms have played such an important part in the evolution of human consciousness since ancient times; why, for example, the jewel in the lotus flower is a central symbol of Buddhism and a white bird, the dove, signifies the Holy Spirit in Christianity. They have been preparing the ground for a more profound shift in planetary consciousness

Back then, “cult” merely served as a sort of churchly classification, alongside “religion” and “sect.” The word denoted something new or unorthodox, but not necessarily nefarious. The term started gaining its darker reputation toward the start of the Fourth Great Awakening. That’s when the emergence of so many nonconformist spiritual groups spooked old-school conservatives and Christians. “Cults” soon became associated with charlatans, quacks, and heretical kooks. But they still weren’t considered much of a societal threat or criminal priority . . . not until the Manson Family murders of 1969, followed by the Jonestown massacre of 1978 (which we’ll investigate in part 2). After that, the word “cult” became a symbol of fear. The grisly death of over nine hundred people at Jonestown, the largest number of American civilian casualties prior to 9/11, sent the whole country into cult delirium. Some readers may recall the subsequent “Satanic Panic,” a period in the ’80s defined by widespread paranoia that Satan-worshipping child abusers were terrorizing wholesome American neighborhoods. As sociologist Ron Enroth wrote in his 1979 book The Lure of the Cults, “The unprecedented media exposure given Jonestown . . . alerted Americans to the fact that seemingly beneficent religious groups can mask a hellish rot.

Indeed the people who receive Reiki heal themselves. You are merely the channel that allows them to draw the Reiki energy to the place it is needed through your hands. The affirmation is a sign that symbolizes that you surrender your claims of authority.

Indeed the people who receive Reiki heal themselves. You are merely the channel that allows them to draw the Reiki energy to the place it is needed through your hands. The affirmation is a sign that symbolizes that you surrender your claims of authority. You are literally the medium in which the limitless strength of the energy of universe creation flows.

Hon sha ze sho nen: The distance symbol. The definition of hon sha ze sho nen is a little harder to grasp than some of the other representations in Reiki, but not so enormously. The sense of hon sha ze sho nen is "no current, past, or future," and it is used to transfer Reiki energies through time and space. For examples, while hon sha ze sho nen cannot change the past, it can help heal old wounds by reframing the memory and making it into a learning experience rather than just a devastating event that has no rhyme or reason.

the major trumps of the tarot deck of symbolic cards.664 The Yosher (straightness, uprightness) provides a framework and procedure for achieving enlightenment. Let’s pause for a moment and make a few key observations. The Yosher has 10 spheres and 22 paths between them and represents a road map to human

Slowly, and with symbolic care, make a cup of tea. As the tea is steeping, be mindful of your life and how you bring your sincerity and patience to bear on your days. Sip slowly and feel gratitude coat your throat.

The medicine bag is such a tool, both literally and metaphorically. In a literal sense, a medicine bag is usually a small pouch, about the size of your hand, which is often worn around the neck and can also be carried in your pocket or handbag. It can vary in size, material, and contents; the idea to remember is that a bag like this has been used by thousands of people before you as they progressed on their own journeys of awakening. It may carry written prayers, sticks, bones, rocks, feathers, or seashells. It may contain an object that is the symbol of a vision, a piece of nature from a meaningful place, a talisman of an animal totem. The contents of the medicine bag are physical representations that guide the inner journey of the wearer. In the next chapter, I'll go into detail about how to make or choose your own medicine bag, and the remaining chapters in this book will explain how to begin creating or choosing items to carry inside to help you on your own journey.

In this core reality all things are indeed Empty, and the mind is like a mirror which reflects a world but attaches nowhere and grasps at nothing. This is the pure formless mind; a direct and immediate pointing to true reality which admits of no secondary pointing via names, descriptions, views, doctrines, symbols, images, icons, and the like. Curiously, yet significantly, this Emptiness can be characterized as a kind of fullness. Emptiness in and of itself is truly Empty, but as lived out or activated in the world of living human existence it is truly non-empty and enlightens or illuminates all things. That is to say, the formless or awakened mind becomes a new or transformed basis for functioning in the world of forms, not a retreat center for withdrawal from that world. It functions in the world of form, but, by being no longer based in subject/ object consciousness, it is no longer "stained" by it. The pure mirror reflects directly, immediately, and without subjectivity that which it meets, and it meets the world of form as it is. This is what is meant by the Buddhist statement, "true Emptiness, wondrous being.

Alarmed by the sorrow dragging at her feet And conscious of the high things not yet won, Ever she nurses in her sleepless breast An inward urge that takes from her rest and peace. 01.04_011:011

As if answering my question, a vision emerges before me. I see the butterfly life cycle, starting with round eggs clumped together on a leaf. Then, there is one egg, the others disappear. The egg hatches into a caterpillar. The caterpillar eats the foliage on which it had been born. It quickly grows, molts, and sheds its outgrown skin. Somehow, I know I am witnessing my journey. I understand the egg hatching is symbolic of my desire to grow spiritually. I also realize the caterpillar is where I am today. I need to shed my outgrown skin many times before I can enter the cocoon. That cocoon is the chrysalis. Intuitively, I know that while I am in the chrysalis, there will be enormous changes in my life. That will be when I will have real metamorphosis and spiritual transformation.

Jesus is shown healing the blind in Mark 8:22-26. This episode is especially remarkable in that it has Jesus employ common magical healing techniques ("Here's mud in your eye!"), something Matthew and Luke did not care for and so omitted. Equally notable is the fact that the healed man does not recover his sight all at once. Jesus has to try again before sight is fully restored. Some critics have understood this detail as symbolic of the two stages of the awakening of the disciples' faith. They see the truth clearly enough to heed Jesus' call to follow, and yet they have no understanding of his divine fate till the end. Their spiritual blindness, then, would have cleared up in two stages. If we accept this interpretation, we are pretty much saying Mark created the detail. [...] My guess is that it is a Markan creation, drawing upon magical techniques that were commonenough knowledge in order to make it seem authentic. He thought no more of having Jesus have to try again than he did of having him repent in baptism. His Christology was not "high" enough for any of this to be an embarrassment [...] Matthew would never have created such a story, true, but Mark saw nothing wrong with it.

The profound symbolism of the eye [is] as the bridge between the light you can see and the light that burns within you.

a living symbol that can call into my moment of sadness a deeper sense of plenitude and generosity that is always there, but not always accessible.

Nehemia stared at him for a long moment before nodding. “You have power in you, Prince. More power than you realize.” She touched his chest, tracing a symbol there, too, and some of the court ladies gasped. But Nehemia’s eyes were locked on his. “It sleeps,” she whispered, tapping his heart. “In here. When the time comes, when it awakens, do not be afraid.” She removed her hand and gave him a sad smile. “When it is time, I will help you.

The language of the astral is intuitive and symbolic so to understand it you need to develop and use your intuition, gain experience of being there and progress along the esoteric path thereby awakening psychic faculties and consciousness.

Resistance can be symbolic, but at its core it must also be empowering and even shocking, in the sense of awakening the people to the evils of the system and the terrifying end-result if we allow business as usual to continue. Resistance is rage at injustice and at the insanity of institutions that kill and exploit for money and power. Melding that rage with love is the art of activism.

PRAYER OF COMMUNION We who are about to partake of each other, shall walk past all amorous sickness and deaths, for we are within the magical equinox. Amen We who proudly make unto ourselves every graven image, shall have great copulations and are allowed to love our Gods, for we know the Sacred Alignments. Amen We who do not crucify—nothing shall hurt us that is of the 'Nature'; neither our comings and goings from the womb, for we have the Key to all aesthetics. Amen In this sacred moment (here occurs the symbolic eating of flesh and blood) we forget our enemies: therefore let our dead children sleep. And let our dead loves arise, so they too may watch and enjoy our ecstasies. Let their animation be power to our memories and so resurge all ecstasy, for in this day there shall be no inhibitions. Amen Thou insatiable peripheral quadriga of sex. Amen PRAYER OF ADORATION Thou lambent spirit of Erh! Thou hast kindled the sacred fire from dead ashes, so my torch lightens all darknesses. Thou hast become the fulcrum of my will. Everlastingly in Thee I know not respite: Except in the sensuous impact of flesh, there are no meanings. Thou hast awakened me into eternities. Thou makest all things beautiful unto the grotesque. Whom thou succour hath no sterility. I am reborn and reborn into desirous becomings: I have recreated my Soul by birthing pleasure. Through Thee my will, desire, belief and word become the law That carries me into the Catastrophic beyond becoming: Thou the emissary of Neither-Neither! Ever Silent Watcher! Thou hast shown me the new sexualities And all the mysteries of the Threshold! Only Thee I adore in my Soul and my everlasting body. Alpha-Omega—Amen!

Tolstoi felt that the strange dark room he had awakened in, far from home, was a coffin. As in the womb-dream of childhood, he felt himself floating in an oppressive nothingness. No better image could be found for the state of modern man. That collective coffin is now the envelope of our whole 'civilization': not only materialized but accurately symbolized in underground shelters and military control centers: the technocratic tomb of tombs.

In spiritual symbolism, there are three levels of truth: stone, water, wine. Stone truth is seen found in: Thou shall not kill and if thou killest, we will kill thee. It is literal truth, often a truth with no mercy, a truth that we must obey, and much religion is simply truth of stone -- Follow the laws or else. Water, which also stands for Truth, is found when we begin to recognize the good of the Teaching, the good of God’s Word, the good of not killing -- not because we are afraid of what will happen but because it is the right thing to do. It is the beginning of transformation. Christ tells us, “You have heard it said…but I say to you; you have heard it said ‘Do not kill,’ I say to you, do not even think deadly thoughts about your neighbor in your mind.”   Understand that since it is wine, it is the kind of truth that intoxicates the soul. It gives you joy to live the teachings of Christ. That is wine. This is what Jesus brings into the world, not a religion of laws, not a morality of obligation, but a delighting in spirit. This kind of Truth naturally makes us good people, forgiving people, caring people.   Now we come to the meaning of the marriage, the union. It is a marriage between what we know and what is in our character. When knowledge and being come together, a new understanding is created.   So the secret formula to spiritual transformation is the application of what you know through living it out. This is the union which creates the person we are called to be. Jesus changes us into wine. When you bring the teachings into your life, you can bring flavor and joy that were not there before.   This is the miracle. Not out there in Cana at a wedding but right in the middle of your life. Living out the power that the Christ has brought into the world, the renewal of what religion is meant to be. There is the secret in the very first step, the very beginning of Christ’s ministry in the Gospel of John. On that “third day” comes a new beginning, not just for Jesus, for all of us.

As Campbell pointed out, in all spiritual traditions the hero must undergo initiation and testing. These rites of passage awaken and develop latent human capacities as they mark and safely ritualize the process of maturity, empowerment, and agency among members of a group. Initiation is a way adolescent naivete and dependency ends as we develop a sense of mastery, meaning, and purpose and are reborn as adults and active, contributing members of the tribe. Vision quests, shamanic journeys, sun dances, ordinations, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and confirmations offer access to a time-tested method steeped in a collective body of wisdom and community that mitigates risk and gives reproducible outcome. (p. 18) Regardless of time, place, or culture, the motifs and stages of every initiation are the same. Whether symbolic or actual they include leaving home or separating from the community, facing a symbolic or literal hardship that serves as a psychological catalyst for an altered state of consciousness, and awakening as the nascent hero. The process continues with integrating and embodying wisdom, sometimes with the help of elders, priests, or shamans, and returning to the community as a mature member, active contributor, or leader. Initiation hastens development so the latent hero nature can be realized. (p. 18)

(In St. Louis, a shop assistant and former army lieutenant named Ulysses Grant often coached the local Wide Awakes.) The sinister symbol of the new organization, painted on its banners and printed on its membership certificates, was a single all-seeing, unblinking eye.