Acharya Peter Wilberg's Bulletin

Edited by author 24-01-2008 06:02 AM
                           WHAT IS ‘YOGA’?

              Global Capitalism and the Politics of Awareness
 
‘Yoga’ today is most generally taken to be – and practiced as - a system of physical stretching and bending exercises for ‘health’ and ‘well-being’ (‘Hatha Yoga’) based on a set of bodily postures or ‘Asanas’. This “phoney yoga” of stretching and bending is a 20th century invention that could be called ‘American yoga’. As documented by Linda Sparrowe, it was introduced to America In 1947 by Theos Bernard, author of one of the first guidebooks to Yoga Asanas and popularised in the 1950’s. As a result:

“By 1961, thanks to the power of television, Americans everywhere were learning a non-religious, decidedly unspiritual form of yoga exercise.”

This is the reason why ‘yoga’ today (American yoga) is not so much the noble continuation of an ancient tradition of religious and spiritual wisdom but a global New Age industry – a commercial medium for the marketing of yoga mats and straps, belts and bolsters, cushions and clothing, pillows and props, books and CDs, instructional videos and personal fitness regimes. Though American yoga drew from ‘Hatha Yoga’ (meaning ‘violent’ or ‘forced’ yoga), the latter was a relatively late and minor form of yoga. Though it had much deeper historical roots, it did not regard itself as ‘yoga for beginners’ but rather as suitable only for the most advanced practitioners of non-physical forms of spiritual yoga practice and meditation. Though yoga teachers pay lip service to the ‘Bible’ of classical yoga – ‘The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali’ – this makes no reference to Hatha Yoga as one of the branches of yoga, nor does it describe systems of yoga postures or Asanas. Indeed the only basic posture it refers to is simply ‘sitting comfortably’, preferably with ‘the spine erect’.

What passes as ‘Yoga’ today then, has become little more than a global commercial industry – a respectable bourgeois ‘opium’ for the middle classes of East and West. The NEW Yoga, the Yoga of Awareness is no part of this global industry. Its purpose is not to spiritually compensate for or ameliorate the stresses of life under global capitalism but instead to subvert and overturn the ignorant and narrow ‘consciousness’ underlying it – to bring about a global revolution in awareness and the dawning of a deepened and expanded awareness, not through war or violence but through awareness itself.

The NEW Yoga recognises awareness as such as the biggest single threat to global capitalism. For this is a system which relies for its survival on ensuring that individuals are kept so busy doing – selling their time to employers to survive - that they have no time to become more aware of what they are doing, who for and why. The result is a world in which economic wealth is paid for through time poverty, attained by economically exploiting the labour time of others, and used to pursue ever-new ways of squandering time or making more money. Consequently, people feel that they either have ‘no time’ or - whether super-rich or poor and unemployed - do not know what to ‘do’ with the time they have except squander it, reinforcing the capitalist work ethic that ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’. Even those in so-called ‘employment’ suffer from the hidden unemployment of their individual creative potentials, which find expression at best, only as hobbies or part-time activities.

Karl Marx is often quoted as declaring that individuals’ awareness is constricted by their “social being” - their economic status in class society. For Marx this was not an eternal truth but a temporary condition associated with class societies, and the ruthless exploitation of labour time. Therefore the converse truth also holds – individuals can save the world from the stranglehold of class society in its final stage – global capitalism – only by expanding their awareness. This means resisting all pressures which prevent them taking time to be aware - thus expanding their awareness and freeing it from bondage to the narrow worlds of wage slavery on the one hand, and consumerism on the other.

The New Yoga of Awareness is therefore a fundamentally subversive and revolutionary yoga. Its aim is nothing less than a global revolution in awareness, one that fulfils John Buchan’s dream of a “4-dimensional Communism” - one that recognises that the capitalist degradation of human life begins with the exploitation and degradation of time. The notion of 4-dimensional Communism is one that, like Marx himself, recognises the 4th dimension – time - as the frontline in the struggle for a new world. This is a world that can come about only by educating and empowering individuals - in whatever personal, relational, institutional, corporate or political contexts they live and work in – to expand, deepen and enrich the awareness they bring to themselves and others, to their work and to the world.

Yet time itself is not just an extra ‘4th’ dimension pinned onto the three dimensions of space that we know. Time is the very space of awareness, more or less expanded or contracted, that we feel in the moment. That is why, when we speak of having ‘no space’ or ‘no time’ for something or someone, or of wanting more ‘space’ or ‘time’ for ourselves or others, we mean the same thing. That is also why The New Yoga of Awareness is not about stretching our bodies in space or holding them in particular positions for long times. Instead is about stretching the time-space of our awareness.

This is all the more important today because the ever more plain and obvious fact is that humanity is fast running out of time - and that if it is to survive much longer, we can no longer afford to maintain a society in which ‘yoga’ and ‘meditation’ are a middle class ‘spiritual’ luxury misused to compensate for the ‘stresses’ of global capitalism - rather than to overcome its entire culture of busy-ness, time exploitation and time poverty. Awareness is not a luxury that we can only afford to give ourselves at special times through commercial, profit-driven classes in ‘yoga’ or ‘meditation’. For the true purpose of practicing yogic meditation is to teach us to be more aware at all times - and to identify at all times with awareness as such – with ‘pure’ or ‘transcendental’ awareness. Pure or transcendental awareness is a spacious awareness - for just as space both embraces and transcends every thing we perceive within it, so does pure awareness embrace and transcend all ‘contents’ of consciousness, all that we are merely aware of within it. Indeed space as such is nothing merely physical but is an infinite spatial field of awareness, an awareness that, like space, is not private property, yours or mine, but the very essence of the divine.

What we ordinarily call ‘consciousness’ is a purely focal awareness, always focused on one thing or another. Through it, our ‘being in time’ is reduced to ‘going from one thing to another’ and ‘doing one thing after another’ – in other words passing from one focus of awareness to another without any meditative intervals or ‘intermezzos’ in which to regather ourselves, recollect events in the context of our lives as a whole and allow new reflections and insights to arise from our awareness – thus allowing us to decide, with awareness, what we do next and how. Without giving ourselves these time intervals in which to simple abide in awareness, the space of our awareness is contracted to a single focus and we lose a sense of the expansive field of awareness in which we dwell. We become like dwellers in a spacious ocean of awareness - dwellers so used to just focussing their awareness on one thing or another within that ocean that they have ceased to be aware of the ocean as such – no longer seeing it, sensing it or even surmising its existence.

A basic principle of The New Yoga as that we all dwell in pure awareness as we dwell in space itself. We can identify with pure awareness by identifying with the space around and within our bodies, around and within things and around and within our thoughts and feelings. Learning to identify with space opens up for us a larger, spacious field of awareness. This “free awareness field” (Jane Roberts) is what alone can prevent us falling into bondage to any particular focus of awareness –stopping it from preoccupying or filling up our minds, weighing down our feelings, wearing down our bodies, and unwillingly dominating our lives.

We are as much aware of our self as a whole – our soul – as we are aware of our body as a whole, both from within and as a part of the entire space around it. The moment a person’s AWARENESS of the inner and outer spaces of their body and mind is replaced by identification with their current bodily and mental states, they become unfree – attached to those states rather than freed by the larger field of those spaces. The moment a person loses awareness of the body as a whole – including both the spaces within and around it - their awareness of their self as a whole is contracted too. Because of this contraction, they can only relate to themselves, other people and the world from a small part of themselves and in a purely reactive and unaware way.

The NEW Yoga is designed to cultivate not only a new type of aware experiencing, but through it, aware action – action of the sort that alone can save us from the wholly unaware and reactive actions of world politicians. In the political movements of the 1960’s the word ‘awareness’ was associated with action designed to raise people’s ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’ of uncomfortable political, economic and ecological facts and events - thereby confronting them with the need for worldwide revolution. In The New Yoga, the political importance of the term ‘awareness’ does not simply lie only in worldly action designed to ‘raise’ awareness of something, however important. Instead it has to do with attaining the freedom and power of truly aware action in the world - action that comes from an awareness free of identification with the turmoil of the world.
 
“In robbing us of time, today’s culture also robs us of dignity. But dignity has no great value in a culture devoted to progress, power and productivity. Since time is money in modern culture, few of us can afford dignity.”

Alexander Lowen, in 'Bioenergetics'

Today’s world faces a grave economic, ecological, cultural crisis – indeed a global civilisational crisis. The word ‘crisis’ means a ‘turning point’ in time. The basic need expressed in this crisis however, is to find a way of ‘being-in-time’ and ‘being-in-the-world’ that is no longer dominated by ‘busy-ness’ – by doing – and aimed only at having what we need to survive, or more. The new relation to time that human beings so desperately need at this time is one in which they freely allow themselves more time, not just to produce or consume, work or play – but be aware. For to truly ‘be’ is to be aware. Just as to truly ‘meditate’ is simply to take time to be aware, and to abide in the inner stillness and silence of pure awareness as such. Only out of this ability to be aware and to abide in awareness can come better decisions and deeper more aware solutions to world problems. Only by taking time to be aware and to abide in meditative awareness can people learn to be and relate to others in a more meditative and aware way – thus transforming human relations. And only through meditative awareness can important decisions, whether in personal life, business, management or government be properly pre-meditated, taken with full awareness of all there is to be aware of. All mismanagement, mistreatment and misgovernment of others stem from the self-defeating rush of busy-ness, from denying oneself and others time to fully meditate decisions in full awareness of all the facts. Paradoxically however, it is our very culture of speed and busy-ness - and the value it places on ‘quick thinking’ that prevents deep thinking and ends up endlessly delaying aware and effective decisions and actions.

Global capitalism demands that people be kept busy and active in a wholly unaware way - forcing them to sell their labour time as a commodity to the highest corporate bidder in order to produce and purchase ever-more profitable but mind-numbing technological products and services. The global economic culture of ‘work’ is effectively still a system of enforced economic conscription or ‘wage slavery’ - serving nothing but the ruthless exploitation of both human beings and nature. Only a revolution in awareness can prevent capitalism from destroying the earth. Yet this is revolution that cannot be achieved through political means alone - let alone through war or violence - but only through raising humankind to a higher level of awareness. That is why the military, economic and ecological crisis and devastation wrought by global capitalism tells us one thing alone – IT IS HIGH TIME FOR HUMANITY TO BE AWARE. Yet how is this awareness to be attained?

 “Only a god can save us now.” Martin Heidegger

The god that Heidegger refers to here is one he describes as “totally other” than the Christian God, and transcending all types of “theism”. The birth of The NEW Yoga marks the dawning of that ‘god’ – a ‘god’ which is not a supreme being ‘with’ awareness but IS awareness. For The NEW Yoga is the Yoga of Awareness in another sense too - recognising awareness as the ultimate reality behind all things and thoughts, all things and all worlds - for it is the very condition for our experience of any thing or thought, self or being, world or universe whatsoever. Awareness is not the private property of things or bodies, persons or beings. This is the basic myth born of property- and class-based societies, a myth unquestioned by the fundamentalist dogmas of both secular science and all those religions which see ‘God’ as an ultimate or supreme being - rather than as an ultimate, supreme or divine awareness. Only in particular Hindu yogic traditions do we find a recognition of that ‘God’ which is not a supreme being ‘with’ awareness but IS awareness, infinite and unbounded. ‘Yoga’ means to yoke, conjoin or unite.

The NEW Yoga is not a secular, commercialized yoga of ‘well-being’. Instead it allows us to conjoin our consciousness with that infinite and universal awareness which IS God - an awareness of which our own being and all beings are a unique portion and expression. Within the context of the so-called ‘clash of civilizations’ – in reality the clash of reactionary Christian fundamentalism and global military and economic imperialism with reactionary political Islamism - a renewal of this, the inner truth of what is called ‘Hinduism’, could play a vital role in bringing about a global revolution in awareness. Yet for this to possibility to be realized, the renewal of Hinduism must take the form of a new non-ethnic, non-violent and internationalist world-view – rather than being restricted to an aggressive form of narrow, ethnic Hindu nationalism confined to India itself – thus continuing to degrade ‘yoga’ to the status of a commercialized global industry and ‘spiritual’ export.

Namaste, Acharyaji, and greetings from Norway :-)

I was very pleased to discover your website just before christmas and have been studying your web-material since then. I have been studying trika shaivisme through the Universal Shaiva Fellowships webpages for some years now and did not expect to find a living acharya teaching the Trika so close to home.

I hope we will meet some time in the future and that I will benefit from your deep insights and practical wisdom.

Love from Visarganath

Namaste Visarganath! My thanks to you for writing, and for you kind salutations and words of appreciation.

Your post regarding the site was most timely, since it arrived just as we were in the last stages of redesigning it – allowing me to post this message to you as the very first on the new site.

As you will see, this has a number of new elements, including a bookshop, quotations page, further essays, some more galleries, a page on Puja which will be developed much further and also the first video talk of very many – but being the first please excuse its technical limitations and the background noise!

Last but not least there is ‘ASK AND LEARN’– a new and important service I offer, dedicated to providing answers to questions of any sort from all serious correspondents and students, thereby aiding their learning. It is my wish that this service will also serve to lay the basis for direct encounter, teaching and initiation – which I have always so far conducted on an intimate, long-term and one-to-one basis.

“Questioning is the piety of thinking.” Martin Heidegger

Given the devout and studious nature of your own interest in Trika Tantrism and The New Yoga, together with your familiarity with other Shaiva teachings, any questions you yourself might submit would be welcomed – both as a valuable initiation of this service and thus also as a service in itself.

In the service of what? You will have gathered from your reading that I see it of the utmost importance to re-initiate the Trika Tantric tradition through an incisive re-interpretation of it – one which serves to decisively broaden, deepen, clarify and sharpen its relevance to all aspects of life and society in today’s world.

All thanks to that One Awareness that is both God and Guru Supreme, ceaselessly seeding new possibilities and bringing them to fruition through us.

with love,

Peter

A call for a NEW Shaivism

The essence of the term ’shaivism’ is ’science of awareness’. This science is as old as humanity itself but has taken many forms and many names. In the 14th century it took the form of the holistic threefold science of awareness (Trika Shaivism) through the grace of Acharya Abhinavagupta. This tradition has lived relatively secluded in the valley of Kashmir for many centuries and its teachings was very much considered secret. It was not until modern times (in the 1970’s) that this teaching was given to the world through the grace of Swami Lakshmanjoo.

Swami Lakshmanjoo saw the limited future for this tradition in Kashmir because of the conflict between the hindu and muslim communities. So when an american came (John Hughes) and asked if Swamiji would teach him the Trika teachings, Swamiji answered ‘yes’ with the condition that John would tape record the lectures and try to publish them for the benefit of the world. This came to be and through the work of John and Denise Hughes and The Universal Shaiva Fellowship the Trika has now been made available to everyone.

I have been studying Trika Shaivism for some years now and have benefited from it greatly. Through the teachings of Swami Lakshmanjoo my heart has been filled with more peace, more freedom and more bliss. But there has also been a pain in my heart. Swami Lakshmanjoo is gone. The Universal Shaiva Fellowship is in Kashmir and California and here I am alone with no living master to guide me.

This does not mean that there does not exist people that offer themselves to do it. But I have found no one that walk the talk. What I find attractive in Trika Shaivism is its extraordinary ordinariness and its freedom and respect for the individual (that I suspect comes natural when you see and respect every particle in the universe as a manifestation of the Divine Awareness).

The so-called Trika teachers I have managed to find seems to be more in the field of ‘Pay Me-Bless You’-business.

But then I discovered Acharya Peter Wilbergs website and upon reading more and more of his articles and books my heart is filled with inspiration, joy, and hope. Acharya Wilberg has really updated this age old tradition of tantrism in a way that makes it totally applicable for a modern mind and a modern humanity. He speaks from a place where he not only express understanding if the Trika but also seems have such in-depth knowledge of it that he have made it his own and is able to express it in a creative way.

It seems that the seeds Swami Lakshmanjoo gave to the world have found fertile ground in Acharyaji’s heart. (I find it amusing that Swami Lakshmanjoo was considered by many of his devotees as the incarnation of Acharya Abhinavagupta’s master. How suiting then that the guiding light of the revived trika haivism expressed in ‘the Awareness Principle’ identifies so strongly with Abhinavagupta :-)

A NEW SHAIVA COMMUNITY?

I hope that there in time will develop a New Shaiva Community around Acharyaji that makes use of the teachings of The Awareness Principle and the practice of the The NEW Yoga. A community that will stay away from secterism and dogmatic tradition, that dares to let the individual be free and responsible, where the Guru can be a friend and not a dictator, that will show the highest human expression of Divine Awareness.

I would like to find a NEW path for this suffering humanity (which includes myself) which is filled with meditation and celebration, not anger and anxiety.

I would like SHAIVAS to be people living with a strong awareness, not with a dried up tradition.

I would like to be in communion with a COMMUNITY where people live with love andawareness, not with morals and dogma.

I would like to be part of something where The Awareness Principle is the guiding thought, The NEW Yoga of Awareness its beating heart, and a NEW Shaivism the body of expression.

Does anyone share my hopes?

Love from Visarganath

Dear Visarganath,
 
Your 'Call' was a gift for which I thank you with all my heart.
 
It is inspiring in the way of refreshing my spirit at a time when I needed it.
 
I have been working with Peter Wilberg for many years. During that time quite a few people passed through who enjoyed picking at bits from the fruits of Peter's work but very few stayed. As Peter noted, many were glad to be given and receive a great deal from The New Yoga for themselves, but their interest in The New Yoga as such - its larger relevance beyond their personal world - was limited by inability to see its significance in and for that world.
 
This has been a pain in my heart - that after many years of painstaking work on publishing books and creating websites almost nobody seemed to be interested in The NEW Yoga, that nobody seemed to have the background experience, knowledge or capacity to feel any resonance with its larger truth and relevance.
 
Your 'Call' arrived at the time when I had just completely given up on a dream, which I have tried to make reality in the last two years - the dream of a Shaivist Ashram where Peter would teach and where people would meet to learn, meditate and celebrate, a temple to Shiva.
 
Your call reached me while the house that was supposed to be the material expression of the ashram, and still houses our shrine, needs, unfortunately to be sold, leaving us considering a move to Europe from the UK.
 
Your call for a New Shaivist Community touched me deeply because you describe "my" dream. Only, it is not at all "my" dream but a reality, an existence beyond the dreamer.
 
I will not let go of that reality, that existence because you truly and sincerely share it. That was the special gift you gave me.
 
You shared something of your spiritual situation and history, and your connection with the Universal Shaiva Fellowship.
 
I would be very interested to know more about you, your background and current life in Norway.
 
With Love from Karin

Namaste, dear Karinji, and thank you for your post :-)

 There seems to be some difficulties with The New Yoga e-mail adresses. (I have tried to write Acharyaji but my e-mails have been returned to me.) Would you care to send an e-mail to my adress so I can "re:" it? My e-mail is: 'visarganath@shaivisme.no' I think we will have some interesting things to share :-)

Love from Visarganath

A RESPONSE TO VISARGANATH’S ‘CALL FOR A NEW SHAIVISM’

Your Call is a wonderful one, expressing a heartfelt longing for community we all share – not one far away in Kashmir or California, but here in Europe.

Your Call was a timely one, coming at just that time when the foundation stones for its gradual realisation have begun to be publicly laid.

Your Call was also a voice from a place of spiritual isolation in the social wilderness of this world in which so many find themselves. Yet at the same time it affirmed in my work the seminal fruit of a lifetime’s solitary study and meditation in that same social wilderness. This is a work around which has revolved only a very small circle or KULA, powerfully enriched by the most private and profound forms of teaching and initiation possible - and yet so far lacking any form of public or communal teaching and sharing.

Your Call appreciates and affirms a basic truth behind my work – namely that a great tradition of knowledge can only be truly and lastingly CONSERVED through its own radical RENEWAL – not merely a new scholarly or didactic presentation of it, but a ‘reinterpretation’ that is RADICAL in the most literal sense – unveiling the ROOT insights and truths of that tradition in terms designed to do it the greatest service. Such conservation through renewal was the aim, mission, principle and accomplishment of Acharya Abhinavagupta. That is why to embody his spirit –to become ABHIVNAVACHARYA - is to DO what he did, and not only cherish and teach what he taught.

Your Call pointed out in addition some important historic parallels which I have hinted at myself, but that need to be understood at a deeper level than hitherto. For indeed, it is not any ‘person’ but the spirit – awareness - that they PERSONIFY which ‘reincarnates’. This was understood by Abinavagupta. You also suggested a parallel between Swami Lakshmanjoo and the spirit of Abhinavagupta’s own teacher on the one hand, and the spirit of my own work and that of Abhinavagupta himself on the other.

Your Call therefore, was precisely ONE I HAVE LONG BEEN WAITING FOR – constituting in and of itself a BRIDGE between the passing of the revered teacher you refer to - Lakshmanjoo - and the recognition of my work as the rebirth of the tradition he taught, and its essential spirit. Your Call beautifully summed up the essence of that spirit – its “extraordinary ordinariness” and the immense value it places on Freedom and on respect for Individuality (the nature and importance of which I seek to give fresh emphasis and importance to in The NEW Yoga). That said, you might be surprised, if not shocked, to know I have read very little of Lakshmanjoo’s work - for it sufficed for me to read his face and eyes. Instead my concentration has been on experiencing and articulating the wordless awareness revealed through the words of Abhinavagupta, and those who immediately preceded and followed him.

Your Call calls to awareness a key question however – why the spirit of Abhinava should find its reincarnation in a EUROPEAN personality rather than an Indian or Kashmiri one? I believe this is no accident. For were it not for the seeds of Indian thought that were planted and bore fruit in European soil, not least in German philosophy, The NEW Yoga would not exist. My task has been to gather and harvest this fruit so that its seeds can be returned, in turn, as a gift to the Indo-European motherland and to the whole world - not as a neo-colonial imposition but as a new THINKING which is also an explicit THANKING of its own source.

Your Call calls for a NEW Shaivism, but therefore implicitly of course also for a new SHAIVISM – in contrast to something of the nature of Rudolf Steiner’s profound and worthy but still unashamedly Eurocentric and neo-Christian interpretation of Indian and European theosophy. In contrast, The New Yoga is recognitive of the ‘Death of God’ - the Judaeo-Christian god-concept - heralded in European thought by Friedrich Nietzsche and deepened by Martin Heidegger’s meditations on a God “totally other” than the Judaeo-Christian one.

Your Call gave poignant expression too, to the painful absence you feel in Europe of the sort of Shaiva community and fellowship that can be enjoyed in places such as Kalifornia and Kashmir. Yet in doing so it not only gave expression to the yearning for ‘A New Shaiva Community’ or its futural potential in Europe itself. Instead, IN AND OF ITSELF, your call ANNOUNCES to the world the unalterable spiritual REALITY of that community – making us warmly and lovingly aware of its PRESENCE IN ABSENCE. For what is a ‘Shaiva Community’ old or new, actual or potential, if not a community founded on delight in the spiritual reality of a shared unity with The One Awareness that we call ‘Shiv(a)’? Thus the very hope and LONGING for a potential, as-yet unrealised Shaiva community expressed in your call already affirms its reality – the reality of our mutual BELONGING to and communion with Shiv. In this sense, your “hopes” are not only already shared but already realised.

Your Call has to do with ‘Shaivism’ and thus with Shiv. By ‘Shiv’ of course we mean ‘God’ – a word whose root meaning is one who ‘is called to’ and/or ‘calls’ to one. Understood as Shiv, ‘God’ is THE ONE AWARENESS that recalls us to itself and to its infinite potentialities; an awareness which also constantly calls upon us to respond to its Call - not just by calling ‘for’ the ‘realisation’ of those potentials but by CALLING FORTH THEIR REALITY.

Your Call - you can already be assured - does not express a mere lonely desire of your own. Indeed is not YOUR call alone, but essentially a call from SHIV – one that calls upon us ALL to freely fulfil and further a new and exciting CALLING. This Calling is the principled and many-sided Practice of Awareness that is ‘The New Yoga’ - a practice which alone can respond to the stifled calls of all who suffer in and from today’s callous and superficial world of commerce and global conflict.

Your Call is truly a NEW Call, for it is the very FIRST such Call of its nature to have been formulated - calling upon people to take heed of The NEW Yoga as a new Calling from Shiv. As such IT IS THE INITIATION OF WHAT IT SEEKS AND CALLS FOR. Yet it also calls upon you yourself to first of all fulfil a very specific ‘calling’ or ‘vocation’, that of transmitting or ‘emitting’ (VISARGA) the seminal Call itself, not just to the few around me but to the many – to all those you know of who might be opened - through reading it - to a discovery of The NEW Yoga of the sort you are enjoying and wish to share with others.

Your Call is one I see as a powerful WAKE-UP CALL for anyone with any association with Shaiva and Trika traditions, who, unlike you, has not yet discovered The NEW Yoga. Therefore I request your permission to place a version of it on the website under your name - one that you yourself can forward to others - and that, with your permission, we might even use portions of as a foreword to my books. Indeed, your Call along with this Response that it has called forth, could together constitute a wonderful new AGAMA for the website.

Your Call is one whose wording you may or may not feel called upon to meditate further for the purposes of a FAR WIDER DISSEMINATION OF IT. I will mail you soon a shortened and slightly amended ‘abstract’ of it - one which I would most appreciate your posting up as a REVIEW (with or without further elaboration or reformulation on your part) for the three first New Yoga books currently listed on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. (Note: I can be mailed directly by anyone through the ‘ASK AND LEARN MORE’ button on the site homepage. And anyone who wishes to make their e-mail address available to me can do so by activating the SUBSCRIBE button on the site's bulletin board itself.)

Your Call concludes with the following words: “I would like to be part of something where The Awareness Principle’ is the guiding thought, The NEW Yoga of Awareness its beating heart, and A NEW SHAIVISM THE BODY OF EXPRESSION.” It will be clear that you ARE already part of this ‘something’. So let me express my deeps thanks to you for your Call as a whole, one whose wording so beautifully embodies the third element of the TRIKA you outline in the quotation above, this being the very one you use to name your Call as a whole – the call for ‘A NEW SHAIVISM’.

As for 'A New Shaiva Community', this cannot, as you so rightly say, be reduced to a commercial transaction of Blessing and Pay. DIKSHA in The NEW Yoga certainly transcends all forms of symbolic blessing or even the simple transmission and absorption of grace through Guru - being simply too RICH to be valued in monetary terms.

Your Call aptly describes the necessary nature of any New Shaiva Community, so I leave the last words on this to you - for they are so true: “A community that will stay away from sectarian and dogmatic tradition, that dares to let the individual be free and responsible, where the Guru can be a friend and not a dictator, that will show the highest human expression of the Divine Awareness.”

THIS ‘Acharya’ or ‘Guru’ offers not only seminal wisdom for the world, but the simple word and hand and potentials of friendship to YOU, both as an individual and as ‘Emissionary Lord’.

Namaste 'VISARGANATH'!

with love,

ABHINAVACHARYA – ‘new preceptor of ABHINAVAGUPTA, renewer (Abhinava), and revealer of the hidden (Gupta)’

Edited by author 18-02-2008 12:37 PM
Sharing my thoughts on: MEDITATION AND CELEBRATION

Meditation and celebration must be the highest human expression of Divine Awareness.

Why?

Because wherever Divine Awareness finds expression in meditation, its overflowing feeling of bliss seems to find its expression in celebration.
 


     I, Lalla, entered the jasmine garden,
     where Shiva and Shakti were making love.

     I dissolved into them,
     and what is this
     to me, now?

     I seem to be here,
     but really I’m walking
     in the jasmine garden.



          With repeated meditation practice
          the expance of the visible universe
          with all its qualities dissolves
          to nothing, to where there is
          only health and a great joy.

          All teachings comes to this.



     Everything is new now for me.
     My mind is new, the moon, the sun.
     The whole world looks rinsed with water,
     washed in the rain of I AM THAT.

     Lalla leaps and dances inside the energy
     that creates and sustains the universe.

- Three poems by the ecstatic naked kashmiri saint Lalla



          You alone, O Lord, are the self of all.
          And everyone naturally loves his own self.
          Thus victorious becomes the one who knows
          That devotion is inherent in all.

- From Utpaladeva’s SHIVASTOTRAVALI


Celebration is an expression of insight and devotion.

Celebration is an expression of reverence and gratitude.

Celebration is an expression of joy and creativity.

Awareness-bliss (CHIDANANDA) is found in meditation and expressed through celebration.

Swami Lakshmanjoo compares Shiva’s motivation for creating this universe with that of a little child.

When you look at a little baby lying in the cradle you will see sudden outbursts of joy, resulting in wild movements of arms and legs and sounds of “gah” and “ah”. The inborn joy of the child is too much to hold in and it has to express itself through movement and sound.

Just like this it is for Shiva. The state of awareness-bliss is too much to keep inside and in a sudden outburst of joyful expression he creates this whole universe.

What a wonderful description of creation that Swami Lakshmanjoo makes :-)

It seems that our great misery is that we have lost touch with the feeling of this inherent awareness-bliss and that we believe that it can be found outside, in some temporary expression.

It seems that we have forgot the play (LILA) of Divine Creative Expression and lost ourselves in the unaware activities of give and get, and by doing this have entered a state of being which is being filled with pain and suffering.

It seems we have become like children that forget that they are playing together and have started to fight over their toys instead.

I want to be part of Shiva’s family (SHIVA KULA) and take part in the Divine Play of Creative Expression of Awareness.

I want to live a life of meditation and celebration. To live a life of awareness and creativity. And maybe - one day - I will also be able to re-enter the jasmine garden (the garden of Eden?) as Lalla did.


When you experience Divine Awareness
as being different from your self, celebrate it!

When you experience Divine Awareness
as being no different than your Self, celebrate it!

OM NAMAH SHIVAYA!

Love from Visarganath

Edited by author 10-03-2008 05:13 AM
Though it is every ‘WHEN’ and every ‘WHERE’, at that dark night of the year when we are drawn to meditate most intensely our living relation to the Divine Awareness personified by Mahadeva Shiva - or rather to meditate Shiva AS that singular, non-dual RELATION which unites us with the Divine Awareness – it seems timely to draw attention also to our relations with other human beings.

With this in mind I share below an extract from a new Tantra I am writing on ‘Marxism and Moksha’, one which will be entitled ‘THE RED BANNER OF RUDRA – TOWARDS A YOGA OF REVOLUTION’. Its principle is that relationality as such is the very essence of what is called ‘non-duality’ or ‘Advaita’. Its message is that only through new and more aware ways of RELATING to others can individuals WITH awareness cultivate awareness IN those others, thus allowing them too to experience themselves as unique expressions of the Divine - as one pole of a singular, non-dual RELATION to it.

The Divine Awareness pervades not only every ‘when’ and ‘where’, but every thing and every being - ‘every body’.

The practical significance of what follows can thus be summed up very simply: it is only though granting awareness - every where and at all times - not only to our divine Self but to EACH AND EVERY RELATIONSHIP with the Others in our life that we most fully live the ‘Divine Life’ – our RELATIONAL LIFE.

 
 
INDIVIDUALITY, COMMUNITY AND ‘THE THIRD REALM’

It was the profound insight of Martin Buber that the true locus of radical change or ‘revolution’ – the attainment of WORLDWIDE human liberation or ‘Moksha’ - lies NEITHER in the realm of society or community nor that of the individual, that it can be achieved NEITHER through social revolutionary movements - least of all nationalistic ones - NOR through the security of self-centred religious or spiritual communities. Instead the decisive locus of revolutionary change is a THIRD realm - one beyond the realm of the social or communal on the one hand, and the realm of individual consciousness on the other. The ‘third realm’ is the realm of relationality AS SUCH - of immediate human relations BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS.

“The individual is a fact of existence in so far as he steps into a living relation with other individuals. The aggregate is a fact of existence in so far as it is built up of living units of relation.”

Martin Buber

The starting point for a WORLDWIDE REVOLUTIONARY TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN RELATIONS can only lie IN immediate human relations themselves – in those very “units of relation” that shape the reality of BOTH individuals AND the social, economic or communal groups and institutions they belong to. ‘Human relations’ on a group, institutional, social, economic, communal, national, international and worldwide global scale can only be changed by changing the way in which individuals relate to one another as individuals within families and communities, groups and institutions.

No spiritual or political initiatives and activities can bring about any fundamental or ‘revolutionary’ changes IN human relations unless those activities and initiatives are the expression of a revolutionary spiritual transformation OF human relations between the very people who initiate them.

Raising each individual’s awareness of the REAL economic, political and cultural contradictions that stand in the way of liberation or Moksha is the vital task of Marxism. Raising each individual’s awareness to a higher plane beyond these contradictions – in a way that can FREE individual consciousness from their yoke is the task of traditional or classical ‘yoga’. Learning to guard and embody this free and liberated state of awareness (Svatantrya/Moksha) in our relations with all other individuals in our life world is the task of a revolutionary ‘New Yoga’ – understood as a yoga of AWARE RELATING aimed at bringing about a RELATIONAL REVOLUTION through awareness, and with it RELATIONAL FULFILMENT.

The old, sad and yet still persisting dilemma besetting those on a traditional spiritual or political path is that the deeper or broader their spiritual or political awareness becomes, the more isolated they may feel - for example by finding relationships with those with different world-views or with a shallower or narrower awareness uncomfortably confining. As a result of this dilemma they may either retreat into deliberate isolation or else seek the superficial comfort of a group or community that merely shares the ideological or religious SYMBOLS of a ‘higher’ awareness. Deep or authentic community on the other hand can only arise out of living “units of relation” – multiple deep one-to-one relationships between its members. Such a community is quite different in nature from one that SUBSTITUTES for such relationships – let alone one that suppresses them in the service of an overriding allegiance to a group ideology. That is why, in the absence of deep relationships and communion between specific individuals within a community, even such things as sharing in communal events - whether political gatherings or demonstrations or religious festivals and celebrations – may even end up leaving the individual with an intensified sense of isolation. Hence neither hermetic retreat, ‘being alone together’ in a symbolic community, nor resignation to what is felt as the compromise of ‘ordinary relationships’ may suffice to overcome the aware individual’s sense of social isolation.

For the more politically-oriented individual, this isolation may actually lead them away from aware relating to others and be replaced instead by a militant hostility towards others – for example in the form of individuals, groups or communities with other values or convictions, ethnic origins, class or colour.

For the more spiritually oriented individual the same intensified isolation may lead to ever greater identification with their own divine Self – yet at the exclusion of aware relations to the living human Others in their lives. And whilst this can lead to the experience of evermore exalted and higher states of DIVINE SELF-awareness, the individual’s capacity to EMBODY this awareness in deepened relations with a HUMAN OTHER diminishes. The result is a vicious circle in which an ever-greater spiritual ‘REALISATION’ of SELF through relationship with God leads to an ever-diminished spiritual RELATIONSHIP to human OTHERS.

One basic reason for such dilemmas and vicious circles of isolation is a failure to fully accept and finds ways of responding to unavoidable ASYMMETRIES in adult-to-adult or peer relationships - differences in maturational levels of awareness.

In peer relationships these differences may be felt by the more aware as isolating in themselves - or lead to them to act or be perceived as distant or haughty by the less aware.

Parents or teachers, on the other hand, accept awareness asymmetries in relationships from the very start. They do not EXPECT their children or their students to be cognizant or aware of all that they are aware. They not only make AWARE ALLOWANCES for their childrens’ or students’ lack of awareness, but relate to them with the AWARE INTENT to gently educate’ and ‘draw out’ a greater awareness (e-ducare).

This acceptance of asymmetry in the parent-child and teacher-student relationship comes to a different type of expression in the guru-disciple relation. For this is a relation in which the guru unites the role of teacher with that of spiritual parent to another - albeit often younger - adult.

The AIM of the guru in fulfilling this role however, is precisely to offer a MODEL to the disciple of how they themselves can relate to other adults on a basis of TOTAL EQUALITY AND RESPECT - whilst at the same time not only making allowances for asymmetries of awareness (still less accommodating to them) but intentionally and actively using ‘skilful means’ to overcome them and heighten the awareness of the other. This requires a deep capacity on the part of the guru to MEDITATE THE OTHER – that is to say to meditate and identify with a specific HUMAN OTHER as well as with the DIVINE SELF within them. Only in this way can the disciple be led to an experience of their own divine self - whilst at the same time learning from their guru by what PROFOUND MEANS AND MODES of meditative and aware relating they too can find RELATIONAL FULFILLMENT through spiritually teaching and parenting other adults.

Just as a child has only an inkling of the adult world of the parent, so the disciple has only an inkling of the larger world of awareness of the guru. Yet just as child learns about the ADULT WORLD of their parents in a way that is primarily relational - from the ways in which their parents relate to them FROM that world - so too can the disciple learn much about the AWARENESS WORLD of the guru through the guru’s way of relating to them.

The Awareness Principle and the Practice of Awareness – including the practices of AWARE ACTION – that constitute the grounding principle and practices of The New Yoga, show how the false dualism of hermetic isolation and communal belonging can be overcome - through practices of AWARE ASYMMETRIC RELATING.

The Practice of Awareness in asymmetric human relations is based on The Awareness Principle itself – with its fundamental distinction between identifying with anything we experience or are aware OF on the one hand, and identifying with the pure AWARENESS of it on the other. For one application of this Principle is the recognition that awareness of asymmetry – of the limitations, superficiality, lower level or narrower focus of another person’s awareness - is nothing that need be felt or feared as isolating. Why? Because the very AWARENESS of asymmetry is not itself anything limited, lowered, or rendered narrow or superficial BY that asymmetry. The fear or discomfort of feeling one’s own awareness confined within the narrower horizons of another comes from

(a) fear or failure to be aware of asymmetry - to fully recognise, accept and make allowances for the limits or confines of another’s awareness

(b) failure to identify with the pure AWARENESS of those limits or confines - an awareness that is not itself limited or confined by them,

and

(c) lack of the awareness and skills necessary to successfully relate to the other from a place of higher awareness – rather than feeling or being confined by the lower awareness of the other.

If asymmetries of awareness are not responded to through aware relating, those with higher awareness may end up just avoiding social contacts, situations and relationships altogether out of fear of feeling confined and isolated by them. Without the meditative means to engage in aware relating in asymmetric situations, self-isolation is chosen as the safer alternative to feelings of social isolation.

It must be emphasised that awareness and acceptance of asymmetry in adult relationships, and the practice of aware relating in response to it, is not just a way of accommodating to the limits or lesser awareness of others. On the contrary, it is what allows the highly INDIVIDUAL NATURE of the limitations evident in another person’s awareness to become a source of DEEP INTEREST, MEDITATION, LEARNING AND INSIGHT rather than a cause for boredom or accommodation, restlessness - or a sense of innate superiority. For the aware acceptance of asymmetries in relationships also turns all social situations into opportunities to recognise what I term ‘reverse asymmetry’. By this I mean the opportunity to appreciate and learn from the unique individual QUALITIES of awareness embodied or expressed even by persons with a ‘quantitatively’ lower level of awareness.

The principle of reverse asymmetry gives expression to a notable autobiographical remark made by Martin Buber. Here he describes the enduring life inclination he felt impelled to embody, one which recognises both the TRANSFORMATIVE power of aware relating and the ‘reverse asymmetry’ or RECIPROCITY of relational transformation. Thus, speaking of his central life inclination Buber wrote:

“It was just a certain inclination to meet people. And as far as possible, just to change something if possible in the other, but also to let myself be changed by him. At any event, I had no resistance…put up no resistance to it. I began as a young man. I felt I had not the right to want to change another if I am not open to being changed by him…”

These wise words echo the old Talmudic saying that a truly wise human being is one who finds something to VALUE AND LEARN FROM in each and every other human being.

Aware relating is innately and intentionally educative and transformative, allowing the relation to teach and transform others - but only on the condition that one is open also to BEING TRANSFORMED by it, above all by being open to and learning from the uniqueness of the other – what makes them different or ‘special’, however ‘aware’ or ‘unaware’ they are.
          
People have their own individual feelings and world-views, values and principles, fears and desires, dilemmas and problems, hopes and potentials. ‘And’ they have relationships, more or less fulfilling.

The aim of a New Yoga of active and aware relating is to bring an end to this mere ‘and’ - with its implication that relationships and relating are merely an appendage or optional add-on to our lives.

Its aim is also to clearly distinguish RELATIONSHIPS from RELATING. Relationships are something we ‘have’ or don’t ‘have’. Relating is something we DO. So the fact that people may ‘have’ or ‘be in’ relationships, whether short- or long-term, is no guarantee that they actively RELATE to one another - let alone relate with AWARENESS.

Similarly, though people engage in all sort of relational activities with others – whether educational or economic, recreational or therapeutic, social or even spiritual – this is no guarantee that they actively relate to one another in doing so. RELATIONAL ACTIVITIES are no guarantee of ACTIVE RELATING.

Then again, people are aware of having all sorts of everyday PRACTICAL RELATIONSHIPS with others – whether within the workplace, family, privately or as public citizens of state and society. Yet this too is no guarantee they that engage in aware RELATIONAL PRACTICES – practices that are not means to an end – even spiritual ends – but instead transform relating itself into a spiritual END IN ITSELF.

For in the end, individuals can only sustain a deepened spiritual relationship to God through a transformation of the RELATIONAL PRACTICES through which they engage with others - practices aimed at drawing out both the DIVINE ESSENCE of the other and fulfilling the DIVINE QUALITIES and potentials at the core of their unique HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY.

The New Yoga as a ‘Yoga of Revolution' then, is a yoga of aware and active, meditative and embodied RELATIONAL PRACTICES.

It is also a wholly new understanding of ‘Advaita’ or ‘non-duality’ - not as some more spiritual TYPE of relation but as RELATIONALITY ITSELF.

In Buber’s terms, ‘spirit’ itself is no ‘thing’ but IS our relation with a divine Other or ‘Thou’ – with ‘God’. The principle of Advaitic philosophy is that we can come to experience this divine Other as a divine Self or ‘I’ within us, and within all beings – in every ‘Thou’.

The seeming dualities of ‘I and Thou’ or ‘Self and Other’ dissolve as soon as we recognise that BOTH the divine Self or ‘I’ AND its divine Other or Thou are but DUAL POLES of a SINGULAR, NON-DUAL RELATION.

Buber himself distinguished ‘spirit’ - which he understood as an inner relation to a Divine Other or Thou - from ‘soul’, which he saw as an inner relation to the world and other human beings. The ‘self’ that is ordinarily constituted by our everyday social relations is most often the ordinary ‘worldly’ or ‘social’ self consisting of what Jung called ‘ego’ and ‘persona’.

Yet what if our relation to the world and other people came itself to be centred in another self – that SELF constituted by a spiritual relation to the Divine? In this way the seeming duality of ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’, of the human being’s inner relation to the DIVINE on the one hand, and to the WORLD of individual human beings on the other, would dissolve. The two relations would THEMSELVES be experienced as DUAL aspects of a SINGULAR NON-DUAL relation – that relation whereby the divine itself MANIFESTS as every ‘thing’ and ‘being’ in this the world.

This singular relation between GOD and WORLD is one that can come to be experienced in and through the relation between ANY TWO HUMAN BEINGS. And any such relation is also a BI-PERSONAL FIELD which, by opening a portal BETWEEN two BEINGS, can open a portal TO other WORLDS. Hence the famous saying of Christ – “where TWO OR MORE are gathered…”

In the specific Advaitic tradition known as Kashmir Shaivism or ‘Tantrism’, the Divine as such is understood as a dynamic RELATION - between pure awareness on the one hand (SHIVA) and its pure power of manifestation and embodiment in lived experience (SHAKTI).

And in contrast to the simple linear succession of life stages or ‘Ashrama’ of orthodox Vedic Hinduism - from student to householder or ‘family man’, and thence to community elder and renunciant hermit – the TRIKA or ‘triadic’ school of Kashmir Tantrism embraces the ‘KAULA’ principle of the soul family or ‘KULA’.

The KULA is itself triadic in principle – for it unites a THREEFOLD SET OF RELATIONS - the INDIVIDUAL in his or her singular relation to the Divine, the Divine itself as a singular RELATION expressed in the ‘relational unit’ or couple (Yamala), and the wheel (Chakra) of couples that make up the soul GROUP or ‘Kula’ as such. This understanding gives new meaning to the words of Acharya Abhinavagupta:

“The essence of the TANTRAS, present in the right and left traditions, which has been unified in KAULA, lies in TRIKA.”

Om Namah Shivaya.

Dear Baba Peter,

I have been reading your work here, at Marianne Broug's site, and at thenewtherapy.org for a couple of months now. I have also ordered several of your books.

I wanted to thank you for your work, but decided to read through the bulletin board postings before submitting my own message.

I have been a spiritual seeker for a number of years, and spent some time in a couple of different Sufi orders before meeting Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) about 5 years ago. That opened up my awareness dramatically, much of it at the emotional level, and also brought the issues of relatedness and relationships into greater prominence than had been the case previously.

I received a mantra from Amma about 4 years ago, and since then I have been exploring how to integrate the experiences I have on her retreats into my daily life. I have connected with a local satsang, and that has helped to develop my experience within a cross-cultural (Indian and Western) context. I have also had a couple of close friendships with other devotees. They have had some beautiful moments--such as you describe in your work on spiritual intimacy--but there have also been difficult experiences too, such as you describe in the article "Abuse, Awareness, and the 'Bad Subject'".

Even when these group or friendship situations have been at their best, I have not been able to find genuinely satisfying companionship in terms of philosophical or psychological awareness. I am a university professor and a classical musician, and there is a limited extent to which I can get by on ritualized devotionalism and on people not being very articulate, or even very open, about what's going on with them as they try to work the spiritual path into their daily lives. Your piece on the occasion of Shivaratri was very pertinent to this kind of experience.

While this change in my spiritual path has been going on, my mother underwent treatment for malignant brain cancer. She passed away in late December 2007. As I learned about my grief process from the inside, some of the dissatisfactions in my relationships began to be magnified and I found that I needed to spend more time alone in order to focus on the work I needed to do for the university, and also to listen to the inner reorganization that was going on since my mother's death.

I have a partner, and he has been working on developing his awareness in ways that appeal to him. Being supportive of one another has been good, but there is something special that I feel when I am relating closely with an Amma devotee, and I miss that when that's not available. It has also been necessary to find other forms of support as issues have come up, since a high-profile guru such as Amma is not available for direct dialog. I have done quite a bit of reading by Western psychologists and spiritual teacher, and did 3.5 years of talk therapy (which I recently terminated).

Your work has been really good in helping me to sort through the variety of experiences I have had in the last few years. I find that, since I have been reading your work, there is greater awareness in the experience of the spiritual practices I am doing. I also find that I am becoming quieter inside, and more patient with the unfolding of thoughts and feelings as they come. There is less of a compulsive need to "get things out" or to "hold things in" as there was before.

So, thank you for the contribution that your work has been making to the understanding and acceptance of my various life situations.

Peace,

Ron

See NEW essay on Archive page of www.thenewyoga.org
'COUNSELLING, MEDITATION AND YOGA - The New Yoga as Non-Dual Therapy' (www.thenewyoga.org/CMY.pdf)

Edited by author 15-06-2008 12:11 PM
WHAT IS ‘GOD’? WHAT ARE ‘GODS’?


God does not have but IS awareness.
Not your awareness or mine, but an
Awareness universal, absolute and divine.
Awareness in turn – God – is everything.
Everything in turn IS an awareness,
A portion of that unbounded awareness
That is God, that is the Divine Awareness.
Since each and every thing is a distinct part,
Portion and expression of God, inseparable
From the Divine Awareness as a whole,
Each thing is not only a portion of that whole, but
IS that whole – God - manifest in a unique way.
In this sense each thing is both ‘God’ and ‘a God’.

Thus thunder is a unique expression of God,
God’s thundering - and yet, by the same token
Thunder is a unique God, the ‘God of thunder’ that
Is God’s expression as thundering.
The major Gods of the different religions
Are not simply different but exchangeable
Names or symbols of the same God, but distinct
Expressions of it - each imbued with specific psychic
Qualities and imbuing their worshippers with them.
Behind every God is a quite different God Concept.
Allah is not Brahman by another name.
The God of Jesus was not that of Moses.
Nor is Zeus Osiris, or Christ Kali or Krishna.

‘Awareness is Everything’ means that
‘God is Everything’ - God being that
Awareness of which all things are a portion.
‘Everything is an Awareness’ means both that
‘Everything is God’ and that at the same time
‘Everything is a God’ - being both a portion
And a unique expression of God as a whole.

‘God’ and ‘the Gods’ are thus distinct but inseparable,
Each God being both part and whole, a distinct
part of the whole that is God - thus ‘a God’ - and
An expression of God as a whole, and thus ‘God’.
Understanding God in this way unites ‘monistic theism’,
The recognition of God as a singular all-pervading
Awareness, with a monistic pluralism or ‘polytheism’,
That recognises all things as Gods.

Behind all things and phenomena are the unique psychic
Portions, patterns, powers and qualities of awareness, of
‘God’, that give each and every thing its character as ‘a God’.
The outward forms of things are but symbols of those
Unique portions of the Divine Awareness that make them
Both a part of God and yet also Gods in their own right.
All things or phenomena, of whatever shape or form
Are manifestations both of God, and of the particular
Patterns and powers of awareness that constitute
Their nature as distinct Gods in their own right.
All things then are the outward forms of Gods.

In recognising and revering them as Gods we amplify those
Unique patterns, powers and qualities of awareness
That constitute their God-nature in a dual sense,
Their nature as expressions of God and therefore
Also their nature as unique Gods in their own right.
A bicycle or brick is as much the outward form of a God
As a cat or tree, a religious text, or a sacred idol or icon.
Every particular cat or tree is ‘a God’, and yet so also are
‘Cat-ness’ and ‘tree-ness’ as such - these being particular
‘Idea-shapes’ or patterns of awareness, present as
Potentials within the Divine Awareness that is ‘God’.
If you could really see a rose, you would behold the
‘Spirit’ behind it as a God – as a vast living idea-shape
Eternally present and resplendent in the Divine Awareness.

Only through our capacity to recognise, sense and feel
 Any ‘thing’ or ‘being’ at all as a God – to worship it with
Our senses, do we truly recognise and worship ‘God’.
Those who oppose the worship of Sky and Earth Gods,
Wind and Rain Gods, Rock and Tree Gods, Animal Gods
Or human-like, ‘anthropomorphic’ Gods to the worship of
A single and invisible ‘One God’ do not know the true nature of
The One God, for this is a God that finds expression as
Multiple Gods, in and as all things and all beings.
All dualisms of opposing ‘-theisms’, such as
‘Monotheism’ and ‘polytheism’ are false dualisms.
For there is nothing that is not God – singular – and there are
No things or beings which are not Gods – plural.

Those who refuse to worship a natural phenomenon such as
A tree, being ignorant of its God-nature, are just as deluded as
Those who worship only trees, ignorant of the God-nature of
All things - whether natural or artificial, ancient or modern.
Only those who can worship all things as Gods know God.
Only those who can use their senses to sense the soul of any
Thing as ‘a God’ can also know it as an expression of ‘God’.

Not all things are equally worthy of worship,
For some things are better than others and thus
Make better objects of worship and identification.
Many are those who worship the Gods of Money and
The Market, of Capital and Consumerism, The Media and
The Mobile Phone, the Motorway and The Automobile,
The Gods they make of celebrity icons and idols,
Of commodities, brand logos or stock values.
Such Gods as Profit and Fashion are not ‘evil’, but
Their worship, justified in the name of the ‘One God’,
Brings suffering to the worshippers and to all humanity.

There are named Gods and unnamed Gods,
Gods that human beings idolise and worship unawares.
And those they worship – as Gods – with awareness.
There are ancient Gods, personified or not personified
In human form, and there are modern Gods, personified
Or not personified in human form.
Many prefer the Gods of Old to the New Gods of
Global capitalism and technology, and to the
Monotheisms of Money and of The Market.

The Old Gods never die, thus they were called ‘immortals’.
Insteady they live on, whether or not their names
Are recalled or forgotten, their rituals and places
Of worship destroyed or surviving as ruins.
Battles rage between the Old Gods and The New.
Odin fights the i-Pods, the Madonna fights Madonna.
Battles still rage between the Old Gods themselves.
The Judaeo-Christian God fights the God of Islam.
Pagan, Wiccan and Norse Gods still fight the Gods of
Judaeo-Christianity, and the Gods of Nature
Wreak destruction on the destructive Gods of Man.
So has it always been – the ‘One’ God fighting the
Other ‘One’, the many Gods fighting each other
Each counting on their worshippers as warriors.

There are The Old religions and The New.
Television is the new shrine to which people offer
Sacrifice of what is most precious of all, their time
Having forgotten how the old shrines worked.
The screen is an electronic substitute for
Long lost powers of inner clairvoyance.
The shopping mall is a grand temple
To the God of Consumption, yet work -
Production - is wage-slavery to the God of the Market,
Determining by its iron ‘Law’ the value of all things
And doing so only in terms of their profitability.
The computer workstation is a technical altar,
The ‘virtual’ simulacrum of a portal
To other worlds, once reached from within.
The world of telecommunications is a substitute for
Deep and wordless telepathic contact with others.
The USB stick replaces ancient memories,
Once evoked by the flicker of a fire.

Mankind remains a kindergarten of infantile souls,
In thrall now to New Gods who bestow ignorance
Rather than knowledge, and who disensoul
Human beings rather than ensouling them.
For the priests of the New Gods it is ‘brands’
That have ‘souls’, whereas ‘souls’ are seen as
Mere manipulable brains stuck on a body.

To know yourself is to know your Gods.
Whether this God be a pop idol, sport or drug,
Tree or TV, church or business corporation.

To know God is to know all things
AS Gods, and to worship only those things -
Those Gods – most auspicious and beneficial
In coming to know that ‘One God’ of which
All things and beings - all Gods - are an expression.
Hence the importance of each individual
Finding their Ishta Devata – that God
They feel most personally attuned to, and that
In turn attunes them most to God as such.
To know God is to know yourself, both as God
And as a God in your own right - and to know other
People likewise, as both God and Gods.
Behind all people’s inner ‘psychology’
Lies their ‘inner theology’ - the Gods
They truly worship in deed, even if not in words
Or through religious prayer and meditation;
The things they idolise in mind and body -
Or with their wallets - even if ignorant of
That one God which is nothing but
Awareness itself in the manifold shapes of
All things and thoughts, all bodies and beings.

Your big toe feels itself as part of a
Larger whole - your foot – which is its God.
Your foot feels itself as part of a
Yet larger whole - your leg – its God.
So does any part of your body feel
Your body as a whole as ‘God’,
A whole from which it is inseparable
And yet at the same time a unique part.
Unlike their own toes and feet, fingers
And arms, stomachs and chests however,
Human beings tend no longer to feel
That larger whole of which they themselves
And their whole bodies are a part.
Yet unlike their bodily parts they
Can come to see and conceive that
Larger whole – God – in any way
They choose, in this way giving rise
To countless images and ideas of
God - to countless Gods.

Yet God is more than just an idea or image.
For any thing or being, idea or image to which
We sacrifice time and awareness,
Anything we put ourselves ‘into’
We also endow with a portion of ourselves
In this way it attains and retains its own
Independent reality, identity and consciousness.
It is turned into a God.

Every artist knows how in putting their time, awareness
And a portion of themselves into their creations
Those creations, like characters created in a novel,
Take on a life of their own, evolving in their own way and
Re-shaping not only the novel itself but its creator.
We are all creators – ‘god-makers’ whose every creation,
Whether a mere thought, mental image or material artefact,
Is no sooner created through a sacrifice of time and
Awareness, than it returns that sacrifice to us
Multiplied - whether as bountiful boons or burdens.

There is no thing and no thought, no being and
And no body which you have ever ‘worshipped’
In any life, ever sacrificed time and awareness to,
That does not retain reality as an independent
Consciousness, one which is forever a part of you
And at the same time distinct from you – a God.
Every cell of our body retains memory traces of
The Gods we have dreamt up and created within our soul.

We are not composed of ‘eternal genes’ but of eternal Gods.
Our genes are but the biological imprint of those elements of
Our souls that are part of or have become autonomous Gods,
Created or sustained by sacrificing portion of ourselves to them.

Not all the Gods which we thus create are
Comfortable or in harmony with one another.
Battles also rage between our personal Gods, past and present,
Old and New – battles felt and fought out in our dreams, as in
The very flesh of our genes, as symptoms and sensations of dis-ease.

There are minor Gods, which are a part of our souls.
And there are greater Gods, great souls or Mahatma
Of which we ourselves are a part, as they are a part of God.

‘Know thyself’ means ‘Know your Gods’.
It also means ‘Know God’, for God is
No supreme creator being, but the creativity
Constantly arising from Awareness as such,
A creativity by which God constantly
Gives birth to Gods, not just as us but also
 Through us, through the divine Creativity of
The Divine Awareness of which we are a part.

There is ‘No Religion Higher than Truth’
And the inner truth of religion is that
There is nothing outside God, that
Reality consists of nothing BUT ‘God’ and
‘Gods’ - nothing but GOD GODDING.
Thus there is no denying the Gods.
For our world and everything in it
Is a living pantheon of Gods,
Old and New - all emerged
From and dwelling in the
Awareness that is God.

You yourself ARE a God
Just you ARE God, even
Though God is more than
You are and can be.

Why then do people seek immortality,
God-like beauty, power, wealth,
Splendour and sensuous luxury?
Why do they wish to become ‘like’ Gods?
Because they are unable anymore
To see the beauty, feel the power, or
Sense the luxuriant wealth of the
Immortal Gods they already ARE,
The Gods that are a part of them,
The Gods of which they are a part,
And that God which is the source of all Gods.
Forever Godding Itself in countless forms.
The Gods, all of them, are alive,
As alive as you and me, and
As alive as all things and beings,
Which as portions of God, are
Themselves also Gods.

Odin lives, as do Thor and Loki.
Jesus lives, as do Peter, Paul and Mary.
Zeus lives, as do Athena and Aphrodite.
Krishna lives, as do Vishnu and Kali.
Their names speak of Gods, but
In doing so they also bespeak that
One Awareness that alone – ‘All-One’ -
Is God, transcendent of all Gods, yet
Immanent in them all, The All that
Is One and the One that is them All.
For what could embrace and create such
Infinite space for the fullness of all the countless
Gods that make up all things, except the
One God that Gods them all?

Once more on the symbolic meaning of ‘Shiva-Shakti’ in The New Yoga:

The SOLE PURPOSE of ‘Shiva’, as that ‘God’ which is nothing but pure, non-active awareness, is to create space for and release the wholly AUTONOMOUS and SOVEREIGN ‘power of action’ (‘Shakti’ / ‘Svatantrya’) that is the essence of the ‘Great Goddess’.

The sole purpose of the Great Goddess is to express and embody the sovereign powers and potentialities that She is - doing so WITH awareness.

Thus is the inseparable unity of Shiva and Shakti both realised and sustained.

Shiva 'does' nothing but meditate the Goddess as a womb of infinite potentialities of awareness.

The Goddess 'is' nothing but the birthing and embodiment of these potentialities, with and within awareness.

In simple terms - from the stillest most quiescent stillness that lies at the heart of pure awareness all powers of right thought and action arise spontaneously and autonomously.

THE PARABLE OF THE SPIRITUAL BILLIONAIRE

“Seek and you shall find. Find, and you shall be disturbed.” (Gospel of Judas) For our world is in essence and not just outwardly a ‘negative’ one - borne of UNawareness and UNknowing (agnosis / ajnana ) which only spiritual knowledge (gnosis / jnana ) can heal.

The parable:

Imagine that a person unknowingly meets a secret billionaire - albeit one who does not in any way look or feel like a billionaire. Imagine further that the greatest joy of this billionaire lies in sharing their wealth freely, not just with those who are in dire need of it, but also - or above all - with those who they think might be able to make the best use of it for the benefit of those in need.

Imagine now, how such a billionaire might feel, when, in offering such an individual a few million pounds in cash - with no conditions or strings attached - he or she is met with nothing but suspicion and mistrust, and the gift is refused.

Imagine further that after repeated experiences of this sort, our billionaire realises it is wiser to offer to share their wealth to others in less generous quantities so as not to arouse distrust - say only 10,000 pounds, or to use a different analogy, just a few gold trinkets or precious gems from their treasure chest – yet only to find that they are still met with distrust, their gift still refused, and the smallest of their gold trinkets and precious gems examined with deep suspicion. Imagine that finally our billionaire learns to offer gifts of only 100 or even just 10 pounds or 10 pence to any given individual, or maybe just one or two trinkets or gems from their huge treasure chest - and yet the mistrust is still there and the gift still refused - to the detriment not just of the potential recipient but also to all those they in turn might have given to from what they had received.

The point of this parable is that there exist even now, in this world, on this plane and this planet, individuals so rich in accumulated spiritual wealth that they might be described as spiritual ‘billionaires’ or even ‘banks’ - for they are indeed living human repositories of an unimaginable wealth of spiritual knowledge, guardians of vast historic treasure houses of such knowledge - in both entirely new and long forgotten forms.

They too seek to disburse their riches freely, first in large and then in ever smaller quantities – wary of the possible mistrust or incredulity that offering too much might arouse, and aware too of the spiritual immaturity of those they might offer it to. By this I mean their incapacity to grasp either the immensity of the spiritual knowledge being offered to them freely – and its inestimable value for a world in dire need of such knowledge.

Confronted with this immature incredulity or mistrust, our spiritual billionaire respects the truth of the words 'Ask and you shall be given', resolving to give of their wealth only to those, however few in number, who dare knock at their door and ask for a portion of it - however small.

He or she no longer offers their knowledge freely except to those who knock and ask for it. It happens then, that a rare few that do indeed take advantage of this opportunity, do indeed knock, ask and are given.

Of these, some are overwhelmed at what they are shown and immensely grateful at the spiritual gifts they receive. They are like seekers who have been let through a door into vast hall of glistening treasures from which is chosen and granted them as much as they are willing to receive - and can carry out into the world.

Others however, no sooner leave the hall of treasure than they begin to trade in their gifts of gold, precious metals and shining gems of wisdom for the spiritual equivalent for the cheap plastic kitsch they previously took for ‘knowledge’.

Then again there are those who leave the treasure hall spiritually enriched to a degree they could not previously have imagined, and yet keep all that was given them to themselves alone – not giving in the way they were given to. As a result, they find their new gained spiritual riches gradually decaying and diminishing, and their very memory of the treasure hall itself dimming to the point where they decide it must have been a mere dream.

As for those who outrightly rejected the gifts freely offered to them (which include actual spiritual gifts and powers of an extraordinary and wonderful nature), or those who never dared knock at the door of the treasure hall, this has karmic implications for their lives. For it amounts to a type of spiritual ingratitude that is in direct proportion to the VALUE of the spiritual riches and gifts they could have received and shared with others.

The karmic consequence of this is that when they depart this life, they will be led by their spiritual guides to look back and realise just how much they and others would have been spiritually enriched – IF ONLY they had gratefully accepted the gifts offered them, if only they had knocked on the door of the treasure hall - or if only they had dared open and peer inside the treasure boxes placed right in front of their eyes.

Such ‘karma’ is not a form of punishment for wrongdoing but a form of learning. For the ‘law’ of karma is simply this: that what we fail to learn in one life we are led, unavoidably and inexorably, whether from within ourselves, with the aid of others - or through life itself - to learn in the afterlife or in another life.

In this parable of the ‘spiritual billionaire’ we are speaking of sages with an unseen wealth of spiritual awareness, gifts and knowledge accumulated over lifetimes.

We are also speaking of a 'once in a lifetime' chance on the part of those who encounter them to freely receive a portion of their spiritual wealth.

Such encounters are truly 'karmic encounters'. For if it should happen that one encounters such a spiritual billionaire - a true spiritual 'initiate' or 'teacher', 'guru' or 'sage' – then the decision to trust or mistrust, close or open one’s eyes to, see or turn away from, accept or reject the gifts of knowledge that he or she offers is a spiritual decision with huge karmic weight and consequences - for it will determine the entire course of one’s life.

There are those who know much, and there are those who know little. Then again, there are those who want to learn and know more – who courageously seek and gratefully accept gifts of spiritual knowledge - and there are those who think they more or less 'know it all' and have little or nothing to learn that is new.

Finally, there are those who just "don’t want to know" – for they fear how the newness of the spiritual knowledge given them will also change them – and shrink also at the responsibility to the world that new spiritual gifts necessarily bring with them.

All this, in a nutshell, is the rule of spiritual knowledge or ‘gnosis’, and at the same time the ‘law’ of karmic learning - one learned and recognised by sages throughout the ages.

Murti Darshan, 08/07/08

In our house we have three shrines to the Lord Shiva, two ‘personal’ ones in our private rooms, and one in the conservatory for group darshan, puja and meditations.
There Peter and I sat for a joint meditation in front of the murti of the meditating Lord Shiva.

The following poem describes some aspects of my experiences during this sitting.
Karin Heinitz


Shining Beauty

There you are
Contemplating the Mother, the source,
Your blissful face radiating Beauty.
Potentials occur and blossom into Being
Through your grace.
These two occurred,
Through you they grow
Towards what it is they are meant to be.
You pervade her and him and them,
Oh Lord of the Shining Beauty.

Your golden hair
Sits on a throne of bronze
Above your silver brows,
Your silver eyes
Shine.
Your bronze cheeks show off
Your silver mouth, jaws, chin.
You shine
And you smile with delight.
You are awesome and terrible,
Oh Lord of the Shining Beauty.

When this body gave thanks to you
It was blessed with sensual bliss,
Your all embracing, all pervading grace is infinite,
Lord of the Shining Beauty

Shrine with the murti of the Lord Shiva