Writings :: Religion ll. Amera Ziganii Rao
If there is nothing outside God, including evil and all the many things we term evil at any time, and if this is the all and the whole point of existence on Earth is for each and every single one of us to become creators, then there has to be something of value in the battle between the dark and the light that we have to be so pre-occupied with our whole lives and what we so resist as the necessary way to live life.
This does not take away for one second the sickness of ego, the sickness of brutality, bullying, misogyny, the Patriarchal run male psyche tribe from hell that enslaves chattel and calls them daughters, wives, sisters and female friends, or indeed the Matriarchal Patriarchs who mete out the 'ugly stepmother' type of parenting. The cruelty, the hollowness, the profanity that these people are responsible for on Earth. Driven by the chronic need to need. Driven by the ignorance of the hidden wisdoms of the world that are dismissed by mediocre society as witchcraft. One person's witch is another's saint. One person's witch is another's Sufi. One person's witch is another's mystic. The point of the esoteric journey, the spiritual journey, rather than the religious one is that it is not based on laziness, ignorance, emotional over sentimentality and stupidity. And indeed fear. Religion is ALL about fear. Spirituality is about courage. This does not excuse first existence. Ego existence.
At the same time, the whole reason for the battle needs to be articulated and explored too, to give us hope and context, while battling the dark forces of ego evil. In ourselves for real, always in ourselves, but of course in others. Led of course by the more brutal, male psyche, male Mars beast from hell most of the time. In men primarily, half the men on Earth and in women too. The Venus male has misogyny too, ain't no doubt about that. But theirs is a more subtle and whining misogyny of need and greed, instead of the gutteral, punitive, demanding version of the Mars male. No one escapes the necessity to move from First to Second Existence. And the world is still about men and female slaves. Either join the fight to liberate us or fuck off. Simple as. The Tribe has to die. Tribe society has to die and as we enter the actual year of ascension for the whole planet, the time is now to make those distinctions. And make them fast.
Either drown and kill in religion or grow and thrive and contribute in spirituality. The choice is yours. Laziness or the hardest work you could ever imagine ever in any existence.
It's not what they do to you, it's what you do with what they do to you that counts. Jean Paul Sartre
At first glance of course, everything to do with other people, everything to do with parents, who unconsciously 'fuck us up for life' as I think it was Philip Larkin who said so accurately. Consciously or unconsciusly, that is the purpose of parents. To love and care for us the best they can and to fall short of it in particular ways, to fuck us up until we move from first to second existence. In soul terms, we choose who to be born to, in order to experience certain methods of self creation and agony and departure from that agony. If parents are born 'to fuck us up'. We are born to them, to leave them. If they are born to break our hearts, we are born to break theirs. Life is about breaking hearts. The whole purpose of life is to have our hearts broken. Ascension. Not pretty, but paradoxically, beautiful. The esoteric journey is paradoxical. Religion is not, hence our addiction to stay in the illusion of safe beliefs. Religion is about cowardice. Spirituality is about courage.
Taking Sartre's quote, to go further, even though Sartre himself, would turn in his grave, as a staunch existentialist, if it is not what they do to you that counts, it is also what 'they' do to you that does not count. Spiritual existentialism if you like. The difference between fate and destiny. To create your own destiny, it is also not what 'they' (God, The Universe, The Unseen, One's Fate) do to you, it is what you do with what they do to you, that counts. Not just what counts. The whole freakin' point of existence. To create out of the mire, a thing of beauty. Your thing of beauty.
Which is where the archetypes come in again. As women to men and as Venus archetypes to Mars archetypes. Women are the protagonists on this planet. The heroes. The heroines all in one. We make the adventurous and agonising journeys of crap existence, harsh circumstances and incredible levels of cruelty. At the hands of the antagonists. Men. Or indeed, the Mars female archetypes. I have known more of them than I have Mars men and I have known many Mars men. And then there are Venus men. They are capable of massive cruelty and ignorance and stupidity too. But my dynamic as a Venus female is bottom of the pile. Cinderella of the Cinders. The meek born to inherit the Earth. My Earth.
In other words, the most courageous. The ones most of love. The ones most of kindness. I say that with so much gall because even as Mars men and women have meted out their visciousness on me, they have always found time to compliment me on my kindness. Charming. But remembered.
And I say it with so much gall, because I live in Second Existence after healing and transforming my ego almost three years ago. Enlightenment, Nirvana, the state of bliss. Owning one's truth and one's success is a fundamental part of mastering one's destiny. So I tell you straight. I am Soul and I am Venus in archetype. And I am whole. Because I did the work. Because I do that work every single day and every single hour. Religion is lazy. Spirituality takes awesome levels of work.
One person's witch is another person's mystic. One person's witch is another person's magnificent Gnostic. Spirituality takes work. Religion takes none. Spirituality takes discipline. Religion takes nothing but the laziness and irresponsibility of remaining ignorant and thinking that education at school, if you are even fortunate enough to have had an education in this slave world of economics as well as gender, thinking that that education is enough. Spirituality knows that that education has to be completely re-learnt. School is First Existence. Adult education is Second.
The truth about the human condition is that everyone wants to be free and everyone wants to be happy and everyone wants to love. The other truth is that the overwhelming drive to kill, metaphorically or literally CANNOT be avoided. And the drive to kill is so that we are not alone. Ego cannot be alone. Religion is ego. Spirituality is soul. Spirituality is the journey out of ego into soul. The most excruciatingly painful transformation in life, indeed, in any life we spend on this planet. The only reason we are here is to make that transformation. To become what we are, after a life or lifetimes spent, being who we are not.
And the agonising pain of transformation - I experience it still in my physical with a chronically painful and largely invisible deformity that is being healed and has been healing and transforming the structure of my body for 12 years straight. The journey to BECOMING whole never stops once it starts - is the reason we stay in religion. Religion is the Tribe. Polite and mediocre society. The family. La Familia. Soap opera level drama. We think film is another world. It is, but spirituality takes you into that world. Those who make film are Second Existence. Those who make soaps are making them for First Existence. No judgment. Just fact. As someone who was born into First Existence, my gift was that I knew I was only visiting. I still had to make the journey. For real.
Second Existence and Spirituality is also sexual and sensual. Religion is not. Religion is babies. Reproduction, sexual shame, repression and disgust. Spirituality is about sensuality, sexuality and Spirit. The sacred. One person's witch is another person's saint. Religion is about need. Teddy bear need. With a meanness of heart because vengeance is the name of the game. Vengeance, the abandoned child, rage at the very God one is worshipping. Hollow, lying existence. Spirituality is about the real. The primal and the sacred and above all, responsibility for one's actions, the knowledge that being mean is choice. Being kind is choice. The truth that we are all stricken with the need sickness and that this is our responsibility and no one else's. Which is why existentialism is the most spiritually accurate philosophy on earth. Modern self help, Neuro Linguistic Programming and the like, the wondrous tools of transformation available everywhere today, are all existential. In fact of course, they are all older than that. But existentialism is as good a thinking (thinking = thinking + emotions + imagination = sacred) philosophy as any to hold onto as an anchor. For now.
The difference between fate and destiny. To master one's destiny, one is required to have a horrendous fate and required to turn it around. That is the privileged life of magicians to be. And turning it around is alchemy, is neuro linguistic programming, is uncovering the shit. Clearing it and turning it around....mastering one's destiny. That is real wizardry.
One person's witch is another person's alchemist, magician, high priestess or high priest. Sufi. Quaker. Esoteric. Gnostic. Self actualiser. Winner.
Alchemy. Know Thyself. Re-programming the mind, to reach the inner heart. The only way to courage. Soul. Esoteric mastery and mystic work. Consciousness. Know Thyself and know the lies of religion. God is love. All kinds of love, including cruelty. And of a nebulous highest intelligence. The rest is up to us. "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert Einstein
This is the real reason why religion thrives and survives and goes on unabated, despite all our questions, our condemnations, our cyncism, our attempt to believe there is nothing out there whatsoever. It's all ignorance and illusion to keep us away from the real truth. Religion is lazy. Spirituality takes hard work. It is just too hard to be a hero. Just too hard to be a heroine. We may all dream of freedom and happiness and hate anyone around us who has either of those things. But the truth is all to avoid the real truth. We just can't do it. We just won't do it. We will not give up need. Need is the biggest killer on this planet and the single, sole, reason we as a people stay stupid and ignorant and mean.
Religion is for wimps. Spirituality is for heroines and heroes.
It's too hard not to need. Believe me I have been there and it is excruciating to leave behind layer after layer after layer of need. Agonising, excruciating and infuriating. It is the only way. The only way to be free, to be happy and to be confident and therefore kind. To love unconditionally is to BECOME unconditional love. That is why religion thrives.
There is no mystery, no conspiracy and they or 'they' or 'they' are not responsible. It is all in us.
I have had to overcome hundreds of layers of chattel oppression in this life. Slave to my parents, slave to my mother, hated by my brother, hated by men all my life and hated by women all my life too. Everyone wanted a piece of me, everyone wanted to control me and everyone wanted me to be their mummy. The bliss of standing alone, free, confident, not needing and happy is unbelievable. The knowledge that I don't know hardly anyone else who can do the same thing is devastating. No matter. We all have our purposes. The fact is that I overcame desperate levels of need, unhappiness, oppression, suppression and repression. The Tribe in all its forms, has to be left for any real chance at anything. Whether it is being with a man who is too greedy and selfish to recognise that I as woman am not born to look after him like some unpaid slave, ie as a chattel, as a Lolita or any of the other things that seem so seductively attractive and are actually pure and unadulterated sickness and abuse, or whether it is the so called duty of family. The emotional blackmail from hell more like, of again, being asked to be an unpaid, always unpaid, chattel daughter or sister or whatever. Fuck the Tribe and fuck religion. But to do that takes guts, discipline, the hardest work you could ever imagine in your wildest nightmares and time. Always time.
Responsibility is all of our greatest fear. Our greatest resistance. The thing we hate most. Fear is what we kill for and greed and need is what we always kill for. It's all in us. Religion is for laziness. Spirituality is for courage. Which one are you, is the only question necessary every day.
Talking of which , I include the plot of a great film here today. The Bad and The Beautiful. Such a great analogy about the truth of Divinity and indeed, to some extent, the Mars archetype man. And therefore the divinity of the Mars archetype man. What he can be in Second Existence and the Mastery I hopeed I would meet in my man one day. What every Mars archetype in my life has failed miserably at. Not the mastery of evil. The mastery of darkness. Nothing is outside God. Spirit, the Universe and God, the real God wants us to question, criticise and then grow. That is the point of existence too. Hence the most exciting dynamic on earth, sado masochism, or any passionate, power driven sexuality. The sub and the dom dynamic. Not just Venus and Mars, or Mars and Venus. But us and Spirit. As long as there is no First Existence involved of course. That is just, literally, bollocks.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
The Bad and the Beautiful. Five Academy Awards
The Bad and the Beautiful is a 1952 MGM melodramatic film that tells the story of a film producer who alienates all around him. It was directed by Vincente Minelli and stars Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame and Gilbert Roland.
The film was written by George Bradshaw and Charles Schnee and directed by Vincente Minnelli. It won Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Gloria Grahame), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Cedric Gibbons, Edward Carfagno, Edwin B. Willis, F. Keogh Gleason), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White and Best Writing, Screenplay. Douglas was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
The Bad and the Beautiful holds the record for most Oscars won (five) by a movie that was not nominated for Best Picture.
In 2002 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
In Hollywood, screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell), movie star Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), and director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) each refuse to speak by phone to Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) in Paris. Movie producer Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon) gathers them in his office and begs them to help Shields out.
The backstory of their involvement with Shields unfolds. Shields is the son of a notorious old filmmaker who had been dumped by the industry. He was so unpopular that his son had to hire "extras" to attend his funeral. Shields is determined to make it in Hollywood by any means necessary.
In a flashback, Shields partners with aspiring director Amiel, whom he meets at his father's funeral. In a poker game, Shields intentionally loses money he does not have to film executive Pebbel so he can talk Pebbel into letting him work off the debt. Shields and Amiel learn their respective trades making low-budget films for him. Amiel decides he is ready to film a project he has been nursing along. Shields pitches it to the studio. He gets a large budget to produce the film, but has to betray Amiel by letting someone with an established reputation direct it.
Shields next encounters alcoholic small-time actress Lorrison, the daughter of a famous actor Shields admired. He builds up her confidence and gives her the leading role in one of his movies over everyone else's objections. When she falls in love with him, he lets her think that he feels the same way so that she does not self-destruct and he gets the performance he needs. After a smash premiere makes her a star overnight, she finds him with a beautiful bit player named Laila (Elaine Stewart). He drives Lorrison away, telling her that he will never allow anyone to have that much control over him.
Finally, Bartlow is a contented professor at a small college who has written a bestselling book. Shields wants to turn it into a film and have him write the script. Bartlow is not interested, but his shallow Southern belle wife, Rosemary (Gloria Grahame) is, so he agrees to do it for her sake. They go to Hollywood, where Shields is annoyed to find that her constant distractions are keeping her husband from his work. He gets his suave actor friend Victor "Gaucho" Ribera (Gilbert Roland) to keep her occupied. Freed from interruption, Bartlow has no trouble finishing the script. Rosemary, however, runs off with Gaucho and they are killed in a plane crash. Shields employs Bartlow to help him produce the film. On the fourth day of filming, Shields disagrees with the director, and decides to direct a film himself. It is the first time Shields has directed a film, and he botches it, which leads to his bankruptcy.
Then Shields slips and reveals that he knew Gaucho was going away with Rosemary, so Bartlow walks out on him.
The story comes full circle to the beginning. When all three reject Shields' offer to work together again, Pebbel sarcastically agrees that Shields "ruined" their lives. They are all now at the top of their professions. As they leave, Pebbel is still talking to Shields. Out of his sight, the three eavesdrop on another phone while Shields describes his new idea and become more and more interested.
There has been much debate as to which real-life Hollywood legends are represented by the film's characters. Jonathan Shields is thought to be a blending of David O. Selznick, Orson Welles and Val Lewton. Lewton's Cat People is clearly the inspiration behind an early Shields-Amiel film. The Georgia Lorrison character is the daughter of a "Great Profile" actor like John Barrymore (Diana Barrymore's career was in fact launched the same year as her father's death), but it can also be argued that Lorrison includes elements of Minnelli's ex-wife Judy Garland. Gilbert Roland's Gaucho may almost be seen as self-parody, as he had recently starred in a series of Cisco Kid pictures, though the character's name, Ribera, would seem to give a nod also to famed Hollywood seducer Porfirio Rubirosa. The director Henry Whitfield (Leo G. Carroll) is a "difficult" director modeled on Alfred Hitchcock, and his assistant Miss March (Kathleen Freeman) is modeled on Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville. The James Lee Barlow character may have been inspired by Paul Eliot Green, the University of North Carolina academic-turned-screenwriter of The Cabin in the Cotton.
Wikipedia
Amera Ziganii Rao. A Profile
Amera Ziganii Rao is a philosophical writer, essayist, social commentator, prose writer, dramatist and photographer artist as well as a consciousness explorer, self actualiser and emotional healer. She is a former hard news journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social and cultural commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is 46 years old and currently lives in London.
Writer and Enlightener, Amera Ziganii Rao, is now putting together a comprehensive and unique programme of Education For Liberation. Liberation of the lower mind into the higher mind, the soul and the inner heart and therefore one's true, confident, happy, successful, creative, sexual, sensual, individual, intelligent, emotionally healed, capable of loving and being loved self. Based on her scholarly and non scholarly work over 14 years, if not for her whole life, and her extensive and intense, visceral experiences of self transformation from resignation, cynicism and despair to a state of bliss, the courses will cover the method of change. The psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, political, emotional and physical and even anthropological methods of change. Why we are here. The meaning of life, no less. This will be on offer in the near future, in the form of online courses and live events, to begin with. Thank you
In the meantime, please enjoy this website. I have included many of the subjects I am covering, areas of experience and insight that I will be exploring to the fullest in my book, the courses and all the other work that is to come as a dramatist, novelist and essayist. I also of course, include many of the wise people on this planet, who have come long before me; authors, screen dramatists, playwrights, film makers, artists, and other enlighteners and grand carriers of the wisdom I have found the most helpful on my journey, to find peace and become enlightened. The seemingly impossible journey, in the face of oneself and one’s circumstances. People who have contributed massively to my healing on this mad journey called life. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you. Amera Ziganii Rao
Thank you to outside sources for the photographs. Amera Ziganii Rao Digital Darkroom.
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