Occupy Love

This evening, I saw Velcrow Ripper’s film Occupy Love. It’s the third in the series, after Scared Sacred and Fierce Light. It was held as a free showing in a local church, a rare showing in his home town. (the previous 2 had theatre runs) It was also crowd funded.

“Occupy Love explores the growing realization that the dominant system of power is failing to provide us with health, happiness or meaning. The old paradigm that concentrates wealth, founded on the greed of the few, is causing economic and ecological collapse. The resulting crisis has become the catalyst for a profound awakening: millions of people are deciding that enough is enough – the time has come to create a new world, a world that works for all life.”

He asks “How can the crisis we’re facing become a love story?” The film explores the Alberta oil sands project, the Occupy movement where he spends time during the Wall St. protest, and several other events. He speaks with a number of participants and experts on social change. It shows the Occupy Movement from a different reference point than was common in the media. For example, they used horizontal organization which was foreign to those used to hierarchy. And love was a major theme. Did you know that?

The film speaks of solutions revolving around raising consciousness, changing paradigms, and love. In discussions afterwards, it was clear some attendees viewed these as abstractions rather than practical solutions. That was a good reminder. And we discussed how things have evolved since Occupy, such as with Idle No More. Non-violent or Compassionate Communication was also observed to be growing.

“We live in a time of record-breaking crisis, but it’s also a time of record-breaking vision.” Not “the 99%”, 100%.

Debbie Ford Passes

Debbie Ford passed away this week. She was an unexpected figure on the new age circuit, talking honestly about facing the shadow side of ourselves and healing old wounds. I wrote here about her film The Shadow Effect and have mentioned her occasionally around other films. I was surprised how similar her points were to how I spoke of the “shadow story“.

A great story about her from Tad

A conversation with Oprah last fall

Her Memorial site

Her web site, with a letter from her sister

From the Oprah conversation:
“Well, to me, the soul is a part of us that never dies. It’s what we come in with. And our soul is sometimes — I don’t think you can see it, but I think it’s who we are at our core. And it carries all the messages and the lessons that we’ve learned in the past — and will carry all the lessons and messages…into the future.”

The best of her goes on.
Davidya

PS: you can see it. 

Creation, in a Nutshell

Recently, someone asked me to describe Narayana in creation. This is a level that is difficult to describe. It is seeing prior to form, in a space prior to space. It is beyond eternity, beyond any sense of being or non-being. In more developed stages of creation (it’s a very big place), things have relationships or geometry. Prior, they are merely impressions or smriti. We could say the impressions arose prior to creation but what does that mean beyond eternity? It’s more they exist because all episodes of time are contained within That.

To put this in context, That has 2 fundamental aspects: Alertness and Liveliness. When liveliness stirs alertness it becomes aware. Awareness becomes aware of itself, recognizes itself and everything arises.  This happens both globally and at every point within itself. In 1972, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi described this as Existence becomes conscious and intelligence becomes intelligent.

Quiet alert awareness is the Shiva or Father aspect, what we experience locally as the witness or observer. Quiet alert liveliness is the Divine Mother side. We could say She is the embodiment of Love, arising from recognition of That by Itself. Alertness and liveliness become observation and intention, consciousness and intelligence.

Keep in mind creation is not linear steps but rather layered concurrent flowering that can be seen a number of ways.

This is the arena of Smriti where the Veda (knowledge) is stored. These impressions store the primary experiences that guide and structure all creations that have ever arisen. By creations, I don’t mean universes, but distinct creations with completely unique realities and laws. Many are much simpler than ours, such as embodying a principle. One, for example, embodies only time. Much easier to explore and understand then.

Awareness aware of itself creates a kind of bubble within Brahman or That (God seen in the impersonal). This bubble is the event horizon in which a creation occurs. Its inner surface is cosmic mind, stirred by liveliness. The mechanism of our creation is described in the opening lines of the Rk Ved and Genesis of the Bible.

Prior to that, the “idea” arises is God called Narayana, the first-born. As it is prior to cosmic mind, this isn’t an idea in the sense we’re familiar with, more it’s an enlivened memory. Narayana gives rise to the cosmic body and via the medium of the Divine Mother, creation “begins”. Father, Mother, Son.

As above, so below: our form is structured based on the cosmic body which is based on Narayana. The mechanism of the cosmic body is another seeming layer, the devata body, the body made of devata (light beings). Gazillions of them. Whole “cities” in a finger. In one perspective, there is only this one body and we all share the same chakras and devata. This perspective can also be seen from the past lives view when all bodies are seen as one, acting concurrently. This is also related to the form of God described in Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita (song of God), where Krishna displays his entire form to Arjuna, overwhelming him.

Creation can be seen to arise in the space in Brahman (as above) or in the cosmic body. This is another place where there’s different ways of seeing.

Creation steps down in a few stages – the Agnim that opens the Rk Veda, then what Dante called the Primum Mobile, then a division into 7, and then we get to the universes, bubbles with the creation bubble that contain hiranya garbha or the golden egg. This is the universe from the outside, found in the lower belly of the cosmic body. (note that these are distinct universes, not parallel or alternate)

The event horizon of the universe bubble or universe mind is the ocean where the field of action arises, the 3 gunas, the elements, and so forth. In science, this is the field of quantum fluctuations of the vacuum.

Note that these layers are typically experienced in reverse order.
Aham Vishvam: I am the Universe
Devo Hum: I am the devata
Aham Shrivhir: (sp?) I am the Cosmic Body
Veda Hum: I am the Veda

The “I am” wording is because in the unity process, one experiences then becomes.

The best option to show this would be to create a film using special effects and visualize it. Much easier to relate to then. Show how the vibrations of the gunas in the universe ocean become subtle form, geometry, fields, and our physical world. Though even on that level, the egg interacts with the ocean, creating outside of itself while it is concurrently within itself. Kind of like how we are with the world.
Davidya

On Sanskrit

In another forum, I wrote the following and thought it worth sharing here. It’s edited for context.

Sanskrit is a language that represents the sound of nature creating. Shiksha (a book on Sanskrit pronunciation) tells us Prakriti has 63 letters (sounds) and Sanskrit 64*. In that sense, sound is more important than meaning. In fact, the meaning is designed to be conferred to the listener by direct experience. More on this shortly.

Like all languages, Sanskrit is representative. Most languages are derived from prior languages and strongly influenced by ego-based awareness. Sanskrit, in its pure form, is derived from Shiva, from the divine. You might enjoy this article by Vyaas Houston, comparing English and Sanskrit.

I’ve heard it observed that modern languages are derived from a small group of proto-languages that arose around the world, fully formed, at around the same time. The Yugas book suggests this was due to group consciousness descending, necessitating verbal language. Writing followed. (see the Yugas link for more)

As we are that which contains creation, we can observe this process at work: sound/vibration giving rise to form and all experience. To be able to observe this requires the developed ability to stay in deep settled awareness at the source of thought with awake “inner” senses. When Sanskrit is heard at that level, the vibration gives rise to the form and we share the experience “encoded” in the verses. See Name and Form for more.

I understand Hebrew has some but less of that. Some Native languages probably do as well. English has little.

Veda, strictly speaking, is Shruti, sound. Veda is derived from Smriti, memory or impressions in Brahman. These have a visual quality like lucite slabs, vaguely like the memory in HAL in the movie 2001. These impressions are the map and foundation of all creations, not just our own.

I’ve heard it said that local languages reflect the local laws of nature. Google is apparently trying to catalog them, as described here.  (The Squamish nation is N of here.)
Davidya

* It can be noted that the Shiva Sutras & Vyakaran describe 42 letters and the alphabet is often taught with around 48 or 50 letters. Basically, it depends on what you include. There are only 36 unique Phonemes used. The Varna Samamnaya describes the full 64, including the plutos (3 count extra-long vowels) and ayogavahas (like the anusvara (the dot in Aum (om) that adds the m) and visarga (ha suffix)).

Sacred Economics

A local filmmaker has made a short film to highlight the book Sacred Economics.

I’ve not yet read the book but enjoyed the film. As a number of historians have observed, when the spread between rich and poor gets as great as it is now, it’s usually the downfall of the civilization. And we certainly need a better understanding of economics and alternative solutions if we’re going to create a more equitable and sustainable culture.

The book is available in print, ePub, and as a “gift” on-line through the site.

“Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

This book is about how the money system will have to change and is already changing to embody this transition. A broadly integrated synthesis of theory, policy, and practice, Sacred Economics explores avant-garde concepts of the New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies, and the restoration of the commons. Author Charles Eisenstein also considers the personal dimensions of this transition, speaking to those concerned with “right livelihood” and how to live according to their ideals in a world seemingly ruled by money. Tapping into a rich lineage of conventional and unconventional economic thought, Sacred Economics presents a vision that is original yet commonsense, radical yet gentle, and increasingly relevant as the crises of our civilization deepen.”

What is Eternal?

As our spiritual nature unfolds, we begin to experience things that appear eternal. They appear unbounded in time. At its highest layers, creation is a nested series of infinite virtual space-times, each in a self-aware bubble.

However, as I touched in Dying Awake, some things that seem eternal can turn out not to really be. When we transcend the space-time dynamics of self-awareness, we discover that all of those infinities eventually “sleep”. Awareness steps back from being self-aware, space-time collapses and creation ends. The Divine Mother sleeps.

Even the sense of eternal existence is dependent on awareness. We cannot say that something exists or doesn’t exist unless we are aware of it. When awareness ends, so too does all qualities, all expression, all sense of being.

This may sound like a barren place but in fact it is the opposite. We find ourselves in Brahman, in the Totality of wholeness. All expression arises within and is as-if contained by Brahman. Brahman is inherently alert and lively, leading to awareness and creation emerging again. Brahman also contains a memory of its “history” of experience, called Smriti and expressed as the Vedas. We could say Veda is eternal, though it may or may not be expressed.

But what does eternal mean if there is no time, no “now”, no before or after? The language for this gets very tricky as language occurs solely in space-time. We could say that everything at essence is eternal and nothing is eternal. Both are true in some ways, and neither.
Never say ever. 
Davidya

Virgin Birth

In The Moment of Grace, we talked of the profound surrender that takes place in the moment of awakening. Here, Adyashanti in Ch.10 of Falling into Grace, brings another look at the shift and how it has been described in history.

“You can find common themes throughout many of the worlds religions: Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, as well as those that existed long before modern religious history. One of the more common motifs that appears cross-culturally is that of the virgin birth.”

“These stories of virgin birth refer to the birth of that which is born without the coming together of opposites. Our human birth is the birth of opposites. It’s the coming together of male and female, and that produces a human being. Our humanness is a manifestation of the opposites, our heart beating, open and closing, our lungs breathing…”

“But this notion of the virgin birth addresses our ‘second’ birth, our birth after we were born. It’s the birth, in our consciousness, of a vision that’s not based in duality. These stories recognize that what we really are is in fact the source of opposites, of both male and female, both this and that. It’s the birth of a unified vision right into this world of time and space.”

“At the moment of awakening, it literally feels like we’re being born again, or like something completely new and unexpected has shown up in our consciousness. It literally is a virgin birth – a birth not of duality, but a birth of non-duality [within], a birth of that which is far beyond all dualities.”

A birth into who we really are…
Davidya

Yukteswar’s Yugas

I’ve occasionally mentioned the Yugas here. Basically, it’s a Vedic understanding of the cycles of time. Just as we have a cycle of hours, days, years, and centuries, the Vedas also chart ages (as in Age of Aquarius), yugas, cycles of creation, and more.

In the West, we have a rather heavily embedded meme telling us we started out as hunter-gatherers/cavemen and have evolved linearly from there into progressively better life. This worldview informs historic researchers, who almost always ascribe prior cultures as more primitive, sometimes in spite of evidence to the contrary. If we don’t understand it, it’s considered myth and superstition. But would a person of 200 years ago believe or understand a description of today’s typical living-room?

Yogananda’s master Swami Yukteswar was a renowned jyotishi. When he studied the ancient texts, he found that during the dark age Vedic scholars had made a small error in calculating the length of the yugas. They’d added a multiplier to adjust time to Deva (angel) years. This was a small error with a big impact. Common understanding is that Kali Yuga (the dark age) is 432,000 years long with a complete cycle of yugas lasting over 4 million years. By this calculation, we’re still only a few thousand years into the worst life has to offer.

Yukteswar’s correction* brought the Yugas back into a rising and falling cycle that aligns with the cycle of the ages and with what we call The Great Year in the west, the approx. 25,000 year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes**. In this model, Kali is only 1,200 years long. We passed through the trough in 500 AD (the Dark Ages) and are now about 311 years into the second age, Dwapara Yuga, the bronze or energy age***.

I recently finished reading a fascinating book called The Yugas, by Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz. They took what Yogananda and Yukteswar had said on the subject and extrapolated out the dates, then compared them to history. It’s a pretty fascinating re-examination of our past and coming future. And it addresses many of the curious historical anomalies we’re all familiar with. I wouldn’t say I’d agree with all of their interpretations and the book is organized a little curiously but the research is diverse and largely well done.

The key detail to understand about the yugas is that it’s a cycle of expression of consciousness. (this cycle was known in most ancient cultures, like the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron ages of Greece) During the golden age or Sat Yuga, about 40% of time, most of us live at our full potential and enjoy “heaven on earth”. 30% of time we live close to that. 20% of time we feel individual and get into commerce and cities (like now) and for just 10% we go through a night and become quite dull, seeing only the physical world as real.

He summarizes the memes with 3 terms: (dates are for the current ascending cycle)
Satya – Golden: (7700 – 12,500 AD ascending, then a similar period descending)
Self realization, direct intuitive perception, consciousness

Treta – Silver: (4100 – 7700 AD)
Self-mastery, intuitive attunement, thought awareness

Dwapara – Bronze: (1700 – 4100 AD (current))
(enlightened) Self-interest, awakened intellect (science), energy (flow, intuition)

Kali – Iron: (500 – 1700AD ascending after a similar decent from 700 BC)
Passive acceptance, dull-mindedness, matter awareness
This period was more uncultured than now. But not before that.

They have a chart here illustrating the current rising and prior falling cycle with the shift dates. It should be noted that each yuga has a “Sandhi” or transitional period of about 10% that adds to the time of that yuga. By that calculation, we’re just over a hundred years out of the transition from a material paradigm. In many ways, the transition is still underway as we hold to the old while we rediscover who we are and what we’re capable of. Self-interest has become dominant and they suggest it will become  “enlightened” over time when we find our own happiness is supported by self-awareness and caring for  others. They suggest this shift from passive acceptance to self-interest is what has driven us into commerce, “civilization” and city dwelling.

The book goes into the tone and characteristics of the developing and future ages, then looks into the last 14,000 years of our past. As historians can trace the development of language and writing, they suggest this illustrates our evolution. The book suggests this actually illustrates our devolution in consciousness. They observe that the worlds proto-languages all appeared fully formed around the same time and suggest this was an adaptation to losing the ability to communicate mentally with others. As we lost the connection, our world culture and languages became fractured and increasingly isolated.(think Tower of Babel) We adapted first by developing oral language and traditions, then when consciousness dropped into Dwapara, the written word. The Yuga dates correspond to the known arising of the Vedic oral tradition and the later compiling and writing of the Vedas. Also the evolution from mantras into rituals.

Another example suggests why the Egyptian pyramids begin with the best work and slowly degrade. (book excerpt) The book goes into many such examples.

Yogananda indicated there had been many such yuga cycles, saying civilized man has been around for 50 million years. The book talks about why we see little evidence of that. But not none.

Finally there is an interesting discussion about Yukteswar’s reference to the sun’s “dual”. I’ve usually heard this to mean an unknown binary star around which our sun is orbiting. (The vast majority of stars have now been found to be binary) This 25,000 year orbit is what is said to cause the earths slowly rotating tilt and thus the cycle of the ages and yugas. They note that while this might be what he was referring to, both the Sanskrit term for the orbital point and the word “dual” may actually be a geometric term for the axis of the ecliptic. It’s an obscure thing from projective geometry but if you’ve ever explored Buckminster Fuller, you’ll have seen the models where there are forms within forms. The inner form is the inverse or dual.

I appreciate the work they’ve done to compile all this research to corroborate the idea. It’s certainly a very different take on our history, where we are and where we’re going. Happily, the news is largely good. 
Davidya

The book’s web site, with articles (book excerpts), blog, and references.
theyugas.com

Notes:
* Yukteswar reviews his discovery in the Introduction to his 1894 book, The Holy Science. It’s still in print. The correct numbers are also in the Manu Samhita. (ever heard of the Laws of Manu?)
Curiously, I’d actually noticed the error myself when trying to reconcile Vedic time with astronomical and experienced time.

**Dr. David Frawley suggests both cycles could be correct. One is human scale, one Devic. This is similar in idea to the dasha and bhukti cycles in jyotish, one within the other.

***It should be noted that this model shows the Sat yuga/golden age/Age of Enlightenment as rising in about 7700 AD. Krishna’s (and others) out-of-cycle prediction of a Sat Yuga in the current time is a different subject. This book is about the underlying cycle.

Life Continues

Over on Takuin’s blog, he responded to a question on the afterlife. He said he didn’t know. Then that he never would know nor would anyone else.

I responded: “…to say you don’t know is honest. But to then suggest it can’t be known and no one will ever know is just belief, no more or less than those who believe in an afterlife. I quite appreciate there are many who make a big story about this and there is a lot of nonsense. It’s also a very personal experience, so those with the experience may not differentiate between what arises and what they’ve brought to it. But there is ample evidence of people having such experiences and assisting people making the transition.“

Takuin asked “how am I to find out?” “So……where do I begin?”

Past Lives
On this blog, I try to focus on what I’ve learned rather than specific experiences. But in this case, it seems personal is the best way to answer.

I’ll begin where I began. Several decades ago, I found myself in a circumstance I could not understand. Every day I was faced with people having the worst experiences of their life. Ridiculous challenges kept arising. While I understood the ideas of karma, I didn’t understand how a person like me (laughs) could have generated such things. Was I creating this? Was there supposed to be a lesson here? I mulled such thoughts frequently at the time.

I began to have brief visual flashes of something troubling. They came to seem like memories, much as remembering being 8 years old. But they were older and seemed both familiar and like someone else’s. Over time, I became willing to look more and began to see pieces of scenes, then whole scenes. Then the larger sense of the life circumstances; what I faced and the choices I made. It was clearly me, but in a different “meat suit” and with different circumstances.

It became apparent that I was remembering my last lifetime, particularly the difficult parts that had not been fully resolved. These were the things that had carried forward into this life. They related to my marriage, children, work, and more. It explained my circumstances and inclinations profoundly and intimately. I was living the alternative to a choice I’d deeply regretted in that life. I realized that the point here was to resolve the experience rather than fight it and carry it forward yet again. Note that memory is associative. So memories will arise that are most related to current circumstances, especially emotionally (energetically).

The greatest thing this brought me was a sense of understanding about my life. Over time, I followed the threads of the prior life back to their source in still earlier lives and came to recall about a half-dozen or so. Aside from the understanding and things I couldn’t possibly imagine, several obscure details came up that were historically verifiable, like a book I’d once written. At some point, I realized I’d lost the fear of death (although transcendence would have contributed).

That satisfied my concerns that had started the process and it fell to the background of my life. Then occasional people or circumstances would arise that would bring new memories. Slowly, it continued to fill out.

There was a further barrier to overcome to see past the last decent in the cycles of time. After that, the long cycles of time and my own lives became clear. They disagreed with the standard understanding of Yugas but I found Yukteswar’s (Yoganandas master) math aligned. Going back to the last golden age or into the future was more distorted due to the higher consciousness of the time. (We experience everything from where we are now) Even the memory nodes are different then; intentional rather than difficulty based.

I made some points about validating and revisionist memory on Coming Back to Past Lives. Up to this point, I’d only experienced them in a linear way. In this article, I quote Vasishtha’s story on other variations in What’s After and Before. (I’ve never experienced it that way) Then the mesh and nodes of connections between lives became seen, then all lives happening at once. I talked about that in The past.

Similarly, I talked about the Roots of Fear in the last decent. And I wrote several articles on Time. This includes Bhusunda the crows experience of the even larger creation cycles.

The process continued into experiences of the mechanics of time; how it arises, unfolds and rolls up into a singularity. And how the soul is a point of awareness aware of itself in a sea of alert existence, and so forth.

The Afterlife
Takuin’s original question was on the afterlife; what might be considered between lives. But it’s really just the flow of life through various states.

More recently, a couple of close friends died and I ended up supporting their transition in “crossing over”. I wrote On Death on the process I observed after this. For once, there was a practical use for all this. 

There’s also an article on Vasishtha’s observations in After Death.

How?
As to the question of how, Patanjali outlines this in the Yoga Sutras.
3:16 From Samyama on the three transformations (characteristic, temporal quality, and state) comes knowledge of the past and future.
3:18 From perception of impressions (sanskaras) comes knowledge of previous births.
3:22 Karma returns both quickly and slowly. From Samyama on that, or from premonitions, comes knowledge of death.

Really, these describe what I was doing without realizing it.

Conclusion
It would seem this all arose for me due to my drive to understand my life. It seems to arise for different reasons for different people. But one certainly has to be open to it and prepared to face what we’ve done in the distant past. I found it rewarding, especially once I moved past that.

It’s certainly not anything necessary for the spiritual journey for most people. Anything unresolved now can be resolved now as well. All the markers or nodes exist in this life too. I wouldn’t recommend chasing past lives in itself.

Equally, our continuity through lives can be found in the simple experience of our unbounded being.

As don Miguel Ruiz says in The Four Agreements, “Don’t believe me. But learn to listen… what I’m telling you is just a story… it is true just for me. But if you learn to listen you will understand what I am trying to communicate.“

I hope that answers your question, Takuin. 
Davidya

A Certain Future

In the second, or rather 5th Star Wars film, there’s a great exchange between Yoda and Luke:
Luke: I saw – I saw a city in the clouds.
Yoda: [nods] Friends you have there.
Luke: They were in pain…
Yoda: It is the future you see.
Luke: The future?
[pause]
Luke: Will they die?
Yoda: [closes his eyes for a moment] Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

And I thought the last line was “Always emotion is the future.” Well – it amounts to the same thing. Luke responds by abandoning his training and heads off to rescue his friends.

The point is that the future is very difficult to see. It’s perception is clouded by our own emotional attachment to certain outcomes. It’s also distorted by the change in consciousness. The future is currently in a higher stage than the present so it’s a little like trying to see what it’s like to be an adult when we’re 12. It’s outside of our conception.

Nonetheless, we continue to boldly step into an always uncertain future. To compensate, we listen to pundits pontificate about it. In fact, we pay forecasters a great deal of money to fail. In Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail – And Why We Believe Them Anyway, journalist Dan Gardner explores this topic in a refreshing way. The core research comes from Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of California. Tetlock determined that “experts” in any given field (he looks at many) were just slightly better at making predictions than a dart-throwing chimp! In addition, the more certain an expert is of an outcome and the bigger their profile, the less accurate the prediction was likely to be. Perhaps that makes you a little happier about your own derailed plans.

People talk all the time of predictions, forgetting how often they’re wrong: politics, economics, sports, relationships, and all the latest gossip. Gardner talks about why educated people make dumb predictions, how they rationalize their mistakes, and why we willingly get conned by the experts. The simple answer is certainty. We’re seeking certainty in a world of change so we go with the most confident voice with the best story. The more considered opinions who express cautions and limitations are ignored even when they’re usually more accurate.

We also tend to assume the future is a continuation of the present. I don’t know about you but it certainly hasn’t been in my life.(laughs) Does this mean we should give up and not do any planning? No, it just means we should be flexible and allow whats waiting to be born to reveal itself.

We’re bound to a certain future. But what that certainty is, I certainly don’t know.
Davidya