Embracing the Goddess Styx

Thursday. Is it day 4 or 5 now. I count that last Sunday afternoon was the point zero. The beginning of journey. I am still here. Writing this. The world is still there.

I was meditating today in absolutely dark room. A kind of sensory deprivation. Nothing extraordinary; I just did some pranayama, and then watched how the brahmacharya is progressing. I seem to have no goal. I don´t meditate any more for reaching moksha, but rather because of brahmacharya. I meditate because I wish to cool the chakras. This has changed. Tho goal is different; more concrete, more practical.
I don´t know how other people make pranayama, and I am not even interested. I practise pranayama the way Goddess have taught me. How I learnt to do it some years ago while camping in the swamps around Laitila. I don´t really do anything; I just watch in meditation how different gases and liquid fluctuate in the body. In air, there is nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. So, I watch them. There is something like cycles. The gas cycle - breathing, and the liquid cycle - the heart pumping blood. These cycles correlate to elements. They can be experienced, they are not abstract. The pranayamic cycles correlate with brahmcharyanic cycles, that are much slower, and closer to earth. And behind those slow cycles is the cycle of rebirth. You can actually feel it moving.. It is just under the earth cycle. It is the karma.
While doing pranayama in the dark room, I came to think of ancient Alexandria, and the Jewish sect, the Therapeutai:

"These men abandon their property without being influenced by any predominant attraction, and flee without even turning their heads back again."
—Philo para. 18

That is excatly the path I am following now, but I had a thought that somewhere around 100 BC, I may have lived a life in the egyptian Jewish community. I remember that Michel Baigent wrote about such mystery cults in this book The Jesus Papers. There is photos of underground chambers, and priests who never saw the light of day. These were the presocratic mystery cults, like the Eleusian mysteries. Baigent writes about the Orphic Caves in Baia.. Like this. I am attracted to this sort of underground mysteries. I am on my way to Tartarus, where I wish to meet Goddess Styx. Parmenides of Elea describes this.

"Welcome, youth, who come attended by immortal charioteers and mares which bear you on your journey to our dwelling. For it is no evil fate that has set you to travel on this road, far from the beaten paths of men, but right and justice. It is meet that you learn all things - both the unshakable heart of well-rounded truth and the opinions of mortals in which there is not true belief." (Parmenides, On Nature B 1.24-30)

These writers, like Gardner and Baigent, Robert Eisenman, Tony Bushby, they wrote some interesting books about early Christianity, but the world seems to have forgotten. Mankind loves fundamentalism so much more. Even the seekers are not interested in historical view on Christianity. They love the dogma. It just shows how blind people are. They think that the only options are the blind belief, or then atheism: denial of all. Denial of history, denial of existence itself, I think atheism is basically nihilism, and is very close to religious fundamentalism. Often I feel that the atheists and fundamentalists must be working together in a satanic plot to destroy the soul, and erase the memory.
I don´t know what will come of it. Probably they will pollute this planet, so in the end it will be inhabitable. They will think they can escape; the atheists believe they can manage to disappear into thin nothingness, and the believers think they can escape to heaven, and neither will have to face the consequences of their actions, face the karma. They think they can escape. And that God, or universe will support this plan. Which is a satanic plan. Satan does not believe in reincarnation. He doesn´t have a memory. He has amnesia, he has dementia.

So it is decided that fundamentalism and atheism are one and same thing. It is like the manic-depressive disorder, the bipolar spectrum. There are the tyrants, the maniacs with their narsistic troubles, and there are their victims, the depressive types with their schizoid symptoms. The sadists and the masochists. The sadists commit evil sins, and the masochists agree with with it, they submit themselves to evil. Even though they are not evil themselves, they never dare to oppose evil. They refuse to regocnize it, to see it, even if it is very obvious.

On the surface, it is possible to remain blind. The eye can see the skin, it can see men and women. And the eye is desirious, as most people don´t practise chastity; the desire, the lust is making people so blind. This is the illusion of this world, the maya. The eye can not penetrate deeper, it can not see the evilness, and the goodness. Only the heart can see such things.

I am the judge, I am the accuser, but I am also the defender. I am the judgement too; I am the last judgement. It is because Man contains everything; Paracelsus and Blake knew this, and Blake called it the Poetic Genius.

The only way to cut the knot of maya, is to practise brahmacharya, to begin to grow away from lust. Then grow away from ego, and become truly human, become a pure spirit, son of man. I think there is not much time. The days when we had the luxury of having plenty or reincarnations is sadly over. This planet is overpopulated and overpolluted, it has reached its limits. The sword of judgement is coming closer, and there will be time when the option of being reincarnated as a human being is no longer an option, we must choose between heaven and hell. Or we must fly to other planets, I don´t know how good people are in cosmic orienteering. Most likely they will panic, and will be poltergeists, so many people are addicted to alcohol, addicted to sexuality, to drugs, their addictions are going to drag them down. The source of addiction is the lust.

Well I dont know what I describe; probably I describe the cycle of reincarnation, after I described the cycles or pranayama and brahmacharya. Existence is all cyclical; it consists of cycles within cycles, wheels within wheels.. The big cycle, or the small cycle are not always the most interesting; the interseting state is the intermediary, the go-between cycle, as it is possible to hop from one level to another by using such steps. Like, in shamanistic journey, there are levels, connected by vertical axis, the axis mundi, the tree of life. If I think of meditation, pranayama is a good threshold, a twilight zone. The air element. From prana, go to pranava, to ether and water. From there to earth and fire. Cross the Styx. Close the eyes and enter the Hades. It is not that difficult. In ancient mystery cults people crossed the river.. they went to the other side.. Why would it not be possible for a modern man?

2. November 2011

I have lost count... but soon I have been some 70 hours under the vow of pratyahara

 I seem to be very absolute with it. Often I feel that I am returning to other mans life. So much has changed in such short time. I feel an intense desire to be in meditation, to stop all activity that is keeping me from it. The senses seem to become more sensitive. For example I can see in dark. There seems not to be such darkness, that my eyes could not penetrate. The adaptation from cone cell photoreceptors, to rod cell vision happens almost supernaturally fast. I seem not to need even a candle. I dream to have a small room, with thick stony walls, painted black, without any ray of light. Absolutely no light; pure sensory deprivation.

Then there is a blue flame, I see it in relation to women. With the eyes of brahmachari, even such women that I used to think as irritating, awkard, unatractive, seem to have become sweet and beautiful. I don´t even have to look, I feel it. I may turn into a sea of fire in one split second, but the fire is cool, not demanding. There is no warmth.

I seem to be completely self-absorbed. I seem not to care whether I live or die, whether this is time or eternity. It is like building a dam for a mighty river. The waters keep on rising, and I build the walls ever higher. A gigantic effort.

Yet I am determined. I will go on this evening, tomorrow, this week and the next week. After that, it will be a new record. A personal Mount Sagarmatha. I am still in the base camp, packing things, breathing extra oxygen from bottles. I imagine when I get to the peak, and can get no higher, I will have to learn to levitate, like monk Blessed Lightning in Hergé's story Tintin In Tibet.
With this intention, I suppose it could be possible. With this intention, I shall ascend to Saturn, Jupiter, the sun, Omega centauri, Magellan clouds, Messier 83.

I don´t know why now. It is not that I haven´t tried brahmacharya before. Many times. But this time I have a feeling of shipwreck. I am in this raft of time. Le Radeau de la Méduse. This planet. The ship of fools. A ship populated by "human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous, or oblivious, passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, and seemingly ignorant of their own direction". Every day, humans seem to become more blind, more ignorant. More so, that I can bear to watch. Finally I have opened the ninth gate. It took so long. The Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows.

At first I thought something is wrong in meditation, as it´s effects didn´t seem to last very long. One or two days, then gone. But no, nothing wrong with meditation. The wrong is in me, in my attitude. In my desire. Oh, I always thought I could find ecstasy, that I could find peace, find myself, but always another succubus. Millions of them. A Lilith other another; the bhuts, the nymphs.

Isa 34:14 "The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the jackals, And the
wild goat shall bleat to its companion; Also the night creature (Lilith) shall rest
there."

In certain level, it is hopeless to try resist her, if you are a man. I never was, fully. I was a boy, then a coyote, harlequine, clown, a shaman, zanni, puck, oberon, krampus, percht, cobold... a satyr, the poet. After about 45 hours I saw myself a male among other men, and then i saw how this shape disappeared, and I ceased to be a man. I absolutely ceased. There was nothing anymore to connect me with men. There never was a full identification, but now even the little was gone. I felt liberated. I wish not go back to that stage anymore.

From Pratikramana to Pratyakhan

It is a funerary candle, designed to last long times in persons grave. I like to use one in meditation, because of the symbolism. And in a way, meditation, and this life, is a form of dying.  Nirvana means "blowing out", it is a mystical death. To avoid the real death, I hurry myself towards small death in meditation. And I enjoy it, because it is ecstacy.

Today, Monday, I noticed myself doing some introspection. Pratikramana. I was out there, in this world, when sudeenly I came to think about the petals of Mooladhara. I felt that somehow they were out of order. I felt myself unholy, or dirty - there was some dirt in one petal. So I asked, oh God, what is this. What I have done. What am I. And it was then I remembered.

I see two layers in Brahmacharya. I would say that the first layer is the chastity. It is the discipline. Under it, is a deeper layer, the second layer, and it is the core, the motivation, the attitude.
I feel, that in that level, it all comes to my relation with women. Is it pure, or not. Am I bitter. Do I lust after something. Maybe I am not even aware of all that I have. I have done so many mistakes. It has taken long time to grow. How saintly I am? Really?

I feel longing... to confess.. to speak with mother. With the mother. No, I am not the masculine man. I am not a man at all, I am just a boy. Why pretend. I never even wish to grow up to become real man, or adult, if that means something cynical. To be a man, means that you have an ego. Ego is not a good thing in meditation. Better put the ego away and just surrender.

I was thinking what Mohammed said: "I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers are women." If this is true, then why be attached to women, I mean.... Somebody in internet commented this, that "He automatically condemns the majority of them [women] to hell" but I can not interpret this in such way. I feel rather, that he might actually looked at hell, and he was just describing what he saw. Just reporting. It doesn´t have to be misogyny or condemning, or male superiority complex. Maybe women can not do it. I remember Buddha was telling the same thing. He said that women must take the next birth as males, then they may reach nirvana.

I feel that I have always put women in some sort of false pedestal. I have thought, oh, they are the shakti, so they must be more close to God, than we men. But sure this is illusion. And I think this misconception is one part of my suffering, and perhaps some bitterness, that I have felt towards women. I mean, I have felt, if they are shakti, then why don´t women just become the Goddess, why they don´t just go to samadhi, and take me with them.

The reality is, that such things don´t happen. In reality. Such things happen only in my fantasies. And I wish to come to reality, and untie the maya knot. I feel that this particular illusion is the reason why my Brahmacharya has... if not alltogether failed, but has been limited, and imperfect. I have idealized women. I have romanticized this life. This romanticism is not needed. It´s of no use to anyone. It is a source of suffering.

I must do pratikramana, introspection, and think my priorities. What is my priority? Do I wish to fall in love, do I wish to find a right woman? I think no. I rather would like to be in nirvana. I wish to see the reality. So far, I have not seen a woman, who could help me with meditation, help me with the ascent. If I think this, I get to feel that even the whole idea is bit ridiculous. Then the other question; could I actually help some woman with her meditation? I think no. I have never met a woman who would be so serious with meditation. Men, I have met.

I notice, that I have had a conditioning about Heaven. I have thought, that there will be men and women in heaven, like in here. 50% and 50%, so no one will have to be alone there. But if it is true that the majority of people in hell are women, that means that the majority of people in heaven will be males. Didn´t William Blake write something like that too? This is a whole new thought for me.
In a way, I have felt something like this, instinctually. For example, I have felt that my identity is that of lesbian woman. I think, most of all, I am a lesbian woman, not a man, and not even a boy. I have often felt that I am far more feminine than any women I see. I have felt that there is something celestial in my femininity; religious, spiritual. For other purposes, it is of no use. I could never charm a woman by telling her that I am more a woman as her, or that I am a lesbian. This is an anathema, a killer of love. But it is also true.

So I ask myself, why would I dream of romantic love, or woman of my dreams, when I myself, I am the Romance, and I am the Woman? Why look such things from outside, when I have the self?
Many men hate women, and religion is often based on misogyny, so I am on a slippery slope here now. Yet I walk on it, and climb higher, towards the icy peaks. I think men hate women, because they are dependent of them. I used to be such man, so I should know. I was always attached to relationship, and was addicted to love. And it caused suffering. I couldnt understand it, because I though, that this is love, I love, what could be wrong in love?

I have nothing against women. I think almost all people live their life without divine light, and they are far from nirvana. Most people dont even have a wish to achieve nirvana. So many are agnostic, and proud about it. Women are no better than men. Men are no better than women. Every human being is a personality, is a human being, and not just their gender. I heaven, we will be all angels, androgynes, all white and feathery, all pure. I just happen to be partly angel in this life, but angels are nothing sweet. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke said that terrible is every angel, and I certainly am. My intellect is cold as ice, and sharp as needle. It is the Himalayas. Nothing human in it. It is cosmic intellect. I can not make money with it. I am impractical. I only wish to achieve nirvana, that is all I want.

I feel that Brahmacharya is particularly hard for me, because I am so close to woman; I am a woman. I am well aware what I desire. Why would I not? I am the shivalingam. I am the essence of what others seek. So I watch the petals of Mooladhara, and do introspection, and this pratikramana turns to become pratyakhan, a vow; a vow of celibacy. This time I wish not to fall, this time I wish to climb higher. As high as I can possible get. And there will I sit in snow, and stop all human thinking. I will allow only Olympic thoughts in my brain. I will die, and I will become the jivan mukti, this is my desire, and while I write this, all the four petals of my Mooladhara become pure red, red as rose, and they gave the fragrance of a rose. the rose fragrance rises up, and fills the lotus with its silence. The silence is dark, it is ambrosia. I dont know what say about it, but I see fierce passions. And then the purity, the steady pratyakhan. It is under everything, for pratyakhan is like roots that go underground. It is not a matter of conscious will. A pratyakhan vow is born, it is a blessing, not a decision.
And I am in this pratyakhan, I sit on it. It is like sitting on a throne.

How Could I Be a Yogi?

I think, that from the beginning of my life, I dreamed of becoming a yogi. Giving up worldly ambition, living simple life somewhere remote place, possibly in mountains, somewhere in  east. This wasn´t just a fantasy, there was a practical side in it too. As a teenager, I really lived simply, didn´t have much furniture in my room, and in evenings I read Bhagavadgita. I did meditate and pray, since I was a religious boy from the start. faith did come naturally to me. I didn´t receive any special religious upbringing, but on the contrary, my backround was a very secularized form of clerical Lutheranism. In practise it meant just our names being in the civil registry of church, and birth, marriage and funeral rituals performed by a Lutheran priest.

So, naturally, in my longing after a deeper spirituality I drifted towards forms Hinduism. I felt that in western religion there is nothing even remotely comparabable to Hindu Mysticism. This understanding was innate in me.

Later I did try to find similar things from Christianity, and other religions, but it was just bits and pieces, and most of it was a sad history of persecutions. I came to understand that the Christians do not really tolerate mystical attitudes towards religion. I felt it is more a formal and dogmatic type of religion.

As I grew up, I naturally seeked some yogis, and eventually came to sahaja yoga. But I soon saw that yogis are really agnostic, and abhor the mystical states, like the Christians. In the beginning I naiively imagined, that sitting down, cross legged in Lotus position, and closing your eyes, would mean genuine desire to open to inner reality. But it is not. I think that for most yogis, meditation is like sports, it is just a bodily posture, an asana, nothing else. Most yogis don´t experience the spirit, and they don´t believe in the spirit. They talk about meditation in mental and verbal level, they might have the right words, and they may know some sanskrit concepts, but it seldome, if ever gets to practical level, of actually experiencing those things in your individual self.

That is why I hesitate to call myself a yogi. yes, I do enjoy meditation, and I like to be in samadhi, but is it yoga? Often I feel that yoga is a fashion, or a trend, it is more about clothing, than anything else. It is an Indian version of toga party, just replace bed sheets and sandals by saris and kurtas, bracelets and bindus - a costume play. No, this was never my idea.

The other thing people seem to crave, is power, and place in a group.

I don´t know why people are like that, but often I tried asking it from them, and they said that the human species, homo sapiens is basically a social animal, just like apes and the chimpanzee. Or some people were so politically minded, they could be called political animals. I imagine that such people are not flesh and bones, but consist of politically correct opinions. The yogis seemed to measure their spiritual growth by measuring their distance from dominant male, the alpha male, the leader of the group.

So, naturally I begun to question things, and ask things like, why am I so different from others, why are they so different from me. It was obvious to me, that I was not a social animal. I had an idea that yoga is simple; just top sit down, and surrender to samadhi, and if we people could do it together, so much merrier. But no, it was not possible, there is always the leader, and the alpha males, and the rigid hierarchy.

Why must it be so masculine?

When I begun doing meditation, it wa sin early childhood, I did the first prayers, I have no such ideas as masculinity and femininity, not to mention that one of these would be superior and the other inferior. I just simply wished to do meditation, and it didn´t matter to me, if I was a man or boy, male or female, an eunuch or hermaphrodite, because for me it was not a gender related issue at all.

Why people are so strict about gender? Why they are so touchy about it? Why is it so important? In Christianity, they even threw mother and daughter out of Heaven, and kept there only the father and his son. Such system can not possibly be fair. I think God must be above gender, and certainly God can not be a misogyne. This goes against my reason.

I don´t know what Christianity was originally, may be those dogmas where created in Council of Nicaea, and what was yoga originally. But today we see they have become misogynistic, male dominated, commercial, and agnostic things, for social animals. Yogis may even do lip-service to Goddess, and yet behave like typical power-oriented alpha males. Also yoginis are like this. They may appear to be worshipping the Goddess, or seeking the Goddess withing them, but in reality they are hunting after the alpha males, because that is what is making their hormones tick.

I must say, there was times when I seriously thought, that the Byzantine system, where we had hole monasteries full of eunuch monks, was better. And I studied this subject, which was hard, because we have not much historical knowledge about eunuch spirituality. I think the russian writer, Lev Tolstoy, was the last thinker, who thought about these issues. His opinion was that the castration is not the right way, because people should castrate their heart, not their body, which, he thought is as sinful as lechery: "You have to castrate your own heart [Serdtse svoe nado oskopit'], then external castration will not be necessary.."

Ok, someone once suggested me, that I might be different , because I could have defective male chromosomes, and so I lack the drive that is making real men out of just men. This certainly may have some ring of truth, as yoginis were often, if not always, complaining that I am not a real man, such as the handsome yogi Mr.X. or some other hot looking yogi. This was getting somehwat complex, as I felt that the more get into this yoga, the further I lose the original goal, which was samadhi.

In yoga, it is not enough that you achieve samadhi. If you ara a male, you must also be handsome, be stylishly dressed, you must be a real man: a hottie. And I don´t believe that yogis ever stop to consider the righteousness of their attitudes, they just keep going, instictively knowing what is good and what is bad. I was a sissy, and according to yoga doctrine, there is no enlightenment for sissies.

But wait. I always believed that samadhi is above the male-female duality. It is possible that I may - or maybe not - have hormonal reasons that disqualify me as alpha male, but it is certain, that these yoga people are trapped in duality, and they mistake mating, herd behaviour, social dynamics as samadhi. So, I think that my chromosomes have nothing to do with this, except, perhaps that in yoga, the feminine man is being targeted for bullying. In practise, yoga seems to be just a form of mobbing. They wish to ensure, that all femininity gets beaten down, or smoked out of their groups.

This brings me to more problems. For me, as a  dedicated follower of ahimsa, or nonviolence, bullying is a form of violence, and both violence and misogyny are gross sins. I can not understand why would anyone so sinful person even dream of achieving samadhi. My morality says that person should at least try to behave in nice way. Saying that we are animals, social animals, just apes who will enter the samadhi, seems to me be the stupidest error. Certainly we should not be like animals, because we are humans, and we should strive to grow up to become saints. Not something lower.

Yet I always wondered, that yogis seem to be strangely asexual for animals. Even if you look at a dog, or animals in zoo, they are often uninhibitedly horny, the yogis seemed to be asexual animals, which made me think they may in fact be something like demons. For demons are lower than animals, yet they have a human form.

Problem solved.

So, it follws, that I think that yoga is pretty much a useless intermediate stage, even a siding or deadlock. Why go there in kindergarten, and risk your karma in those herds of violent animals? You can not help them, but instead they will drag you down, for you are one, and they are many. You are always wrong, and they will be always right.

This is the reason we need solitude.

It is not misanthropic solitude, a juvenile thing, not loneliness, but more like ahimsa. Trying to separate oneself from violence.

Many yogis say - remember they are agnostics - and often also atheists - that we should not worship humans, we should not have gurus, we are all equal, I will not bow dont to anything.. but I think this is nonsense. It is the reincarnated Jacobins and Khmer Rouge speaking, the usual mob agitation trying to incite our worst passions. Creating scapegoats, raising hatred and envy, demonizing.. The pandemonium.

I think one should not listen to others, but look into oneself, and ask humbly, what is wrong with me. Why am I like this. What is keeping me from samadhi.

I think, probably, you have too many acquintances. You speak too much with people, you think too little yourself, and listen too much to other people. Many people have a great confidence, especially the alpha males, and it is easy to get under their spell, especially if your hormones drive you to that direction. To study some eastern philosophy or join the yoga group, or becoming religious does not help one bit. The biology should change; we should overcome the duality within ourselves, and it is not possible to solve this in religious, or spiritual level, as our attachments are on social and sexual level.

I think that is why we need a guru.

The task is so tremendous.

The American mythologist Joseph Campbell used to write about the monomyth, and about the hero´s journey. I think it is great. In our modern society, in democratic system, all are so equal, and our experience so jacobinized, that we have no more heroes. Someone like Ulysses, or like marine biologist Ed Ricketts was for Campbell. Someone like Cuchulain. A shaman. The guru is the hero. He has travelled alone, he has gone far, outside the limits of our world, to the other side.

It is only in our modern world, that people have illusions, that they could be saved as a group, and that they don´t need heroes, or that we don´t need to step out of our little box, from the comfort zone. So, because civilization, we have the religions, the sects, the male leaders, and people are conditioned in the group mind. I never understood this, as I neved wished to be part of any group. I just wished the mystical experience to manifest itself, and then pick maybe some bits and pieces from various religions and myths, that seem to fit into my experience. Some may call that modern attitude, of modern individualist, but I really don´t see what is so individualistic in our present western totalitarian systems. I consider myself an old fashioned person, an archaic man.

If I seek my kind of religious myths, I have to go as far as Byzance, and still earlier, to Mithraism, and so on. I have to go to Adi Guru Dattatreya, and seek the grave of Adam. Or I must abandon the comfortable house, and crawl into a cave. Perhaps I am a yogi, but a primitive one. I might be like Shiva was in early days, or some kind of shamanistic yogi, who loves to gaze fire in his cave.

And even more primitive: who does not care about appearances, needs no rituals, who just wants to stay in samadhi as long as possible. The difference between me, and western seekers has always been, that they seek after the samadhi, they wish to achieve it, whereas I am already in samadhi, but wish to go deeper.

Yes, it is a big step fro a modern mind, to call himself different from others. Some how special. A special case. And think positive about it, not negative, as the group pressure might want to make you feel. If I am different, then I must also be a hero, in cambellian sense. To feel oneself different, that is the 'call to adventure'. To stop feeling guilty about it, that is the adventure, it is the heroic part, as our modern societies have an obsession about normality. Our newspapers, media, films, stories.. seldom show life as experienced by non-normal people, abnormals, or outsiders. For most, something negative, a horror story about cannibal serial killer, or some miserable drug addicts. Or some exotic tribe in faraway country. They don´t wish to give us any real options, or choices.

But of course, this is only conditioning, an illusion. I just mention it, because collective conditionings are much harder to overcome, than personal conditionings.

I begin a New Blog

It is a blog about samadhi. And about the Goddess.