The Flower of Sahasrara

Flowers of Couroupita guianensis, known as the Cannonball tree, due to its hard, woody, spherical fruits.

The Tree is native to tropical South America, but seems to have been growing in India for at least 3000 years. How it got to India is a mystery.

These highly fragrant flowers were given to Shri Mataji on many occasions. She was very fond of them and commented that they are the flowers of the Sahasrara Chakra. I have also heard that the rose is associated with this Chakra.

The trees are grown extensively in Shiva temples in India, where they are called Shiv Kamal and Kailaspati. It is called the Nagalingam tree in Tamil. The flowers are called Shivalinga flowers in Hindi; Nagalinga Pushpa in Kannada; Nagamalli flowers or Mallikarjuna flowers in Telugu. Hindus revere it as a sacred tree because the petals of the flower resemble the hood of the Naga, a sacred snake, protecting a Shiva Lingam, the stigma.

The Lotus of a Thousand Petals

The Sahasrara Chakra is the seventh and highest centre of the subtle body, and is located at the crown of the head.

In this antique diagram, it is depicted as a white lotus of many petals. (In yoga texts, the Sahasrara is described as having a thousand petals).
At the centre of the lotus are the feet of the Supreme Being/Self. One is shown white, representing Shri Shiva (the masculine, un-manifest half of the Self), and one red, representing Shri Shakti (the feminine, creative half of the Self).
The trikona, or triangle, may represent the three qualities that pervade the universe: the creative, sustaining and destructive powers, enclosed by the circle of time.

A beautiful image from Indian devotional poetry reveals the crown of the head as a pedestal on which the cool, fragrant, lotus feet of the Divine may rest. In India, the feet of the Divine are considered to pour out blessings and auspicious vibrations, just as in Hindu mythology, the sacred Ganges, source of all sustenance, is said to flow from the feet of Lord Vishnu.

When a person's sahasrara opens, they experience Self-realisation. After this happens, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi recommends daily meditation with the attention lightly on the sahasrara. Some ancient yoga texts say to put the attention on the brow centre, but these were probably written with the assumption that the aspirant would not yet have had self-realisation - an achievement considered very rare and difficult in previous times. Placing the attention at the crown for meditation, means that the awareness is above the distractions of the mental level, as the lotus of sahasrara blooms above the turbulent or murky waters of the lake of mind, and its petals repel the droplets of thoughts.

In Jewish mysticism, the Sephirot centre known as Kether (literally 'crown'), is similar in it's qualities to the Sahasrara of yoga philosophy. Situated at the top of the Tree of Life within the body, it represents pure consciousness and union with the Divine.

The mystical Sufi strain of Islam has a system of subtle centres known as latifas. The highest latifa: Akfha (the 'most subtle') is also located at the crown of the head, and is the point of unity where beatific visions of Allah are directly revealed.

Modern, New Age interpretations often depict the Sahasrara as having a violet or purple colour, but this is not seen in traditional paintings and scriptures. This probably comes from the idea that the colours of the chakras follow the colours of the rainbow, starting with red at the first centre, orange yellow green blue and violet. Traditionally, however, the white colour represents the purity of this centre, and its integration of all the elements and colours. White contains all colours. 

Sometimes it is described as a lotus of multicoloured petals, and often depicted as an inverted lotus, with the petals opening downward to release divine nectar and fragrance into the brain.

This South Indian temple is crowned by an inverted sahasrara lotus.

The Interdependent Self

Like the young Asian students at Cornell, Jen’s father had been born into a culture whose parenting style explicitly intends the humbling of the individual self in favor of the needs of the broader collective. (Parents engage in short, selective conversation with their children, emphasizing “proper behavior, self-restraint and attunement to others.”) What this “low elaborative” parenting style aims at instead is the creation of an “interdependent self,” defined not by its sense of inner autonomy, but by its sensitivity to the social roles it must play depending on the context in which it finds itself. The scholars of cross-cultural cognition, who reject the universality of Western models of the mind, maintain that this emphasis on social context translates into a measurable divergence in how Easterners and Westerners literally see the physical world.

More here

Happy Hanumana Jayanti

Hanuman shrine, India.
Source unknown

Eliminating inner negativity

"Holy is the warrior who goes to war with himself."

In this Hadith (saying) the Prophet Muhammad made it clear that one should eliminate the ego and negativity within oneself rather than attacking others. The true meaning of the term jihad is inner spiritual struggle, not holy war.

Photo source: www.bbc.co.uk

Kabir

There’s a moon in my body, but I can’t see it! 
A moon and a sun. 
A drum never touched by hands, beating,
and I can’t hear it.

As long as a human being worries about when he will die, 
and what he has that is his, 
all of his works are zero. 

When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead, 
then the work of the Teacher is over. 

The purpose of labor is to learn; 
when you know it, the labor is over. 

The apple blossom exists to create fruit; 
when that comes, the petal falls. 

The musk is inside the deer, 
but the deer does not look for it: 

It wanders around looking for grass. 

~ Kabir

A Memory of Paradise

Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions, and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, we become seekers.

- Peter Matthiessen

Attachment

I think this is a still from a Hitchcock movie. Looks like the torch of the Statue of Liberty. What a powerful image.

It reminded me of Shri Mataji's elucidations on freedom and attachment.
We often think of detachment as something cold and uncaring. We conflate attachment and love.
The only attachment we should have is to the Self residing in all things. Through this pure attachment, this freedom of Selfhood, the Self can act for the benefit of 'others'.
Attachment blocks the flow of the all-pervading, intelligent providence of the Universe/Self, and helps no one.

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached” 
― Simone Weil

Simone Weil has been described by many as a saint, and some have gone so far as to describe her as 'the greatest saint of the 20th century' (I think it was T.S. Eliot who said that).
Born into a Jewish family, she had mystical experiences that led her to accept the divinity of Jesus. However, it is unlikely that she would ever be canonised by the Church, because there is no evidence that she was ever baptised, and because of her involvement with socialism. She was deeply influenced by reading Hindu scriptures, and taught herself Sanskrit at a young age.

This is a recently published hagiography of Weil.

Carol Prusa

American artist Carol Prusa paints on acrylic domes and spheres, often drilling holes through the surface and illuminating the objects from within so that 'stars' appear on the 'domes of heaven' she creates. I particularly like the domes where the stars of light are nodes in the pattern, like buttons on upholstery.
Her intricate hand drawn and painted patterns are reminiscent of engravings from alchemical or cosmological treatises, and the drawings of Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci.
See more of Carol's work here.
Carol's website: www.carolprusa.com

Russian Buildings

Some stills of Russian buildings from the wonderful documentary film, The Art of Russia, written and presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon.

A Photograph

“To the vast majority of people
a photograph is an
image of something within
their direct experience:
a more-or-less factual reality.

It is difficult for them
to realize that the
photograph can be the source
of experience, as well as the
reflection of spiritual awareness
of the world and of self.”

- Ansel Adams

An Old Hippie Era Saying

“May the baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind.” 
- from a Blues Project poster for the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco in 1966 by the Family Dog.

Bede Griffiths

Bede Griffiths was a British-born Indian Benedictine monk who lived in South India and became a noted yogi. He has become a leading thinker in the development of the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism. 

Why not wake up?

You have slept for millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?

- Kabir (1440–1518)

Kabir is possibly the first Indian saint to have harmonised Hinduism and Islam by preaching a universal path which both Hindus and Muslims could tread together. He was a major influence on Sikhism.

Kabir lived in Varanasi, the sacred city on the Ganges.

An Ancient Take on the Gun Control Issue

The Tao Te Ching
... 31. A Weapon is a Tool of Death

A weapon is a tool of death.
A tool of death is anti-Tao.
A man of the Way, leading,
will reject tools of death
if he has a choice.

There is a formal attitude
the left of which is life
the right of which is death.

To the left is peace & creation;
violence & destruction
occupy the right.

There is no beauty in death,
this the wise man understands.

If a man finds beauty in death
his self is compromised to its core.
He has lost the Way.

Should a wise man be compelled to violence
he will not rejoice.  Victory is not
a time for joy. Victory is a funeral
wherein a multitude is mourned.
.

from The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu
An Adaptation by R. Bob

via 3quarksdaily

The Unforseen

Whoever cannot seek
the unforeseen sees nothing,
for the known way
is an impasse.

-Heraclitus