Sensationally Discover & Serve the World

The spiritual path is the path of the ordinary hero, and it sees the world very differently to the outlook that is promoted by pure science. The entire spiritual journey is one in which the individual learns by degrees to see and read the world as an all-nurturing miracle of guidance in which we have a role as co-creators. It is a path that teaches us – deeply, deeply teaches us – that the state of no effort is our greatest strength, for it is also the seamlessly integrated state of Being that enables us to harmonize with the strength of the world. Eventually that teaching leads us to the understanding that the world itself is enlightened; to join the world is to die to the endarkened ego and give yourself to the supreme light of intelligence all around you. Enlightenment is not something any individual can possess, any more than someone could possess the Logos or Buddha consciousness. Spiritual enlightenment in an individual is nurtured by a profound dissolution of the anxiety that separates us from the world, so that we can at last join it, seeing and understanding “the real as the play and work of love”, as Andrew Harvey put it.

To join the enlightened world is to awaken to a place of ceaseless renewal and revelation; a place of companionship in which you are fully known in everything you do, even as you sensationally discover and serve the world in everything you do; a place in which alienation and existential isolation are seen to be creaky illusions, because in fact you know yourself to be an indivisible part of all Being, intimately and companionably sustained by it; a place in which endless gifts arise from the deep mystery that suffuses everything ordinary.

~ Philip Shepherd, ‘New Self New World’

For the Love of Mooji

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If you haven’t come across Mooji yet, I highly recommend that you check him out. He is a student of the one of India’s most renowned saints, Sri Ramana Maharishi. Although Maharishi passed away late last century, Mooji has carried on teaching to the essential core of Advaita Vedanta philosophy and patiently, unwaveringly, compassionately  pointing towards the ineffable essence at the center of every conscious being. He guides each seeker that comes to him with such tenderness and care that I find it impossible not to fall in love with him, and then fall into the direct realization of his timeless message.

Symbols of Healing in the Synchronistic Wavefield

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This image speaks to both the revelatory unfolding of essential esoterica as well as how that esoteric knowledge can be practically applied. In the course of an individual’s unique evolution these teachings are provided as a catalyst. As the mind-stream ripens the self-evident existence of these realities provide a reflection of the growth and healing that takes place along the path of illuminitive consciousness. The caduceus is truly a timeless archetype and as a form of symbolic transmission it speaks directly to the deep mind in order to stir awareness of spiritual evolution, and to the conscious mind to ignite the flame of aspiration in to order to actually get up and do something about it.

The twining serpents are, of course, the primal lifeforce energies referred to as prana in the yogic traditions, winds or essences in Tibetan tantra, and elements, directions, or animal totems in the Native American traditions. Here we see the energetic flow in the form of the snakes coiling upwards showing how all vital creative energies manifest and move in spirals and vorticies. The crossover points represent critical neural/energetic plexuses along the spinal column, otherwise called chakras. There are seven chakras that are commonly taught, though as an adept advances many more are uncovered and mastered. Here the base six are shown going from the root all the way to the so-called third-eye [ajna chakra] which is representative of the pineal/pituitary complex -the deepest and oldest governing center of the human organism. In the yogic iconography the ajna chakra is depicted as being binary, or having two petals. In this case it is the image of two wings calling to mind the notion of a bird spreading its wings in order to take flight. In the physical plane this action is one of transcending the gravitational field and gaining mobility and higher perspective. In the non-physical realm this intimates how the subtle body can move from a denser dimensional sphere to higher one. When the perceptual emphasis of the being shifts away from a linear dualistic orientation (where seeing is done merely ‘through the eyes’), a person will begin to see with the singular eye (the pineal gland) and the world is revealed as a continuous and unbroken field of waveforms. Concomitantly, the bird of consciousness takes flight and one is no longer bound to a deterministic and sequential flow of time. The simultaneity of events is sometimes referred to as synchronicity.

The background geometries of the image are done in a style reminiscent of the Shipibo Indian iconography. These people are indigenous tribes who dwell in the Peruvian Amazon and who use the amazingly powerful  psychoactive brew called ayahuasca as a sacrament and cure-all medicine. It is no mere ‘co-incidence’ that the tea made from the sacred vine has the potential to teach those who sincerely imbibe it to first see, then to fully comprehend the cosmos as a multi-dimensional and infinitely fractal continuum of energetic waveforms (indicated by the distinctive line weavings of their designs). When the traveler is healed from the ego-bound split of duality, he/she takes flight into the synchronistic multi-phased nature of the waking dream.