Spiritual Direction

THE FOUR ENTRY GATES INTO THE VICTORIOUS CROSS WITHIN THE RUBY OCTAGON: I notice that I was led to draw four gates, one at each of the four arms of the cross. These correspond to the ruby of commitment, to the sapphire of enlightenment, to the emerald of acceptance and to the gold of courage, each of which is necessary for me to travel within‑beyond the spaces of intimacy, ritual, communion and life both in history and in eternity. Easy and free access to these gates opens me to the spirals and experiences that lead into the timelessness of eternity while living on the historical cross here‑and‑now.^{^[xxiii]} Thus the unfolding‑enfolding victory of the glorious cross opens up all the inner and outer senses to take in the erotic nature of reality within the new space of the ruby‑octagon.^{^[xxiv]}

THE SAPPHIRE UNFOLDING‑ENFOLDING THE FOUR TRANSITIONS: The octagonal‑ruby of eroticism which grows and glows with the delightful radiance of the victorious‑glorious cross nestles securely within the warm embrace of the four resplendent triangular edges of the sparkling sapphire of transparency. As I look into this mirror I witness four major transitions which are symbolically depicted on the north by the burning‑bush as experienced by Moses [discipline], on the south by the waters on which Christ walked [surrender], on the east by the drop of water pierced by a ray of light [Buddha : enlightenment], and on the west by the glowing‑growing rose stem and bud [Krishna : delight].

FOUR POLY‑CHROMATIC CENTERS AND EIGHT WHITE SPIRALS OF ENERGETIC LUMINESCENCE WITHIN‑BEYOND THE TWELVE WHITE‑EDGED SAFFRON‑COLORED GALAXY: The four transitions can also be considered as passages to and through discipline, surrender, enlightenment and delight which are controlled by the four polychromatic centers of energy. These centers beginning from [1] the bottom left, to [2] top right, to [3] top left, and to [4] bottom right, represent a number of energies for me: A* Natural Elemental Energies of [1] Earth, [2] Air, [3] Fire and [4] Water; B* Jungian Archetypal (Hill 1992) Energies of [1] Great Mother, [2] Great Hero, [3] Great Father and [4] Great Lover/Trickster; C* Psychic (Hill 1992) Yin‑Yang Energies of [1] Static Female, [2] Dynamic Male, [3] Static Male and [4] Dynamic Female; D* Roman Catholic Energies of [1] God the Father, [2] God the Son, [3] God the Church and [4] God the Spirit; E* Spiritual (Fox 1988) Energies of the [1] Via Affirmativa, [2] Via Negativa, [3] Via Creativa and [4] Via Transformativa; and F* the Mandalic Spiral (Gold 1991) Energies of [1] Awareness, [2] Balancing, [3] Centering and [4] Becoming. The other eight white spirals of energetic luminescence unfold other wisdom figures who appear and disappear on the horizons of my life: Joseph and Mary of Nazareth, Francis of Assisi, Xavier and Sales, John Bosco, Sant Kabirdas, Mahatma Gandhi, Jose Vaz, Anthony de Mello and Theresa of Calcutta. The saffron‑colored galaxy opens me to the vision of the sannyasi^{^[xxv]} who perceives the cosmic reality beyond appearances, signs, images, symbols, relativity and nothingness as the fullness of Siva‑Sakti. The twelve white‑edges both unfold and enfold my microcosmic historical existence here‑and‑now as the ongoing Journey of the Creative‑Cosmic‑Clown.^{^[xxvi]}

THE WHITE OUTER CIRCUMFERENCE WITHIN THE BOUNDLESS BLACK SQUARE UNIVERSE: This is a very thin borderline that separates the microcosm from the macrocosm.^{^[xxvii]} It is this subtle white line of consciousness that makes it possible for the personal to unfold and enfold within‑beyond the darkness, for "those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know!"^{^[xxviii]}

[i]. "Bindu is one of the most significant terms in the Indian speculations about energy and the Word. It refers to an essential stage in the process we are now considering. It is also encountered in the phonematic emanation and in a number of Tantras and Yoga scriptures. Bindu is the "drop" of energy, that is, the energy as collected within a single drop or point, concentrated upon itself, and therefore endowed with special potency." (Padoux 105).

[ii]."Meditation or concentration on this point likewise works as a uniting force, a link, a Tantra, and brings the mind toward abstract concentration, which is used as a means to self‑realization. Bindu is also synonymous with semen or male energy. It represents static energy as well, as the unity between male and female principles. A bindu has great metaphysical significance and is the point of union between the aspirant and the Divine; it makes the unmanifest manifest, and thus the aspirant is able to establish a relationship with the unmanifest." (Johari 49‑50).

"Meditation or concentration on this point likewise works as a uniting force, a link, a Tantra, and brings the mind toward abstract concentration, which is used as a means to self‑realization. Bindu is also synonymous with semen or male energy. It represents static energy as well, as the unity between male and female principles. A bindu has great metaphysical significance and is the point of union between the aspirant and the Divine; it makes the unmanifest manifest, and thus the aspirant is able to establish a relationship with the unmanifest." (Johari 49‑50).

So aptly expressed by Kabirdas(1983, 44): "Wherever I look, only this, only this. The diamond pierced my ruby heart."

[iii]."Six by virtue of its symbolism as the union of sexual opposites, may represent wholeness. This concept is beautifully illustrated in the Sri Yantra, a mandala which is part of the sacred art of Hinduism. It consists of interpenetrating triangles. The downward‑pointing triangles represent the receptive female principle while the upward pointing triangles stand for the active male principle. Six pointed stars are created by the intersecting pairs of triangles. To the Hindu the Sri Yantra suggests the interrelatedness of all life forms." (Fincher 102).

[iv]."It is the point of contact between the Supreme Creator and his creation, the drop which swells itself into the ocean of consciousness, the zero which gives meaning and value to the myriad numbers, the cipher through which everything is deciphered. The Bindu is not a void, sunya. It is not nothing a nihil. It contains in itself everything." (Shankaranarayanan 29).

[v]. "There is, here, a stretching out to a Gaia‑politik, the conviction that the flesh of my body is also the flesh of the earth, the flesh of experience. To know your own flesh, to know both the joy and pain it contains, is to come to know something much larger than this." (Breman 1990, 344).

[vi]."Our mystical experiences are unitive experiences. They may occur on a dark night with the sparkling stars in the sky; at the ocean; in the mountains or fields; with friends or family; with ideas; in lovemaking; in play; with music and dance and art of all kinds; in work; in suffering and in letting go. What all mystical experiences share in common is this experience of nonseparation, of nondualism. "Separate yourself from all twoness," Meister Eckhart advises. "Be one in one, one with one, one from one," (ME, 128). Or as the great English speaking mystic, Juliana of Norwich, put it, "Between God and the soul there is no between" (JN, 77). Here Julian is celebrating the end of the primary dualism ‑ that between humans and divinity. The mystics promise that within each of us there is a capacity ‑the experience of the "no between" ‑ to be united and not separate. Mysticism announces the end of alienation and the beginning of communion, the end of either/or relationships (which form the essence of dualism) and the beginning of unity. Yet the unity that the mystics celebrate is not a loss of self or a dissolution of differences, but a unity of creativity, a coming together of different existences. Eckhart says that "the soul becomes God but God does not become the soul" (ME, 69). There is a unity in diversity, a diversity in the union of love." (Fox 1988, 49‑50).

[vii]. "The lotus is a flower which raises its head along the rising sun and droops down with the setting of the sun. It is the flower which eminently responds to the play of Light and it blossoms opening out petal by petal, signifying gradual unfoldment of the latent powers in being." (Shankaranarayanan 11‑12).

"A lotus represents purity. Its roots are in the mud, but the flower bears no stain of the mud and is pure. The individual consciousness also grows in the mud of samsara, but when it is pure, it is unattached to the world around it, unstained by the mud of desires and attachments." (Johari 53).

My yellow lotus has ten petals, which for me are the ten forms of the Divine Mother. "Dash Mahavidyas means ten different approaches to knowledge, or ten different dimensions of knowledge." (Johari 55).

[viii]."It must always be borne in mind that the essential element of authentic Christian prayer is the meeting of two freedoms, the infinite freedom of God with the finite freedom of man." (Ratzinger 9).

[ix]. In the parable entitled The Three Pillars of Religion Anthony de Mello affirms the importance of this space where self‑knowledge resides. "A great religious persecution broke out in the land and the three Pillars of religion ‑ Scripture, Worship, and Charity ‑ appeared before God to express their fear that if religion was stamped out, they would cease to exist. "Not to worry," said the Lord. "I plan to send One to earth who is greater than all of you." "By what name is this Great One called?" "Self‑knowledge," said God. "He will do greater things than any of you have done." (Mello 1988, 37).

[x]. "You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore set no bounds to your love, just as your heavenly Father sets none to his." (Matt. 5:43‑48).

[xi]. "The nature of your personal mythology depends upon your characteristic modes of myth‑making, the influence the larger culture exerts upon you, and your point of development in your life cycle. The central issues of your personal myth‑making activities are vastly different when you are young than when you are older. Churchill is said to have commented wryly on this subject: "The man who is not a liberal when he is twenty has no heart, and the man who is not a conservative when he is forty has no brain." Just as biological development passes through a continuous series of changes from womb to tomb, the myths we create evolve through a succession of changes from infancy to old age." (Feinstein 201).

[xii]. "For there is nothing like an absolute mobility or an absolute immobility in the universe. There is a certain amount of mobility inherent and innate in immobility and a certain poise of immobility apparent in mobility. Shiva and Shakti are no two separate entities. Shiva is in Shakti and Shakti is in Shiva. It is not in an abstract philosophical sense, that the Tantrics postulate the theory that Shiva and Shakti are one and the same. For them it is a concrete spiritual experience, a living reality. The whole universe is a standing testimony to this fact." (Shankaranarayanan 44‑45).

[xiii]. "Fundamentally the principle of yin‑yang stems from Taoism and means the relationship of opposing forces which are mutually necessary to one another." (Rowley 51).

[xiv]. "Your mythology is the product of four interacting sources. Biology, culture, and personal history are the most obvious. A fourth source is rooted in transcendent experiences ‑ those episodes, insights, dreams, and visions that have a numinous quality which seems to expand our comprehension and inspire our behavior. For Philip Wheelwright, "the very essence of myth" is "that haunting awareness of transcendental forces peering through the cracks of the visible universe." (Feinstein 186).

[xv]. As I describe my leap beyond the golden ring of legitimacy I feel like Henri Nouwen, who in the Foreword to Reaching Out declares that "during the last few years I have read many studies about spirituality and the spiritual life; I have listened to many lectures, spoken with many spiritual guides and visited many religious communities. I have learned much, but the time has come to realize that neither parents nor teachers nor counselors can do much more than offer a free and friendly place where one has to discover his own lonely way. Maybe my own deep‑rooted fear to be on my own and alone kept me going from person to person, book to book and school to school, anxiously avoiding the pain of accepting the responsibility for my own life. All that is quite possible, but more important is that the time seems to have come when I can no longer stand back with the remark, "Some say ... others say," but have to respond to the question, "But what do you say?" (see Mark 8:27‑30)" (Nouwen 13‑14).

[xvi]. Swami Abhishiktananda in The Eyes of Light offers a powerful description of the priest for whom India and the world await. "The guru or spiritual teacher can be only an individual who one day found in the depth of his soul the "true and living" God, of whom the Bible speaks on every page, and who from that moment onwards and throughout the rest of his life is marked by the scorch of this encounter just as Jacob was permanently lamed in consequence of the encounter at the ford of Jabbok, just as the skin on the face of Moses shone so much when he came down from the mountain of Sinai. The guru is the one who, having discovered in the depth of his heart the spark of Being ‑ not an abstraction but the I AM who manifested himself on Horeb ‑ henceforth can no longer fail to recognize it everywhere within and without each creature, each human being, in the inmost core of all that which exists, of each event, or each movement of the cosmos that measures time." (Le Saux 1983, 101‑102).

[xvii]. I want to use another quote from Henri Nouwen to shed some light on this stage, which he entitles, The Absence and Presence of God. "God is "beyond," beyond our heart and mind, beyond our feelings and thoughts, beyond our expectations and desires, and beyond all the events and experiences that make up our life. Still he is in the center of all of it. Here we touch the heart of prayer since here it becomes manifest that in prayer the distinction between God's presence and God's absence no longer really distinguishes. In prayer, God's presence is never separated from his absence and God's absence is never separated from his presence. His presence is so much beyond the human experience of being together that it quite easily is perceived as absence. His absence, on the other hand, is often so deeply felt that leads to a new sense of his presence. This is powerfully expressed in Psalm 22:1‑5: My God, my God, why have you deserted me?/ How far from saving me, the words I groan!/ I call all day, my God, but you never answer,/ all night long I call and cannot rest./ Yet, Holy One, you/ who make your home in the praises of Israel,/ in you our fathers put their trust,/ they trusted and you rescued them;/ they called to you for help and they were served,/ they never trusted you in vain." (Nouwen 126‑127).

[xviii]. "The closer we come to the center of the mandala, the more powerful its gravitational pull. Then, with a powerful release of pent‑up energy, we experience light, freedom, joy, peace, and unity." (Garfield xv).

"Each one of us must begin anew, perhaps again and again, if we wish to come to the deathless Beginning. Jesus Christ said, in a non‑canonical saying found on some papyri discovered in Oxyrhynchus in Egypt at the end of the last century: 'Let not him who seeks cease until he finds, and when he finds he shall be astonished. Astonished he shall reach the Kingdom, and having reached the Kingdom, he shall rest.'" (Ravindra 234).

[xix]. At this stage I want to unfold some dimensions of the colors which I was led to use while drawing the light from within MOIMA! Susanne Fincher throws some light on the use of colors from the perspective of Kundalini Yoga. "Each chakra has a color associated with it, assigned in the order of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple. The first chakra at the base of the spine is associated with red, "the color of blood, of dark passion" (Jung, 1976b:11). The next chakra a few inches below the navel, is given orange, "the color of the dawn or the last rays of the sun" (p.11). Moving up the spine we find the next chakra in the areas of the solar plexus. Jung describes this as "the place where the sun rises" (p.23). It is given the color yellow. The color of the next chakra, located near the heart, is green. Moving a few inches higher, we find the fifth chakra located in the throat area. Its color is blue. The sixth chakra is located in the head, at a point between and above the eyes. Its color is indigo. On top of the head is located the crown chakra. Its color is purple (often shown as lavender)." (Fincher 80).

[xx]. I like the way St. John of the Cross describes this beautifully in the Dark Night. "1. On a dark night,/ Anxious by love inflamed,/ ‑O joyous chance!‑/ I left not seen or discovered,/ My house at last completely quiet./ 2. In the darkness, with light,/ By the secret ladder, disguised,/ ‑O joyous chance!‑ /I left in the darkness covered,/ My house at last completely quiet./ 3. On that joyous night,/ In secret, seen by no one,/ Nor with anything in sight,/ I had no other light or mark,/ Than the one burning in my heart./ 4. This light guided me/ More directly than the midday sun,/ Where waiting for me/ Was the one I knew so well, my delight,/ In a place with no one in sight./ 5. O night! O guide!/ O night more loving than the dawn!/ O night that joined Lover with beloved,/ Beloved in the lover transformed!/ 6. Upon my flowering breasts,/ Which I had saved for him alone,/ There he slept,/ While I caressed his hair,/ And the cedars' breeze gave us air./ 7. As I spread his tresses,/ The fresh wind from the turret,/ Wounds me in the neck as it presses/ With its serene hand,/ Suspending all my senses with its caresses./ 8. I lose myself and remain,/ With my face on the beloved inclined;/ All has come to rest,/ I abandon all my cares/ There, among the lilies, to die." (Nicholas 103‑105).

[xxi]. Fully Indian Authentically Christian carries a quote from D. S. Amalorpavadass (1984, 15) which sums up the process of integration. "Each Indian Christian experiences within himself two streams flowing and merging into one: the stream of Judeo‑Christian experience communicated through the Biblical Word and continued through twenty centuries of Christian experiences and then the stream of 4000 years of Indian religious life articulated by Indian Scriptures. These two streams do not flow in parallel lines as two separate streams but both merge at the depth of our being as a single river and become an ocean of single experience." (Leeuwen 214).

[xxii]. In his poem with a divine intention, Not for all the Beauty, I feel St. John of the Cross captures the sense of wonder and explosion of the senses, which highlight the transformation of eroticism, in the ruby‑octagon. "1. The taste of what is finite,/ Goes only as far/ As to weary the appetite/ And destroy the taste;/ Thus not for sweetness/ Will I ever be lost,/ But for I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 2. The generous heart/ Never cares to stop/ Where it is easy to cross,/ But tries where it is hard;/ Nothing satisfies him,/ And with faith he climbs so high,/ That he tastes I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 3. He who is pierced by love,/ Or touched by the divine,/ Has his taste so changed/ That to all taste he is dead;/ As someone may leave/ The food he sees when sick,/ And craves for I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 4. Do not be surprised/ That taste be thus changed,/ For the cause of this evil/ Is alien to all the rest;/ Thus every creature/ Sees itself estranged,/ And tastes I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 5. For as soon as the will/ is touched from above,/ It cannot be satisfied/ But with the divine;/ Its beauty being such/ That only faith may show it,/ For it tastes of I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 6. Tell me if for such a lover,/ You will feel any pain,/ For he finds no pleasure/ Among created things;/ Alone, with no figure or shape,/ Without company or even memory,/ Except the taste of I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 7. Do not think that the soul,/ That is worth much more,/ Finds joy and happiness/ In what on earth gives taste;/ It is beyond beauty,/ In what is, was or will be,/ That it tastes I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 8. Whoever wants to advance/ Would better use care/ In what is left to gain/ Than in what he has already won;/ And thus aiming for the heights,/ I will always try/ For that I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach./ 9. What comes through the senses/ And may here be understood/ And whatever may be learned,/ Even though very high,/ Not for all that beauty/ Will I ever be lost,/ But for that I‑know‑not‑what/ That by fortune I may reach." (Nicolas 149‑151.

[xxiii]. "When you see a cross in your mandala" explains Susanne Fincher, "it can be a clue that you are waging a hero's battle and carving chunks of consciousness out of that which has hitherto been dark and unknown. You may find yourself struggling to make a decision or embarking on some new venture. Perhaps a cross is telling you that you are integrating a new ego center (Kellogg, 1977). When a cross appears in your mandala you might want to consider the possibility that you are balancing, more or less successfully, the contradictions that are part of human nature." (Fincher 122).

[xxiv]. "Then the world is no longer something to be shunned, but rather an eternal delight (jagadananda). Then one truly acquires akrtrima‑aham‑vimarsa ‑ pure‑I‑consciousness in which the world does not stand against the I, in opposition, but is instead the very expression of that I." (Singh J. 29).

[xxv]. "A sannyasi is one who renounces the world to seek for God, but his renunciation goes far beyond what is ordinarily understood by the 'world'. A sannyasi is one who renounces not only the world of sin, the world which today is so clearly set on the path of destruction. A sannyasi renounces the whole world of 'signs', of appearances." (Griffiths 1982, 42).

[xxvi]. As I bring to a close this revelatory journey with phenomenological humor I realize that my unconventional and creative experiment to realize the wave of the fullness of recognition is very relevant 'at the edge of history.' William Irwin Thompson points out that "Marginal experiments, I believe, are no longer "at the edge of history," for now it is the connective tissue of the planet that is vital for our evolution. ... Symbiosis requires shared processes and not simply adjacent locations. And so we have to learn how to live together and understand "the patterns that connect," the patterns that connect the global economy to the global ecology, the human mind to the network of computers, and the national political institution to the planetary culture. Another wave is on the horizon for the nineties. Wave?" (Thompson xiii‑xiv).

"Compassion is another word for the unitive experience and therefore another name for mysticism. Compassion is the "keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things which are all part of one another and involved in one another," as Thomas Merton observed two hours before his untimely death. A dualistic culture is uneasy with the deep, true meaning of compassion and sentimentalizes or relegates it to a lifestyle for "bleeding hearts." In truth, compassion is the very origin and goal ‑as well as the process‑ of creation mysticism. "The first outburst of everything God does," Meister Eckhart says, "is compassion" (BR, 44). This means that all creatures as children of God hold compassion in common. Compassion is our universal heritage, our God‑origin and God‑destiny. Compassion unites us, it forms the common "field" that all creatures share. The mystic intuits this, feels it, experiences it, tries to live it out in some fashion. Kabir celebrates this when he declares, "I am like a pitcher of clay floating in the water, water inside, water outside. Now suddenly with a touch of the guru the pitcher is broken. Inside, outside, o friends, all one." The dualism of inside outside is broken through in this image. The separation between the human and the divine is broken through for Kabir as he says, "O friend, Kabir has looked for him everywhere, but to no avail. For Kabir and he are one, not two. When a drop is merged into the ocean how is it to be seen as distinct? When the ocean is submerged in the drop, who can say what is what?" Divinity is not outside us. We are in God and God in us. That is the unitive experience of the mystics East or West. Its technical name is panentheism, which means that "God is in all things and all things are in God." (Fox 1988, 50).

[xxvii]. "It is only to the Siva‑pramata that everything appears as Siva. Pure I‑consciousness is the fons et origo of the entire world process. Involution starts from the pure I‑consciousness of Siva. Evolution gets back to the same pure consciousness, but the pilgrim goes back to his home, enriched with the experience of the splendor of Siva he has had on the way. Veil after veil lifts, and he is now poised in the heart of Reality." (Singh J. 30).

[xxviii]. A saying that is found both in Lao‑tzu's work and in the Upanishads. (qtd. by Campbell 1990, 168).