Patterns

Have you noticed patterns in things around you? Do you see 1:11 or at 11:11 on a regular basis? When you look around you, do you see patterns, or shapes, or geometries in the most mundane every day things. If so you are not alone. One of our evolutionary traits that increased our chances of survival was the ability to see and recollect patterns - from seasonal hunting to watching the cycles of nature and the stars. In fact, the concept of time is very much a by-product of this for we are only able to understand our own mortality when we see it as a limited number of cycles. I suppose, that in order for us to understand true mysticism we need to get beyond the patterns or the cycles of time and perceive the higher patterns in the universe, ones that initiate us into the mysteries of infinite space and time, of timelessness, of an inner pattern. Look around you and let your everyday humdrum world initiate you into the mysteries of the universe. You never know, the portal to the infinte may be opening up just next to you. Don't miss it!

Preparation

Next week I am going to write about being a "Modern Mystic." Yes, it is possible to live in the modern world of speed, terrorism, financial fraud, war, premeptive action, technology, genetics, strings, quarks, Mars rovers, designer drugs and yet still experience the mystical. I'll take you on a journey through many traditions and then look at how it can be achieved today. But, before we induce the mystical, we have to be prepared. Having a mystical experience when unprepared is like having a 20,000 volt current pass through your neurones when you are only built to withstand a thousand. When it does come, it will be like a thousand light bulbs lighting up in your head and you will need to be ready. So we will look at getting prepared. Come back next week and I will start my quest.

Ah! Sunflower

"Ah, Sunflower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done:

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go."
~William Blake



The painting here is Blake's "The Ancient of Days". William Blake (b. Nov. 28, 1757, London--d. Aug. 12, 1827, London) was the first of the great English Romantic poets, as well as a painter, engraver and printer.

The Passion

I haven't seen the new Mel Gibson film yet, but I did hear a great review of it on NPR from an editor at Slate (his name slips me.) He described the film as being in theme with Mel Gibson's other work in which the hero always suffers excruciating pain and setback before finally receiving redemption or justice - Mad Max, Payback, Braveheart and the Patriot. I guess I am concerned about a film that focusses on the sacrifice of the man rather than the core of his message. Perhaps Mel Gibson should read the Gospel of Thomas. What do you think?

Ash Wednesday

For Roman Catholics, this is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the season of austerity leading to the celebration of Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter. On this day the celebrant of the rite marks crosses of black ash on the third eye chakras of the faithful to remind them of the vanity of all worldly pleasures, and ask them to turn inward to cleanse the soul of all impurities in the weeks before the solemn rites of sacrifice and redemption are enacted. Ash Wednesday is yet another Christian adaptation of an earlier festival: the Adonia, a time of mourning for the Syrian demigod Tammuz, whose rites were observed at this time all over the eastern Mediterranean, especially at Byblos and the other major cities of Syria.

from the Universal Festival Calendar by Dan Furst

Shrove Tuesday

From BBC Religion and Ethics site

Shrove Tuesday is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent. It's a day of penitence, to clean the soul, and a day of celebration as the last chance to feast before Lent begins. Shrove Tuesday is probably the Christian festival that the family enjoys most, after Christmas, of course. But there's more to Shrove Tuesday than pigging out on pancakes or taking part in a public pancake race. The pancakes themselves are part of an ancient custom with deeply religious roots.

Penitence
Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the ritual of shriving that Christians used to undergo in the past. In shriving, a person confesses their sins and receives absolution for them. When a person receives absolution for their sins, they are forgiven for them and released from the guilt and pain that they have caused them. In the Catholic or Orthodox context, the absolution is pronounced by a priest. This tradition is very old. Over 1000 years ago a monk wrote in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes:
"In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him."

Shrove Tuesday celebrations
Shrove Tuesday is a day of celebration as well as penitence, because it's the last day before Lent. Lent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up. So Shrove Tuesday is the last chance to indulge yourself, and to use up the foods that aren't allowed in Lent.

Giving up foods: but not wasting them
In the old days there were many foods that observant Christians would not eat during Lent: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods. So that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent without going off. The need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras; meaning fat tuesday. Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.

Major Religions of the World

Ranked by Number of Adherents
from adherents.com
(Sizes shown are approximate estimates, and are here mainly for the purpose of ordering the groups, not providing a definitive number. This list is sociological/statistical in perspective.)

1. Christianity: 2 billion
2. Islam: 1.3 billion
3. Hinduism: 900 million
4. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million
5. Buddhism: 360 million
6. Chinese traditional religion (Confuscionism): 225 million
7. Primal-indigenous: 150 million
8. African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million
9. Sikhism: 23 million
10. Juche: 19 million
11. Spiritism: 14 million
12. Judaism: 14 million
13. Baha'i: 6 million
14. Jainism: 4 million
15. Shinto: 4 million
16. Cao Dai: 3 million
17. Tenrikyo: 2.4 million
18. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
19. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
20. Rastafarianism: 700 thousand
21. Scientology: 600 thousand
22. Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand

The adherent counts presented in the list above are estimates of the number of people who have at least a minimal level of self-identification as adherents of the religion. Levels of participation vary within all groups. These numbers tend toward the high end of reasonable worldwide estimates. Valid arguments can be made for different figures, but if the same criteria are used for all groups, the relative order should be the same. Further details and sources are available below and in the Adherents.com main database.

Starting a Quest

Before you start any quest you have to prepare for the journey, even if that journey is inwards into the deepest recesses of your being, into your soul.

"having closed all doors of senses and firmly holding the mind in the cavitiy of heart & then fixing the life breath in the head & thus remaing steadfast in yogic concentration on god, he who leaves the body & departs uttering the one indestructible Brahma, OM & dwelling on me in my obsolute aspect, reaches the supreme goal."
Bhagavad Gita IV, meditation 12-1

"It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world -- that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves!"
Swami Vivekananda

The Modern Mystic

At this early hour of the morning I contemplate the mystic in me. I have learned that there are techniques in every tradition to awaken an inner perception of the transcendant state. A state that lies beyond time and beyond the senses. It is a process by which one can awaken more of the brain than most human beings use in an average lifetime. From the words of mystics before me, it seems the mind is a transmitter or a device to connect to fields, states and dimensions untenable through human experience alone. This state can be induced temporarily with DMT, mushrooms or LSD. Some are born with this ability to use more of their minds. But the true state, the one which provides the most satisfactory outcome comes through practice. And the result....pure bliss. In a world where we crave interconnectedness through the web, through our technologies and our communications, there is actually only one true way to connect to everything, and that lies within. Withdraw your senses. Control your breath. Release the fields of electomangetic activity within your spine. Make sounds that awaken the centers. Watch. Watch. Watch. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Surrender. And then a light will come. You will never be able to go back. Bliss!

Sayings of Jesus from The Gospel of Thomas

20. The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us what Heaven's kingdom is like." He said to them, "It's like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky."

37. His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?" Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample then, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

77. Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

- Gospel of Thomas, verses [20, 37, 77], Nag Hammadi Library

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth and is now accepted by theologians and historians as a true part of the early Christian Church and as one of the most significant manuscripts ever found about Jesus and the history of the Church. Portions of three Greek copies of the Gospel of Thomas were found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt about one hundred years ago. They are known as Oxyrhynchus Papyrus and were probably written during the early part of the 3rd Century, A complete version in Coptic, the native Egyptian language written in an alphabet derived from the Greek alphabet, was found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. That version can be dated to about 340 AD. The Coptic version is a translation of the Greek version. Most scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas was originally written in Syria in Greek. This Gospel was excluded from the original New Testament after the Conference of Nicea because it puts forward a version of Jesus' teachings that were contrary to ideas popular in the Roman Empire at that time and the later Roman Catholic Church. The heretic idea it professed was that the Kingdom of God is spread out upon the earth now, if people can just come to see it; and that there is divine light within all people, a light that can enable them to see the Kingdom of God upon the earth. This meant that every one of us has the ability to experience God. This philosophy of direct knowledge became known as Gnosticism.
RC

You can read the entire manuscript at gnosis.org and find out more about the history of the Gospel of Thomas at this site.

The Legend of Valentine's Day

For those of you who celebrated Valentine's day on the 14th, you may have been tempted to believe that the whole thing was a recent invention of the card publishing, jewelery and chocolate industries. Well, put your minds at rest. Valentine's day has been dedicated to lovers since ancient antiquity.

The Lover's day celebrated in antiquity was actually the 15th of February, and the Romans celebrated it as Lupercalia, the festive day of the gods Lupercus and Faunus, both responsible for the fertility of flocks, fields and people. On Lupercalia, goats and dogs were sacrificed on Palatine Hill in Rome and then young men would race on to the streets beneath the hill wielding goatskin thongs called Februa (same root as February). They would lash women gathered in the streets with their thongs. Februa lashing supposedly ensured fertility and easy child delivery.

The celebration of Lupercalia transformed and became more civilized as the Roman Empire expanded. When Rome conquered Gaul, a new tradition was developed of exchanging the first Valentine-like cards. Apparently, a container in which women had placed their names (possibly accompanied by love notes) was used in a lottery. Men drawing a women's name would either seek or were guaranteed (this detail seems obscured by time) a woman's "favors" whatever those might be.

The legendary naming of St. Valentine Day stems from real-life Christian martyrs of the Roman Empire known as Valentines. One of these is believed to have been a Roman priest and physician who was killed in the third century, during the persecutions of the Emperor Claudius II Gothicus - the Goth. A second Saint Valentine candidate was believed to be the bishop of Teni and was executed in Rome at around the same time. Their status as saints was assured through legends of harboring Christians from persecution, curing the blindness of a cell keeper's daughter and for conducting marriages while they were forbidden during times of war. It is most likely that this last legend and the traditions of Lupercalia ensured that St.Valentine became known as the patron saint of lovers.