Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Portrait of Mozart, detail |
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Monday, June 06, 2022
The Chakras As Centres of Influence Through History
Note: the Left Agnya is on the right side of the head, as the Ida Nadi and Pingala Nadis cross over at the sixth centre. The Australian aborigines did not have an empire as such, but their culture and deep spirituality arose many thousands of years ago, and must have had a subtle influence on the development of humankind.
Please feel free to share this diagram, but please do not remove the credit. Thanks.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Hildegard von Bingen, Sequence for the Holy Spirit
the all—up in the heights, upon the earth,
and in the every depth—
you bind and gather all together.
From you the clouds flow forth, the wind takes flight,
the stones their moisture hold,
the waters rivers spring,
and earth viridity exudes.
Sunday, December 19, 2021
Exchange between Sri Dnyanadeva and His Teacher
Sant Jnanadeva |
Nivruttinath says, Oh Dnyanadeva,
you are purified by Self-realisation.
By understanding the Self,
you and your devotion have become
one with the Universe.
The doubts and division
between you and God
have disappeared.
Reigning in your mind,
God has appeared in your heart.
Now with His omnipresence,
there is no emptiness.
Nivruttinath says, Oh Dnyanadeva,
you are purified by Self-realisation.
The brightness of this light of knowledge
has outshined everything else in this world,
and the flames of desires inside you
are extinguished.
Nivruttinath says, Oh Dnyanadeva,
you are purified by Self-realisation.
With the disappearance of these desires,
the whole world is filled with God’s presence.
Nivruttinath says, Oh Dnyanadeva,
you are purified by Self-realisation.
Dnyanadeva says, with the ultimate teachings
of Nivruttinath,
Dnyanadeva realised complete
mercy and contentment
Tuesday, November 09, 2021
Wilderness Awakening
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Seeing Swirling Commas of Light in the Sky
Monday, October 04, 2021
Hildegard von Bingen's Vision of the Divine Feminine
She is so bright and glorious that you cannot look at Her face or Her garments for the splendour with which She shines. For She is terrible with the terror of the avenging lightning, and gentle with the goodness of the bright sun; and both Her terror and Her gentleness are incomprehensible to humans . . . . But She is with everyone and in everyone, and so beautiful is Her secret that no person can know the sweetness with which She sustains people, and spares them in inscrutable mercy.
- Hildegard von Bingen’s vision of the Feminine Divine, from Scivias, III, 4.15, translated by Mother Columba Hart, O.S.B. and Jane Bishop
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Chakra Scroll
Chakra scroll, Kashmir, early 19th century, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
The top image represents the state above the Sahasrara Chakra called Pralaya, the dissolution of the universe before it is recreated.
Thursday, July 22, 2021
The Lady Truth
Petrarch and Laura de Noves, Ashmolean Museum |
“Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure. When I was ruminating lately on this matter, not in any dream as one in sickness and slumber, but wide awake and with all my wits about me, I was greatly astonished to behold a very beautiful Lady, shining with an indescribable light about her. She seemed as one whose beauty is not known, as it might be, to mankind. I could not tell how she came there, but from her raiment and appearance I judged her a fair Virgin, and her eyes, like the sun, seemed to send forth rays of such light that they made me lower my own before her, so that I was afraid to look up.”
“it occurred to me this could be none other than Truth herself.”
-Petrarch, Secretus
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
Angelus Silesius
Tuesday, May 04, 2021
The Singular Substance
Spinoza believed that there is only one substance to reality, and that this singlular Substance is God/Nature, the immanent, not the transitive cause of all things’ and ‘absolutely infinite’.
Indian Advaita philosophy also posits that God and the world are one and the same. The Western mind has difficulty with the concept that God is immanent and not separate from world and Self, but Spinoza's Substance Monism gives Monotheism its true meaning: there is no being but God.
Baruch Spinoza |
"The more you struggle to live, the less you live.
Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing.for that alone is sure….
you are above everything distressing."
- Baruch Spinoza
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Friday, January 01, 2021
Saga of the Oak
Everything is part of me,
Firmament and moving sea;
I of all that is am part,
Stone and star and human heart.
Primal Cause etern, self-wrought,
Majesty transcending thought.
-William H. Venable
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Shri Nanakiji
Nanaka and Nanaki, digital edit, by Jeronimus, of Indian calendar art |
She recognised her brother's holiness, from his infancy, and became a protective mother figure to him. She encouraged her brother's spiritual life, and was his first follower (the first Sikh). She suggested that he use music as a vehicle for spreading his teaching.
Shri Mataji has identified Nanaki as an incarnation of the Goddess, Devi. Shri Devi is the fiercely protective warrior aspect of the Goddess, but sometimes she takes birth as a close relative of great spiritual masters, to give them support in a quieter role.