Donning the cloak of the Hermit

Picture taken by Hettienne Grobler September 2014 Lourdes Full Moon

I have donned the cloak of the Hermit.

I will write from time to time

on my four currently active blogs

And

You always know where to find me.

I Am the Light of the world - ACIM

Blessings and Peace

Hettienne Bhakty Maria Ma

I

We are the Kingdom of God

I returned from our pilgrimage to sites sacred to

Mary, saints, gods and goddesses and archangels.

We visited ancient ruins of temples, gothic

cathedrals, churches,

sacred gardens, monuments, convents and

other holy places.

We stood in awe in places still alive with the Holy Presence

of those who have understood the greatest

Truth.

The Truth that the Kingdom of God

is yes, in us, but also that the

Kingdom of God IS us.

The Truth that human heart is the

Sacred Temple and that the holy war

between two opposing sides

are raging within the human heart.

St John the Divine Cathedral, Montmartre, Paris

The trip was incredibly intense.  Every day we had

to face challenges and obstacles.

Plans had to change at the last minute;

misfortune happened;

things did not work out as planned.

Each day offered each one of us many

opportunities to witness ourselves and our own

reactions and our own responses to these

challenges.  Years ago, when I first started

undertaking sacred pilgrimages, a wise woman told

me that one is always tested to the extreme when

you set foot on the pilgrim's path.

Full Moon 7/8 September - Nativity Feast of Mary

On the other side of the coin, of course,

we do live in a world of opposites after all,

we had incredible, breathtaking awesome moments

every single day.

Unexpected beauty such as the full moon behind

the Notre Dame with the full set of bells pealing

for the Nativity of Mary!

This full moon was still hanging blushing pink and gold

in Lourdes and followed the procession

and at one point she was directly above both the

statue of Our Lady of Lourdes as well

as the Lady being carried in procession.

I had the opportunity of visiting St Teresa d'Lisieux's

garden and her sacred relics and we offered

roses to her image in her rose garden

At both Lourdes and Lisieux the sacred fragrance

were so thick and intense that it seemed virtually

tangible : a mix of honey and rose.

And it was not the flowers!

A street shrine of the Blessed Mother in Rome

The statue of the Vestal Virgin, Claudia, in the ancient city of Rome

We visited many sacred sites in Paris;

travelled to Lisieux and Chartres;

spent nights in Lourdes and Assisi

and visited many sacred and historic

sites in Rome and travelled to Napoli.

Statue of Isis in Pompeii museum in Naples, Italy

If you are interested in reading about my

experiences and insights during this trip, you

can follow my blog posts at

www.path-of-divine-love.com.

I have also started blogging the

Tarot Deck of the Mysteries of Mary at

www.hergracesacredart.com.

After this pilgrimage, the entire deck has

morphed into something far deeper

and more intense that when I started off.

St Teresa Basilica Family Crypt in Lisieux

This pilgrimage took place exactly 13 years, also in

September, to my first pilgrimage.

Many of the places in Rome and Assisi I had visited 13 years

ago and the change in my perception and understanding

which I faced in the mirror of my consciousness

reflected back at me from the physical world,

was a rebirthing experience.

Yet again, I realised, that our ideas and thoughts

and the waves in our consciousness die and 

are reborn infinitely.

Each day I felt more and more humbled by the

understanding that dawned on me.

A street shrine in Paris

Once again, I realised that it is not our own doing,

yet, we have to continue to do.

It is as though we have to dig the foundations and

gather the bricks and mortar and create

the inner garden, in the faith and trust that the Beloved

will appear and fill that garden with the most

exotic blooms and fragrances, with orchards

of fruit trees and rich harvests.

At times I felt as though I was being taken apart

and NOT being put together again;  I had

vivid dreams every night and the image

of a broken doll was very vivid.

Yet, the doll continues to dance through life

as she does not do so by her own volition

but by the Hand of God.

I once again witnessed how easily the spiritual path

is turned into one of sentimentality and superstition.

A true spiritual path is truly a religion of the soul.

It has underpinnings of discipline and commitment;

it is carried by humility and the ability to

surrender to the Will of God.

Street shrine in Rome

I would say our biggest obstacle and challenge

is to become aware of our own understanding

and view of ourself and the world, as it is

this psychological view that we mainly project

onto the Divine :  whether it is that we get

distracted by the politics of the age, the gender

of the divine or equality issues.  A simple place to

start would be 'Know Thyself'.  In other words,

get to know your personality, your likes and

dislikes, your personal beliefs, your conditioning

and most of all, your 12 personality archetypes.

Get to know their positives and negatives and

then surrender both to the Self to be

transformed into the Living Fire.

Our minds (that is, our personality)

creates the veil which covers the

inner sanctum of the Heart.

This veil is also called the Veil of the Mother,

or the Sacred Garment or Maya

and it has a dual role.

Much like the double sided head of Janus,

the veil keeps us out of the Inner Temple where

Wisdom resides, but it also encourages and aids

us to find our way into the Temple.

Try to work that paradox out rationally and logically.

I changed the Temple of Mary to

the Temple of the Mysteries of Mary

as I realised, in humility, Mary is so much

more than a modern goddess.

That the Theotokos (the Mother of God) is an integral

part of the miraculous love of God's Kingdom

and that she is so much more than psychological

feminine face of God.

I read the word God as 'It' and not as "He' or

'She'.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 1:1-13, we have the description of the incarnation of the Word. 

In the original text of this chapter, in the Greek,

there is no masculine pronoun "He" in several passages, as the English versions suggest.

It’s actually written in the early Greek as "this one," not "He." 

Here is the text with these adjustments:

1 In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, 

and the Logos was God.

2 This one was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made through this one; and without this one was not made

anything that has been made.

The Temple of Vesta in ancient Rome

Through the arc of time, there has always

been the mystical understanding that

we embody cosmic transformation.

The understanding is also that this transformation

entails giving in, giving up, surrendering and

ultimately death.  The cosmic battle between

dark and light is taking place within ourselves

and our understanding and if we are to hide

in sentiment and 'light and love' niceties

we will always be held in the hands

of our biological fate.

Each of us is part of the Kingdom of God

and we are constantly participating in the

play between mind and heart, self and Soul.

In response we are asked to notice,

to become aware,

to appreciate the mystery,

to consciously participate in it,

and to be grateful.

Resurrection

Resurrection, Regeneration and Re-birth

These are words and images desired by all and often pursued with great intent and focus. But, alas, this part of the journey implies a preceding destruction, dissolution and death - something which the human mind would rather deny or avoid at all costs.

Nothing can be created without destroying something else. Anyone who is consciously creating art, will know this principle well. Often one becomes paralyzed at the thought of breaking down that which seems to be serving you well and that which has proven a worthy vehicle, but you cannot build without breaking down. Even if it only means that where previously there was an empty space of land, and you now create a new building, you still have to destroy the empty land.

And this also holds true for the self. Leaving the old behind invites that you step into the unknown, into a new part of the adventure, without a map and without a clear detailed plan. This calls for great courage and action - both characteristics of the heart chakra. Action as in an inner attitude, a willingness to do things differently, a willingness to let go of who you think or believe you are. For instance, it is no use telling your partner or your family, that 'you are not an emotionally demonstrative person' when you know that he/she is yearning for some display of affection from you. It is about reaching out, taking the risk, becoming vulnerable, and doing that which your heart calls for. This can be something really small - look at it as a pebble on the surface of a lake - the smallest pebble creates many circles and ever-widening circles - the same as love in action.

The human resists change, but life is an ever-changing flow, with nothing permanent or 'absolute'. Everything depends on your perspective, your beliefs and your paradigm. Many sages have set out to demonstrate this reality to seekers, but the power of the mind and its fear of change and the unknown is very strong and this is seated in the lower parts of the brain, known as the primitive or reptilian brain and the limbic brain (more about this in further blogs).

The answer lies in the higher functions of the brain - illumination and 'enlightenment' is a function of the higher brain and accessible to all human beings! The activation of higher neural pathways in the brain, is the goal of all energy healing, mystical traditions, practices and very importantly, the goal of meditation. Activate the higher pathways of the brain and you will be re-born into a new reality - one where it is possible to live with the tension of the opposites; where you will know, as the Shaman, that it is possible to live in your own reality, beyond the laws that govern the world created by the lower mind, artist and creator of your own life - albeit always as a part of the whole. Entering the domain of the artist/creator/shaman does not equate the status of 'God'/Creator/AllThatIs. We are a spark of the Fire and we are both nothing and everything, mortal and immortal, of no consequence and of every consequence. This is part of the paradox that will become clear to you as you step into direct encounters with the 'mystical' world. (I place many of these words in apostrophes as they are all words laden with belief and conditioning. The way in which I use them will only become clear to you if you continue to read my words and gain a deeper understanding of the meaning that I am trying to convey to you).

By activating the higher pathways of the brain, the old recording and habitual (mostly negative) thinking is erased. The gates are opened to a peaceful existence without fear and anxiety rooted in the cellular memory and generated by the primitive and limbic parts of the brain. The entire energy structure of the human being is transformed. The luminous body grows and expands and the higher chakras become active. A large and powerful energy field is created, radiating compassion and tolerance and others are attracted to this Love.

A new way of understanding and thinking will become natural and this is available to everyone as part of their evolution into a 'spiritual divine' being. But in order to activate these higher centres, you have to do the work and above all, you have to allow the changes to take place. You have to die to the old, spend time in the cave of death and the Underworld, going through the pain of loss, and face the fear of death, before you can be resurrected into a new you. This is a physical and real initiation. Undergoing energetic and mystical initiations cannot replace the physical initiation. They can prepare your mind and test your willingness, but ultimately, you have to walk the talk and you will be given the opportunity to be tested. You will undergo this initiation many times until you finally face the final initiation, that of mortal and physical death. Should you pass these initiations, and grow 'wings' as you return from each one, it is said that you will retain knowledge of your personal essence and you will not be re-absorbed into the river of unconsciousness after the final death of the body.

Often one starts with a spiritual practice and changes (as promised) will arrive on your doorstep. However, because these do not fit in with your paradigm and your ideas of who you are and where you are going, you ignore these messengers. The spiritual traditions are all vulnerable to distortion to suit your own, or your spiritual leader's needs and agenda. Everything that looks like gold, is not always gold. The shadow is a powerful adversary and a wonderful instrument in service of the fearful self. When the self fears change and the unknown, it will employ the shadow self as a servant in the game of keeping you in the dark. We have many tools to our disposal, such as rationalisation, justification, postponement, sloth (the lack of courageous action, the lack of integrity), and others. The shadow is a master of distortion and will use well-known spiritual terminology and concepts to hold you prisoner. When fear is present, love is absent.

That then, is the test. Am I in fear or am I in Love? There is no other choice. If you are not in love, then set about discovering why you are in fear. Ask the questions and live the questions. Be patient. Eventually you will live the answers.

Freedom through Love

Surrrendering to God (the Unknown and Unknowable) requires an unwavering faith and trust in the Absolute Goodness of God.

Surrender is the key to unveiling the Truth of Oneness, so why would the mind not allow you to surrender instantly? The obvious answer is 'fear', but then, fear of what? Fear of God. The fear of God is implicit in the creation of a seemingly separate human mind - one that has its own personal perceptions based on personal experience. Therefore a very valid point of view, seen from the mind's perspective, to not willingly surrender to that which is Unknown and Unknowable - would you not agree?

The mind cannot know God and that is where the problem lies. As long as you rely on your mind and its perceptions based on its own limited belief systems, you will not even be able to contemplate the nature of God. The direct experience of God will give you the taste of what you are seeking - it will satisfy the yearning of your heart and the longing of your soul. You will not be able to explain God in words or concepts and this is because God is not an idea! God IS. God IS at all times, whether you are consciously aware of this or not. God IS.

And the paradox is that the more you empty your mind, in order to step into the IS, the more you will get to know your mind and the less attached you will become to its content and belief systems.

How do you empty your mind and start this journey on a daily basis? There are various forms of meditation, but it is not necessary to move into an ashram, or to withdraw from life and to acquire vast meditation skills. In fact, when you do any of the above, you are creating another belief system and really, to know God, you have to step into a life 'beyond belief'. You have to let go of all belief systems, so be conscious of which new belief systems you are creating.

It can be as simple as becoming aware of each and every moment. Take fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes at night (before sleep) and sit with your breath. In this time, focus on the in and out breath. No pranayama, no manipulation of the breath, just a rythmic breath. As you breath in and out, be present and be aware, be willing to BE WITH the breath, and to be with yourself and thus to be with God. Yes, to be with God! as you, without judgement, without the need to improve yourself, without goals, without striving, just BE. It is said that God is closer than your own breath. In the Hindu tradition, the God Shiva (Siva) is an anagram of Vasi (breath) - surely you can see that there is a message here. God is not a separate entity 'out there'; neither is God a being, limited to duality and good and bad. God IS. And only you can know God, by knowing yourself.

As you become conscious of the moment, you will become conscious of certain thoughts and feelings. Do not fight these. Do not engage these. These are all part of the 'story'; the story that you wrote and continue to write about yourself. Let them arise to the surface of the mind like bubbles and let them be. 'This too shall pass'. It may take a while to trust the process, but eventually the clouds will start to clear. You may not have any immediate insights, but you will notice new feelings, a new sense of lightness, a more positive outlook, and so on.

The truth is that you are not separate from God. God is both within and without. God is everything. Even by using the word God I am projecting a series of beliefs and adjectives in your mind, but to communicate, we need words. You can replace the word 'god' with Love, or Peace, or Christ, or Goddess, or Light. Most of these have already been claimed by spiritual and religious traditions, so once again, you are limiting your knowledge of the Divine. So there is only one way, and that is to go beyond - to go beyond the mind.

In The Cloud of Unknowing, a work by an unknown Christian monk, he says that the mind creates the Cloud of Unknowing, which obscures the knowledge of God and in order to clear this cloud, you have to put everything else into the Cloud of Forgetting.

This is a wonderfully simple analogy for exactly how I am with and know the Self.

The mind likes to and wants to understand and interpret, in order to organise, structure and mainly to control.  The mind believes that when things are not going according to its plans and goals and expectations, that it is doing something wrong. You, as servant to the mind, then start to 'do' in order to bring seeming order back to the chaos. But chaos is needed to create, so unless, you can allow the chaos, you can not live a creative life, and your inner world will become a wasteland. You will feel trapped by external routines and seemingly limited choices. As long you try to interpret and understand, you are analysing and 'filing' and adding to the 'story'. You always have a choice whether you look at a glass as half-full or half empty. You have the same power when it comes to writing your story. You can have exactly the same childhood as someone else, but based on your perception, your personality, your expectations, you will write a different story about your life and more importantly, about yourself, than someone else. But eventually, you only become a character in this story, and you are written by the story line that you set in motion a long time ago. Your choices become limited, your reactions become predictable and the people that you attract in your life, are all seemingly the same character, just in different dress-up every time. These characters are usually the Big Bad Wolf, or the Evil Stepmother or the jealous Ugly Stepsister or the Fisher King and so on.

So, how to change the story? How to undo the storyboard and how to step off the page? Through surrender.

Surrender does not mean that you just 'give up' and become downtrodden and despondent and despaired - well, sometimes it does. But not for this exercise.

To understand the meaning of surrender in this context, please visualise a triangle. See the one leg of the triangle in the 'negative' and the other leg of the triangle in the 'positive' and then see the apex of the triangle in the centre, high above it all. The apex of the triangle I like to call 'High Thinking' (the Absolute, Union, Unity Consciousness, at-one with God). All three points of the triangle is 'true' for you, the human being. You are standing with two legs in duality and your Soul is in God. If you keep your head in God as well, whilst going about your daily life, in full acceptance of everything as IS, you are living in surrender. And then you are holding the golden key to Self-Realisation.

Remember, life is energy before it is matter. So make sure that whatever you are giving energy to, really matters.

Thoughts and emotions are prayers, sent without end, setting your intent and 'want' to your Higher Self.

So, place your story and all its characters, into the cloud of forgetfullness. Leave it behind. Let it go. Over and over. Put down that heavy suitcase, throw out the baggage, and walk away, mentally and emotionally and step into Freedom. All of this is possible through Love.

This will mean that you suspend all judgement. When something happens to you, you step into the witness, into the apex of the triangle and you observe yourself. You observe your reactions, the feelings of pain and hurt, or anger and explosiveness. You do not have to fight or resist these feelings. You accept them. It is our resistance to our feelings that cause the suffering. Suffering is on-going pain and repression. When you allow yourself to feel the pain, the be at the centre of the feelings, without resistance and without fear, they will dissolve. Like mist in front of the Sun! You will most probably not be able to stay in the witness in the beginning, but you can go back to your High Throne in the Sun. When you become aware that you are fully engaged in flurry and intensity of the feelings, then you can return to the apex of the triangle, without judgement of self. When you release all judgement of the self that is still in the thick of the duality, compassion will enter its space.

The first time true acceptance and compassion floods your heart and being, it washes your mind of the fog and a sweetness, such as only known in love at first sight, enters your being. This absolute sweetness is Love, God, and ultimately your True Self. Once you have known this sweetness, this incredibly tender, absolute Love, you will want more and more. And your subconscious will find the way to deliver more to you!

Remember, through surrender, you are activating the principle of Love. The Principle of Love, is God, the Soul, Christ Consciousness, Guru (disspeller of darkness). The Principle of Love is intelligent and its goal and ultimate destiny is your Self-Realisation! It wants you to wake up from the nightmare and to participate fully in this Experience. Once Love has been activated, It will take control as much as you can allow. It will become your Guru, your Guru, your Lover, your Beloved and your divine Parent and It will bring you exactly what you need at all times.

So do not put off surrender. Take the risk. It is said that when you jump off the cliff, thousands of angels will be there to provide wings for your flight. Step into Freedom, over and over, and eventually you will remember and it will be a constant state of Love!

Living by Grace

Most people start the journey towards awakening to their true selves in an attempt to escape their current state of mind or to heal the body. In the beginning various tools are applied, such as affirmations, releasing techniques and various other modalities, but then eventually, the truth dawns, that actually you are only re-arranging the furniture! Carlos Castanedas said that when you wake up and you realise you are in the house of the mind, do not waste time exploring the various rooms, get out of there as fast as you can! Well, that is one approach. But ultimately, we are walking between worlds and we have to learn to live with the tension of the opposites. This constitutes the middle road - that of living by Grace. (This was discussed in more detail in my previous blog Freedom through Love)

The ego or man-made mind, is the only thing that stands between you and the direct experience of God. In order to live by Grace and to live in freedom, you need to let go of your need to suffer and to receive Love in every breathing moment! I agree that when you first read this sentence, you tend to react, what utter nonsense, who chooses to suffer willingly and knowingly? But the mind, through its conditioning and its 'learning' chooses suffering most of the time.

It revels in its own sense of suffering. The mind identifies with the story of 'me' and 'me' cannot exist without the story! Thus it is easy to become so enmeshed in the story that it becomes your identity and all of who you think you are. When in actual fact, you are not the story and you need to remember who you are.

The truth is that you are never separated from God. Your True Self is the one behind the web of the mind. Your mind is your active opponent when it engages in self-rejection, self-deprecation, criticism of the self, breaking down your self-esteem and filling you with thoughts of not being good enough, not lovable, and so on. So now you are probably thinking to yourself, well, I know that is the problem; how do I change it?

First of all, change your belief system. At first you may need blind faith. Blind faith in an ever loving Presence that has never abandoned you and has never rejected you. Accept that you in fact do not know the true nature of the divine Presence. All that you think you know about it, you have acquired through the perception of your experiences and thus your conditioning. The mind wants to keep you safe and protected against re-experiencing any painful feelings. Thus it contracts and armours itself and does whatever it takes to keep you from revealing yourself, or from taking any emotional risks. But when you apply the mind in its higher function of self-enquiry and you follow the bread crumb trail back to the origin of the thought and the belief system, you will find that your mind's reasoning is absolutely crazy! There is no logic and no rationale. It is a story woven and fabricated by your mind and it will most probably not even make sense to anybody else. So this is where Carlos Castanedas' statement makes so much sense. Why do you want to spend time unravelling the many, many stories that your mind created? It is so much simpler to merely jump from the plane, knowing that you carry a parachute and free float down to a new reality.

Obviously this is not as easy as I make it sound, but with consistent effort this is well within your reach. At first it is difficult to do as you now have to break a life long habit. A habit of being angry, or feeling justified in your behaviour, or feeling sorry for yourself. Although these habits seemingly give you power and often has become the driving force and motivator in your life, they do not serve you - in fact they are your master and you serve them - thus, you are not free to reach your fullest potential, nor are you free to be happy, just for the sake of being happy.

The mind will have you know that as long as you are an imperfect human being, you cannot Realise your Oneness with what Is. But this is not true. You are both a human being and at one with God. No-one can really define the terms awakening, enlightenment and Self-Realisation, Christ Consciousness and so on. As long as you tie yourself to a belief system or a tradition or a religion, you are tied to certain requirements for awakening or enlightenment, but ultimately, this is a process of becoming less of you and more of You! And you are the only one who knows your inner world and who knows God Within. Everyone else can only know God in their own way. So the moment you rely on others' words or experiences, you are separating yourself from true knowing and you will also doubt and discount your direct spiritual experiences.

All disease of the body is created by the mind, ultimately. This is a tough one to assimilate and swallow, but your thoughts, your belief systems, your incessant prayers are creating your body. This does not mean that you must overcome all disease and that unless you do so you are not perfect or 'good enough' to know God.  That is exactly the nature of the thoughts of the mind that drives you toward the notion that you have to heal your life. You do not have to heal your body, nor your life. You need to desire God and only God and everything else will be taken care of.

What does it mean to 'desire God'? It means that you accept that there is a Principle of Love - complete, unconditional and infinite Love. That this Love Principle is Perfection and that its power is omnipotent and omnipresent. You accept that ultimately your will is God's Will and God's Will is your will and that God's Will is only Love. So, I suppose you have to believe that your mind is not in control, it has never been in control and that personal willpower will not get you what you want!! And then by implication, this means that 'your will' is not the personal will of the mind. And mostly, we only get to this point in our consciousness and awareness, through hardship and suffering, and often through disease of the body! So we have gone full circle, back to disease of the body.

You can choose to look at disease or challenges in your life as signs of 'not doing it right' or 'not being aligned', or whatever terminology the mind choooses to use. OR you can look at it from the perspective of LOVE, and that is that All Is As It Should Be at all times. You may not understand, you may not be able to see the bigger picture, but knowledge of God and the true nature of Love, will set you free to accept and surrender at all times. And through acceptance and surrender, the resistance dissolves and thus the mental pattern that created the disease in the first place.

Many alternative therapies do work for a while. I suppose they satisfy the mind that believes that it needs to understand, before it can surrender and let go. But in my personal experiences and in healing experiences with many others that I have worked with over the years, true breakthrough has always taken place when the person has accepted that no matter of self-improvement is going to fix the problem.

You see, you do not need self-improvement. You are innately whole. You entered this world in absolute innocence and wholeness. And then the journey started. And the pain that you felt, was the pain of believing you are separate from God, that you had been abandoned by God. And these feelings were created because this world cannot validate your Christ Self. So, when you looked into the eyes of another, you could not see your True Self reflected back at you. Nowhere could you see evidence of your innocence and your purity. Your True Self was rejected in experiences with others. When you revealed your exuberance, your absolute Self-absorbed happiness and joy, it was labelled as inappropriate; your pleasure in the beingness of your physical body may have been called perverse. In many different ways, your Being were rejected. And this is the truth for all human beings, in varying degrees.

When you find someone that you resonate with, your experience is always one of 'he/she gets me', they understand me, they 'see' me. But sooner or later, this is no longer true and problems start in the relationship.  Do not look for acceptance in the eyes of another. As you are learn that you are so much more than your story and so much more than others' reflections, and you start to gain this conviction, you become the Grace.  

Once you realise this, you can start the journey of true acceptance and surrender : accept that you will never understand all they whys and wherefores; accept that you cannot know God with your mind and surrender to Grace. Living by Grace enables you to live in joy and total freedom despite the 'story' and the mind's attempts at keeping you tied to your story.

Meditation Exercises for Resurrection

We are often aware that we are trying to facilitate change for ourselves. We are also often acutely aware that something within has to die. It may even feel like a mask that has to be peeled away; an outer container that has to be broken through in order for the chrysalis to transform into a butterfly. But we are not always conscious of the next step that we are required to take. Remember, that you will be asked to go through this process many times in your life and there are seven major initiatory passages through which you will have to find your way. And the way through is by letting go, allowing the dissolution to take place, before the resurrection and re-birth can become a reality.

There is only today and the present moment, but we choose to hold on to our stories and to our history. We choose to carry over the hurts and the resentments and make it part of our identity. But the immortal, timeless self has no history and no baggage. The timeless eternal self knows how to find the freedom and the divine bliss and your body and brain is wired to facilitate this journey!! So, walk with me, enter through the gates and follow the river that flows to the ocean of bliss.

The personal self does not exist. It is a conglomeration of stories and ideas, concepts and beliefs, which can change in the blink of an eye. It takes great courage to practise the acceptance that you do not exist and therefore that none of your personal accomplishments are important. The human mind has been conditioned into attachment, but as the Buddha discovered, attachment leads to suffering.

The following is a very powerful tool and exercise to facilitate the unclothing of the self and the dismantling of the constructions that you have erected around your radiant nature and identity. It will help you to release the grip of subconscious beliefs and limiting thoughts, if you practise this regularly. It is a gentle, expanding meditation, that will prepare the way for deeper processes (to follow).

Sit down and prepare for meditation.

Set the alarm for twenty minutes.

Quieten your mind and take a few deep breaths.

Now turn your attention inwards.

Be with yourself both in mind and heart, i.e. in your thoughts and feelings.

Regard yourself as a completely new person and being. Your history no longer exists. Let it go. Let it flow from you. Allow it to peel away from your energy field. Relax even deeper.

Everything that you have done, that you have achieved, no longer exists. Let it go. Let it flow from you. Let it go, let it go. Your past is not you. Your past no longer exists. Let it go. Allow it to leave your energy field. Feel the emptiness that is being created. None of the decisions and choices that you have made up till now, is valid. You are in the present moment. There is only the present moment. It is empty and void. You are in the void. You are the void. Experience yourself and the absolute complete emptiness. Maintain your focus and awareness on the nothingness. Remain with the no-thing. Breathe the no-thing. Be the no-thing.

Stay in this space of awareness of nothing as long as you can. It may take a few practise sessions to fully relax into the acceptance that your past no longer exists. Observe your own thoughts and feelings, and continue to let go, let go, let go. This practise will take its own form and become your own personal experience and journey.

Remember, we never step into the same river twice.

blessings on your journey

Divine Mary Speaks : Fullness of the Heart

FULLNESS OF THE HEART -A message from Mother Mary, Keeper of the Sacred Heart and the Feminine Christ

From the fullness of the Heart you move into the full expression of Self into the world. Fullness of the Heart can be directly experienced through immense happiness, joy, ecstasy and indeed witnessed in Grace in everyday living. Fullness of the Heart is the doorway into the embrace of the Feminine Christ and indeed into radiant ecstatic living.

So it is obvious that if there is a perception or belief that the spiritual heart and the personal heart is empty, you will not be able to express or manifest outside of yourself; you will not be able to access your sacred desires and passions. All of these are your doorways into the ecstasy of God. Most of you have been conditioned and taught to run on half-empty - this becomes such a habit that you do not even realize that you are operating from a place of force rather than power. In the world of duality, such a feeling of scarcity and emptiness will then lead to greed and the belief in taking more than what you need and taking at the expense of others (and yourself) - it gives life to archetypes in your psyche which will devour you and your existence.

As this belief system is not in the Grace of Light and it does not exist on the level of your True Self, this becomes a split off from the Self and you develop a separate personality aspect that has the power to lead a separate existence – even unknown to your ego self! This self then grows and lives in the shadow of your True Self and in your unconscious darkness. The aspects of the personality act in stealth and they live ‘under the radar’ so to speak. They go quietly about their business, doing their best not to alert you to their subterfuge and existence. These aspects are often the saboteurs in your life and they are the ones that keep you stuck where you are and going round and round in circles. And indeed, this is part of their function.

They are designed by the mind as gatekeepers – guardians of the inner garden – they are there to keep you out of your sacred garden and to keep you ignorant of the potential that lies within. Should you wake up to their existence and you change your ways, they will have to die. The more invested and identified you are with their existence, the stronger their hold and control over you become. Symbolically they can be seen as usurpers of the kingdom and the false king/queen on the throne - they become your false masters. They rule without mercy and the inner garden becomes a wasteland under their rule. You become a stagnated being, subject to rules that you do not even understand and you go through life in a ‘trance’, hypnotized by their chants and mantras.

But the wonderful news is that if you are looking for answers and a new way of being with and in yourself, then the power of the trance has been wearing off. At a level, you are becoming rebellious or desperate enough to consider breaking out of the jail and overthrowing the government of the mind. You do not need to uncover and identify each and every aspect of the personality! You do not have to de-construct the construction that you created! You do, however, have to have the intent, dedication and commitment to ALLOW the deconstruction and most of all, you have to have faith and absolute trust in the Love and Grace of Soul.

When one first wakes up to the darkness within and all its shadows, the temptation to accredit this creation to the Ego and subsequently give it power, is very strong, But this is just another ploy by mind to take the credit and the glory in a skewed manner and thus to own your power again. This is where it is so important NOT to become identified with the mind and the body. You are neither. You are the True Self. Mind and body is the product of the world, created as a playground, or a school (whichever you choose to believe in). You did not create your mind. Neither did you create your body. You did not control your childhood and all its conditioning experiences, and so on. The Creator did and through awareness, surrender and acceptance you can allow the Creator (Your True Self/Soul/Christ) to dissolve the veil.

The fullness of the heart is your key into the other world. The fullness of the heart is the door into freedom, grace and bliss!! When the heart is full, the senses are satisfied and there is no subconscious belief in scarcity and lack of love. Love translates into the physical world as everything, i.e. objects, needs, desires, security, joy, happiness, clarity, creativity and it translates as the most basic fundamental material existence of needing an income, needing employment, a house, being able to provide for your family, being treated with love and respect and everything else that you need to exist in a happy life. Therefore love is not only a feeling or even an action, nor is love limited to personal relationships : ultimately love is yourself. Love is all that there is.

Love is the very fabric that you are made of and Love is the nature of God.

Thus, it is obvious, that where your mind creates its own sub-beliefs that exclude the presence of Love (which it by its very nature it will do), it will separate you from your wholeness and it will cast shadows in your life. It is also true that Love does exist everywhere at all times, even in the shadows, but this is only obvious and known to you when you have let go sufficiently of your mind-body identification and you are detached from the importance of the self.

When I use the word 'heart', I refer to the High Heart or the Spiritual Heart. Your ultimate desire and longing is for conscious realisation of union with God. When this desire is fulfilled, all needs are met.

When the divine Fire splits into Light and Flame, you have the duality of Will and Desire - thus the play between the archetypes and their shadows. These create the divine play of polarity and duality for you - they provide the tension so that you can create and the secret is not to become identified with either the 'good' or the 'bad' archetypes. It is to witness this play in yourself with love, ie with acceptance. Acceptance that this is the way it is meant to be; that it serves a purpose in your life and just because you do not know or understand yet, it does not mean that it should not be this way. Intellectually, there are many explanations and belief systems and traditions. These are all attempts by the human mind to either understand or to put into words the direct knowing which is being experienced beyond the veil. Have your own direct experiences and know for yourself. Bhakty, the act of devotion by the surrendered self, will grant you these direct experiences.

Although all of this sounds very mystical, the spiritual life is a practical, grounded way of living. It is a softening of your boundaries, a dissolving of identity and a letting go of your attachment to how you think things (including yourself and your reactions and your behaviour) should be and should not be. It is actually a much easier and much simpler way of living, than the way of the mind!

The five steps of the path of love will take you to the door of the Heart and its servant of bhakty .

Firstly, let go of your defences and allow yourself to become vulnerable. When you practise allowance this activates Love into Action! Through your willingness to hand over control of your life, you are putting your Soul into the driver's seat of your journey and this is true surrender. Surrender to the principle of Love. In order to surrender, you have to access your own willingness to trust and to develop faith. Faith is a skill - it has to be developed through the consistent effort of surrender. As you can see the entire process calls forcommitment and the willingness to persevere, despite appearances.

Through continual surrendering to a greater power, letting go of trying to control your identity and your experience, you will expand into a greater sense of self. Layers of conditioning and habitual action and patterning can just fall away. Your consciousness changes without you having 'done' anything and miracles start to happen. And, finally, you live in acceptance, a subtle shift, a bridge into a state of peace and fullness of heart.

Divine Mary Says - the kiss of Light

It is a soft dawn sprinkled with the drops of birdsong.

In the sky the new moon is hanging just above the rising sun.

I ponder my statue of Mary on a pillar and what this symbology

means.  I know that there is a Mary on the Pillar in the cathedral

in Chartres which I am set to visit in September.

Cloaked in the haze of the morning light, intense bliss rises in me,

both tightening and releasing my heart and chest simultaneously

and I hear the voice of Mary. 

'You are not who you think you are.  It is not necessary,

and at times quite pointless, to hang on to your weaknesses,

foibles and strengths with such intent and focus.

Your nature may not always please you,

or suit your idea of who you are.

The more you resist what is happening in your life

and the more you resist your nature,

the greater the wall which is blocking the light.

Only the warmth of the Light and its spiritual

qualities of acceptance, compassion, 

understanding and peace, can 

bring life back to the barren wasteland that lies

behind that wall.

Seekers do not realise that it appears to them that they

are indeed making choices, but this is very seldom true.

You are a compilation of impressions, feelings, reactions,

memories, half-felt emotions, fleeting desires and wishes

and unexplored and half-lived dreams.

You carry within you the memories of all time.

At times you may appear to be a book, its pages the

Keeper of all stories ever told and at other times

you may feel like the blank pages, ready to be written onto.

Both of these ideas may drive you to frustration,

and into trying to become either or both or even

to transcend the human experience by side-stepping

the creative dance of creating and destroying.

But you are so much more than

all of the above.  Within you lies the Godseed, dormant,

waiting on the Kiss of Light.  Only the mind, with its

ideas like clouds in the sky, is obscuring the Light

from awakening the Tree of Life within you.

A mind locked down with ideas and concepts and beliefs

of how you should be, is like concrete poured down onto

a pavement.  It is only with the wearing away of time and

weather that cracks can form, through which the tendril

of a soft new plant can grow.  This tiny plant has the 

potential to become the beanstalk 

that will take Jack into the heavens

of the giant.

A mind concretized with set ideas and theories, is the greatest

obstacle to peace and ongoing 'enlightenment'.

There is so much that you are unaware of.

You can only see through your own lens of perspective

and perception.  You only have a choice between

fear and love.  When fear is the stone buried at the

foot of the tree of life, then all those living tendrils and

branches  will be weakened and twisted by fear.

However, if your Philosopher's Stone is cast in love,

then the Tree of Life will be rooted in the Real.

Only that which is Unchanging is Real and True.

The mind changes constantly.  Thoughts are blown like

clouds in the winds of the body.

The mind and body absolutely fears and resists change.

on all levels. 

There is a saying, 'rather the devil you know'

Indeed!

Then there is the great inner Judge thrown into the mix as well.

And the desire for self-improvement.

All of these are fertilised by the idea that who you are is not

good enough and that you and your life should be different.

Your life can look different and your experiences can

be different.  You can achieve goals and have your

desires and wishes fulfilled

But you can also have peace and harmony,

joy and human understanding,

compassion and love for everything and

everyone, right now, without making any

changes and definitely without improving yourself

or your life.

That moment of absolute alignment with the

Spirit within, is the kiss of the Light.

And all you need for that to happen, is to drop everything.

By that I mean that you can let your mind

and its many doors and passages and rooms, drop away.

Over and over.

Repeatedly

Every day

Every time

I found this beautiful image on the internet - if you are the photographer please let me
know and I will add your name.

The boundary and limitation

that time creates, is the wall around the garden of Eden

and your willingness to enter naked,

leaving the fear behind, opens the gate

and makes it possible for you to

receive the inner Kiss

The biggest secret is that there is no secret.

Everything in every moment is as it should be.

Actions taken in Time have set the wheel of destiny

in motion and only a Philosopher's Stone of Love

combined with the Kiss of Light

has the alchemical power to break the bonds of time.

Teaching yourself to live in alignment with the Spiritual Sun

and the Light of God, is a skill.

In order to acquire this skill, you have to tame and master

your mind to accept either fear or love.

That is the only choice you have.

In every moment you can ask yourself :

what would Love do?

One can replace Love with Acceptance or

Surrender to God, or to the Great Spirit,

or the Tao or the Unlimited, Eternal and Unchanging.

Does my action or reaction imply Love or Fear?

When you criticize yourself for getting angry - ask yourself

is that response based in fear or love?

If I root myself in the Real, in Love, would I

judge anger and deem it as a 'negative' reaction?

And why would I do that?

Is it because I fear that it will drag me down into

dark emotional depths which I fear?

And is it that I believe that God is not in the

darkness and that I will be separated from

my Creator?

Is it because you fear 'losing yourself'?

That would imply that yourself is the True Self.

How better to allow the True Self, the one that is

aligned with the Light, the Spiritual Sun within,

to emerge by losing the false self?

The self is a set of ideas and beliefs grounded

in the belief that you are separate from your Creator.

The mind that creates this limited self is intent

on keeping you bound in this belief system and it will

show you many other theories and paths and

systems that support this theory.

As long as you believe that you have been cast

out of the garden and that you are now

begging outside the walls of the castle,

you will try to find the key to the secret door

which does not exist.

You are the Keeper of the Castle and you can only

stay the beggar whilst you allow your mind

to talk you into holding that begging bowl up

to God, begging for that which you have already

been given.

You have the power to put any theory to the test

and to be transformed by your own realisations.

You are standing in the Light and each moment

that you open your heart and you accept yourself

and your nature and the many selves that you have created,

you will receive the kiss of Light.

And I ask you to share your love with everyone,

as we are all the One.'


Ave Maria

Why Sacred Drama?

www.blancadance.com

Why enact the Sacred Dramas from the Lesser Mysteries?

I give you here a compilation of my own thoughts and information

found on the net and in books on this sacred ancient spiritual practise.

Rebirth requires descent; this is one of the mysteries. The ascent to another way of being, the ascent of transformation, cannot occur without disintegration, without the process of breaking down completely -- being pulverized really, physically, emotionally, spiritually. If the container of self is not smashed, the vision cannot enter. The vision is the flash of light that re-organizes the self. Afterwards, if one is fortunate and graced by the generosity of the gods -- one reconstitutes, or is reconstituted, according to the laws and principles of a new life, a new dimension, a new world, a new universe.

Descent takes place in our ordinary lives through sickness, ill health,

addictions, insomnia, frustration of goals and ideals, repeated failure

to manifest your goals, the loss of a loved one, through betrayal

and abandonment.  Re-enacting the sacred drama leads to a deeper

understanding and wisdom of the trials and tribulations of

daily life and its abduction into the Underworld.

     What distinguishes any Mystery religion, is that it is based upon mysteries. Its rites and practices take us deeper and deeper into the labyrinth or the underworld where we examine a series of unanswerable and awesome questions and, are, accordingly, altered by this willingness to enter and be worked upon by the elemental forces that live in the domain of the unknown and unknowable. This is not descending into chaos, though it feels chaotic when we are there. It is entering into domains that cannot be understood in the ways we generally seek and convey understanding. It is entering into worlds that operate by different laws altogether. Integrity is required and so we must be reconstituted; this is the way of transformation.

Enacting the Mystery of the Rape of Kore and the return of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.

     But even more than this was at stake when the Mysteries were practiced. When the mystes offered themselves up to the rite of initiation, the gods, as they do everywhere when carefully and consciously evoked, came forth and made themselves known. Persephone was said to have appeared. This was the epiphany. How that occurred we do not exactly know, for participants were prohibited to speak about it on pain of death, and also, the experience was ineffable, meaning it is impossible to put such an experiences into words.

   Kore is pulled down into the underworld. Ultimately, she loses her innocence, gains a name and a Presence. The name is Persephone, Queen of Hades.

     This is what is not told in the myth: How did this transformation take place? What actually occurred during those three months in Hades when the innocent nameless one took on the Presence of the Goddess? What are the details of descent, deconstruction, and reconstitution? What do physicists imagine happens to someone who speeds through the worm hole from one dimension or universe to another? What happened to Christ in the three days before the resurrection? Where is the map of initiation that we must follow to shattering and breakdown before we are sufficiently transformed to emerge elsewhere? What is the process through which we are altered so that we can go through the door to the next world?

 but that it was our intent to, simultaneously, recapitulate the ordeal of the Mysteries, retell the story of Persephone, and, to perform our own individual stories of descent and vision. We had the task of creating the vision, the flash of light from out of the dark earth of ourselves so that for an instant, for a the moment of epiphany, we would each see and became, the arrhetos koura, the "ineffable maiden," the dark Queen.

     It is inevitable as we re-enter the myth and the rituals, the moments of being dragged down, held captive, struggling for release and finally bursting forth in flames, the intense concentration of our particular individual agonies and ordeals, the disintegration and reconstitution that we each individually experienced, that we would become both "Brimo the queen of the dead giving birth in fire" and her mighty son, Brimos, and so, emerge like Dionysus, who is also central to these Mysteries, reborn, twice born.

     That is we were new born and we were ancient. To fully negotiate the domain of Persephone, to carry the wisdom and insight of the underworld, to be able to live according to the dark vision of Hades is to be as old as it is possible to be. Yet to be suddenly reconstituted in this new plane is to be reborn, and to be reborn is to be new and innocent; it cannot be any other way.

At this point in the Mysteries, one begins the long climb back to the earthy realm of the Mother, of Demeter, carrying the old wisdom like a great fire, or a small seed that will be planted again. But the one who carries such insight and vision into Demeter’s world, can neither be the Kore, the innocent one, nor Persephone of Hades. And though the Eleusinian Mysteries are the rites of Demeter, the earth goddess does not, herself, descend into the underworld. There is only one who incorporates all the worlds at once: She is Hekate, the goddess of child birth and death, the old one who, it is said, led Persephone out of Hades and who, from then on, never left her side, following her in the endless cycle of descent and rebirth. Hekate, the old one, who is by her nature constituted around the Kore as a seed within herself. Hekate who mediates between and contains all the worlds at once. Hekate, the Three in One, the Triple Goddess incarnate. The constantly shifting dynamic, the co-existence and co-extension of all the realms, is Hekate’s esoteric and embodied domain.

One way or another each kore went through his or her own individual disintegration, and then after the vision, after epiphany, returned, but transformed, to his or her own individual and parallel universe, as Persephone had returned to the earth realm of Demeter transformed – reborn

We may appear to be the same afterwards and we will not have words for it no matter how hard we try, but we will no longer be who we once were. When we are together with citizens of the new world into which we have been born, we recognize this among ourselves. We speak another language. We see what we have not seen before. We enter into dialogue with the spirits of this other world. This is the way and means of initiation. To enter into the mysteries is to be initiated. And to be initiated is to be able to walk in an other dimension.

       It was said that those who once enacted the Mysteries would gain their immortal souls in this world and in the next. To gain a soul is to gain the ability to walk in two worlds, to be admitted to that other dimension inhabited by the gods. The only way across is the arduous and mysterious path of dying to what one was and is so that one can be reborn.