goldenboy

My new Psychiatrist has finally pronounced his verdict- I have no major psychological problem apart from a slight depression and anxiety.
 The reason for my “phobia” of work is just that I am not starving and have gotten used to an easy life-style. I do have a negative personality trait- i.e. I am too dependent-kind-of a person and have to inculcate discipline in my life. I have a passive-attitude to work. So its official now- after all the psychiatric mumbo-jumbo and cravings, and the report and analysis- Simple plain personality trait and VOLUNTARTY UNEMPLOYMENT BECAUSE OF A LAIDBACK ATTITUDE.  

-x-x-

The doctor says that he can still explore the possibilities of a Pentathol interview if so is my insistence, however it would yield nothing constructive because Freud and Jung have been discarded to the Dust-bins of Modern Psychology.  The medicines that have been prescribed will help me 15% and that’s it. The rest of the work is mine.

 True love.               

In whatever shape or form it may come.             

May we all in our dotage be proud to say

'I was adored once, too.'

-x-

 20^th September, 2006…Wednesday night. Past 10.30 pm. 

 
 I walk the sea-shore in the dark night. Demolishing all those snack-stalls from the beach has resulted in a decrease in the crowd. Or is it just the more empty space that is striking to an old friend of the sea? A welcome change.   

The large canopy of the dark sky and the vast open space that walks away into the illusory horizon! The  breeze with the smell of sea… the dry dry sands and the restless waves…

I worship her, I adore her… whilst she beats against the shores moaning for her lover… a sailor who once rode her in frenzy, in love with her… in a fatal attraction and passion for her which finally drove him away from her… “Where is he?”, she asks in desperation, her heart over-flowing with grief unable to contain within her… spilling over to the shores and washing over my feet. I sense her grief, I can feel her pain.

I want to go in there and lie down with her, in her arms, fully naked…in sexual-union with her, kissing her waves, letting her soothe my skin, touch my body… so to find solace in her arms, and sleep like a baby in his lover’s arms…

 True love… In whatever shape or form it may come. 

I ask a by-stander if he would watch over my clothes and possessions while I go swimming naked into the sea. The stranger obliges, suggests I should try the remotest part of the shore to strip totally and go in the water without any inhibitions. 

I follow him, watch him guide me to that far-away horizon, dark, wild, quiet… He stumbles on the rocks, as we make our way into the tiny strip of  land that extends into the sea. I hold him. He thanks me. I say, most welcome.   

I watch him as the darkness allows my eyes to finally see clearly his body and the outlines of his face. Blue jeans, black t-shirt. Shaved face. Young, maybe 28-30.

I strip. I walk away naked into the sea and lie down in the waters with just my neck and head above the waters. I hold on to some sea-weeds and try to hold my stead against the mighty waves. I close my eyes. Finally I am with her.  

I take a deep breath and bury my head in too. For a moment I wonder if I should allow her to enter my veins too, the grand union … 

However, life struggles and pushes my head out of water. I cough as I gasp for breath. I taste her waters, salty… her tears…  

Staying there within the waters, naked, I look at the dark silhouette of a human being standing ashore on the rocks, holding my clothes and possessions in his arms, watching me. And as the realization of my nudity takes over my body, I feel incredibly excited. 

 “Why don’t you join me in here, too?” I shout at him. “Its fun”.  

Some initial hesitation, but then he is ready. Clothes on the shore, stripped bare, he lies beside me under the waters.

The waves conspire to bring us closer. And we are glad.

The meeting of our bodies is sealed with a kiss, as passion takes over us, in our delirium for each other.  “Would you believe we are in the heart of Bombay city,” I laugh.

And as we hold each other we are the happiest people in the world.

He does not know my name and I don’t know his story. And somehow, we have found a safe haven in each other.    

-x-

That night we have wine and later make love in an apartment, whispering to each other sweet-nothings, and talking away into the night like two little children. Has each of us found a harbour? Can we even say that as yet?

Can another person be a harbor for the flames of passion, the dark dark fears and the depths of melancholy that makes my psyche?

So Just Kiss Me

..a hurricane

wrapped up

 in a tiny body

that will come to (your) arms

 like the safest harbor

 for mending.

-x-

Morning we hop back into our shoes, exchange phone numbers and bid sweet good-byes…

-x-

This morning on the first day of Navratri festival I perform a long puja ritual, then carry on fasting for the day, as I chant on the rosary asking for the Goddess to show me the way. Just like she led me to the arms of a stranger that night while I rested in Her deep waters. I ask her to grant me strength as I wade through her waters… strength to bear the pains that come.. strength and wisdom …and the  serenity to understand  the Process, the ways of the Path, and proceed, not to go around in circles…

(My gratitude to the film-script Four weddings and a funeral wherein figures the prose on True love. And also to poetess Jewel whose poem from her book ‘ A Night without an armour I reproduced here)

Collective unconscious is that aspect of the unconscious, which manifests inherited, universal themes which run through all human life. Inwardly, the whole history of the human race, back to the most primitive times, lives on in us.

All products of the unconscious are symbolic and can be taken as guiding messages. What is the dream or fantasy leading the person toward? The unconscious will live, and will move us, whether we like it or not.

- Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical Psychology (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961)

The above picture: (MANDALA. The Sanskrit word for circle. For Jung, the mandala was a symbol of wholeness, completness, and perfection. Symbolized the self)

Yesterday, on the Internet, I had set out to find ways to celebrate the festival of Navratri in a spiritual way, the rituals connected with the festival (for I have started believing that rituals are powerful, made so by the intention of the ritualist involved).

And as if by pure chance, if there is any such thing for I have read books that say nothing is by chance, I was led to pages on magick and sorcery.  

My mom’s uncle died recently, and my mom says that he was known to have practiced a local occult in kerala in his time. He was very rich, died a rich man too, with people laying claim to his property.

My ancestors were Brahmins from a small village in the present south- Indian state of Karnataka. In the south, we see that Vedic Brahminism thrived with Tantrism of the day, with Tantric rituals forming a part of everyday rituals in all Temples in Kerala to the present day. I don’t know if they were adept in Tantra too.

However those were the times when Emperor Ashoka was sending out Buddhist missionaries all across India, Sri Lanka, China, and other South-East Asian countries. A wave of Buddhist conversions was sweeping the land of India at the time. It was almost like the theological Hinduism was losing its sway to a new atheist religion of the time- Buddhism.

My Brahmin ancestors too came under the sway of the new religion. It must have inspired them to such an extent so as to step out of their societal limits and support the Buddhist thought. They had to pay dearly for their convictions. They were exiled out of their homeland. They lost their status in the society, they lost their caste, and they lost their homeland too.

Coming to the coastal state of erstwhile-Malabar (now Kerala) they sought shelter under the Zamorin. The Zamorin, in his now-famous secular spirit, accepted this community and gave them the permission to reside in his kingdom.

But I wonder how many generations of my ancestors could really follow the Buddhist life-style. For soon, a new Hindu-revivalist movement was to be launched by a short young Brahmin from Malabar by the name of (Adi) Shankaracharya, who was a staunch believer in the existence of God. He traveled throughout the length and breadth of Hind (India) and defeated great Buddhist scholars of the time in debates, propogating his Advaita Vedanta (a sub-school of Vedantic thought). Big Buddhist monasteries lost their sway, and Buddhist Temples were converted into Hindu Temples. 

Somewhere along that timeline, the latter generations of my ancestors came back to the Hindu fold, however were unable to retrieve their status in the society- that of Brahmins (the highest, priest class). They continued to teach alphabets to the sections in the society which had no access to education due to the caste-system.

Their was a tribe that declined in prosperity over the ages, but the search for truth somehow thrived. My mom’s uncle was an occultist. I see him as a man who was not satisfied with his place that was accorded to him by the scheme of things in the universe, and wanted to use every power possible to rise above it, be it beckoning the world of supernatural. It is said that he once enslaved a Yakshi (an Indian fairy). However the clever lady of divinity succeeded in fleeing away by seeking help from my uncle’s wife, but not before blinding her in one eye, as a punishment for my uncle’s deeds.

That is the genetic code I am born with. I have no idea what histories lay encoded, what passions live-on unfulfilled in my genes, passed over generations from mother and father to their child. When I was born, it was not just the stars and planets in the sky that transpired to shape my destiny, but also my genes that were to shape my impulses and longings.

What searches myself in this desert of the world, what sweet mirages beckon my soul, and what beauty of spirit bewitches my heart I know not. For as the night falls over the land, the moon beckons me to far-away lands, not on the physical planes but beyond. And as the day approaches, my spirit is cast in fear… like a lost-child wanting to go back home…

-x-

NEUROSIS. Jung had a hunch that what passed for normality often was the very force which shattered the personality of the patient. That trying to be “normal”, when this violates our inner nature, is itself a form of pathology. In the psychiatric hospital, he wondered why psychiatrists were not interested in what their patients had to say.

STORY. Jung concluded that every person has a story, and when derangement occurs, it is because the personal story has been denied or rejected. Healing and integration comes when the person discovers or rediscovers his or her own personal story.

Okay, time to stop the cut and paste ritual for now, and speak in words that are as true as I am alive.

Time for some simple, old-fashioned, Truth guys. Time to shed all metaphors and allegories to hoodwink you into getting acquainted with my real-life situation!

First things, first. I have not been going to work for over one and a half month now.

I have changed my Shrink, as farther from each other as it can get for now, from a psychologist in Andheri to one in Thane city. That means a complete change-over of my prescribed drugs. And voila! I feel I have woken from some conscious slumber into metaphysical reality. And it is yet so awesome that I am yet to decide whether reality bites or rocks!! For now, I am awake.

Third, for now, after the pilgrimage to Kerala and visits to all those divine Abodes (temples, stupid!)I feel so blessed- my forefathers in 64 generations wouldn’t have felt so blessed!!

Fourth, after all those trips to the smokey universes of Tantra and Veda, bhakti and Guru; now I am hitched to a completely new Universe. The universe where everything works (or should be made to work) according to one’s Will. The secret world of Wicca, witchcraft in plain-simple English.

And after dabbling in there for a couple of months, I have a changed attitude toward all the rituals and Gods of Hinduism. Its like a re-acquaintance with my own religion. A homecoming after some bloody law-school from the West, a westernization that has caused me to revel in the magic of my own home-religion.

Magick exists in the rituals that permeate the Hindu society today. Those who are ignorant of the subtle whisps of power that manifests in these rituals- whether they be simple plain everyday worship or the death-rituals, are like disinherited children of a Treasure house.

The more I read and understand Magick, the more I understand this world as it is (Chaos as of now). The more I get to know about the psychology which makes magick possible in everyday life, the more I feel I can etch out a destiny for myself, rather than be a creature of plain existence- breakfast and work and sex and bed.

Look at Catholic rituals, the Novena Mass at Mahim Church. What is happening there? Is there a Virgin Mother holding a divine child in her arms that are a catalyst to all those cures and favors granted? Or is it the combined Intention (one of the essential ingredients of magick as well as prayer) and faith of the crowd assembled in Worship (rituals)

And is there a need to find meaning to our lives, when we can hardly see the Lord/Goddess… or have no clue as to where we have come from and where we are going or what all of us are doing here?

There is only one thing accessible to human life (as I see it now). Desires. The energy that pulsates to life with craving passion in the bossom of our own hearts. That is the only true thing which seems to be the pointer, when it comes to purpose of life on Earth.

And how do you realise these desires, for they say “if wishes were horses……” Want to shout back to them, I am no beggar. And I will ride those horses. For this human body and mind/psyche is a great tool with which I am born, a great treasure. And if desires blossom in the heart of this divine body, there is just one truth- seeking the means to fulfilling them.

But what if those desires are so big… that they seem impossible?

We read about Alchemists, fairies, angels, even powers of our subconscious minds. And some part of us wants to believe in them (or perhaps know it is true).

And apart from the desire and our body, the next thing which can lead us to the fulfilment of our desires is Intention. The intention and the belief to bring forth into the world what we desire. So what is the harm in believing in our dream and having faith in our powers to realise them. Isn’t that what is Determination in a dry sense. Intention waits to flower, as sure as the sun that will dawn after it sets. Determination walks a dull road called reality where there are just obstacles and limitations to be overcome. While Intention flies on the wings of Faith. A faith burning with desire, which translates to Enthusiasm. Which translates to hope, nay, conviction. Which rides on an alternate consciousness and by-passes all the limitations handed over to our psyche by conditioning and soceity. A faith set afire, an enthusiasm which participates in the ritual with conviction, and a closing of the circle that brings certainty, peace and joy.

A faith (wiccan) that looks at each tree and stone as a living source of spirit, alive and charged. A view of the world where one just needs to ask and it is granted (as the bible promises). A world where one’s reservoir of energy and faith is all that counts to bring to pass what one transpires.

And so mote it be. Merry be, till we meet again.

-x-

Neither Being nor Non-being
neither air nor earth nor space:
what was enclosed? where?
under whose protection?
What was water, deep, unfathomable?
Neither death nor immortality, day nor night–
but ONE breathed by itself with no wind.
Nothing else. Darkness swathed in darkness,
unmanifest water.
The ONE, hidden by void,
felt the generation of heat, came into being
as Desire, first seed of Mind…
Was there an up or down?
There were casters of seed, there were powers:
energy underneath, impulse above.
But who knows for sure?
– Rig Veda

The hindu festival of Navrathri (the nine nights of the Cosmic Goddess) is just around the corner (starting the 21^st of September 2006). A little research on the internet and here is the esoteric significance of the festival.

The first three nights of the festival is dedicated to Goddess Durga (The Goddess beyond Reach). 
 

The 4^th to 6^th night is dedicated to Goddess Lakshmi ( The Goddess of  spiritual and material Wealth). 

 The 7^th to 9^th night is dedicated to Goddess Saraswathi ( The Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom) 

Esoteric meaning The esoteric meaning of the festival can be found in the ‘occult poem’ (as I would call it here) Devi Mahatmyam, which is recited during Navarathri. Occult means hidden knowledge and this Sanskrit Epic Poem of the Goddess’ fight against demons, has hidden esoteric meanings… The Hindu understanding of human life is that the soul yearns for Union with the Ultimate (God, Infinity, Nature whatever one prefers to call it). This yearning is manifested in perverse ways as Desires. This is because the elements of Prakriti or Nature is made of Tamas, Rajas, and Sattwa. (Eg. Sleep is Tamas in nature, but essential; and when excessive, causes discomfort) . These three qualities manifest in Mother nature and individual nature as well. Due to these qualities of human nature, the yearnings of the human soul get perverted or disoriented towards yearning for outwardly things like money, love, sex etc.  In the first part of the Epic poem, Goddess Adi-Shakti awakens a sleeping Maha-Vishnu to kill the two demons who have cropped up from the dirt of his ear- Madhu and Kaitabha. These two demons are manifestations of the “lower” desires of human nature- Kama (desire), Krodha (anger), and Lobha (greed).. viz, the Tamas aspect of Nature. Ancient masters have told us that Mala or dirt of the psychological structure (anger, greed etc) can be removed by Karma Yoga, by unselfish and dedicated service… (says Krishnanda) In the second part of the Epic poem, Goddess in the form of Lakhmi asks Kali (The Goddess of Cosmic Time- the Goddess in the terrible and fearsome form) to usurp Mahishasura and Raktabija.

These two demons symbolise Vikshepa Sakthi- The Tossing nature of the Mind or the restlessness of the Mind, viz the Rajas aspect of Nature. “Every minute the mind changes its forms which multiply in millions. You read in the Devi-Mahatmya, how this demon Mahishasura changed his form. Now he is an elephant, now he is a buffalo, now he is something else. If you hit him in one form, he comes in another form. And this is your inexhaustible opponent. His energies are incapable of being exhausted. However much you may try to oppose the Vikshepa Sakti, it will manifest in some form or other. This is described in the form of the demon Raktabija, whose drops of blood were seeds of hundreds and thousands of demons like himself coming up. When the Devi severed the head of one Rakshasa, the blood fell on the ground profusely and from that blood, millions cropped up. And when She killed them, again another million cropped up. So there was no end for it. If you cut off one or two desires, the desire is not over. The root is still there. The branches are only severed. Unless the root is dug out, there is no use of merely severing the branches of the tree. So what did the Devi do? She asked Kali to spread her tongue throughout the earth, so that there is no ground at all for the Rakshasas to walk over. They had to walk over the tongue of Kali. So huge it was. And now the Goddess started cutting their heads and when the blood fell, it fell not on the ground but on the tongue of Kali. So she sucked everything. Chariots and horses and demons and everybody entered her mouth. She chewed all chariots into powder. So likewise, we have to adopt a technique of sucking the very root of desires and not merely chop off its branches.” explains Krishnananda. Once a spiritual aspirant gains control over his lower nature, he has to gain mastery over the distraction of the human Mind( the root of all desires). These can be attained by Upasana i.e. Worship of God. In the third part of the Epic poem, the Goddess in the form of Saraswati (the Goddess of Learning, Knowledge and Wisdom) kill Sumbha and Nisumbha.  “While Mala represents Tamas, Vikshepa represents Rajas.

Now, Sattva is also a Guna, unfortunately. We always praise Sattva and regard it as a very desirable thing. But it is like a transparent glass that is placed between us and the Truth. You can see through it, but you cannot go beyond it. Because, though the glass is transparent, it can obstruct your movement. It is not like a brick-wall, completely preventing your vision, as Tamas does; it is not like a blowing wind which simply tosses you here and there, as Rajas does; it is a plain glass, through which you can have vision of Reality, but you cannot contact Reality nevertheless. How can you contact a thing when there is a glass between you and the thing? Yet you can see it. So they say even Sattva is an obstacle, though it is better than the other two forces, in the sense that through it you can have a vision or an insight into the nature of Reality which transcends even Sattva. There is a glass pane and you can see a mango fruit on the other side of it. You can see it very well, but cannot get it, you cannot grab it. You know the reason. Even Sattva is a subtle medium of obstruction, which acts in a double form; as complacency or satisfaction with what has been achieved, and an ignorance of what is beyond. These two aspects of Sattva are indicated by the two personalities of Sumbha and Nisumbha. They have to be dispelled by the power of higher wisdom, which is Maha-Sarasvati”… Krishnanda explains.

Thus a Spiritual aspirant is able to pierce through the veil of Maya or disillusion, by Selfless Service, Fixing attention on the God, and Knowledge- that in my opinion can be gained by Meditation.

Once one overcomes Sattwa through Wisdom, a spiritual aspirant has triumphed which is celebrated as Vijaya Dashmi (the tenth day of Victory)… The festival consists of nine nights as 1 to 9 are the only digits in arithmetic; and after nine comes 0 or infinity- the symbol of whole or nothingness as in Buddhism- nirvana.

“In the beginning, what happens to a Sadhaka(spiritual aspirant)? There is a necessity of self-transformation. The quality of (excessive) Tamas has to be overcome. It is all hardship, rubbing and cleaning, washing, sweeping, etc. That is the first stage through the worship of Maha-Kali, who brings about a destruction of all barriers. Then what happens? There is tremendous prosperity. You become a master and a progressive soul commanding all powers, getting everything that you want. This is the second stage…. by removing the barrier of Tamas, you become prosperous. Nobody can be as rich as a Yogi, you know. He can command all the powers. By a thought he can invoke all things, and this is Goddess Maha-Lakshmi working. When Maha-Kali has finished her work of destruction of opposition, Maha-Lakshmi comes as prosperity. A great Yogi is also like a royal personality, because of his internal invocations, though unconsciously done, of cosmic powers. When prosperity dawns, it looks as if the whole universe is a heaven. In the first stage, it looked like a hell. Afterwards, in the second stage, it looks like a heaven, when Maha-Lakshmi begins to work. But this also is not sufficient. Knowledge should dawn. It is not heaven that you are asking for. You want the realisation of Truth. Sarasvati will come for help and a flood of light on Truth will be thrown and you will see things as they are.” Krishnanda explains.

Thus is the purport of the Great festival of Navratri which begins from the night of 21^st, the night after Amavasya or No-moon day (symbolizing ignorance). Each day signifies the progression of a aspirant to enlightenment or God-Realisation which remains the objective of Hinduism which is expressed in its festivals and rituals. 

(My gratitude to website http://www.dlshq.org/religions/devi_mahatmya.htm and Swami Sivananda’s disciple Swami Krishnanda whose article I relied upon while writing in here)

The moon is the most mystical object in the sky, spreading an aura of dark mysticism in the skies and on the earth at night. Who knows her mysteries, her effect on the human psyche? Does she, or doesn’t she, influence our minds to further her motives? What effect does her phases have on our minds and actions? Who doeth know?

-x-x-

One evening in Badlapur, and my date with the Night was fixed. Night not as we see in the cities- with streetlights and neon signs at every corner. Night as it is meant to be, dark and mysterious, in the faint light of the moon under the stars… forced by the government power-cuts there.

How come we are averse to the Night as it is? How few of us are aware of the moon as it travels through different phases in the sky? How most of us are discomfited by the darkness of the Night.

-x-x-

Yesterday the dark of the night had me hung off-ground by its claws, as a helpless creature, a slave in the hands of his master. Its claws dug deep within my flesh to reach my spine. The moon made me drink its light and I lost my equilibrium, intoxicated I waited for her orders… my master/mistress’ orders…

There is no escape when the moon comes holding the reins of the darkness, on the look-out for you, wanting to use you… There is no escape. Just no escape.

And you are then just her puppet, when her claw has dug deep in your flesh…

Intoxicated, I wait for her orders…

In the next fifteen years, a number of young people now growing up will shine as devoted aspirants in the spiritual field; they know that each of them is Nithyam, Sathyam and Pavithram (eternal, truth and pure) and that they are Amritha-puthraas (children of immortality). They are growing in Viveka and Vairaagya and they are purifying themselves by Naamasmarana. But the elders are laughing at such boys because they have taken to the godly path. Perhaps they will be happy if their children loiter in the streets in groups, smoking and swearing, and staring at posters.

The elders should be elated that their children are on the royal road to real joy and contentment and that they will be serving themselves and the world much better. You do not know how to make an ornament out of gold; so you give it to a gold smith. Why worry if he melts it and beats it and pierces it and pulls it into wire and twists it and cuts it? Let Him who knows the art shape the child into an ornament of society; do not worry.

You must grow day to day, not only physically but in the spiritual life also. How long are you staying on in the primary school, writing down the letters of the alphabet? Get up, demand an examination, pass, and move forward to the higher class!

The Jeevi must master the inner World first

….Many might discourage you and say that meditation and worship can be taken up after you reach a ripe old age, as if they are the prerogatives of or special punishments for the aged. Enjoy the world while you can and then think of the next - that seems to be their attitude. The child takes its first few steps in the comparative safety of the home: it toddles about inside, until its steps become firm, until its balance is perfected, and until it can run about unaccompanied and without fear. Then only does it venture out into the streets and the wide world beyond.

So too, the Jeevi (living being) must master the inner world first; become impervious to temptations, it should learn not to fall when the senses trip its steps; it should learn the balance of mind which will not make it lean more to one side than to the other; and then, after mastering this Viveka (discriminatory wisdom), it can confidently move out into the outer world, without fear of accidents to its personality

Man’s basic Nature seeks inward Contentment

Do not tell Me that you do not care for that bliss, that you are satisfied with the delusion and are not willing to undergo the rigours of sleeplessness. You basic nature, believe Me, abhors this dull, dreary routine of eating, drinking, and sleeping. It seeks something which it knows it has lost - Shaanthi (inward contentment). It seeks liberation from bondage to the trivial and the temporary. Every one craves for it in his heart of hearts. And it is available only in one shop - Contemplation of the highest self, the basis of all this appearance.

However high a bird may soar, it has sooner or later to perch on a tree top, to enjoy quiet. So too, a day will come when even the most haughty, the most wilful, the most unbelieving and even those who assert that there is no joy or peace in the contemplation of the highest self will have to pray, “God, grant me peace, grant me consolation, strength and joy.”

Discourse of Sathya Sai Baba, Mahaashivaraathri, Prashanthi Nilayam, 7 February 1959
Published by Sri Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust
Web posted at Jun 17, 2001

-x-

Amavasya -The new moon (rather the no-moon) night would be falling somenight next week… An article related to The Goddess and the moon… courtesy: http://www.kalimandir.org/library/libraryhome.asp?page=index

by Amarananda Bhairavan
Except from Kali’s Odiyya, A Shaman’s True Story of Initiation, Nicolas-Hays, York Beach, 2000, (pp. 73-77).

My aunt began to explain the importance of amavasya meditation by defining amavasya as a cyclical period of mystical opportunity that occurs every lunar month when the solar and lunar masses aligned themselves imposing their collective energies upon earth.

“Amavasya is the first night of the first quarter of the lunar month, when the moon is invisible. Mystically, this is the period when the sun and the moon dwell together,” she explained.

“The sun and the moon are sensory manifestations of subtle but vaster entities of the masculine and feminine energies that govern this system. They have proportionate representations in each of us. The pervasive incinerating energy of the sun floods us during the day. This is seen as the fiery forces of ha, the life force that course through pingala, the right channel of the astral-self. The sun is the extroverted, masculine presence casting its light and energy of action upon the physical domain. Every shape is thrown into sharp relief by this light of logic. This is the domain of the physical mind, physical awareness. But, this very light is blinding!” she warned, giving us a sharp look.

“It blinds what?” I asked, bewildered.

“It obscures the realm of intuition, and pushes it into the background,” she cautioned, shaking her finger at us.

“The moon, on the other hand, sheds the light of feminine, intuitive energy. This represents the dream awareness and the intuitive mind. Like the moon, this awareness waits for the sun to sleep, waits for the clamor of the day to calm. Then it shines…softly…after dark. It is the light shining on the secret path. This is equated to the tha energy that courses through ida, the left channel of the astral-self. Objects are not thrown into sharp relief, by this light. Instead, shapes blur into each other. Nor is this domain restricted by the rules of logic. The intuitive mind is fully expressed when the physical mind sleeps.”

“Aunt Preema, is the night filled with feminine energy?”

“Yes, Shambu. The night is female. When you are awake at night, the physical mind is apprehensive of the dark, because it is in an alien realm — a realm of alien awareness. Twilight is the best time to meditate, to begin quieting the physical mind. For it is during twilight that either the night transits into the day or the day into the night. It is the perfect time when the physical mind begins to wind down and the intuitive mind takes over, a brief period when these two minds can be brought to each other’s awareness. Twilight is a good time to still the physical mind without putting it to sleep, and connect with the intuitive mind. That is the secret path. The physical mind learns to lay aside its fear and to relinquish control. It gradually perceives the intuitive mind. Having done this, it merges with the intuitive mind. This is amavasya, the merging of the masculine into the feminine, just as the energy of the sun is absorbed by the energy of the intervening moon,” said my aunt.

According to my aunt, amavasya is the conjunction of the sun and the moon; a time when the earth is shielded from solar astral energy. Mystically, it is a time when the logical mind is deprived of solar astral support and the intuitive mind becomes dominant because of the overwhelming presence of lunar astral energy. While the solar astral energy is assimilated by the moon, the masculine ha astral energy merges with the tha astral energy in the being of an initiate. At this time, initiates into mystical mysteries can easily withdraw the out-flowing sensory awareness of the physical mind, and route it to reinforce the dream awareness of the intuitive mind, thus merging the male with the female.

In normal humans, the ha and the tha energies remain separate and unbalanced in their flow, causing varied “disorders of perception” from the mystical standpoint. But amavasya is a natural, cyclical opportunity when planetary and astral forces join and prepare an environment favorable for the merging and harmonizing of the corresponding astral energies in an initiate.

“Mother, you said that the sun and the moon have masculine and feminine representations in our beings. Does earth have a similar representation?”

“Our bodies are of earth. Earth represents the instinctive, grosser female in you and me. The feminine representation by the moon, on the other hand, is in the supernatural, intuitive, feminine energy in us. Is this aspect clear?”

“Yes,” Sandhya nodded.

“The solar ha energy of pingala is life-force, and the lunar tha energy of ida is consciousness and awareness. Life force is moving…and…and active adn forceful as the name implies,” said my aunt animatedly. “But consciousness and awareness are mere presences, subtle telltale wisps of the willow. The dream mind’s awareness does not come from a logic that blunders through with force and tedium. It is an all-pervasive knowingness of being.” My aunt droped her voice to a tender whisper.

My aunt said that until amavasya, just as the sun and the moon are separate, there is a polarity within each individual, causing a split in the astral energy that manifests as an incomplete female and her breakaway male. amavasya is the night of joining that entails a brief period of chaos, a chaos resulting from interpenetrating energies in the process of merging. The male energy merges with the female, ceasing all polarities, just as the sun surrenders its astral energy to the moon during their conjunction. This union makes it possible for the being to shine with the full splendor of completely expressed light of intuition.

The period from amavasya to purnima (full moon) sybolizes the individual’s gradual awakening and transcendence into the fullness of being, to shine with the light of the full moon. After absorbing the masculine energy, the feminine self shines repleat. As with each night a fresh facet of the moon is brought to light, the mystics experience this awakening gradually. Thus, like the sixteen phases of the emerging moon, the mystics identify sixteen kalas or aspects of the Divine Mother emerging in them.

In the initiate, the emergence of each aspect of the divine female is heralded by a unique celestial harmony, which was heard as a syllable. On each night of meditation from amavasya to poornima, sixteen different syllables manifest as the joined, androgynous energy ascended through the the central astral channel called shumna. On the sixteenth night, this energy is absorbed in the light of the Divine Mother. The combined sound of these sixteen syllables is heard by the mystic as the mantra Shoodashaksharii — meaning “She Whose Form is of Sixteen Syllables.” My aunt said that what the Divine Mother revealed in Her totality is experienced by the initiate as the sixteen-armed goddess (each arm representing a phase of the moon and revealing an aspect of Her divinity). In this form the goddess embodies Her benign and destructive functions. I asked my aunt to explain this.

“With the eight arms on Her right, the Divine Mother creates and nurtures the universe. And the height of Her benevolence, Her upper most arm of Her eight right arms is lifted high, palm and fingers open in divine benediction. The uppermost of Her left arm hold a scimitar whith wich the Divine Mother begins to dissolve the univers. And the bottommost left arm holds a severed head, sybolic of complete annihilantion,” she explained.

The light of the full moon is considered the light of the Divine Mother. That is why the odiyyas, mystics, and the tantrics consider full-moon meditation a special spiritual treat, similar to amavasya meditation, which symbolizes awakening. While mystical experiences on an amavasya night signal the transmutation of an initiate into an awakened mystic, mystical experiences carried through into the full moon transformed this awakened one into an active mystic.

I find it is difficult to get a prescribed drug at the medical counter - the chemist wants to know why my prescription letter is out-dated, if I can produce an empty strip of the tablets, and strips me to my soul as his ruthless eyes scan me from head to toe, to adhere to some government law…

When it is so easy to go to any psychiatrist and give a list of symptoms you get from the Internet relating to, say, schizophrenia, which would give you the license to a world of drugs- the prescription letter. But for your prescribed medicines the chemist needs to rape you with his suspicious glance a thousand times before he hands you the medicine. So that you feel worse than a criminal.

I had to put something here to get rid of the front page cry-baby-article which I had all these days (weeks?!!) on here.

The above is an image of a metal idol i bought from kerala. I was there last week

Description of the Image: Vinadhara( the Vina-Indian Guitar-player)

In this pose Shiva is known as Vinadhara (translated “Veena Player”), the Lord of Music.

The deer in the hand of Siva represents Asuddha Maya. His holding deer on one hand indicates that He has removed the Chanchalata (tossing) of the mind. Deer jumps from one place to another swiftly. The mind also jumps from one object to another.

The axe represents knowledge which destroys ignorance.

The pose is called is called “Veena Player” because Shiva’s two front hands are in the position they would be if he was playing a veena or guitar.  The veena is missing as it is in all Vinadhara sculpture.
 
The great teacher, the Lord of all music, the player of the cosmic tunes of existence and life.. he who reverberates in every being and thing…

One just needs to be still, so still so as to listen…

(I have liberally used words from the world of internet-all the research that I did to understand the idol I purchased… The Internet is a wonderful place- magical is the word. Inputs used from sivananda’s article on Siva (http://www.dlshq.org/download/lordsiva.htm ), Image from http://lotus-sculpture.stores.yahoo.net/21b96.html , words from http://indiatemple.blogspot.com/2006/06/shiva-veenadhara-great-musician.html , etc. My gratitude..)