Bernadino Luini

This is a detail from a Madonna by Bernardino Luini, a painter in the circle of Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting has sustained a bit of damage over the centuries, so I did a digital restoration and added some sublime-looking clouds. The original is in the collection of the National Gallery in London. Not sure if it is being restored. I almost wonder if some goddess incarnated in High Renaissance Italy, whose face became a model for Leonardo and Luini.

"I"-land

"I am a rock, I am an island."
- Simon and Garfunkle

"To no one, who has broken off, and made himself an island, will insight rise of itself, not even with toilsome effort. Only to children, or childlike people, who know not what they do, can this happen."

-Novalis

Selbsttodtung

"The true philosophical Act is annihilation of self (Selbsttodtung); this is the real beginning of all Philosophy; all requisites for being a Disciple of Philosophy point hither. This Act alone corresponds to all the conditions and characteristics of transcendental conduct."

-Novalis (Friedrich Von Hardenberg)

"Ego is absolutely superficial like a bubble. It is just like a balloon, which can burst just like that. And it should go. It should go so that you should rise. It should disappear so that your attention rises in your Spirit. And that you see the whole world as a part of that Spirit that you are."

-Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Selbsttodtung does not mean suicide; it is the dissolution of an illusory self produced by ego and superego. There is nothing violent or even destructive about this act, because that which is annihilated is already non-existent.

Obey your Self

"Obey your Self and not your ego. And then you can order also others. Not only human beings, but you can even order the sun and the moon and all the winds and everything in the world. Everything you can control, everything with this Agnya."

-Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, 1978, Agnya Chakra

Korean Cinema

A sample of the exquisite cinematography in the Korean art film Chi Hwa Seon. Korea has produced some interesting film-makers in recent years. In this film, a painting master describes the way the Chi (perhaps similar to Hindu 'Chaitanya') energy "irrigates the senses". There are works of art which seem to emit subtle energy which can enhance the sense of sight.

A recent scientific study found that people who were told that they were going to be looking at a super hi-definition TV screen, perceived the images they saw to be better than if they were told they were looking at a standard resolution screen. So expectation can be deluding. But you can also sometimes be surprised by unexpected clarity.

Deities

The Australian writer David Malouf was interviewed on ABC radio today. In one of his recent novels, the ancient Greek god Hermes appears. The interviewer noted that Wikipedia entries on the ancient gods get more hits than entries on Jesus, and he may have been wondering whether or not this indicates a resurgence of paganism. Though not a 'pagan', Malouf explained that the persistence of interest in deities, the reason we still feel a thrill when we read the name of a deity in a poem or story, is due to the fact that they personify eternal qualities in human beings and nature. Carl Jung called them Archetypes. Others have likened them to windows through which the Divine may be seen.

From the perspective of universal Selfhood, there is only one being. The Self is a single gem, but it has many facets, and many qualities, qualities which are eternal, which sometimes take a human form in order to evolve the same qualities in human beings.

The Monotheistic prophets emphasised the one-ness of the Self because they observed people worshipping only that aspect of the Self (usually the god of wealth or war) which they believed would satisfy their greed. The founders of Judaism and Islam saw pure archetypes becoming objects of impure desires leading away from Self-realisation, not towards it. Self-realisation requires a simultaneous respect for all aspects of the Divine Self, not just the aspect that suits one's current proclivities.

The deities have survived in monotheistic cultures, as archangels, and the vast Kherubim of the creation.

Russia

Advaita (the philosophy of undivided, non-dual Selfhood) could be misconstrued as being akin to soviet style collectivism - submersion of the individual in a totalitarian state.

The Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein, like many of his generation, was attracted by both Advaita and communism. He even made a visit to Moscow to see for himself how socialism was being applied there. He was not overly impressed.

Russia, under Stalin, was far from being an ego-less state. To the contrary, totalitarianism is the total dominance of society by the single paranoid ego of an autocrat. Marx's ideals can only work if everyone in a society operates selflessly for the good of the whole, including the leader.

At the Art Gallery of NSW

The Vision of God, The Book of Job
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This engraving by William Blake is currently on display, along with several others from the Book of Job series, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Universal Self connects to human beings through the Sahasrara Chakra at the crown of the head. From the perspective of ego and superego (conditionings), universal Selfhood is terrifying. Those who still cling to these two illusory institutions are seen cowering on the right side of the composition.

Water

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Water doesn't have a mind.
It doesn't have intent.
It has no desires;
even the desire to be good.
It acts according to its nature.
When you let all things return to their nature
there is harmony.

-Taoist

you are not your ego

When you are fighting the nature the ego develops within you. And then once that momentum has started in you it is very difficult to bring it down. It is such a terrible disease that people have taken it for granted that that’s a part of their lives. You are not your ego. You are not.
- Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

1978, Agnya Chakra

The Deities Within

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Indian painting showing the deities residing in the subtle system:
Shri Brahmadeva in the Swadisthana Chakra,
in the lower abdomen (creativity)
Shri Vishnu in the Nabhi Chakra,
at the navel (evolution and sustenance)
and Shri Shiva at the Sahasrara,
at the crown of the head
(dissolution of ego and superego through Self-realisation)

Note, Shri Shiva also resides in the left Heart Chakra. There is a strong connection between the heart and the Sahasrara Chakra.

Shri Ganesha

So Ganesha is the killer of ego,
because humility is the only thing
that really can neutralize your ego.

-Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Madras (Chennai) 1991

Hazrat Ali

Name of Hazrat Ali, The Lion of Allah

"The strongest amongst you is the one who subdues his self (ego)."
- Hazrat Ali

Foreseeing literalism/fundamentalism, Hazrat Ali, the nephew of the Prophet Muhammad, taught that the Quran has many possible interpretations. The earliest Muslims understood that the text, is a poetic work with vast possibilities. Fundamentalism is a form of blasphemy, as it dares to limit the creative possibilities of the word of God.

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The Shrine of Lord Ali

Hazrat Ali, Incarnation of Lord Brahma, the creative aspect of the Self, instructed that his burial place should remain secret. According to legend his body was placed on a camel which was driven from Kufa. The camel stopped a few miles to the west, and here the body of Hazrat Ali was buried secretly. No tomb was raised and nobody knew of the burial place except a few trusted persons. It is narrated that more than a hundred years later, the Abbasid Caliph, Harun-ur-Rashid went deer-hunting outside Kufa, and the deer he was pursuing sought sanctuary at a place where the hounds would not follow. On enquiry as to why the place was a sanctuary, Harun-ur-Rashid was told that it was the burial place of Hazrat Ali. He ordered a mausoleum to be built on the spot, where, in due course, the town of Najaf, in present day Iraq, grew around it.

"Unless and until you take Hazrat Ali’s name your Swadisthan Chakra cannot be cured."
-Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

no 'me'

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In my unblemished nature there are no elements,
no body, no faculties, no mind.
There is no void and no anguish.
For me, free from the sense of dualism,
there are no scriptures, no self-knowledge,
no mind free from an object,
no satisfaction and no freedom from desire.
There is no knowledge or ignorance,
no 'me', 'this' or 'mine', no bondage, no liberation,
and no property of self-nature.

-Ashtavakra Gita

Confucius

"Wheresoever you go,
go with all your heart".

~Confucius

The Power of Silence and Zero

“Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to form himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God.”

- Isaac of Nineveh (AD 600)

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A current affairs reporter was talking on TV about the Global Economic Crisis, and told viewers to brace themselves for "a whole lot of zeros", as she was going to talk about the 2.7 trillion dollars that have been lost on world markets. Seeing all those zeros after the 2 and 7 on the screen made me think about how important zeros are. Without nothing, nothing could exist. It's one of the apparent paradoxes of mysticism that to become truly nothing is to become everything.

One of my aunts mentioned that she has been reading a book called The Book of Nothing, in which the author reflects that Indian philosophy was unphased by the notions of zero and infinity, while Western schools struggled with them.

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PS think of how many zeros that would be if you converted 2.7 trillion US to Zimbabwean dollars!

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This 100 billion dollar note would buy a kilo of apples.