Tag: Darkness

Cause & Effect, Esoteric, Esoteric Psychology, Karma, Musings, New Age, Personal Development, Rāja yoga, Yoga

Soul, Conscience and Temptation

In all the “manuals” of religion there is more about the “rules” than the implications thereof. They do not contain a “how to” or a “how not to” guide. This is a terse yet in my view accurate statement.

If one is attempting to adhere to the contents of any such “manual” one is bound to experience some kind of conflict between ideal and socially conditioned behaviour. It says do not steal, but many people do steal. One could argue that in the previous post I have infringed copyright. Yet I am in no way depriving these people of a significant income. People watch pirate videos and justify that this is not theft. They can be economical with the truth in insurance claims and tax returns.

{Theft and fraud which is a subset of theft.}

In esoteric terms the journey of evolution is to seek full integration of the personality, complete Soul infusion thereof and then blowing off the causal vehicle in order to remove the requirement for reincarnation – the fourth initiation.

That nutshell summary has vastness behind it.

I will speculate that every being on the planet has been tempted. The extent to which we succumb is varied.

As I have mentioned previously temptation is a thin end of the wedge phenomenon and it is via temptation that the door is prised open to allow darkness and evil to enter.

Some people are so greedy, gluttonous, and insatiable, that the wedge needs little lubrication. Those who want power and the thrill of “getting one over” another being, are easily tempted. The seeker of short cuts and advantage does not see virtue in level playing fields.

I’ll wager that most people have had pangs of conscience. The extent of these pangs varies and how they are acted upon / supressed is a personal choice.

I could suggest that the conscience can be the still small voice of the Soul trying to make itself heard above the cacophony of terrestrial and societal living. That is the true “self” attempting to take over the steering wheel and drive the car of incarnate existence in a less destructive way.

I am not a prude and have few corporeal hang ups. Less than most I speculate.

I have attempted in this life to listen to the real me, my Soul. One of the ways which this manifests for me is dreaming.

Possibly the biggest temptation for me came when I had to extricate myself from a prestigious and very well paid job. I was warned in a dream in no uncertain terms to “get off that road”. There were other “omens” too.

When things were financially tight and we were in the act of moving house, I got a ‘phone message in effect offering me a > € 8000 per month job, tax free, with loads of other “allowances” and diplomatic plates for my car. The ex-wife was seeing € and $ signs rolling in her eyes like in a Disney cartoon. That job would have acted as a way back into the science mainstream. I would be looking into satellite based LIDAR measurements using lasers, not exactly a giant leap for me. I had misgivings when I read the 350 Mb CD-ROM containing the regulations many of which were anti-corruption. I managed to extract myself and there was subsequent fallout from the greedy.

In general temptation for me has not been pecuniary. I have never made a false or exaggerated insurance claim and I am fairly meticulous with my income tax returns. I could easily have made shit up and gotten away with it, but I have not.

Because I am not interested in bossing people about and lording it over, I have had fewer troubles with the temptations of power.

Once the conscience has been drowned out or stifled by putting a pillow over its face and pressing down, the doorway to temptation is wide open. Then the “justifications” which allow and oil the way for the being to succumb, multiply and exponentially so. The slope downwards becomes slippery. Evil finds the particular furrow, the path of least resistance, inherent in each of us.

In my opinion, humans are very clever at finding ways to justify not listening to their conscience. It can be very inconvenient and many have ridden roughly over it. They have temporarily silenced it, yet the little blighter can be tenacious and it can continue to whisper in our ears.

A while back a paranoid man I once knew, who was a nasty piece of work called Terry, said to me that he slept well at night. It was something smug and clever to say. I saw that it was completely untrue and that this man was a liar. In my view this man cared nothing for others and was only in it for himself. He had evil in him. He was fearful, defensive, insecure, and punitive. He tried to bring others down to big himself up. But he earned a lot of money as a CEO. I did not get to see his Soul it was occluded.

He was a very bad and unpleasant influence on many, some aped him and copied his techniques of manipulation into their “play book”. I was relatively immune, not so others. When you come across a petty tyrant like this there is a wealth of learning to be had. This kind of manipulative power is salacious and attractive to some, glamorous even. To others it is fetid and malodorous.

In the news a tory-sleaze barrister is allegedly trying to “get out of” a speeding fine. Entitlement and invincibility, the delusory opium of power, has deranged her senses perhaps. Once the wedge, the burr under the skin, has found purchase it is difficult to extract. The rules are for the plebs and not us on Mt. Olympus.

Let me be clear I am in no way claiming to be an Angel or perfect. I have made mistakes and learned therefrom. I am not immune but I am less susceptible than I once was.

If you hear that still small voice, your conscience, whispering in your ear, listen with discrimination and discernment.

Is it saying to succumb to temptation?

Or is it suggesting that you can rise above this?

There may be a social cost of taking the more helpful and uplifting “guidance”. It may be less convenient and offer fewer apparent “advantages” but in the long run it will probably work out better. There will be less conniving, entanglement, secrecy, and shadow.

Your conscience might just be your Soul starting to ask for the steering wheel.

Magic, Musings

Who are you going to call?

There are many who seek power, more who are tempted by it and others who succumb to that temptation. They can give themselves over to the dark side of the force. Because the dark side is subtle and beguiling, they may imagine themselves to be just and right, pillars of society even. Thinking that they are entitled to exercise that power, they may lose sight of balance and unleash that darkness, that salacious lust for power over others, dominion {over the plebs?}.

They may become deaf to the emanations of their souls and enact deed dark and foul. They can become obsessed by the darkness. Once the thin end of the wedge has gained foothold in the doorway of conscience it swiftly erodes and forces the door ajar. Soon the avarice of me blinds and overtakes. The darkness has them. They become fearful of loss of power and ever more desperate to cling to it. A paranoia sets in and disproportionate behaviour is dished gleefully out.  They are defensive, prickly and easily offended. They may make a pact with the darkness, an oath whether spoken or otherwise which acts as a spell over many lifetimes until they are brought finally and painfully to their senses.

—-

Believe it or not I have met people who have signed oaths in their own blood with entities which they have encountered the other side of a mirror. I have met some rum types on my travels and many have seen fit to unburden to me. There can be a truth serum to me. {It might be due to my past lifetime as a Christian priest.}

People who are obsessed with power see pretty much everyone else as some kind of a threat. They may go out of their way to bad-mouth anyone who comes within a light year of their power base. They spread mis-information and lies. They big themselves up and put others down. Most of all those who have given themselves over to darkness hate anyone capable of exorcism. They will go out of their way to deride and destroy the exorcist. Though the residual human may be in sore need, the darkness is a jealous host.

So, if you suspect that you are descending into darkness or are already in its grips, who are you going to call?

—-

In France you can look up “exorcist” in Yellow Pages and indeed there are entries.

It is difficult to know when and if I am taking the piss. If I say that I have performed a full-blown exorcism which resulted in loss of bodily control and an exit burn where the entity left it is unlikely that you would believe me. I am not scared talking about exorcism or possession by dark entities. It does not give me the heebie-jeebies. I have looked darkness direct in the eye on a number of occasions.

Let me say this, oaths and contracts come in many forms. The more intent one uses in the oath, the vow, the more binding it is. I once promised someone to support and follow them, not realising that I was taking part in a binding spell. It took me years of harrying and agitation to get him to release me from that spell in writing. Other people, cult members, make many a binding oath. Cults are present in mainstream life and not just the bush in Kenya. There are elegant ceremonies for all sorts of societies. Magic is enacted at Buckingham palace with a ceremonial sword. There is nothing like a shared lie, a shared conspiracy, for binding beings together in one life and perhaps many more to come depending upon how heinous the conspiracy is. Some beings are tethered for a long, long time.

If you have given yourself over to darkness, who are you going to call?

It is very likely that you will have driven away the very person who might be able to help you in your hour of need. Moreover, they may be disinclined because of the way you have treated them.

If you like “power over” you are either in the process of being tempted or you have already succumbed hook line and sinker…you are in a trap of your own making…

Celtic, Quotations

I marked the Winter Solstice with Welsh druids and it was awesome

This from Wales Online:

Celebrations for the traditional event are still held on Anglesey every year

The shortest day in the annual calendar is marked on December 21 every year and is celebrated by people across the UK as Winter Solstice. It once held huge significance for Celtic people and while it tends to come and go with very little fanfare now, there are still people who like to mark the occasion.

Ancient druids once called Anglesey their home and would have celebrated the tradition every year, marking the imminent return of the sun and acting as a symbol of death and rebirth. To the surprise of some, this tradition is still celebrated on the island today.

For years rituals have been held to mark the arrival of Winter Solstice at Bryn Celli Ddu, a Neolithic burial chamber on Anglesey, conducted by the modern-day Anglesey Druid Order, and 2022 was no exception. And NorthWalesLive reporter Christopher Davies went along to the celebration – here’s what he had to say on the event.

Both members of the order and locals looking to celebrate the solstice gather at the chamber during the final hour of light to offer-up their thanks to various figures from Welsh mythology, the Mabinogi and beyond. The chamber is set so that the light from the sun at sunrise on the Summer solstice shines directly into the tomb’s passageway.

Having never attended any solstice events before and a little excited to find out that one was happening on my own doorstep, I decided to go along and see what it was all about. This year around 40 people had shown up for the event, which began on the roadside a short walk away from the Bryn Celli Ddu site. On this occassion the celebration was held early (Sunday, December 18), presumably to allow more people to attend the event than would be possible on a week day (Wednesday to be exact).

It was a short five minute walk down the path which, by the time we arrived, was a little muddy after the wet and snowy weather of recent weeks but for the most part easily accessible and a scenic autumnal walk to enjoy. As I arrived at Bryn Celli Ddu a little early, the Druids were still preparing for the ceremony and only a few people had made it down to actual chamber already – the rest arriving shortly after in a procession.

Before the ceremony got underway, the Druids encouraged everyone to move in close and the guests crowded around them at the front entrance of the chamber. A small cauldron covered with mistletoe acted as the central point of the proceedings.

Judging by the sky above, the clouds were doing everything they could to stop the rain from falling and sadly the midwinter sun was hidden just beyond them. The Druids played this off with a joke about how they’d only seen the sun once in ’20 plus years’ of Winter Solstice ceremonies.

With everyone set the ceremony began and brief moments were taken to help everyone reconnect with the land, the sky and the sea. Thanks were given to the various guardians and spirits of the site through offerings of alcohol bestowed on the land and to the Goddess Môn of the island.

This continued with several traditional mythological figures being honoured with offerings, while those attending the event were encouraged to join-in at certain points in the ceremony by giving thanks and saying a few words. They spoke of the people who roamed this island long ago, people who once feared this time of year – a period where the light slipped away, bestowing upon them the belief that they’d been left in perpetual darkness until Christmas morning when the light returned once again.

A moment in the ceremony dedicated to celebrating the sun led to a number of jokes and a recitation of the story of Lleu, the light giver from the Mabinogi, to which the Druids explained their purpose of ‘bringing the sun back’. The event was rounded-off by the appearance of the Mari Lwyd – a famous figure in Welsh folklore bearing the skull of a horse and glowing eyes crowning a body shrouded in a white cloak – and offerings of coins and beer were made to her. Mari meanwhile snapped her jaws back at the various gifts, much to the delight of the young children who had come along to the event.

Dreams, Karma, Personal Development, Poetic Prose, Poetry, Vision

Tenebris

The ancient cloak descends through the mists of time upon the earth, primordial in its essence, unforgiving in its relentlessness, cloying and suffocating all in her path. Beauty is extinguished as the damp greyness envelops and enfolds. It recovers the nascent growth, the seeds that part the earth in search of the sun falter sans lumière. 

On the hillside sheltering from the storm against a low brick wall stands a man, his coat shaggy and stained by the peat water of the marsh. He turns up his collar against the wind. He looks at his hands cold and sore from the wind and the rain. He feels the salt path as the tear of his life rolls across his cheek, leaving a track in the mud and the dirt. There is a break in the rain and he stands and looks into the mist. There on the horizon he can see the tendrils of smoke from his cottage. Wearily he picks up his bag and sighs. Bracing himself once more against the elements he sets off. Each step is slow and forced as the memories of every step seem echoed in the fibres of his body. Slowly he gathers his strength to stand once again in the darkness. He searches in himself for the life giving spark. It is there. He fans it with his inner breath, the essence of his life force. He blows gently and soon the spark of his self belief is beginning to glow. Soft and orange, smoky and pungent with the pine sap of his blood. He gathers his will and harnesses it, he corals and directs it towards the flame with the strength of his will he ignites the fire. There he stands a glimmer a life alive. 

He reaches in, to his heart, to open wide the portcullis slammed shut at the frustration of it all. As he walks his body shakes as he once again renders his heart to open. To take it so wide and to prise open the overrun vines of neglect that has clamped it tight. He looks again to his flame and brings it to the castle gate. He holds it aloft and towards the ice. He peers at the reflection of the flame as the white surface snows melt and the image of his outer being is reflected within. He looks within at the eyes. In those eyes he can see the ashes of his lives, the very footprints in the sands of his times, the canvas of his lives written and painted with the palette of his moods. Windswept and dark, light and warm every shade of season, every nuance of feeling each stored as a pastiche of his story. He holds the flame of his self belief to the glass chalice of water, the one whose contents sear his being-ness and burn and pose the question why. 

The pine smoke of his flame darkens the glass and he watches as the water begins to dance with the flame. Yes, there it is that first bubble of hope, it floats and it rises and bursts forth into the now heavy air. With its release a spark returns. He feels its exuberance and its irrepressibility as child in his eyes. He turns again to the manger of his heart, that external womb where he seeks to nurture. He pulls back the covers and looks to the soft downy blankets fresh with the smell of the newborn. For into that heart he puts the child, the symbol of his vulnerability, the symbol of his damaged trust.

 He pauses and searches again for the dove of his being-ness. He reaches within his cloak and cradles it in his hands. He coos into its ear and raises it aloft. He sets it free onto the four winds, to fly and to soar, taking with it the autumn leaves of his self doubt to scatter them to the corners of the world. In the inner world the now wrinkled leaves change into the first seeds of acceptance. He kneels as he abandons. In that release the chains of his own petty wants and desires are rent. Link after link is stretched the metal bending white as the force of his will rips at the steel of his chains. The echo of release runs down his spine as that which was wrought is now asunder. 

He feels himself dissolve and expand into the cup of his karma. The flame of his being-ness bursts into pure light and sound as it expands across the landscape of his world. The vision of all places and all times, the omniscience that is not him yet he is of it. His consciousness flows across the patchwork fields of the low countries. It becomes the royal eagle soaring against the sea cliffs where earth plunges into ocean. The ocean spray washes his wings and freshens his face, as he plays with gulls and rides amongst the nests on the cliff faces.

He dives like a cormorant into the ocean of his life, driven this way and that by the currents that he does not understand nor comprehend. He emerges onto a desert shore.  The dry warmth begins to ease the form. He smells it, the crescent of the desert moon sparkling in the sky. He sniffs and the lungful adds to the spark of his inner flame. He walks with camels in the desert night, lit by the majesty of the stars against the backdrop of the infinite heavens, the veils of space and time showing him the mirror of his own insignificance against the cosmic canvas torn apart and created by a purpose that cannot be named.

He looks within at the sun now dark and sees the orange fire that shows the blackness and he huddles for comfort on that mountain hillside, shaking and afraid. He lifts up his head and howls at the crescent moon, the sound of his voices echoing all the pangs of birth resonant with the sorrow and with the joy of the world, of hope long forgotten. The core of him stretching back through aeons and the string of his voice tendered and marked by every hand that stretched it. He allows his consciousness back to the source, the rose of his own birth where the essence of his own being was forged and thrust into life.  He feels corpuscles of his being-ness clustering into that flame held in the ether of life, the spark of that arrow made by the divine fletcher.

Then he sees it, the first blue in the darkness. A hush falls on the land as slowly the form can be seen in the shadow and the purple black recedes into shades of blue,  so heart warming. The primordial darkness yields to the sun as the pinprick pink pierces the sky, deepening of colour, certain of its own footing, it pushes and probes the darkness. The lotus flower of its leaves opens in song as it rejoices its own birth. Heady and fragrant it yields its fresh perfume on the day. It calls to its heralds the angels, to sound forth the clarion call of life, a life alive and ready. The sky now alight in the soft radiant dawn has a clarity of diamond and a purpose of pure and ecstatic white, brilliance and clarity. The mists of darkness recede and the divine and cosmic essence shines forth warming the heart of man, healing in hues of emerald green, warming with soft yellows, energising with blues and comforting in its sound. It causes his whole body to shake with release. As he bathes in the sun the aches and the weary-ness of his existence are soothed.

He turns again to his flame and it is now bright. He moves across the hillside with more eagerness and perhaps he can now smell the tendrils of the wood smoke from his hearth that is waiting for him.

—

Om mane padme hum – the jewel in the centre of the lotus….

Climate Change, Karma, Musings

Light Through Darkness

It is possible that parts of the world will be plunged into darkness this winter, both literally and metaphorically. Whilst the West ramps up its anti-Putin rhetoric Lavrov only pays lip service to the UN Security council. There is a mobilisation in Russia and the western newspapers comment on Russians fleeing. I think there may be an unwillingness to acknowledge that this conflict is going to be longer and much wider spread. Hitler mobilised. People did not take it seriously.

I have said before that a nuclear winter is one way to slow global warming. It is a stark statement.

The darkest hour is just before dawn.

I personally am concerned for the UK economy with the ideological steps being touted for today. It is not conservative to put everything on tick, on the credit card. There is a choice to put a sticking plaster on and cross your fingers or to actually try something meaningful. The short term thinking of the West is in contrast to the longer term strategy in the East. Trying to please people to stay in power is not necessarily a good idea.

This morning I am thinking about water butts, purifying tablets, Geiger counter and Iodine. My pals at Agroconomy have been in touch. I have bought various things from them before. Is it time to think about a generator? Perhaps not yet.

Darkness precedes light.

Are we going that way?