One's own body is a microcosm: the whole universe is within.

[Guest guest]

>

> The universe is composed of centres of energy known as 'chakras'.

> Out of the 'bindu' come all the 'chakras', each of which is a

> centre of energy - we would speak in terms of atoms, molecules,

> cells, organisms. The whole universe comes forth in these centres

> of energy, culminating in the highest human centre of energy, the

> human consciousness. The important point here is that, as the

> universe comes forth from the 'bindu' and structures itself around

> the person, so the same power is present in one's own body. One's

> own body is a microcosm: the whole universe is within.

>

> This idea is particularly worked out in Kundalini yoga, where the

> understanding is that Kundalini is the serpent power. The serpent

> was always the symbol of this earth power. That power is supposed

> to be coiled up like a serpent power at the base of the spine and

> is understood to be the source of all psychic energy. That

> energy, 'kundalini', rises up through seven 'chakras', or energy

> centres, from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. As

> the Kundalini, which is really the goddess Shakti herself, rises up

> through the body the whole being is gradually transformed, from the

> physical, through the psychological, until finally spiritual

> evolution is attained. It all takes place within, and what takes

> place within is reflecting and resonating with what is taking place

> in the universe outside. The whole process is conceived as the

> marriage of Shiva (consciousness) with Shakti (energy).

>

> That is the vision of the universe in the Hindu tradition, in which

> there are many similarities with the vision of the Western

> scientist and philosopher today. Western science, having lost

> itself in materialism, is discovering its mistake and is opening

> itself now to the ancient wisdom, and East and West are beginning

> to come together.

>

> A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

> Christian Faith)

> Bede Griffiths

> Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

> ISBN 0-87243-180-0

> Pgs. 74-77

>

 

His Universe Within

 

" The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is

the sower of all true art and science.... To know that what is

impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest

wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can

comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this

feeling, is at the centre to true religiousness. "

 

Visions Of The Universe: Kazuaki Iwasaki

 

On August 20, 1995, at the home of Sahaja Yogi, Dattatreya, in Maine,

USA, Kash was shown the book Visions of the Universe containing vivid

and strikingly realistic paintings of the planets in the universe by

Japanese master painter, Kazuaki Iwasaki. (The text is by Isaac

Asimov and preface by Carl Sagan.) He was told to look at each page

and point out the celestial bodies he had seen in his mystic journeys

as he traveled across the universe with Shri Mataji, and reminded to

be sure that they matched.

 

He identified the following planets as he traveled with Shri Visva-

Dharini Devi in the universe within the Sahasrara within himself:

 

The Earth looks as that on page 17. He is sure as he had seen it from

outer space while descending upon it with the Great Adi Shakti on

1994-04-30....

 

http://adishakti.org/his_universe_within.htm

 

 

" So, according to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus ridiculed those who

taught of the " Kingdom of God " in literal terms, as if it were a

specific place: " If those who lead you say to you, `Look, the Kingdom

is in the sky,' then the birds will arrive there before you. If they

say to you, `It is in the sea,' " then, he says, the fish will arrive

before you. Instead, it is a state of self-discovery:

 

" ... Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.

When you come to know yourself, then you will be known, and you will

realize that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you will

not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are

that poverty. " 40

 

But the disciples, mistaking that " Kingdom " for a future event,

persisted in their questioning:

 

His disciples said to him, " When will ... the new world come? " He

said to them, " What you look forward to has already come, but you do

not recognize it. " ... His disciples said to him, " When will the

Kingdom come? " (Jesus said,) " It will not come by waiting for it. It

will not be a matter of saying `Here it is' or `There it is.' Rather,

the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth and men do not

see it. " 41

 

That " Kingdom, " then, symbolizes a state of transformed consciousness.

 

Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, " These

infants being suckled, are like those who enter the Kingdom. " They

said to him, " Shall we, then, as children, enter the Kingdom? " Jesus

said to them, " When you make the two one, and when you make the

inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the

above like the below,

And when you make the male and the female one and the same ... then

you will enter [the Kingdom]. " 42

 

Yet what the " living Jesus " of Thomas rejects as naive — the idea

that the Kingdom of Heaven is an actual event expected in history —

is the notion of the Kingdom that the synoptic gospels of the New

Testament most often attribute to Jesus as his teaching. According to

Matthew, Luke, and Mark, Jesus proclaimed the coming Kingdom of God,

when captives shall gain their freedom, when the diseased shall

recover, the oppressed shall be released, and harmony shall prevail

over the whole world. Mark says that the disciples expected the

Kingdom to come as a cataclysmic event in their own lifetime, since

Jesus had said that some of them would live to see " the Kingdom of

God come with power. " ... All three gospels insist that the Kingdom

will come in the near future (although they also contain many

passages indicating that it is here already.) Luke makes Jesus say

explicitly " the Kingdom of God is within you. " Some gnostic

Christians, extending that type of interpretation, expected human

liberation to occur not through actual events in history, but through

internal transformation. " (40. Gospel of Thomas 32.19-33.5, in NHL

118; 41. Ibid.,42.7-51.18, in NHL 123-130; 42. Ibid., 37.20-35, NHL

121.)

 

Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels,

Random House, New York, 1989, p. 128-29.

 

 

" I am a Gnostic. It was in my childhood, when the comforting

orthodoxies of tradition seemed to fail a world suffering the Second

World War's shattering blows, that the first glimpse of Gnosticism

came to me, with its disclosure of long-forgotten truths. So

overwhelmingly deep was its ancient hold upon my mind that I became a

relentless gatherer of information about every aspect of this ancient

tradition and eventually resolved to dedicate my life to its revival

and dissemination...

 

Viscerally, instinctively, intuitively, I feel life in this world of

matter, space, and time to be a failed and flawed work, vitiated and

corrupted in its most fundamental structures. Mainstream Christianity

has given recognition to this insight with its doctrine of the fall.

Gautama, the Buddha, expressed it well when he said that Earthly life

is suffering, from which only a radical awakening of the spirit can

liberate us and transport us to Nirvana. While others may debate such

insights, I know them to be true.

 

But these radically negative recognitions regarding all creation —

from the distant stars to the deteriorating cells of the body — are

accompanied by an equally radical certainty that is an organic part

of the Gnostic vision: the conviction that within me dwells a

mysterious thing that does not participate in the curse and the

emptiness of this world. Within me, and indeed in all human souls,

there dwells a secret fire, a spark, a ray of light emanating from

the true, the ultimate Deity — that distant, yet mysteriously ever-

present Stranger, who in a paradoxical way is also our only true

friend in our condition of exile.

 

What then is the future? Or, more properly, what is my future? What

is the future of any and all who wake up to the recognition that they

are exiles from worlds of boundless light and love and power, living

in a dark place of suffering? Our task and thus our future is to

regain our lost homeland by renouncing the snares of the powers that

rule this world, to rediscover our unity with the transcendental

realm of existence, to find again the kingdom of that original,

ancient, and alien Light, the scattered and lost sparks of which we

are. "

 

Stephan A. Hoeller, A Gnostic View of the Future

 

(Stephan A. Hoeller is bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica, a church of

Gnostic descent. He is author of several works on Gnosticism,

especially in its relationship to Jungian psychology, including The

Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, Jung and the Lost

Gospels, Freedom: Alchemy for a Voluntary Society, and The Royal

Road. He is a frequent contributor to Gnosis and Quest magazines and

lectures worldwide on Gnostic and other esoteric topics. Source:

Georg and Trisha Lamb Feuerstein, Voices on the Threshold of

Tomorrow, The Theosophical Publishing House, Quest Books, 1993, p.

392-93).