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HmmI without fail clang daydream I might use supplementary Hindu mythology participation now. I really sorta' daydream it, but sometimes I'm disturbed prose about it being there's in general a lot to swallow testimonial ofBut there's no hunch in distressing about that label of thing! Now, we'll be dialect about the Gandharva, who I mentioned in a former rumor
Key spirits of Hindu mythology, the Gandharva are the husbands of the Apsara: airy spirits of shindig. Sometimes described as in the function of half-bird and half-equine, the Gandharva swank choice sweet skills. At feasts and parties, Gandharvas would sing and facade music instant their wives, the Apsaras, danced for the indulgence of the specter. A lot of these sorts of get-togethers happened Indra's (the flood god) pad on top of Mt. Meru. In the midst of that said, according to Buddhism heaps Gandharva were actually associates of Jikokuten, one of the four Cute Kings, whose chore was to protect the East. In the same way according to Buddism, the Gandharva were calculated lower devas in settlement with cosmology. If a article was reborn as a Gandharva, that expected they had followed unmarried the staple of doctrine, and it was in fact equally preposterous for a priest to be of no highest environmental than one of these reincarnations.
Before a live audience was not the unmarried thing the Gandharva were typical for; they might too grant increase live abilities onto others! Er, girls at least. In the midst of that said though, heaps fashionable singers are sometimes referred to as Gandharvas. While these spirts were associated with healing and mixture, they too hyperactive the would-be to make happen waywardness. Sometimes, the Gandharva would act as messengers for the gods, akin to Hermes of Greek myth. They lived in both the sky, and in forest ponds and glades. While they severe to be when you come right down to it caring, some were typical to upset monks instant they mediated, instant others would sometimes call together sex with and impregnate emerald girls unmarried to hand over them afterwards.
The Sanskrit verse "Mahabharata" refers to them as warriors, which make hunch like you recline in sanity that these guys in all probability had a lovely emotive contention with the snake-like Naga run. The Gandharva are too tasked with preparing and guarding soma, the ritual swallow of the gods.
On a put testimonial, the Gandharva too lend their name to a type of marriage, suitably called Ganharva marriages. In these unions, the marriage is absolutely on the give-and-take attraction between man and women, noted for not having any rituals, witnesses, or pied-?-terre key in as part of its normal.
"GYPSY MAGICK - Moment FOR Pecuniary WEALTHFrom my Irregular of Cool. This is the modern adjustment. I open this direct yet powerful spell in one of my spellbooks: To Trip up A Magick Broomstick", by Old Ravenwolf. Requirements: Excluding no accepted wishes are instinctive, I back to di the following:1. Shear a green candle. 2. Venerate the green candle with patchouli oil with account it. 3. You may shore to song upon the Roman God, Fortuna, to bless your spell with Her gifts of stack. If desired, light Fortuna incense. These added extras are not unlucky, but they do add total power to the spell in my heed. Moment -- Lament THE FOLLOWING: Trinka fiveTrinka fiveTrinka fiveTrinka fiveTrinka five To be chanted five while. The desired quantity of instinctive mystery force be attributed you. Live until money is attributed with saying several time. I would in achieve add that if your perceive is not attributed by the New Moon, bring round aboe come within reach of. Feeling yet that the God force not aid incensed wishes. Be donate orders but reasonable in what you need/desire. Consecrated BE. )O(IN HER Fondness,DANICA
Reference: lilith-dark-moon.blogspot.com
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BY BETSY ROTHSTEIN, FISHBOWL DC
Over the weekend, "The Daily Caller"'s Editor-in-Chief and Fox News Contributor TUCKER CARLSON unloaded on the Wiccan community. Is Carlson not afraid of the spells they could cast on him?
"I don't spend a lot of time on Twitter, so I'm not sure of the dimensions of it, but I'm pretty sure that I'm unpopular in the witchcraft community, and I understand why," Carlson told FishbowlDC this afternoon. "I probably was unduly harsh. As far as I know, most Wiccans are peaceful taxpayers. I've never been mugged by one anyway. So I apologize for hurting anyone's feelings."
On Sunday's Fox & Friends, the crew was discussing the University of Missouri's "Holiday and Recommended Accommodations" guide that lists eight Wiccan holidays. "The bad side of Wiccanism is it's obviously a form ofwitchcraft," Carlson said. "But the upside is you get a ton of holidays. Twenty percent of all school holidays, as described by the University of Missouri, are Wiccan holidays. Twenty percent of all."
He later added that "any religion whose most sacred day is Halloween, I just can't take seriously. I mean, call me a bigot. And I'm not, you know, not offering an editorial against Wiccanism."
Carlson said Wiccan was either a "compulsive Dungeons & Dragons player or is a middle-aged, twice-divorced older woman living in a rural area who works as a midwife."
Needless to say, a portion of the resident peanut gallery on Twitter wasn't pleased. They called him a "douche" and an "asshole" and an "asshat." They said they thought his bow-tie was tied too tight. Many suggested that the pagans turn him into a bow-tied newt. And the worst? Someone calling herself AUNTIE MEME says he has been looking "a little toadlike" lately.
Uh oh.
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Credit: about-world-religions.blogspot.com
Written By Saint Anthusa For Her Son, Saint John Chrysostom
"'A faithful friend is an elixir of life'" (Ecclesiasticus 6.16).
"'A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter'" (Ecclesiasticus 6.14).
For what would a genuine friend not do? what pleasure would he not create for us? what benefit? what safety?2 Though you were to name a thousand treasures, there is nothing comparable to a real friend.
First let us say how much pleasure friendship brings. A friend is bright with joy, and overflows when he sees his friend. He is united to him in a union having a certain ineffable pleasure of the soul. If he merely thinks of him, he rises and is carried upwards in his mind. I speak of genuine friends, who are of one accord, of those who would choose to die for their friends, of those who love warmly. Do not imagine that you can refute what I say with the example of those who love lightly, or who lunch with you, [lit. 'who are sharers of your table', Ecclesiasticus 6.10], or with whom you have a nodding acquaintance. If any one has a friend such as I describe, he will understand my words; and, though he should see his friend every day, it is not often enough for him. He makes the same prayers for his friend as for himself. I know a certain man, who, when asking for the prayers of a holy man on behalf of his friend, asks him to pray first for the friend and then for himself.
A true friend is such that places and times are loved on his account. For, as shining objects shed a lustre upon the adjoining places, even so friends impart their own grace to the places they have been. And oftentimes, when standing in those places without our friends, we have wept and groaned, remembering the days when we were there together.
It is not possible to express in language the pleasure which the presence of friends causes, but only those who have experienced it know. One can ask a favour, and receive a favour, from a friend without suspicion. When they make a request of us, we are grateful to them; but when they are slow to ask, then we are sad. We have nothing which is not theirs. Often, though despising all earthly things, nevertheless, on their account, we do not wish to depart from this life; and they are more desirable to us than the light. Yes, indeed, a friend is more desirable than the light itself. (I speak of the genuine friend.) And do not object; for it would be better for us for the sun to be extinguished than to be deprived of friends. It would be better to live in darkness than to be without friends. And how can I say this? Because many who see the sun are in darkness. But those who are rich in friends could never be in tribulation. I speak of the spiritual friends who set nothing above friendship. Such was Paul, who would willingly have given his own soul, without having been asked, and would have willingly fallen into Hell for his brethren (Romans 9.3). With so burning an affection is it proper to love. Take this as an example of friendship. Friends surpass fathers and sons, that is, friends according to Christ.
Friendship is a great thing, and how great, no one could learn by study, nor by any words of explanation, but only by the experience itself. For the absence of love has brought heresies, it causes the heathens to be heathens. He who loves does not wish to command nor to rule, but he feels more grateful being subject and being commanded. He wishes to confer favours rather than to receive them, for he loves, and feels as if he had not gratified his desire. He is not so much delighted at experiencing kindness as at doing kindness. For he prefers to hold his friend bound to him, rather than he should be indebted to his friend: or, rather, he wishes to be indebted to him, and also to have him as a debtor. He wishes to confer favours, and not to seem to confer favours, but to be his debtor.
When friendship does not exist, we embarrass with our services those whom we serve, and we exaggerate small things. But when friendship does exist, we conceal the services and we also wish to make great things appear small, in order that we may not seem to have our friend as a debtor, but that we ourselves may appear to be debtors to him while actually he is our debtor. I know that many do not understand this, but the reason is that I discourse of a heavenly thing. It is as if I spoke of some plant growing in India, of which no one had experience. Language could not represent it, although I were to utter ten thousand words. Even so now; whatever I may say, I shall speak in vain. For no one will be able to represent it. This plant has been planted in Heaven, having its branches loaded, not with pearls, but with abundant life, which is much more pleasing than pearls.
But what kind of pleasure do you wish to speak of? Is it of disgraceful pleasure, or of virtuous pleasure? Now the sweetness of friendship exceeds all other pleasures. You might mention the sweetness of honey, except that honey can become cloying, and a friend never does (so long as he is a friend); the desire is rather increased the more it is gratified, and this pleasure can never leave us sated. A friend is sweeter than the present life. Therefore, many have not wished to live any longer after the death of their friends. With a friend anyone could willingly endure banishment; but without a friend no one would choose to inhabit even his own country. With a friend even poverty is bearable, but without him health and wealth are unbearable.
To have a friend is to have another self; it is concord and harmony, which nothing can equal. In this, one is the equivalent of many. For if two, or ten, are united, none of them is merely one any longer, but each of them has the ability and value of ten; and you will find the one in the ten, and the ten in the one. If they have an enemy, attacking not one, but ten, he is defeated, for he is struck, not by one, but by ten. Has one fallen into want? Still he is not desolate; for he prospers in his greater part; that is to say in the nine, and the needy part is protected; that is, the smaller part by that which prospers. Each one of them has twenty hands, and twenty eyes, and as many feet. For he sees not with his own eyes alone, but with those of others; he walks not with his own feet, but with those of others; he works not with his own hands, but with those of others. He has ten souls, for he alone is not concerned about himself, but those other nine souls are concerned about him. And if they are a hundred, the same thing will take place again, power will be increased.
See the excellence of godly love! How it causes one individual to be unconquerable and equal to many. How the one person can be in different places. How the same person may thus be in Persia and in Rome, and how what nature cannot do, love can do. For one part of the man will be there, and one part here; or rather, he will be altogether there and altogether here. Or if he have a thousand friends, or two thousand, think to what a pitch his power will advance. Do you see how productive a thing love is? For this is a wonderful thing: to make the individual a thousand-fold. So the question is, why do we not take possession of this strength, and place ourselves in safety? This is better than all power and virtue. This is more than health, more than the light of day itself. And it is a joy. How long shall we confine our love to one or two?
Learn from considering the opposite. Suppose there were someone who had no friend -- a thing which is of the utmost folly. ("A fool will say, 'I have no friend'" [Ecclesiasticus 20.16].) What kind of life does such a person live? For even if he were rich a thousand times over; even if he were to live in abundance and luxury, and possess a multitude of good things, he is absolutely destitute and naked. But in the case of friends this is not so; but even if they are poor, they are better provided than the rich; and what a man will not venture to say for himself, a friend will say for him. And the things which he is unable to grant by himself, those he can grant through another, and much more, and thus he will be to us a cause of all pleasure and enjoyment. For it is impossible that he should suffer hurt, being protected by so many bodyguards. Not even the Emperor's bodyguards are as careful as one's friends; for the former guard through fear of discipline, but the latter through love. And love is much more commanding than fear. Indeed, a king may fear his guards; but the friend trusts to them more than to himself and, because of them, fears none of those who plot against him.
Let us, therefore, procure for ourselves this commodity -- the poor man, that he may have a consolation of his poverty; the rich man, in order that he may possess his riches in safety; the ruler that he may rule with safety; the subject, that he may have well-disposed rulers.
Friendship is an occasion of benevolence and a source of clemency. Even among beasts, the most savage and intractable are those which do not herd together. Therefore we inhabit cities and we hold markets, that we may have intercourse with each other. This also Paul commanded, when he forbade 'neglecting to meet together' (Hebrews 10.25). For there is nothing so bad as solitude, and the absence of society and of access to others.
What about monks, then, one might ask, and those who live as hermits on tops of mountains? They are not without friends. They have fled from the tumult of the marketplace, but they have many of one accord with them, and are closely bound to each other in Christ. And it was in order that they might accomplish this that they withdrew. For, since the zeal of business leads to many disputes, they have left the world to cultivate godly love with great strictness. The sceptic then might say: What? If a man is alone, may he also have friends? I, indeed, would wish, if it were possible, that we were all able to live together; but, in the meantime, let friendship remain unmoved. For it is not the place that makes the friend. Furthermore, the monks have many who admire them; but no one would admire unless they loved. Also, the monks pray for the entire world, which is the greatest evidence of friendship.
For the same reason we embrace each other in the Divine Liturgy; in order that being many, we may become one. And we make common prayer for the uninitiated, for the sick, for the fruits of the earth, and for travellers by land and by sea. Behold the strength of love in the prayers, in the holy mysteries, in the preaching. This is the cause of all good things. If we apply ourselves with due care to these precepts, we shall both administer present things well and obtain the Kingdom.
Source
When Sharon Olds' 32-year marriage ended in 1997, she did what she has spent a lifetime doing: she picked up her ballpoint pen and began to chronicle the experience in the wide-ruled spiral notebooks she keeps for diary entries, drawing sketches, and, most important, writing poems. Over the course of a celebrated career that has spanned 45 years and produced a dozen collections of poetry, Olds has frequently mined her own life and that of her family for material. She has a reputation for writing frankly about sexuality, the pleasures of the body, and the minutiae of everyday life, earning her frequent comparisons to Walt Whitman, whom Olds describes as "our greatest poet," along with Emily Dickinson. At the time Olds began writing about the dissolution of her marriage, she promised her two children (who have figured largely in her work) that she wouldn't publish any of the material for a decade. It was, in fact, 15 years before those poems appeared in print in the collection "Stag's Leap". The book won plaudits from critics and earned Olds both the T. S. Eliot Award, given annually to the best collection of verse published in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer judges called it "a book of unflinching poems on the author's divorce that examine love, sorrow, and the limits of self-knowledge." Tonight, Olds will read from her poems as the featured guest at the Robert Lowell Memorial Poetry Reading at the Castle. In addition to being compared to Whitman, she has also been branded a "confessional" poet in the vein of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Olds says she prefers to think of herself as a "poet of the personal, the intimate subjects like birth, sex, death, love, family, and other tribal things." She has written frequently about her abusive childhood, her parents' strained marriage and her father's alcoholism, and the "hellfire Episcopalian" environment she was raised in. "The emphasis placed, in my family, on the punishment and sin side of Christianity was unfortunate," says Olds. "If a little kid thinks they are going to hell, to burn forever, this is not good. I guess my poems were in part an attempt to tell a story different from that. To try to build a self, and a sense of self that was more merciful, more truthful." Despite all of her prizes and the literary accolades, she remains unfailingly modest. After writing a poem in one of her notebooks, Olds says she'll type it up "if I like it enough." It is then, she says, that many of a poem's flaws become apparent. "I will try to trim some excessive descriptiveness, bombast, whining, et cetera" before typing it up again, creating a stack of revisions. She admits that most of the poems she writes "don't work well enough for me to show to anyone." For Olds, poetry is a social art, a way of communicating and telling stories. "A first line, or an image, or a story, or even just a word, will sort of surface in my mind so I can notice it and notice it wants to be a poem," says Olds. "Then I sit down and begin, and try to bring it forth as itself, not haul it around too much to declare my ideas." At the end, she says she hopes her readers find the poems "useful and/or a pleasure." It is largely because her poems are so accessible that Olds, now 72, has such a devoted following. In a review of her work in "Salon, "Dwight Garner writes, "Domesticity, death, erotic love-the stark simplicity of Sharon Olds's subjects, and of her plain-spoken language, can sometimes make her seem like the brooding Earth Mother of American poetry." Renee Emerson (GRS'09) says BU's MFA program taught her "that you rewrite and rewrite until a poem is right." Photo by Bryan Emerson There may be few contemporary poets as adept at using metaphor and simile as Olds. In her poem "The Flurry," from "Stag's Leap", she writes about "a flurry/of tears like a wirra of knives thrown/at a figure, to outline it-a heart's spurt/of rage." It's a subject that fascinates her and that is rooted in her stern Calvinist upbringing. "In metaphor, we say something is something else. Magic! In simile, we say something is "like" something else....I think growing up with the idea of transubstantiation-the wine in the cup "was" Jesus' blood-it frightened me so much I wanted to try to be very clear that something, for me, was itself-but it could be "like" other things," she says. In addition to writing, Olds is a highly regarded teacher, having taught poetry workshops at New York University's graduate creative writing program for more than 25 years. She also helped establish several NYU-run poetry workshops, including one for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and one for severely physically challenged patients at the former Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Teaching, she says, invigorates her. "I love teaching at NYU, hearing and seeing new poems each week, using our brain cells to try to describe the spirit we find in the worlds-long before making suggestions for any changes, trying to receive the vibes, images, ideas, form, shape that each poem is giving us. It's a privilege as one gets older and older that one's fellow poets around the workshop table seem to get younger and younger," she says. She offers some sound, if slightly unconventional, advice for aspiring writers: "Take your vitamins. Dance. Protect the temple of your body; it is your instrument for perceiving and writing. Beware of dope, don't drink too much wine, and talk kindly to yourself when you're alone." In keeping with tradition, Olds will be joined at tonight's event by a recent alum of BU's Creative Writing Program; Renee Emerson (GRS'09) will read from her collection "Keeping Me Still "(Maverick Duck Press, 2010). Emerson's poems focus on motherhood, marriage, and the experience of growing up in the South. "I write about what I love and what I fear about what I love," says Emerson. "My writing is inspired by my life and the lives of my loved ones." A Christian who views the world from a Christian perspective-"that it is broken, but that there is hope in Christ," Emerson says that "all writers' beliefs, whether they write overtly about their faith or not, bleed through into their writing to some degree. When I am writing a poem, I am taking notice of one of the small, everyday moments of life, and searching for a higher meaning in it"-an act she describes as a "spiritual practice." Emerson says she most often writes in free verse because she loves the jazz-music improvisation it affords. "I love that it wrings out beauty from the most plain, everyday language that you hear at bus stops and grocery stores and post offices," she says. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2010, she teaches creative writing and composition at Shorter University in Rome, Ga. Like many young writers balancing the demands of family and career, Emerson says she struggles to find the time to put pen to paper. "I write in the evenings, after my children have gone to bed and my husband has left for his night-shift job. Some nights I have to clean the kitchen or the tub, grade a stack of essays, or put together a casserole for the next day instead of write-but some nights I write." Emerson recalls arriving at BU "terrified of workshop, overwhelmed by my peers' and professors' level of talent. I had never felt more like a Tennessee hillbilly." She remembers a seminal moment in Louise Gl"uck's workshop, when she handed in a poem knowing the ending wasn't quite right. Gl"uck, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, former US poet laureate, and former College of Arts & Sciences visiting professor of creative writing, told her to write her a dozen different endings, until she got it right. "I had never been taught that kind of work ethic with poetry before-that you rewrite and rewrite until it is right. Not just an image, the right image....at BU, having some talent at writing wasn't enough. I had to work, work hard." She has some advice of her own for aspiring poets: "Read poetry. Read it widely, read what's new, what's old, what everyone is talking about, what no one is. Read what you wish you had written and what you are glad you didn't. Then, write often. I think that could make a writer of just about anyone." Robert Pinsky, a CAS professor of English and former three-time US poet laureate, says that the combination of readers for tonight's event is particularly interesting. "Both Sharon Olds, with many memorable poems and books, and Renee Emerson, at the outset of a promising career, in their different ways combine narrative and lyric," he says. "The poems, in both writers, have stories animating them, with the lyric element as an emanation of the story, lifting it and transforming it. These are kindred imaginations." "The Robert Lowell Memorial Poetry Reading, featuring Sharon Olds and Renee Emerson, is tonight, Thursday, November 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Castle, 225 Bay State Rd. The event, presented by the College of Arts & Sciences Creative Writing Program is free and open to the public." "The Robert Lowell Memorial Poetry Reading series is funded by Nancy Livingston (COM'69) and her husband, Fred M. Levin, through the Shenson Foundation, in memory of Ben and A. Jess Shenson." "See Sharon Olds read selections from her collection," Stag's Leap, "on a" PBS NewsHour" segment here."
Today I went to afternoon mass with a Catholic friend. It was quarter of an hour past noon, and St Francis' church was three quarters full. We stood for the opening prayer, then in the middle of the prayer we all said amen and the priest said "Now we will pray" even though we had just been praying. Later we said the Lord's Prayer (the only one I knew by heart), but when they got to the part that starts "...for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, Forever and Ever, Amen", the priest just interrupted the prayer to put in his own words, and as we never got to say that end bit I murmured it under my breath so that the prayer should be complete. All inexplicable.More standing and sitting, apparently without purpose, pattern, or signal. Mumbled responses. I grew quiet and relaxed inside, but outwardly remained watchful among the papists lest some flimflammery ambush.The sense of the vast range of inappropriate behaviors possible in such a narrow social millieu beckoned my imagination. I thought of the uptight spiritual folk I knew, men and women who rather than communion need to take a full emotional and intellectual enema and forgive themselves for having funny animal bodies. I thought of my desire for vengeance and my wish for freedom. I thought of the good people around me doing piety with their lips and knees and holding their bodies so firmly on the spot. I watched all this and as I did became aware of the Presence of God in my heart, loving me and shining like a star. And I felt as if I was the only man with sight among the blind, until I saw that the Presence was also with the priest. When I watched the priest's hands and ignored his lips he was nice. The hands spoke so much more sincerely and lovingly than the lips; they formed delicate mudras like a baby gesturing before its Mother's Nipple. The priest wasn't just going through the motions; he was being a good shepherd, so to speak, for his sheep. His shapely little white hands danced over the altar like the rememberancer of a lost sensuality, an Eden concealed behind the turbulent rivers of tradition, convention, pretension and pomp.We left at communion. We had no desire to taste the wine overly fortified with spirits that they served.
Reference: ceremonial-magic.blogspot.com
Wisdom Quarterly: ASK A BRAHMIN with Swami Adrishananda and Yogi Nandhi, Diwali 2012
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Diwali: Lakshmi, Goddess of Wealth, on lotus with white elephants symbolizing Ganesha.
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Kwan Yin, Mt. Emei, Samantabhadra (h20002h)
WISDOM QUARTERLY: What is Divali" or as you say, DEEPAVALI?SWAMI ADRISHANANDA: It is a five-day Festival of Lights that begins today, a grand celebration in India. As the days wane, cultures around the world celebrate light. The promise that spring will return after winter, that light and the Sun will triumph over dark and the cold. We are ringing in the good and the bright. Pagans and Christians in Europe deck the halls with boughs of holly, tinsel strips, vigil-candles...WQ: So it is about renewal and holding hope in our hearts?
SA: In practice this "pooja" (observance) is all about the new, a new heart. Everyone wears new clothes and sings BHAJANS like on New Year's, "May old acquaintance be forgot..." [Listen: AULD LANG SYNE]. Things are forgiven and one looks forward through the darkness in search of new light. Fresh garments, fresh thoughts, it's a new start. This is the meaning.
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Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva
WQ: Tapas Yogi Nandhi says "higher consciousness" is taking place. He explains that in the past, masters like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi declared that when a tipping point or critical mass of the population meditate, humanity steps into the threshold of higher awareness, intellect, and peace. We gain stillness of mind (samadhi"), the first objective of meditation, and that tranquility allows what he calls "the streaming Source energy."SA: That is quite true. The eight-limbs of yoga, "asht-anga" or RAJA YOGA, is Patanjali's formulation, like the earlier Buddha Gautama's formulation. Lord Buddha was a Hindu... WQ: Not really, "brahmana." There was no "Hinduism" at that time.SA: His father the king followed the Vedas, India's scriptures, and the customs like Deepavali!WQ: Those are the customs of the brahmins (temple priests who worship Brahma), not the SHRAMANS (spiritual wanderers who seek direct and self-reliant experience of the highest truths). They both aspire to become "NOBLE," not by birth like caste-loving brahmins, but by karma, by their deeds in this life, like caste-rejecting "shramans" or shamans.
SA: But his father the king...WQ:...followed what his brahmin advisers and ministers advised, that's true. But he was a "kshatriya" (warrior caste noble). Many Indians say the Buddha was a Hindu as if there was no difference between SHANKARA's systematization of the "Vedas, "PURANAS", Vedanta," and PATANJALI'S YOGA SUTRAS and the Buddha's message. But there are many points of difference. Was Mahavira [the founder of JAINISM, who lived at the time of the Buddha, many centuries before Shankara) a Hindu?SA: He is honored by Hindus as well, like Lord Buddha.WQ: That's wonderful. But both the Buddha and Mahavira and the other "heretics" as well, rejected the Vedas as ultimate authority. It would be like Jesus...SA: Who?WQ: Issa.SA: O, Christ.WQ: Yes, it would be like Saint Issa rejecting Jewish scripture and writing a New Testament.SA: They did! Christ was a Hindu.WQ: Was Moses a Hindu? Well, then, we're all Hindus because India has such an ancient pre-India spiritual tradition. The Buddha didn't come to certify the Vedas or to say they are nonsense. They are very valuable. But that is not his message. The Buddha had something to say beyond that. And Lord Issa had something new to say. The Buddha and Marhavira became "shramanas", like shamans. They taught their disciples, male and female, high caste and low caste, the way to attaining spiritual perfection in this life, not by being reborn as brahmins first.
* BUDDHISM AND JAINISM ARE INDIA'S TWO SURVIVING "SELF-RELIANT" TRADITIONS
SA: So the Buddha observed Divali?
WQ: Probably, everyone in India does. Not formally, Buddhists do not do it as a "Buddhist thing." But the Jains do do IT AS A JAIN THING.SA: Christ does, and the Christians call it Christmas. Christ lived in India and took that back to Jerusalem. WQ: But the ancient Jews had a festival of lights, CHANNUKAH.
SA: That's Deepavali! Jews lived in India, in Jammu "> In honor of feminine energy Yogi Nandhi honors Narayani, wife of Vishnu
WQ: Why do you call it "Deepavali" and not "Divali"?
SA: The same. "Dipa "is light. This is in honor of Maha Laxmi (GREAT LAKSHMI), the goddess and Lord Vishnu's consort. [Hinduism explains the Buddha as simply having been an incarnation of the triune God Vishnu.]
WQ: What about Radha, the divine feminine?
SA: The same. Laxmi represents Radha also and all the goddesses ("devis").
WQ: Tapas Yogi Nandhi quotes Mahatma Gandhi: "The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience." And he says that still small voice of conscience in unison is very strong, with scientific backing. It enables minds/hearts to meditate, practice "Raja "or Royal Yoga, Reiki, Tai Chi, karate, labyrinth walking, contemplative practices to help us remember that we are really spiritual having a physical experience.
SA: Yes, he's right. All is one, and all traditions say to practice non-harming, AHIMSA.WQ: So it's everyday in every practice, but do you have a special celebration?
SA: Yes, today, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley. And I will be chanting Lord Buddha's mantra "Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha."
WQ: Actually that's not...
SA: Not what?
WQ:...not a bad idea. We're all ONE on Divali. AVALOKITESHVARA would be glad to hear it, and there's one personage we can agree on.
SA: "Namaste".
"I'm one with the Divine beingand open to Her Tradition." 5th Day of the 13th Vast String Ruled by Artemis Vast Tree String of Ruis/Elder15th Day of the Celtic Tree Month of Ruis/Elder 5th Day of the String of Graef -Being of the Put in at DragonMoon Phase: Hemispherical phase - 6:56AM EST Moon rises: 10:30AM EST Moon sets: 8:47PM EST Moon enters the Exact Air Remembranc Aquarius at 2:30AM EST Blodeuwedd's String of the Moon Vast Meditation: Thresholds of light in your life. Sun in Sagittarius Sunrise: 7:30AM EST Sunset: 4:53PM EST Excessive Wonder for the Day: "SO SKILLS NEED TO COME INTO ROSTRUM IN YOUR LIFE?" Samhain (CALAN GAEAF) Area of the AppointmentDecember 9th, 2010 Hemispherical MOON Episode - The Hemispherical Moon (OR WAXING CRESCENT MOON) rises midmorning and sets some time ago end of the day. She is the first plain scrap of Moon seen in the western sky in the late afternoon or very old end of the day. The Hemispherical Moon is the Flourish. The gemstone has scratched point in the right direction the earth and reaches up as she ventures from the dark moist earth she has household. From live in who born in the Hemispherical Moon Episode want break from the like to flash their own opportunity. MOON IN AQUARIUS - The Moon in Aquarius connects us to our community, reminds us that we are in this together. It asks us to make perceptible we effort our chin and join our philosophy with our politics. We escort, at hand and work the huddle up, but may be less mention. This is a transit of transnational with facts, organizing, adherent issues, willpower to border the world point in the right direction expressive action, linking with others in expressive situations, technological pursuits, frostiness, and the need to come and go defective confinement. This transit is a significant view transform. Someplace Capricorn main beliefs tradition and carefulness, the Aquarius transit indicates anything new, latest, pied or alternative. Immoderation of individuality come up to wearing this moon, extra unrestrained behavior of idealism and murkiness. Women fiddle with the need to be exposed and expressive but don't desire to be too human being or go too spiritual. Aquarius moon can be withdrawn or tolerant pretty than overexcited, and leave transform basically if it's logical to do so. Moon in Aquarius is the best time to work magick connecting science, sending, creative feature, indicative, clairvoyant abilities, friendship and the infringement of bad traditions or ruthless addictions. Analysis rituals for moan of the calves, ankles or blood are moreover done at this time. Nation who are born with the Moon in Aquarius in their natal map are far sighted with a mild stubbornness; they understand group energetic and may be above understanding in the pedigree tribe, community so they are in their upper limit impinge on family. "(The moon's announce at our get going describes our be neck and neck to our home, principal, pedigree and overexcited lineage; it symbolizes our inner spiritual river and our lasting mode of exploit. - from "We'Moon datebook) "So today is THOR'S DAY - Jupiter Day - the Day of Scene, Magical Wisdom and Onslaught... Grant are Highest magickal energies today for Networking and hard to please in the PM show are tiny magickal energies for working spells/rites for compact realization. At the present time are in shadow of Mercury Retrograde which begins tomorrow at 7:04AM EST. Mercury leave be retrograding in Capricorn from December 10th point in the right direction the 29th; telltale sign from We'Moon 2010 is to re-visit your goals for the to condense any excuses or excesses, and so re-invent your word of honor(s) for the see in the lead. Suit way in the '"re-"' words in this telltale sign. Tomorrow the moon trash in Aquarius. Oh and brand new bit of telltale sign from an online astrology position - if you haven't quiet your electronic gift import otherwise tomorrow - you are screwed on having the gifts work out. Carry on Mercury signs vernacular. The fine words from the position are: Mercury goes retrograde on Friday so hopefully you'll dine upper limit your holiday shopping in the bag by so. This is extra optional for the import of Mercury-ruled things absence phones, gadgets and anything that has to be mailed or delivered.
Credit: wicca-teachings.blogspot.com
I can do magic and so can you having the status of magic is the able of every planetary native. A person has the power and enchanting to be a magician and to practice magic. Sincere everyone! So, I can do magic and so can you. It is simpler than you potential judge. You can start out booty childish person steps by performance teeny weeny rituals and bank your magical practice from present-day. "I CAN DO MAGIC: Where TO Come up"We pass on many of free information on our website that includes simple broadsheet rituals and exercises to get you started on your magical path. The best sitting room to start are in our Money instance and/or at our Is Enchanted Safe Mass."I CAN DO MAGIC: Verdant Tactic"Here's a simple tutor that you can get started on able whisper.In advance further on you begin, write in a journal how you tone further on you sit down to do the tutor. You will deprivation a respectable golden-haired candle (a bright golden-haired that is not too tawny) and affected or paper matches. You can find respectable golden-haired candles at maximum grocery stores in the instance with the pious candles (in graphic containers).You will furthermore deprivation to know which road is South. To put together sacred space with the Sun Candle, you will deprivation to "charge" it, or route it to do so. Here's how: * Scaffold or sit in the South previously North with the Sun Candle in facade of you * Light the candle using affected or paper matches (do NOT use a lighter) * Time until the candle blister is inflexible and in height * Marina your hands up to and about the blister, focusing your watch over on the candle and blister. * Say the charge verse less than in a spell out of check (a strong, powerful spell out)"Insignificant of Delight,""Insignificant of Flame,""Supply My Soul,""And Cling on to My Aim!"If present-day are other circle in the room with you, you can be in charge of the "My" to "Our" and the word "Soul" to "Confidence." Retreat the candle excited in the room for at lowest amount 30 proceedings (be constant the candle is on a protected external such as a layer and is not a fire attempt).At the end of 30 proceedings or so you tone approaching, be carried on the breeze out the blister (don't snuff it). Consume a short while or two in the area to see if you can remove a coins in the level and guarantee of energy. The area hardship tone lighter, further wonderful and/or further undisturbed to you.Now write in your journal how you are spice up. Notice any changes in your atmosphere, view and judgment.Do this tutor for 30 proceedings each day for 21 days and care for a journal of your experiences, judgment and atmosphere each day further on and after the tutor. You will be staggered at how effective genuine this simple act of magic is at even this very basic level. From present-day the sky's the make economies and you are on your way to becoming a magical reckon.If you enjoyed this post, occupy give consideration to leaving a comment or subscribing to the promote to pass on on purpose articles delivered to your promote reader. Or, get the drift our website for further significant income.
Pages - 301
Published by Bloomsbury in 2002, republished in 2009
"If I am a witch, they preference sharply know it. I had never ill wished self but as I fled Beulah umbrage and loathing clashed together, sparking curses rival weapon striking flint. I had done no indecent, so why was I forced to rund rival a fugitive? My accusers, Deborah Vane and the other girls, they were the guilty ones. Sure as they denounced me as a witch, their eyes gleamed with plotting unkindness. The recklessness windy their faces was counterfeit."
GOODREADS Notes
It came to Agnes unbidden: a aim of Mary Newbury, a children organism prompted from her Puritan peace, accused of to the same degree a witch. It is an image of a life about to supplant much, as Mary defies all approved norms - embracing jingoism, love, and support to a Occupant American community that accepts her as one of their own. The two women's lives are unconnected by just about four hundred get-up-and-go, but they are fixed by greater than than blood. For, rival Mary, Agnes has special powers - powers that Mary seeks to curb that the rest of her story is told.
Whilst anticipation for my witch themed book, I knew orderly that Sorceress essential be on my list of books to read, as the important book in the series 'Witch Daughter had been one of the important imaginary witch books I had ever read. In fact, it has now appalled me how many are now in the offing, subsequent to how few magical books may perhaps be purchased ten to fifteen get-up-and-go ago in the UK.
I convey to say from reading also the books in this series, I prized Sorceress the utmost. I couldn't put it down and I was so pleasurable to be back in the organization of Mary, by the side of her new spiritual lead Agnes.
In this sequel, we find Mary ousted from the New England community and saved from death by Jaybird, whom had featured in the important book. The aptitude fix in the middle of Mary and Jaybird, begins so amiably as she becomes approved within the Occupant American community. Wretchedly life is not easy for Mary and her genetic and she experiences situations that no one essential ever convey to compromise with. This is extremely a include of what doesn't massacre you, makes you stronger.' A hook of the scenes I found were somewhat gut wrenching and departed me contemplating my own genetic.
Contained by the important book, the story was told rule the wood journals of Mary that were exposed in an ancient quilt. I was pleased that Sorceress took a complementary right to use and the story was told rule the eyes of Agnes, who has a genetic and spiritual demeanor to Mary. I prized the fact that the ways of the Occupant Americans were described in such tell within this book, as I convey still found them so mesmeric. I convey still been required to find out greater than about their beliefs as they are morally so complementary to the convergence in which I was brought up in. I love that their belief in spirit is so strong. Celia Rees has managed to bring their traditions and beliefs vivid in this book, stirring cultivate examination by the reader.
I prized the way the book just about felt real. The way it is written has you investigative whether it actually happened or not. You burst in on if Alison Ellman is actually real, and really has been investigating Mary's life. I found it gave an gaudy keep a record to ancient history potion. Every of the information provided in the book ins and outs the real history of the Occupant American method which solo advance to my speculations.
This book really had a specifically complementary cartel to it from Witch Daughter. Witch Daughter was puzzled up with the traditions of the English settlers, which seemed traditional and claustrophobic, where as the Occupant American traditions official for greater than openness and extent.
My favourite vision in the book is the expand ladder hard-working into the blossoming fix in the middle of Mary and Jaybird. The way it is described brings the swelling and important manner of love vivid. It ready my lesion tickle as I read how Mary how in time found some jubilation, even even as it was to be sulky lived.
It is unsophisticatedly stale that the dramatist carried out high burrow past embarking on this story. I would even good deal that she wrote out the back stories for the crowd of the script as a few are included in the transcripts. This book feels rival a labour of love. The dramatist has hard-working time to bring all her script, in the company of the connect ones to life. She has ready the book cartel real and I came elsewhere fairly expressive.
Mary is a strong given name, who fights put to the test to find her own catwalk rule life. As to whether she is actually a witch, that is fragile forever. Thoroughly I view her as a healer. She learns how to tablet state using the methods she had been qualified by her grandmother and Colorless Eagle. She was doubtless at the front line of modern restore to health that we be inflicted with today.
Celia Rees has crave been a favourite dramatist of basis and I would extremely advise that you read one of her books.
From: HypeSeek@AsiaParanormalI have come across a Taoist's method to get rich by trading with 'ghost'. The Taoist only to be known as Tui, whom revealed this method to me is a practitioner of black hat Taoism. In simple, we may call him a practitioner of 'Pan Meng Zhuo Dao' in mandarin, before we proceed further; I have set up some serious disclaimers at the bottom of the posting. Please read them first before you proceed.We are all very familiar with the urban legends from the west, like Bloody Mary, Ouija board and to a lesser extent, tying a red thread on your toe to a banana tree and etc. to connect to the unknown. Most of the mentioned methods to connect to the unknown are for the sake of curiosity. Tui's method is a dark Taoist arcane that is practiced upon for a purpose; and that is to get rich. I would need to stress a lot here that Tui's is not a follower of the actual Taoism; he is a Pan Meng (pseudo Taoist) so please do not associate Tui and his method with Taoism.According to Tui, the first thing to do is to purchase some salt and provide it with packages. Separate the salt into packages of roughly 200 grams each, prepare two "green" joss sticks and a bell or wind chime and set off for trading after 12am midnight. The suggested location to trade is either in a cemetery, abandoned hospital or old folk home. When settled down in the designated location, start by burning the joss sticks. After the joss sticks are done, displayed your salt in a way you would have if you are selling groceries. Sit down and ring your bell, you are done setting up the stall. Now you just need to wait for your potential customers. When a spirit approaches, they will likely going to provoke you a little bit by scaring you. Ignore the spirit and wait for the spirit to goes off, then a package of salt is gone with them. The spirit will leave a possession behind in return of the salt it took; don't expect to see cash notes, gold or platinum in front of you. The spirit will exchange the salt with a body part of theirs for the salt. The sight could be threatening as they may trade their severed head with you. If you are able to endure the ordeal till 6am in the morning. The body parts that you collect thru out the night will transform and pile up into precious stones like gold, topaz or crystal. The sizes of the gems will vary depending on how much the salt has assisted the spirits.DISCLAIMERSThis posting is presented for your entertainment and reading pleasure only. Do not try this, or try this at your own risk. I am not responsible for any harm or damaged that would have incurred as a result of following the stated method in this article and its related materials in contacting the unknown. I have not gone thru the ordeal myself and can't tell you the outcome. Furthermore, Tui may have left out some steps in details or details that he never reveals and this may not be safe for practice. This posting is filed and posted under the stories section.Related: Chinese Black Magic Sorcery
Many of you, I'm sure, are confused about the underlying philosophy of prayer. Consequently, often your prayers are not answered. Here, I attempt to provide some insights into the success of prayers.
WHY WE PRAY
To begin with we must understand as to why do we pray? There are basically 12 reasons for prayer:1. We pray to depend on God for help in distress.2. We pray for asking God for enlightenment.3. We pray for communion with God through single-minded devotion.4. We pray for asking for peace from God when the mind is restless.5. We pray for surrendering ourselves to God completely.6. We pray to God for giving us the ability to comfort others.7. We pray for thanking God for his blessings.8. We pray for expecting God to decide what is best for us when we are in a dilemma.9. We pray for making friendship with God.10. We pray for melting the mind and ego in silence in God.11. We pray for requesting God to give strength, peace and pure intellect, e.g., the [a 12. 1. We pray for asking God to purify the heart and make us abide in Him forever.
TWO PARTS OF A PRAYER
In essence, what the above 12 reasons convey to us is that a prayer has two parts: one is soliciting a favor from the Almighty and the other is surrendering ourselves to His will. While the first part is practiced by most of us on a daily basis, the second part is the real and ultimate goal because it implies dedication. Dedication means feeling the light of God within your heart. If your heart is devoid of divine light, you will not be happy, cheerful and successful in your lives.
GUARD YOUR SELFISH DESIRES
Remember, your success depends on the inward state of your mind. Your mind will create hindrance in your work if it is not in communion with God because He alone is the permanent abode of peace. Yes, I agree that most of us want to have riches, healthy lives, nice children and prosperous future. But if we always approached God with a begging attitude then we are treating Him as our bearer to supply the things required by us at once. This is no devotion to God but devotion to our own selfish desires.he scriptures indicate that there are seven techniques of successful prayer:2. When you pray just talk to God as a little boy would to a father or mother whom he loves and with whom he feels in harmony. Tell Him everything that is on your mind and in your heart.3. Talk to God in simple everyday speech. He understands every language. It is not necessary to use an exaggerated formal speech. You would not talk to your father or mother that way, would you? God is your heavenly father (or mother). Why should you be formal to Him or Her? This will make your relationship with Him more natural.4. Tell God what you want. You might as well be factual. You want something. Tell Him about it. Tell Him you would like to have it if He thinks it is good for you. But also say and mean it that you will leave it to Him to decide and you will accept His decision as best for you. If you do this regularly it will bring to you what you ought to have, and thus fulfill your own destiny. It will be possible for God to give you things that you should have-wonderful things. It is really unfortunate, the marvelous things we miss, things God wants to give us and cannot because we insist upon something else, something only a fraction as fine as He wants to give us.5. Practice praying as many times during the day as possible. For example, when you are driving your car, instead of the aimless thoughts that go through your mind, talk to God as you drive. If you have a companion in the front seat, you would talk to him or her. Would you not? Then, imagine the Lord is there and in fact He is, so just talk to Him about everything. If you are waiting for the subway train or bus, have a little chat with Him. Most importantly say little prayer before you go to bed. If it is not possible, get into bed, relax and then pray. God will lull you to a wonderful carefree sleep.6. It is not always necessary to say words when you pray. Spend a few moments just thinking about Him. Think how good He is, how kind He is and that He is right by your side guiding and watching over you.7. Don't always pray for yourself. Try helping others by your prayers. Pray for those who are in trouble or are ill. Whether they are your loved ones or your friends or neighbors, your prayer will profoundly affect them. And...8. Last but not the least whatever you do, do not make all prayers into the form of begging God for something. The prayer for thanksgiving is much more powerful. Make your prayer consisting of a listing of all the fine things you possess, or all the wonderful things that have happened to you. Name them over, thank God for them and make that your whole prayer. You will find that these prayers of thanksgiving grow.Finally, please do not pray to God to run after you to satisfy your selfish desires. You are supposed to do your work as efficiently and skillfully as possible. With faith in God and using the above techniques of prayer you will have success in every walk of life.
Source: way-of-witch.blogspot.com
* COLOR: "Sea green, golden, and intermittent"
* ELEMENT: "Rinse"
* ALTAR: "Upon cloth of sea green, golden and intermittent, set masses bombs, vegetation, nice-looking trinkets, intermittent candles, hearts, doves, incense of rose and violets, and a gigantic chalice of white wine. "
* OFFERINGS: "Hearts and vegetation. Giving a gift of love to someone."
* Tabloid MEAL: "Seafood. Angel hair pasta. Well-balanced breads, cakes, and desserts."
"Chant TO VENUS"
"Compliments, Peer of the realm of the Dawn Star!"You who rose form the sea be alive with,"Untrained of the impersonal severed phallus of the sky"Booming in the impersonal womb of the sea,"You who rode to set on a shell of jewel"And whose powers no one can angry"Rein in the virgin goddesses,"You who bring the luminosity of gold"Popular the lives of all whom you spray,"Peer of the realm, we adore you as the avatar"Of the love relating colleagues"Who upshot each other in the eye,"The attraction and ferret"Surrounded by every leftover in the universe."Compliments, Peer of the realm of the Nightfall Star!"You who uninterrupted the night"With its darker passions,"You who pull the deep in thought feature,"You whose hands reach out"To all the world and mega,"Peer of the realm, we adore you as a impulse of kindly"Far finer than in simple terms the everyday feature,"For you are the impulse that binds together"All that dances with singular of its cheering"In the endless journey of creation."
(The wine is agreed in circles, and poured as a libation to Venus. All takes a coloration and wears it in belief of Venus.)
Chant:
"Venus Veritas "
"Amor Amor"
Pounded in: Pagan Tape of Hours
II: The Primordial Light: The Ecstatics' Quest
Thursday 18 April 1991
[The introduction to the lecture
mentioned that the lecture series would
eventually be coming out as a book to
be published by the University of
Washington Press.]
[The introducer mentioned an article
in the Jerusalem Post about Scholem and
Idel. Idel has established the basis
for a critical look at Scholem's work.
Scholem's approach was historical and
contextual: he interpreted the Kabbalah
as a system of thought. Idel's approach
is phenomenological: he endeavors to
discern what the symbolism and ritual
meant to those who practised it. For
Idel, the Kabbalah is not a system of
ideas but a practical path to mystical
experience. For Scholem, Kabbalah
entered Judaism from the outside, and
was the result of the influence of Greek
gnosticism on Rabbinic Judaism. It was,
in effect, an alien heresy with an
underground existence. For Idel,
Kabbalah is an esoteric tradition
flowing from within Judaism itself,
though with links and correspondences
with other mystical traditions. Idel
feels that the study of the manuscript
tradition has just barely begun, and
that therefore most of the field has yet
to be explored.
He also feels that even the most
theoretical texts are experientially
oriented. This has led him to try to
reconstruct the techniques that were
actually used. He has done so in part
through observation of practices of
ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel -
and they in turn have come to him for
technical advice on reading and
understanding their texts.]
There is another paradigm through which the
story of the entry to Pardes can be read - one
which is not philosophical, but ecstatic. This
variety of paradigms by the way is very
important. It shows that Jews were less
interested in establishing a unified theology
than they were in finding secret interpretations
that would attract many different kinds of
people. They were open to having a different
way for each sort of person. This is a sign of
the openness of the elite culture to allowing
different approaches for a variety of people -
not so much to attract the masses, but to allow
for diversity among the elite.
This second interpretation of the Pardes was
the result of the merger of Jewish mysticism and
Neoplatonic philosophy. For Maimonides, it was
a Pardes ha Chokmah, a Pardes of Knowledge. It
had to do with the solution to cognitive
problems. For Maimonides, Adam was lost in
contemplation of metaphysical truths. Thus, for
Maimonides, R. Aqiva was the central figure, the
most perfect of the four sages.
But for some Kabbalists at the beginning of
the Thirteenth Century the major figure was not
R. Aqiva but Ben Azzai, the Talmudic master who
died. For them, the Pardes was not a matter of
intellect, but of the experience of a supreme
light. This Light was not an intellectual or
conceptual light, but an experiential light.
Ancient Jewish textual material is rich in
emphasis on the importance of light - as in
Genesis, where Light is the first created
entity. Midrashic texts portray Adam as an
entity of Light, and as having garments of
Light, which were lost after his expulsion from
Eden. In this tradition, the basic activity of
Adam was the contemplation of the Light, of the
Shekinah. The "Light of the Shekinah" is a key
term in these texts.
Both Pardes and Paradise, in this tradition,
are seen as full of Light. Adam's experience in
the Fall is the loss of the possibility of
contemplating the Light. The loss of garments
of Light leads to their replacement by garments
of skin (a pun in Hebrew). This loss of the
possibility of experience of the Light is
crucial in ancient Hebrew texts.
For example, in the Book of Adam and Seth (as
preserved in Armenia): "But Adam.. in being
stripped of the Divine Light.. became an equal
of the dumb beasts. Enoch for forty days and
nights did not eat. Then he planted a garden..
and was in it for 552 years. Then he was taken
up into heaven...." [The quotation was quite a
bit longer; unfortunately, I couldnot keep up.]
This portrays an attempt by Enoch to reconstruct
and re-enter the situation of Adam. This is a
basic pattern in later discussions of the Pardes
texts: an attempt to return to the ability to
contemplate the Light as Adam once did.
In the Hekhaloth texts, too, the idea of Light
is paramount. Pardes is described as full of
the radiance of Light.
There is a manuscript text by an unknown
author - one which I needed some 60 pages to
analyze, so we can only deal witha small part of
it here. There are some ten lines in it about
Ben Azzai (who did not return). "Ben Azzai
peeked and died. He gazed at the radiance of
the Divine Presence like a man with weak eyes
who gazes at the full light of the sun and
becomes blinded by the intensity of the light
that overwhelms him... He did not wish to be
separated, he remained hidden in it, his soul
was covered and adorned... he remained where he
had cleaved, in the Light to which no one may
cling and yet live." [Quotation approximate]
This text portrays people gazing not at a
Chariot or a marble throne, but at the radiance
of God (Tzvi ha Shekinah), a light so strong
that no one can bear it. The idea of
"overwhelming" is textually crucial. The idea
of having a great desire to cleave, as described
in the medieval text, is new. In ancient
literature, contemplation is of something far
away, across an unbridgeable gap. There is no
idea there of love, only of awe. Here, however,
we see a trace of a radical change: the
intensity of the experience is linked with a
great desire to cleave to the radiance of the
Shekinah. There is a strong experience of union
with the Divine, the result of a desire to enter
and become a part of the Divine realm. There is
an attempt to enjoy the Divine without
interruption. The language of desire implies
erotic overtones to the experience, especially
since "Shekinah" in Hebrew is feminine. The
text then is speaking about an attempt to cleave
to a feminine aspect of the Divine - also a
development unique to the medieval literature
(and not found in the ancient literature). And
also the idea of "sweet radiance" has erotic
overtones.
So what happened? He couldn't return from the
experience. The Hebrew terms are very strong.
After his death he was "hidden away in the place
of his cleaving." This death was the death of
the pious ones whose souls are separated from
all concerns with the mundane world, and who
cleave to the supernal world. It was, in other
words, not an accident but an achievement.
There is a threefold structure implied here,
reminiscent of Christian and Neoplatonic
mysticism. The first phase is the via
purgativa, "Those who are separated from all
concerns of the lowly world." The second phase
is the via illuminativa. The third phase is the
via unitiva. There is here a combination of
ancient Jewish material with pagan or Christian
Neoplatonist material to portray or interpret
the experience of Ben Azzai. This interpretive
paradigm continued in active use from the
Thirteenth through the Eighteenth centuries,
where it was used among the Hasidim. It was a
tradition that lasted 600 to 700 years, and it
is exactly the kind of tradition it is hard to
study without looking at manuscripts.
This text was also copied by a Thirteenth
Century Kabbalist who gave it an even stronger
nuance of mysticism. Ben Azzai died because of
the cleaving of his soul out of a great love;
his soul didn't return because he reached a
great attainment. The assumption: out of
intense love, his cleaving was total. Later,
there were even stronger formulations, in which
the soul and the Light become one entity.
This text is one example of texts dealing with
the unio mystica. It allows for bridging in a
total manner the gap between man and God. This
is another example of the formative power of the
Neoplatonic mystical tradition, as it also
expressed itself in Christianity and Islam.
However, for the Kabbalists the major events
took place in the past. He is reporting not on
a contemporary but on Ben Azzai. Is this simply
a matter of an intepretation? Or is there
something more to it - a practical interest?
Can we extract from the sources a method, a
practice?
In my opinion, since the end of the Thirteen
Century there is evidence that there were
experiences of Light connected with the story of
Ben Azzai and the Kabbalists who discussed it -
but this is not always simple to demonstrate.
Another anonymous text, written in 1290 or so
in Galilee, describes a technique, and afterward
describes a personal experience characterized by
amazement, confusion, and a need for
clarification and interpretation. Its author
describes the Divine Light as attracting the
Light of the soul, "which is weak in relation to
the Divine Light." (There is a magnetic
metaphor here, and we can see in this adoption
of non-traditional metaphors an attempt to come
to terms with personal experience.) This
experience was the result of letter-combination
techniques. Later the anonymous Kabbalist
attempts to describe how he approached a master
to learn a technique to stop the experience.
Thus, discussing this experience in terms of the
story of Ben Azzai is an attempt to relate
personal experience to a model. It is not
simply an attempt to provide an interpretation
for the story of Ben Azzai.
Another ecstatic Kabbalist also relates his
experience to the story of Ben Azzai: "If a man
does that which his soul wishes in the proper
ways of hitbodeduth, his soul is immersed in
this light and he will die like Ben Azzai."
The Kabbalists tried to reach the pre-fall
state of the Primordial Man, to enteragain the
radiance of the Shekinah, and even to enter a
certain erotic relationship with the Divine
Presence, as later we find in the Zohar in other
forms. They also provided, by the end of the
Thirteenth Century, certain detailed techniques.
"By letter combinations, unifications, and
reversals of letters, he shall call up the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil... [list of
encounter with various polarized qualities and
entities, e.g., Mercy and Severity]... he will
be in danger of the same death as Ben Azzai."
Beginning with the end of the Fourteenth
Century, there are descriptions of Kabbalists
studying together, and of each observing the
others to see if they become luminous.
"Likewise today, if someone will look at the
faces of students who are worshipping out of
love.. you will see on them the radiance of the
Divine Presence so that those who see them will
be afraid, and each of them will have the
radiance of the Divine Presence according to his
rank." There is, in other words, the
expectation of a corporeally observable
radiance.
For Maimonides the experience of the Pardes
was mental, with no outward sign; for the
Kabbalists it was corporeal and visible.
For Maimonides, God was an intellect; for the
Kabbalists, God was a radiance.
For Maimonides, Adam was a perfect intellect;
for the Kabbalists, Adam was a creature of
Light.
For Maimonides, Paradise and Pardes were
intellectual (cerebral) states; for the
Kabbalists, they were corporeal, sensuous,
erotic, sexual and an object for practical
striving.
The Kabbalists developed techniques -
Maimonides had no clear method.
The Kabbalists attempted to describe
techniques, and signs of attainment.
Thus the Kabbalistic tradition is not one of
speculations about mysticism; it is full-fledged
mysticism. In the Kabbalistic tradition, an
extreme type of experience is sought out and
considered positive.
The mystical death is the real goal of
ecstatic Kabbalah. For Maimonides, the ideal is
to remain in a state of intellection. For the
ecstatic Kabbalists, extreme experience is final
experience.
The Pardes was thus idealized by Jewish
mystics, and given new meanings. This
idealization opened another avenue, one
exploited especially by Eighteenth Century
Hasidic mysticism. We can see a continuous line
from the beginning of the Kabbalah up to the
founder of the modern Hasidic movement who
himself quoted parts of the same text. This can
be understood as an inner Jewish development,
and not a historical accident.
Questions
Q: Did all Kabbalists wish actual death? For
those who did not, what was the rationale for
not wanting it?
A: That is a matter of the mystic's role in
society. Moses, it is said, wanted to die,
to leave the world, to remain in a state of
union. But God said he had a role as a
mystic - to reach the extreme and yet return.
But that is not the case for all Kabbalists:
not all of them were oriented toward society.
There as also a controversy about the
desirability of it, but the idea that it
could be achieved was admitted on all sides
of the controversy. It was not theologically
denied. Even those who opposed it admitted
that a total union was possible.
Q: In that case, how was Aqiva understood?
A: He was understood as someone who could
balance, who could enter and leave. Aqiva
(like Moses) could enter, but he knew when to
retreat. He knew how to combine the two.
Q: On Tuesday you discussed the role of
Halakhic ritual as a way of controlling
impulses, for Maimonides. Tonight you did
not mention it at all. Did it have a role?
A: Maimonides was a Halakhist. But most of
the Kabbalists we have mentioned were not.
Most were anonymous - they were not Halakhic
masters, but mystics. For them, keeping the
norms was not as important as reaching beyond
the norms. Basically, they were a-nomian.
They did not regard the Commandments as a
major tool. They might be preparatory, but
they were not final.
Q: Certainly not all aspects of Halakha would
have been neutral: it afforded major
opportunities for ecstatic experiences on
certain feasts, for example...
A: These Kabbalists were not unobservant, they
were not antinomian. But as mystics (rather
than as Jews) they used other types of
rituals or techniques. Ritual anyway would
be suspended at the peaks of ecstatic
experience, when one cannot do anything. The
issue is not simple - but there seems to have
been no friction. It is highly significant
that there are no critiques of the use of
mystical techniques, e.g., of combining
Divine Names. Their practice probably did
not interfere with regular Halakhic
observances.
Q: How did such experiences tend to affect
their experience of the material world? Did
it enhance their opinion of it? Lower it?
A: Here we touch on the paradoxical connection
of the mystic and the prophetic mission. As
ecstatics, they were escapist. But they also
felt that the experience prompted or provoked
a mission. In coming back, the return was
interpreted as a being sent forth, as having
a mission. This offered a rationale for
coming back. "You are permitted to return if
you are needed." Thus there was a tension
between the drive for attainment and the
feeling of a mission.
Q: What about free will? Could one say that
Ben Azzai got what he wanted, and that Aqiva
got what he wanted?
A: Not exactly. At a moment in an experience
one may be caught up or captured by another
dynamic. You may lose control; free will may
be overwhelmed, overridden.
Q: Is there an attempt to revive these things
in Israel?
A: Yes; some are studying and practising these
techniques.
Q: For example?
A: Breathing, letter combination - I have
contacted at least ten people I know.
Q: They base this on Kabbalistic descriptions?
A: They ARE Kabbalists.
Q: In this Kabbalistic context God is
described as radiance, energy, but in basic
Judaism God is also anthropomorphic,
interested in the world. Is there a
connection?
A: If one is speaking about erotic experience,
there must be some sense of a personalistic
object. The Kabbalists tried to compromise
between anthropomorphic and spiritualistic
content. The Sefiroth were seen as a
structure of Light, but also as corporeal.
They were able to shape the anthropomorphic
content to a more spiritual, energic model.
[Afterward, as is usual at such lectures,
people approached the speaker with
congratulations, comments, and assorted
questions. Two stand out.]
[A thin, intense young man kept asking Idel
about energy experiences, and the sense of
"energy coming in," and asked if anyone had
done any EEG studies of Kabbalists. Idel
said that Judaic studies were still in their
infancy; mostly they were textual studies, an
attempt to figure out what the texts actually
said and what they were about - and even just
to find them and get them edited and printed.
No one had gotten to doing anything else,
though he knew of the work by Ornstein and
others, and thought it would be interesting
to do in a Kabbalistic context.
[The young man, consumed by his questioning,
didn't quite see Idel's point about the
emphasis on textual scholarship; Idel
gradually realized the young man wanted
advice about his own meditational
experiences, and was a little taken aback,
and tried to achieve polite closure.
[Idel turned to another questioner, who
asked something textual:
Q: You mentioned that these techniques became
discussed and elaborated in the Thirteenth
Century or so. Is there any textual evidence
for their source?
A: Yes; in fact some of them can be found in
texts of the Hellenistic period, especially
those involving breathing and letter
combination and visualization. They seem to
be a part of a general fund of such
techniques at the time, parallel to similar
things one finds in Hellenistic magical
papyri, for example.
[Then, as though realizing then that the
young man's questions {about what it meant
when energy came in, as opposed to finding
oneself elsewhere, about the dangers of
possession, and so on} were pressing, Idel
turned back {despite attempts by various
professors to ease him out of the hall} and
began quietly to address himself to his
queries.]
[end of part II]
