Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Universe




Letting go is the strongest thing we can do, as the Tao teaches. It is a dynamic that progresses under the surface. What we do with our outward lives is a reflection of this, and almost incidental.

Trust and faith are most important. Faith is the essence of things unseen, according to the Bible. We feel what is coming even before knowing what it will look like. We feel the “wheels” of the Universe moving, moving, and blowing the Spirit through our cells.

Yet, sometimes a vision of what is yet unseen is offered. We see this imperfectly, but enough to allow confidence to grow. Then we are comforted, and though the road ahead be long, it is endurable. We have the patience to wait for what is coming.

Such a vision is a consolation, but also a warning: do not lose faith. The Universe will unfold all according to its own schedule and method. When our own personal emotional and spiritual milestones have been met, and our psychic pathways cleared of debris and made passable, then doors will swing open of their own accord.

It will be clear, obvious, and unmistakable. There will be no doubt or confusion about the next step to take. There will be no lingering inner conflict or discomfort. The movement of the Spirit will be expressing in every sphere, blowing us like leaves in the only possible direction.

Our work is to believe in this perfect unfolding of the Universe, however gradual or discontinuous it may appear, and however slowly it may seem to occur. All that is required must be in place.

Our discipline is to trust, and to live in that trust. We are to take any outward or inward step toward wholeness that is indicated. We are to integrate ourselves and our relationships. We are to release expectations and bindings and not presume to work our own will.

The Universe will accomplish all that is needed on its own terms.

And, it will keep us posted.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Meher Baba





A new friend has introduced me to Meyer Baba, whose writings are proving to be a revelation.

I am currently reading his amazingly lucid "Discourses." The topics Meher Baba discusses may not be new in spiritual terms, but his way of communicating them is surprisingly accessible.

He speaks of the ego as an "affirmation of separateness," and says:


The ego affirms its separateness through craving, hate, anger, fear or jealousy. When a person craves the company of others, he is keenly conscious of being separate from them and thus feels his own separate existence intensely. The feeling of separation from others is most acute when there is a great and unrelieved craving.


Of these attitudes mentioned, most spiritually oriented people would agree that craving, hate, anger and fear are characteristics to be actively opposed through prayer, fasting, conscious renunciation, etc.

However, there is often a strange permissiveness or acceptance surrounding jealousy, as though this emotion is somehow more justifiable. Someone makes us jealous by the betrayal (real or perceived) of our claim to their exclusiveness and loyalty.

Meher Baba zeroes in on this dynamic with uncanny accuracy. He writes:


The feeling of separateness finds most poignant expression in jealousy. There is a deep and imperative need in the human soul to love and identify itself with other souls. This is not fulfilled in any instance where there is craving or hate, anger or fear.

In jealousy, in addition to the nonfulfillment of this deep and imperative need for identification with other persons, there is a belief that some other soul has successfully identified itself with the person whom one sought. This creates a standing and irreconcilable protest against both individuals for developing a relationship that one really wished to reserve for oneself.

All exclusive feelings bring about a narrowing down of life and contribute to the limitation and restriction of consciousness.



With craving, hate, fear and anger we bind ourselves, but with jealousy we also bind others as well. No doubt this contributes to the emotive force of that experience and makes it more difficult to overcome.

Recognizing that jealousy is a tool of the ego for reinforicng its identity and sense of separateness may help to counteract this,

but ultimately the heart must come to know that in loving all

it can possesses none.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

As It Should




I have to believe things are unfolding as they should. It is the only possible hope, the only point of sanity.

To believe otherwise is to accept chaos, anarchy, and the absence of either divine intelligence or divine love (which are probably the same).

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then every thought, feeling and action count; they become part of life's grand equation influencing, however imperceptibly, everything else.

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then the future is not a black hole from which any catastrophe or monster could emerge; rather it is the hand of a merciful God giving what we have requested and need.

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then the pain I feel today matters and my slightest efforts to absorb it into an already aching heart move levers of transformation that begin to illumine the darkest corners of my life.

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then my longing to see dear ones is noted within the Universal compassion and love moves through the ethers between us regardless of distance.

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then Divine Judgment is not a condemnation but a revelation, exposing "what is hidden inside," so that "right action can be taken."

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then my dreams have power and become the raw stuff that eventually manifests as "what is."

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then not one sad tear or forlorn hope is wasted - they devolve and dissolve into the vast pool from which God draws the waters of rebirth and rejuvenation.

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then I should not worry when circumstances seem bleak and unfriendly, when sorrow stands at my bedside and silent agony is my daily companion, for all this is my fair lot, my portion of the universal Pain of Becoming.

If the universe is unfolding as it should,then I should be grateful for each moment's meditation on the Dance of Death that completes the Circle of Being.

If the universe is unfolding as it should, then I also am unfolding

. . . just as I should.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Four Directions




The four directions of the heart appeared, each in its own color of red, green, yellow and black. The directions stretched as far as the eye could see, and within each the heart longed to be purged, set free of its burdens of attachment.

According to ancient alchemical symbolism, four refers to a synthesis, a striving for wholeness. And so the heart surveyed the four directions of its reaching into life, eager to release all.

The heart now “waits on the Lord,” for the purging is something given, bestowed, rather than made to happen.

And it knows that in this release and purging is peace unimaginable.

The “peace which passes understanding.”

Monday, September 21, 2009

Speak As Though





Speak as though standing in church,

one monastic to another.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Great Work




The movement of energy and consciousness toward and into the heart releases the workings of the mind,

allowing a spaciousness to form around mental activities.

To the heart, this moment is enough.

There is not a sense of "things that must be done," or that the day is long or that many years stretch before and behind.

The pressure of circumstance diminishes, and impossible conditions lose their ominous and threatening tone.

Then the "Great Work" is perceived not as something extraordinary to be done in the world.

Rather, it emerges as a diligent attention upon reality as this presents itself,

an inward and inconspicuous activity

that is wholly invisible to others.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Vision




Discernment comes

in allowing the vision to present itself

on its own terms,

in its own way,

according to its own schedule.


This will not be when you want to see it,

but when you are ready to.


Not all solutions are revealed easily

or immediately.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Broken Selves




We go through life searching for the fragments of our broken selves. Those pieces are within us all along, but we do not know it.

Instead, they seem to be in the possession of others whom we must find. Destiny leads us to the people holding our missing fragments.

When such a one is discovered, our impulse is to claim that person. He or she seems precious as a jewel, a reflection of what we most desire.

But wholeness comes from discerning that it is not someone else we must claim, but our own selves. That sliver they seem to hold, and the power over us that it represents, needs to return.

This is a key not only to our freedom, but to the sliver-bearer's as well. Reclaiming our power is a gift both to ourselves and to the one who has borne the burden (though involuntarily or even unconsciously) of our unmet need.

When our power returns and is amalgamated with its source within, rest and peace can become realities.

We are then able to hold the restored globe of our lives calmly, and consider its manifest possibilities with the full attention of an undivided and undiluted self.

We cannot realistically serve the world at large until we have served the world within,

by uniting its disparate fragments into a unified and coherent whole.

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Unknowable





The Unknowable requires total trust.

Without trust, whatever is happening or might happen seems threatening. And whatever has happened seems a mistake.

Trust assumes that everything is in God's hands and that His will is operative to bring about goodness.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Past, Present, Future

The present doesn’t connect with the past anymore. Nor the future. The trajectory between them has been broken, aborted. The future can’t reach the past through the present.

When the polarities of past and future are trying unsuccessfully to connect with each other via the present, the experience of living becomes hellish, a nightmare of dashed hopes and dreams from which one desires escape at any cost.

The message gets presented in a way that can’t be side-stepped: acutely painful life circumstances in which no resolution seems likely. Even holding out hope represents another return to the vain and frustrating search for a connection that has disappeared.

This is experienced as a profound discontinuity. Of course, “future” and “past” are only thought forms, but emotional energy is bound to them. And when this energy cannot flow from one side to the other – it sits within bodily cells churning and uncomfortable.

But release, if it can be called that, is possible, and comes from consciously accepting the complete uncertainty of continual change. It comes from relinquishing both past and future and abiding NOW in the presence of The Unknowable.


This present moment is one’s only safe place – the only place where actual peace can occur. And from this place it is possible to get a clearer perspective on the history of the past and expectation of the future – to view these from a point of detachment free from emotional energy.

This severing of past and future could be represented by the Tarot Tower key, in which a lightning bolt knocks the inhabitants out of their realm in the airy mental regions and dashes them to the ground of acceptance.

The intensity of the shock leads to surrender- when past and future can no longer connect, the heart has no alternative but to embrace the present as its only reality.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Wisdom Listens




"Wisdom listens quietly while others talk."

Boris Rafferty (2012-2073)



An alert blog reader has passed on this timely article from Carl Johan Calleman:


9.9.9. and the Mayan Calendar


The number nine has been endowed with a special significance in many different spiritual and religious traditions. Nine was the number of muses in Greek mythology and Nine were the number of worlds in the Scandinavian. Nine was the number of doors to the holiest part of the temple in Jerusalem and the month of Ramadan is the Ninth in the Muslim calendar. Moreover, the counting system used by most of the world today includes nine numbers and so the relevance of this number is much ingrained in us. Also, in the Mayan tradition the number Nine plays a predominating role. The only existing inscription from ancient times that discusses the meaning of the Mayan calendar “end date” for instance speaks of Nine “deities” that will descend then as its crucial event. This would in modern wording mean that Nine energies, or Nine cosmic forces would fully manifest then since the ancient Maya would look upon time periods as “deities”. As far as we can tell these “deities”, or cosmic forces, are like evolutionary wave movements, built on top of one another where we are currently riding on the eighth one getting ready to ride on the ninth.


The Nine Cosmic levels (Underworlds) that according to the only existing Mayan inscription about the calendar end date (Tortuguero monument 6) will manifest then. Currently we are in the eighth level (The Galactic Underworld) gearing up to the Ninth and highest level, the Universal Underworld. Photo of the Pyramid of the Jaguar in Tikal by the author.)

In the manifestation of these evolutionary waves we may now as we approach the Ninth level notice an amazing synchronicity. This is that the upcoming date 9.9.9 (September 9, 2009 in the Gregorian calendar) happens to coincide with the beginning of a Mayan Sacred Calendar count of 260 days. Hence, in this calendar, in use since 3000 years, the modern date 9.9.9 has the energy of Hun Imix, or 1 Alligator as its English translation reads, which happens to be the first of its energetic combinations. If we ponder what this synchronicity may be telling us the most natural conclusion to draw is that on this particular date we are called to focus on the number nine and especially the Ninth level of the Mayan calendar system, whose coming into existence we are soon about to witness.

I believe that behind these cosmic forces, whose times of activation are described by the Mayan calendar, is an intelligent plan for the history of humanity that comes from a higher source and has a benevolent intention. To realize this is also to understand the importance of the guidance regarding how to follow this plan that we may gain from the calendar of the Maya. These nine cosmic forces are influencing and in fact governing our collective consciousness and so we have every reason to pay attention to what is going on in this cosmic time plan.

Synchronicities can often be interpreted in different ways, but if they are profound they always deserve our attention. 9.9.9, three Nines in a row, may for instance be seen as symbolic of three sacred calendar rounds of 260 days that will now in three steps lead us to the completion of the Ninth level of evolution which is its highest level. To the best of our knowledge this highest energy state of the universe will be attained on the energy 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13 13 Ahau (13 and Ahau are symbols of completion in the Mayan calendar) on the Gregorian date October 28, 2011. This highest state does not in any sense mean the end of the world, but only that all the Nine wave movements are then completed. Maybe we can use the metaphor that we are now about to climb the last hard steps of a ladder until we climb on to the roof where we will find a new stability under our feet and a place to rest.

Regardless of what this final climb will mean we thus have reasons to expect an unprecedented period of change in a very short period of time. This is partly because we are entering the final phase of the eighth level of evolution and partly because a wave movement of a very high frequency, the Ninth level, will radically come to transform the collective consciousness in such a way that we will see the world in an entirely different light. It is for this reason that in the three upcoming Sacred Calendar rounds that follow upon 9.9.9 we will need to network and focus our intentions so that they converge in the birth of a new world. This is all the more important as there are several sources that seem to indicate that the sixth night of the Galactic Underworld, beginning on November 8, 2009, may come to generate a deep downturn in the world’s economy.

The first of these 260-day Sacred Calendar rounds, the one which actually begins on 9.9.9 and goes on until May 26, 2010, may be seen as a period of build-up to the Ninth level that is suitable for prayer, meditation and mental focusing. We encourage community building, networking and spiritual synchronization in this time period, also of a practical nature. The second 260 calendar round, starting 27.05.10 will create a preliminary arrival of the Ninth level and the beginning of this will be marked by the Cosmic Convergence, July 17-18, a significant focus point for spiritual projects of a practical nature that will prepare for the birth of a new world. The third Sacred Calendar round of 260 days will begin February 11, 2011 and includes the actual activation of the Ninth level, the Universal Underworld on March 8, 2011. This may be the most dramatic of the three steps as it leads up to the establishment of the highest energy state of the universe on October 28, 2011.

I believe that through these three steps, three Sacred Calendar rounds, starting on 9.9.9: 1/ Build-up, 2/ Preparatory Ninth level and 3/ Actual Ninth level of the evolution of the cosmos, the universe is now about to deliver what it has been striving towards all along, the establishment of a new level of consciousness, a unity consciousness. I also believe that the Ninth level is designed especially to generate such a unity consciousness, which will transform all of human society. For the human race it will mean very big challenges and opportunities. These changes will however not happen by themselves and need to be manifested by the human beings themselves who may then chose to resist or welcome them. From this perspective we may thus look at the date 9.9.9 not only as a numerological curiosity to celebrate, but also as an opportunity for us to focus on and embrace the participation of humanity in a transformation process of a very large scale, the one brought by the Ninth level of the Cosmos.

From what we may understand of the Mayan calendar the unity consciousness will set an end to all forms of dominance of one human over another and especially those generated by the left brain. What this likely will mean is that instruments of dominance, such as the current financial system, weapons, national borders and many other structures upholding authority in this process will come to crumble as an effect of this unity consciousness coming into existence and so conclude with the birth of a new world where a divine harmony characterize the human relations. This end to dominance will also affect the relationship between the genders on a global scale that as a result will profoundly shift. Needless to say, there will never be any return to business as usual. Instead we will need to approach the birth of the new world consciously and with an intention of co-creating it in a positive sense and not just react to the various difficulties that lie ahead. I believe that such a collective intention of co-creating the new world will be the best way of easing the consequences of these difficulties.

Although what is starting on 9.9.9 is only the build-up phase to the Ninth level, this date is nonetheless a very important focusing point since the timing of the continued preparations for the emergence of this level are of the essence. From this follows that the more practical projects that will start to manifest in the Cosmic Convergence, July 17-18 2010 as the name implies, will have to be based on an understanding that the very framework of the human existence and of consciousness will be dramatically expanded. The expansion of human consciousness is what will bring the socio-economic transformation at a time when the hardships of the old systems may be expected to be painfully felt also by nations that currently may been considered as wealthy. As the Ninth level is finally activated our identities will come to be defined in a much expanded spiritual framework.

This article comes much too late to encourage people more broadly to focus and intend together for the future. Nonetheless, many will celebrate the 9.9.9 date regardless (see for example http://www.fredpajorden.se/sida21.html ). The purpose of my present article is then only to inform those that will be celebrating this date anyway, that indeed this is not just a numerological curiosity in the Gregorian calendar, but that the date plays a profound objective role in the cosmic plan as we may understand this from the Mayan calendar directly leading up to the birth of a new world through the Ninth level, 9.9.9. It is an ideal time to participate in prayers and meditations with the focus and intention of co-creating a new and better world. Additional tools for networking and communication with the focus on the Cosmic Convergence, July 17-18, 2012 will be developed as we go along. 9.9.9 may be seen as an initial and modest initial call for the co-creation of the birth of a new world.

Malmö, September 6, 2009 (11 Edznab)
Carl Johan Calleman

Monday, September 7, 2009

The Blank Rune




The Blank Rune has come to me,
both as present circumstance and inner state.

The slate is wiped clean as endings are fulfilled
and all that formerly was
becomes as though it never had been.

Nothing is yet written upon the fresh unmarked surface
as emptiness waits to be replenished with unknown newness.

The Blank Rune calls for total trust in what cannot be seen,
courage and an empty-handed leap into the void.

It portends, nay promises, a death.

Rebirth shall come, but who will be its witnesses?

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Hard Stories




"I have seen the place that looks at the stories of the world.

and to it, all the stories are the same -

even such a hard one as mine.

There are no easier and no harder stories;

no simpler or more complex ones.

They are all just the background noise of human existence,

having only as much significance

as a person's belief in them."


Boris Rafferty (2012-2073)

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Land of My Youth




"I will return again to the land of my youth,

Where my heart knew peace,

And testify that God is in all

And has never looked away."


Boris Rafferty (2012-2073)

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Beauty in Poverty




It is most important to open up in depth and truth, to be present where we are and a contributor to life around us.

There is beauty everywhere, but the poverty-stricken do not perceive it.

The work of spiritual maturation and renewal requires allowing life's harrowing experiences to open our hearts for the sake of others. Through our own hurts we become sensitized to the wounds of others.

So that we learn to be the soothing touch

that we ourselves desire to receive.