Messengers Much like Ourselves

"Messengers much like ourselves? Explain it."  --The Poems of Marianne Moore

                      By Disposition of Angels

Messengers much like ourselves? Explain it.
Steadfastness the darkness makes explicit?
Something heard most clearly when not near it?
Above unparticularities,

these unparticularities praise cannot violate.
One has seen, in such steadfastness never deflected,
how by darkness a star is perfected.

Star that does not ask me if I have seen it?
Fir that would not wish to uproot it?
Speech that does not ask me if I hear it?
Mysteries expound mysteries.
Steadier than steady, star dazling me, live and elate,
no need to say, how like some we have known; too like her,
too like him, and a-quiver forever.

American poet Marianne Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri in 1897; she moved as a child with her family to Pennsylvania; later she attended Bryn Mawr College. Her earliest poems appeared in Poetry and The Egoist magazines.

Seeds and Meditations

"Despair is the absolute self extreme of self-love, reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help, so as to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost."--New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

Merton writes in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation, on various topics meant for self-reflection and meditation. He says we are to read at our individual pace, not to feel compelled to take the author's pace or the author's conclusion. For in each of us there are seeds of contemplation which grow fruits different and unique as we are in Creation. Regarding humility he says that self-love and its result, despair are the opposite of humility. "But if a man is truly humble he cannot despair... because in the humble man there is no longer any such thing as self-pity... the man lives no longer for himself alone." Looking outward to others he lives in an "other focused" existence partaking in the joys of everyday life.Thus in complete humility selfishness is replaced by self-forgetfulness. Merton writes, "If there were no humility in the world, everybody would long ago have committed suicide."

Self confidence Merton writes is "a precious natural gift, a sign of health. But it is not the same thing as faith. Faith is much deeper, and it must be deeper if we are to subsist when we are weak, when we are sick, when our self confidence is gone, when our self respect is gone. Correspondingly a humble man is "not disturbed by praise." Since he is no longer concerned merely with himself, and since he knows the good (karma, if you like) that in him is for all benefit, he does not refuse praise because it is for the greater good, the greater joy.

About obedience and acceptance, Merton explores the values of both. "We must be convinced that it is very profitable for us to exercise ourselves in obedience, even to commands that are not perfectly rational or prudent. In doing this, we are not blinding ourselves or telling ourselves lies about the case. We simply accept the situation as it is, with all its defects, and obey for the love of God [the Creator]. In order to do so, we  have to make a fully rational and free decision, which in some cases may be quite difficult."

As for beginning in meditation, Merton writes:  "After they have acquired the discipline of mind that enables one to concentrate on a spiritual subject and get below the surface... acquire the agility and freedom of mind that will help find the light, warmth, ideas and love for God that are everywhere, in where they go and what they do...'

"Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn to contemplate works of art." Pray while in the streets of the city, or in the countryside. Meditate not only with book in hand. When meditation gets "beyond the level of your understanding and your imagination, it is really doing its work... then you must reach out into the fog and darkness with blind faith, filled with hope and love."

Judaism, a Theology of the Common Deed

"The gods attend to great matters; they neglect small ones..." Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C.E.-43 B.C.E.), ancient Roman Statesman

Responding to one of the great figures in the Hellenistic world Jewish theologian, Abraham Joshua Heschel writes "In the theology of the common good, according to Aristotle, the gods are not at all concerned with the dispensation of good and bad fortune, or external things. To the Hebrew prophet, however, no subject is as worthy of consideration as the plight of man. Indeed G-d Himself is described as reflecting over the plight of man rather than as contemplating eternal ideas. His mind is preoccupied with man, with the concrete actualities of history, rather than with the timeless issues of thought."

In the Nevi'im, or Prophet's message, nothing that has bearing upon good and evil is small or trite in the eyes of  G-d. The teaching of Judaism is the theology of the common deed. The Torah, or Bible, insists that G-d is concerned with the everydayness, the trivialities of life. Thus the great challenge does not lie in organizing solemn demonstrations, but in how we manage the commonplace. The prophet's field of concern is not the mysteries of heaven, the glories of eternity, but the blights of society, the affairs of the marketplace. He addresses himself to those who trample upon the needy, who increase the price of grain, use dishonest scales and sell the refuse of corn or wheat (see Nevi'im, Amos 8:4-6). The predominant feature of the biblical pattern of life is unassuming, unheroic, inconspicuous piety, the sanctification of trifles, attentiveness to details."

The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning (Torah, Leviticus 19:13,18). Love your fellow as yourself; I am the Lord. When you encounter your enemy's ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him. When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him (Torah, Exodus 23:4-5).

-- taken from I Asked for Wonder, A Spiritual Anthology by Abraham Joshua Heshel

Kundalini Yoga, Fact and Fiction

"The general idea prevailing about Kundalini, both in the East and in the West, is of a fabulous power... lying dormant, waiting to be roused..." --The Secret of Yoga by Gopi Krishna

When the subject turns from more commonly known Western ideas present in Judeo-Christian mysticism such as Incarnation,  to ideas prevalent in the East then brought West, such as Kundalini Yoga or other Hatha practices, quickly it becomes apparent that there is little credible information about this aspect of Hatha Yoga translated into English or available for use in the West. Why so? To Westerners accustomed to an intellectual system of Scholasticism, books and works of the mind alone are an immediate draw. Yet like many elements of Eastern philosophy, person to person transmission of many types of knowledge is critical, and cannot be obtained from any text. It is like the "Golden Rosary." These texts are said to be "secret" yet for aspirants and postulants they are available with direction and guidance through oral transmission.

So the secret is that they are secret, not secret-- like a good Buddhist Koan. Within the question is the answer. One of a handful of texts written on the subject for English audiences is written by Gopi Krishna. Writing in The Secret of Yoga, Krishna delves into some of the facts and fictions of Kundalini practice. He states that one of the popular conceptions of this practice is that a person who attains the highest Chakra, "attains unlimited dominance over the forces of nature..." There is no end to the natural powers attained by "those who succeed in awakening Kundalini (Adya-Kali)... many modern seekers expect from Yoga in the wildest flights of their fancy."

But what does Krishna say Kundalini is then, beyond Adya-Kali? Well, first of all he notes that the ancient texts are undoubtedly containing great wisdom, yet knowledge of the human body through much of the time periods that the ancient texts were written was woefully inadequate. For example, until the 1920s it was not well understood how a woman became pregnant; what the hormonal processes that developed into a monthly cycle were comprised of. Most of the most basic hormones relating to reproduction were not known until further into the 20th century.

Krishna argues then for a modern Kundalini, one that is informed by this age for this modern world. Kundalini he argues is a potent energy force, one that "has not been elucidated in any rational way in any text, ancient or modern." Kundalini, the Divine energy is often described by many writers both ancient and modern as "cosmic, astral, or psychic force without any biologic connection to the human body." And yet Hatha Yoga in all its forms is intimately concerned with the body as much as the spiritual nature of such body.

Krishna also calls into consideration the notion of a Chakra. Chakras are thought to be pathways for energy flow, increasing consciousness and leading to the emergence of the Kundalini in an aspirant. Yet Krishna notes that in Buddhist Tantric practice there are only four such pathways, rather than the much discussed seven-- as though seven were the usual number. In fact he argues that the notion of "seven lotuses (chakras) on the cerebro-spinal axis is of comparatively recent origin... under the cloak of weird formulations, fantastic formulations and mythical beings... of ignorance from the past, it is not surprising that... a whole host of divinities, and strange formulations in the body account for the bewildering effect of Kundalini. But now a rational explanation is called for."

And yet Gopi Krishna does not for a minute deny that a mysterious power of energy flowing throughout a body is Kundalini. And so he writes, " it is no secret that we live in two worlds [simultaneously], one spiritual and one physical... this is the reason why real success in yoga is so very rare.' ...an overhauling of the human body is necessary to effect the transformation most often sought.... And super-normal gifts such as prophesy and clairvoyance... become available to the successful initiates within limits." This, he says, in a nutshell, is the message of all the Tantras and all the ancient treatises dealing with Kundalini-Yoga. "For the aim of every religious practice is to bring the mind into Cosmic Consciousness or the Infinite Universe of Life, hidden from the ordinary mind.