Resonance Christmas 2001
One of the blessings of the Christmas
season is the opportunity to draw nearer in consciousness to friends and loved
ones. In extending our good wishes, the folks here at Home Farm would like to
share with you some thoughts we have found inspiring and of interest through the
year. Please accept these offerings as our expressions of love and appreciation
for all of you who support the School in so many ways. May your life be filled
with peace and enlightenment throughout the coming year.
Last
Christmas I was given a gift that I treasure and use often, a copy of Rachel
Naomi Remen’s book My Grandfather’s Blessings. It is a wonderful book,
written by a delightful and wise storyteller. Almost every page has some gem on
it through which I am able to see my life and experience in a new way.
In her section
“Befriending Life,” the author speaks of wholeness, connection, and listening.
Learning
from life takes time. I rarely recognize life’s wisdom at the time it is given.
Sometimes I am too distracted by something else that has caught my wandering
eye, and not every gift of wisdom comes nicely gift-wrapped. I have often
received such a gift only many years after it was offered. Sometimes I needed
to receive other things first, to live through other experiences in order to be
ready. Much wisdom is a hand-me-down. Like all hand-me-downs, it may be too
big at the time it is given.
Befriending life may enable us
to solve some of life‘s problems. It has become a common understanding that
most problems cannot be solved by approaching them with the same consciousness
that created them in the first place. It is doubtful that the solution to our
present suffering will lie in greater technology and greater expertise. Our
very survival may require that we do something new, something simpler and more
human. That we become open beyond our expertise. That we learn to live closer
to life, the life in us and the life around us and remember what we are serving
with our technology and expertise. That we pay enough attention to learn to
trust life.
Bless
anything that shows you wisdom. Anything that shows you wisdom has become a
part of who you are and has drawn you closer to life. The Tibetans have
reverence for those who have passed along to them the priceless gift of the
wisdom to live well. Perhaps this means having reverence for all of life, the
ant and the hawk, the enemy and the friend, the lover and the parent and the
child. All have offered us the opportunity to know ourselves and to know life.
The chance to befriend life. This is true of our wins and losses, our
illnesses, our celebrations, our joys and sorrows. All offer us wisdom. Bless
them all.
May the
coming year bring many blessings to us all.
—Susan Wetmore, 2001
A Treatise on Faith2
is one of my
favorites among Vitvan’s writings. Since we, as a group, just finished reading it
here at Home Farm, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few excerpts, especially
in light of the current “state of affairs” in the world.
Faith
is an ethereal power which, if cultivated, becomes love, the most powerful force
in the universe. It is not only the life principle of all ‘things,’ it even precedes
and creates life itself. Faith in its ethereal essence is life….
Trust your faith, if it is only as a grain of mustard
seed, it will not fail you. It will overcome fears and doubts and all the dark brood
that holds you back from your own heights…. Faith will never … deceive you; trust
it to bring your consciousness into the presence of the Father. “For whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world; and that is the victory that overcometh the
world, even our faith.”
If you are
losing your faith, or are in danger of doing so, it is of the greatest moment and
importance that you re-establish it. When you awaken each morning, begin the day
with a silent prayer to the great Power which is your Being, and to the great Elder
Brothers of or race, that you may be worthy of establishing contact with that Self
and with those who have attained identity with It….
Build a temple
in your consciousness upon the rock of faith, and by your works make your life a
monument of beauty, whether the world knows and enjoys it or knows it not. This,
in effect, represents the eternal as well as the universal significance of faith….
Hold constantly
in your consciousness the resolution that come what may, you will not permit the
destructive influence of doubt or the gloomy suggestions of destructive pessimism
to weaken or undermine your constructive faith in the righteousness of God’s universal
plan or in the ultimate goodness of humanity….
May love and faith keep us oriented to the Light.
—Jane Murray, 2001
Christmas is often described
as a festival for children. I tend to agree with that because who among us is not
a child or has not been a child? The child in us is always alive; maybe we have
not had enough time to take care of the child within us. To me, it is possible for
us to help the child within us to be reborn again and again, because the spirit
of the child is the Holy Spirit, it is the spirit of the Buddha. There is no discrimination.
A child is always able to live in the present moment. A child can also be free of
worries and fear about the future. Therefore, it is very important for us to practice
in such a way that the child in us can be
reborn.
Let the child be born to us….
In the Buddhist tradition, we practice Beginning Anew; it is a very important practice.
To begin anew means we are reborn fresh and new and able to start again. This is
really the good news. The teaching of Buddha offers us ways to be reborn in each
moment of our daily life and to learn to love again. There are those who are so
discouraged that they no longer have the courage to love. They have suffered a great
deal just because they have made an attempt to love and have not succeeded. The
wounds within them are so deep that it makes them afraid to try again. We are aware
of the presence of these people among us, all around us. We have to bring them the
message that love is possible because our world desperately needs love….
Love is a kind of energy. In the Buddhist tradition, we can identify the nature
of that energy. We can recognize it when it is there. When love is not true love
we are able to know that it is not true love. But when it is true love we are able
to recognize it as true love. This is one of our practices.
Love here can also be described as faith, because faith is a source of energy that
can sustain us, that can give us strength. Love and faith are also something to
cultivate. They are not just ideas or the commitment to a number of concepts and
dogmas. Love is a living thing, faith also. In the process of love, you learn a
lot. You love better, you make fewer mistakes. You are more capable of being happy
and making other people happy That develops your faith in your ability to love.
So faith is made of very concrete elements—it is made of your true spiritual experiences,
your experience in your daily life. It grows. As faith continues to grow, you continue
to get the energy because faith is also energy like love. If we look deeply into
the nature of our love, we will also see our faith. When we have faith in us, we
are no longer afraid of anything.
from Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers
by Thich Nhat Hanh.3
—Bill
Coffman, 2001
Grandma’s House
The smell of stuffy air,
Caged too long,
Lies like a heavy blanket
Stifling the half-empty rooms.
Silence echoes the creaking
of chairs,
The clink of spoon against cup,
The hushed murmur
Of early morning conversation.
The now-still rooms,
Apparently devoid of life,
Still alive with memory,
Whisper of times past,
Of Christmas mornings,
Filled with laughter, happiness,
The heavy breathing
Of a still slumbering dog.
A dilapidated leather chair,
Weary with years of use,
Stands as a monument
Of late nights spent talking
or watching TV.
Outside, the weed-choked yard
Cries out for attention,
Remembering bygone days of tree
climbing
And frisbee chasing.
The memories are bittersweet
Painfully recalled
But never wanting to be forgotten.
The house stands silent, still,
erect
Watching serenely as life goes
on
Knowing that new life
Will come again into its doors.
—Dustin Murray, 2001
This selection is taken from a book I have shared with many friends and relatives,
A Grateful Heart.4
"To be said while lighting candles:
We begin by honoring the Light.
We light these candles for our families, our beloveds, our friends, for all our
relations
For those who are near and for those
from whom we feel an unwanted distance.
For the newborn, for the children, for the elderly.
For all that feel wounded, or vulnerable, or frightened.
May the candles we light inspire us to use our power
to heal and not harm,
to help and not hinder,
to bless and not curse.
May the radiance of this light pour out
upon our hearts, and spread light into the darkened corners of our world."
May you be warmed by the intention of these words, may you find comfort at this
time and peace in the uncertain days ahead...
—Jody Dalton, 2001
SEASONS CYCLES
In the cycle of things,
I awaken to the reality
that each season brings
and praise the Goddess' generosity
To be alive and well
and sample the wealth of Nature
To allow time to tell
us when our edibles are mature
It's a tale of cyclic flow
told by the leaves’ greening
And a struggle for us to know
that life's flow is a keening
that we can learn to hear
by going inward silently
and not giving in to fear
we can begin to grow quietly
The cycles tell us truly
that we'll each come 'round again
like the leaves falling from the trees
mark new growth to begin
renewal and a spreading forth if you please
that's always spreading hope
and giving pause for reflection
laying out a long, long rope
to follow through to a new direction.
Happy Yule from a Merry Fool!
—John B. Free, 2001
We recently read Vitvan's
Treatise on Faith2 for our evening class here at Home Farm.
I was reminded of his definitive exposition of faith as knowledge, force
and substance. One of the students asked
if we were reading this in response to the events of September 11th. No, we had planned this reading before that date; "there are no accidents."
And so I tried to draw on my faith to put aside all the doubts and questions that
arose. And I pulled books off the shelf,
at random (I thought), to help me stay connected to my Self, my Center.
Again I was drawn to the basic wisdom of this seventh century Taoist poem.
It stills my scattered mind and reminds me of my real goals and aspirations
— "...the peace that passeth all understanding."
THE MIND OF ABSOLUTE TRUST
5
The Great
Way isn’t difficult
for those
who are unattached to their preferences.
Let go of
longing and aversion,
and everything
will be perfectly clear.
When you
cling to a hairbreadth of distinction,
heaven and
earth are set apart.
If you want
to realize the truth,
don’t be
for or against.
The struggle
between good and evil
is the primal
disease of the mind.
Not grasping
the deeper meaning,
you just
trouble your mind’s serenity.
As vast as
infinite space,
it is perfect
and lacks nothing.
But because
you select and reject,
you can’t
perceive its true nature.
Don’t get
entangled in the world;
don’t lose
yourself in emptiness.
Be at peace
in the oneness of things,
and all errors
will disappear by themselves.
If you don’t
live the Tao,
you fall
into assertion or denial.
Asserting
that the world is real,
you are blind
to its deeper reality;
denying that
the world is real,
you are blind
to the selflessness of all things.
The more
you think about these matters,
the farther
you are from the truth.
Step aside
from all thinking,
and there
is nowhere you can’t go.
Returning
to the root, you find the meaning;
chasing appearances,
you lose their source.
At the moment
of profound insight,
you transcend
both appearance and emptiness.
Don’t keep
searching for the truth;
just let go of your opinions.
For the mind
in harmony with the Tao,
all selfishness
disappears.
With not
even a trace of self-doubt,
you can trust
the universe completely.
All at once
you are free,
with nothing
left to hold on to.
All is empty,
brilliant,
perfect in
its own being.
In the world
of things as they are,
there is
no self, no non-self.
If you want
to describe its essence,
the best
you can say is “Not-two.”
In this “Not-two” nothing is separate,
And nothing
in the world is excluded.
The enlightened
of all times and places
have entered
into this truth.
In it there
is no gain or loss;
one instant
is ten thousand years.
There is
no here, no there;
infinity
is right before your eyes.
The tiny
is as large as the vast
when objective
boundaries have vanished;
The vast
is as small as the tiny
when you
don’t have external limits.
Being is
an aspect of non-being;
non-being
is no different from being.
Until you
understand this truth,
you won’t
see anything clearly.
One is all;
all are one. When you realize this,
what reason
for holiness or wisdom?
The mind
of absolute trust
is beyond
all thought, all striving,
Is perfectly
at peace, for in it
there is
no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.
—
Seng-Ts’an
( ?? — 606 A.D.)
Happy Holidays, with Love,
Val Taylor, 2001
Hi ho! Happy Christmas and Merry New Year.
A quote from Maya Angelou:
Life loves
to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I'm with you, kid. Let's go!
Best wishes to all our SNO friends.
—Dorothy
Damon, 2001
The events of September 11th abruptly reawakened us to
the fact that the forces of darkness are very hard at work in the race consciousness.
The fact that so many Americans responded to the recent terrorist attacks by opening
their hearts and purses to the victims was a heartening sign that the forces of
Light are also at work.
When people ask, “What can I do?” old cliches begin
to flood my mind.… “It is better to light one little candle than to curse the darkness,”
the Buddha’s purported dying words: “Little children, love one another, even as
I have loved you,” and especially the words from that old hymn that I sang when
I spent warm summer mornings in vacation Bible school, “Brighten the corner where
you are…”
Each of us can and
do make a difference
for the good every day of our lives when we simply rise to the occasion when
asked to help a neighbor, when we give to a charitable organization, donate time
and effort to community needs, “practice random acts of kindness,” etc. Let us recognize
the goodness and light that already exists on the planet, and in so doing enhance
it. Then perhaps bringing the kingdom of
Heaven to earth will seem a little less formidable, forgetting our selfish ways
will become a little easier, and we can add to our repertoire the words of a Christian
hymn Vitvan liked to sing, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light. I’ve found it so,
I’ve found it so.”
May we all find this to be true in the coming year
as we continue our efforts to awaken to the Christ within.
—Marj Coffman, 2001
WHO IS THIS TREE OF LIFE?
Vitvan was dedicated
to explaining again and again the higher meaning of the birth of the Christos
within the psyche of mankind. I want to share some other interesting information
found in the Xmas symbology.
The birth of the
Christos power was announced by the appearance of the Three Wise Men (Magi) and
that of a brilliant star overhead. Now ancient priests were the scientists of
their day, and chief amongst their interests was astronomy, but we might better
call this spiritual astronomy for they saw the cosmos as the cyclical expression
of consciousness. They disguised their
knowledge with colorful tales couched as mythology.
It turns out that
the Three Magi referred in their code to the three belt stars in the constellation
Orion. And the brilliant star that announced the birth was Sirius. That is to
say, there is some kind of energy that emanates from this area of the sky that
is connected to the higher consciousness of the Christos. Sirius is the brightest
star in the sky, and also one of the closest to us (the nursery rhyme “twinkle
twinkle little star” refers to it).
When we dig deeper we
find the Sirius/Orion complex to have been at the center of many mystery schools.
For instance, the Egyptians identified Sirius (Sothis) with Isis, and Orion with
Osiris. Orion rises above the horizon just before Sirius does, and Sirius can
be found by drawing a line through the three belt stars toward the horizon. When
the Pharaoh died, he was to take a new star body in the realm of Orion (coincidentally,
Orion has been found to be an extremely active part of the heavens, birthing new
stars constantly). But Isis (Sirius) was the core of the Egyptian religion, and
central to the initiate’s path.
Every
Masonic lodge has the Blazing Star upon its walls, and in higher degrees this
is revealed to be Sirius. In the western magical traditions Sirius was known to
be a center of power. Aleister Crowley the great ritual magician of the twentieth
century (whether you like him or not) spilled the beans when he created the Argentum
Astrum order, or “Silver Star,” whose rites were centered on making contact with
beings from Sirius, “the Sun behind our Sun.” The centerpiece of his life was
his contact, when he was in the Cairo museum, with a being from Sirius named Aiwass.
The story gets more
interesting when we find that the Egyptian hieroglyph for Sirius was a triangle,
and the image of the eye within the triangle (such as upon the capstone above
the pyramid on the dollar bill) meant that “providence” was watching over us.
“Providence” was a coded way of saying that a great spiritual consciousness from
Sirius stands above us.
So what could it be about
Sirius that is so special to our solar system?
H.P. Blavatsky says “It
(is) the star of Mercury or Buddha, called the great instructor of mankind, before
other Buddhas.” Alice Bailey relates that it is the doorway to the cosmic core,
and says
“… the energy of thought, or mind force, in its totality,
reaches the solar system from a distant cosmic centre via Sirius.
Sirius acts as the transmitter, or the focalising centre, whence emanate
those influences which produce self-consciousness in man.”
and,
“The influence of Sirius is not consciously felt until after the third
initiation when the true nature of the spirit aspect begins to dawn upon the liberated,
intuitive perception of the initiate.”
A. B. Kuhn, another of
Vitvan’s favorite authors, says “ the great star Sirius (Sothis) of the Egyptians,
(was) the symbol of deity, since our own sun was believed to revolve around it.”
So the question
arises, why is Sirius so important to us in the structure of Cosmos, why not some
other constellation or star? The answer seems to be, in my opinion, in its relationship
to us within the galaxy. What do we know about the galaxy?
If you look up into the dark night sky you will see the Milky Way as a great
band of stars. This is our galaxy as seen from our position out near the edge.
Galaxies start off as an intense sphere of star “matter”, powerful beyond our
comprehension. If you try imagining the power of our own sun, 93,000,000 miles
away, knowing that one could not dare come close to it without being vaporized
by its power, then see if it’s anyway possible to get your mind around the power
of the galactic core which has spewed out over 500,000,000 stars!
Galaxies,
as they grow, spin and radiate out arms so that they look like a twisting pinwheel.
Think of a galaxy as a great cosmic tree, and the stars and planets as leaves
upon its branches, each receiving its energetic “food” from the “sap” that flows
out from this unimaginable power at the core.
We live in a branch called
the Orion Arm, and Sirius is just upstream from us as you follow the branchings
back toward the core. Thus the flow of galactic “milk” from the core passes down
to us through Sirius. (I suspect that
as we approach the galactic core we would encounter beings of higher
consciousness and vaster power)
Go out into the night
and lift your eyes to the heavens, and see beyond the objective images of stars.
We live within the Logos, our “Father
in heaven.” “His” Light is the light of our own consciousness, and the route back
to the core is what is called the Path, finding our way 
back
to the Heart whose downpouring radiance gives us life.
“O Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of the dear Savior's birth
Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!”
2.
Vitvan. A Treatise on Faith.Baker,
NV: School
of the Natural Order, Inc. 1986.
3. Hanh,
Thich Nhat. Going Home: Jesus and Buddha
as Brothers. NY:
Riverhead Books, A member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 1999.