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Soul Pt ll (Artwork)
Hierophant Knowledge: The Hero's (Heroine's) Journey Pt ll. Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Stage Four of The Hero's (Heroine's) Return
.......4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold.
The two worlds, the divine and the human, can be pictured only as distinct from each other - different as life and death, as day and night. The hero (heroine) adventures out of the land we know into darkness; there he (she) accomplishes his (her) adventure, or again is simply lost to us, imprisoned or in danger. And his (her) return is described as a coming back out of that yonder zone.
Nevertheless, and here is a great key to the understanding of myth and symbol - the two kingdoms are actually one. The realm of the gods is a forgotten dimension of the world we know. And the exploration of that dimension, either willingly or unwillingly, is the whole sense of the deed of the hero (heroine).
The values and distinctions that in normal life seem important disappear with the terrifying assimilation of the self into what formerly was only otherness. As in the stories of the cannibal ogresses (ogres), the fearfulness of this loss of personal individuation can be the whole burden of the transcendental experience for unqualified souls. But the hero/heroine-soul goes boldly in and discovers the hags converted into goddesses and the dragons into the watchdogs of the gods.
There must always remain, however, from the standpoint of normal waking consciousness, a certain baffling inconsistency between the wisdom brought forth from the deep, and the prudence usually found to be effective in the light world. Hence the common divorce of opportunism from virtue and the resultant degeneration of human existence.
Martyrdom is for saints but the common people have their institutions, and these cannot be left to grow like lilies of the field. Peter keeps drawing his sword, as in the garden, to defend the creator and sustainer of the world. The boon brought from the transcendent deep becomes quickly rationalised into nonentity, and the need becomes great for another hero/heroine to refresh the world.
How teach again, however, what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind's prudent folly? That is the hero's/heroine’s ultimate difficult task.
How render back into light-world language the speech-defying pronouncements of the dark? How represent one a two-dimensional surface a three dimensional form, or in a three dimensional image a multi-dimensional meaning? How translate into terms of 'yes' and 'no' revelations that shatter into meaningless every attempt to define the pairs of opposites?
How communicate to people who insist on the exclusive evidence of their senses the message of the all-generating void?
Many failures attest to the difficulties of this life-affirmative threshold. The first problem of the returning hero/heroine is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss?
As dreams that were momentous by night may seem simply silly in the light of day, so the poet and prophet can discover themselves playing the idiot before a jury of sober eyes. The easy thing is to commit the whole community to the devil and retire again into the heavenly rock-dwelling, close the door and make it fast. But if some spiritual obstetrician has meanwhile drawn the shimenawa across the retreat, then the work of representing eternity in time, and perceiving in time eternity, cannot be avoided.
The story of Rip van Winkle is an example of the delicate case of the returning hero/heroine. Rip moved into the adventurous realm unconsciously, as we all do every night when we go to sleep. In deep sleep, declare the Hindus, the self is unified and blissful; therefore deep sleep is called the cognitional state.
But though we are refreshed and sustained by these nightly visits to the source-darkness, our lives are not reformed by them. We return, like Rip, with nothing to show for the experience but our whiskers.
"He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten......
As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints and wanting his usual activity.....as he approached the village, he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round.
Their dress too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins.
The constant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip involuntarily to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long....He began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.....
The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children that had gathered at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity.
The orator bustled up to him, and drawing him partly aside, inquired on which side he voted. Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear whether he was a Federal or a Democrat. Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question when a knowing self-important old gentleman in a sharp, cocked hat made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before van Winkle - with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, he keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village.
"Alas gentlemen!" cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place and a loyal subject to the King, God bless him!"
Here a general shout burst from the bystanders, "A Tory, a Tory! A spy! A refugee! Hustle him! Away with him!" It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order."
More dispiriting than the fate of Rip is the account of what happened to the Irish hero Oisin when he returned from a long sojourn with the daughter of the King of the Land of Youth. Oisin had done better than poor Rip, he had kept his eyes open in the adventurous realm. He had descended consciously (awake) into the Kingdom of the unconscious (deep sleep) and had incorporated the values of the subliminal experience into his waking personality.
A transmutation had been effected. But precisely because of this highly desirable circumstance, the dangers of his return were the greater. Since his entire personality had been brought into accord with the powers and forms of timelessness, all of him stood to be refuted, blasted, by the impact of the forms and powers of time.
Oisin, the son of Finn MacCool, one day was out hunting with his men in the woods of Erin, when he was approached by the daughter of the King of the Land of Youth. Oisin's men had gone ahead with the day's kill, leaving their master with his three dogs to shift for himself.
And the mysterious being had appeared to him wiht the beautiful body of a woman, but the head of a pig. She declared that the head was due to a Druidic spell, promising that it would vanish the very minute he would marry her. "Well, if that is the state you are in" said he, "and if marriage with me will free you from the spell, I'll not leave the pig's head on you long."
Without delay the pig's head was dispatched and they set out together for Tir na n-Og, the Land of Youth. Oisin dwelt there as a king many happy years. But one day he turned and declared to his supernatural bride, "I wish I could be in Erin today to see my father and his men."
If you go," said his wife, "and set foot on the land of Erin, you'll never come back to me and you'll become a blind old man. How long do you think it is since you came here?"
"About three years," said Oisin.
"it is three hundred years," said she, "since you came to this kingdom with me. If you must go to Erin, I'll give you this white steed to carry you, but if you come down from the steed or touch the soil of Erin with your foot, the steed will come back that minute, and you'll be where he left you, a poor old man."
"I'll come back, never fear" said Oisin. "Have I not good reason to come back? But I must see my father and my son and my friends in Erin once more. I must have even one look at them."
She prepared the steed for Oisin and said, "This steed will carry you wherever you wish to go."
Oisin never stopped till the steed touched the soil of Erin, and he went on til he came to Knock Patrick in Munster, where he saw a man herding cows. In the field where the cows were grazing there was a broad flat stone.
"Will you come here," said Oisin to the herdsman, "and turn over this stone?"
"Indeed then I will not" said the herdsman, "for I could not lift it, nor twenty men more like me."
Oisin rode up to the stone, and reaching down, caught it with his hand and turned it over. Underneath the stone was the great horn of the Fenians (borabu) which circled round like a sea shell and it was the rule that when any of the Fenians of Erin blew the borabu, the others would assemble at once from whatever part of the country they might be in at the time.
"Will you bring this horn to me?" asked Oisin of the herdsman.
"I will not," said the herdsman, "for neither I nor many more like me could raise it from the ground."
With that Oisin moved near the horn, and reaching down took it in his hand, but so eager was he to blow it, that he forgot everything, and slipped in reaching til one foot touched the earth. In an instant the steed was gone, and Oisin lay on the ground a blind, old man."
The equating of a single year in Paradise to one hundred of earthly existence is a motif well known to myth. The full round of one hundred signifies totality. Similarly the three hundred and sixty degrees of the circle signify totality, accordingly the Hindu Puranas represent one year of the gods as equal to three hundred and fifty of men.
From the standpoint of the Olympians, eon after eon of earthly history rolls by, revealing ever the harmonious form of the total round, so that where men (women) see only change and death, the blessed behold immutable form, world without end.
But now the problem is to maintain this cosmic standpoint in the face of an immediate earthly pain or joy. The taste of the fruits of temporal knowledge draws the concentration of the spirit far away from the centre of the eon to the peripheral crisis of the moment. The balance of perfection is lost, the spirit falters and the hero/heroine falls.
The idea of the insulating horse, to keep the hero/heroine out of immediate touch with the earth and yet permit him (her) to promenade among the peoples of the world, is a vivid example of a basic precaution taken generally by the carriers of supernormal power.
Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico, never set foot on the ground, he was always carried on the shoulders of noblemen, and if he lighted anywhere they laid a rich tapestry for him to walk upon.
Within his palace, the king of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else might tread, outside of it he was never seen on foot but only in a chariot or on horseback. formerly neither the kings of Uganda nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on foot outside of the spacious enclosures in which they lived.
Whenever they went forth, they were carried on the shoulders of men of the Buffalo clan, several of whom accompanied any of these royal personages on a journey and took it in turns to bear the burden. The king sat astride the bearer's neck with a leg over each shoulder and his feet tucked under the bearer's arms.
When one of these royal carriages grew tired, he shot the king onto the shoulders of a second man without allowing the royal feet to touch the ground.
Sir James George Frazer explains in the following graphic way the fact that over the whole earth the divine personage may not touch the ground with his foot. "Apparent holiness magical virtue, taboo or whatever we may call that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed persons, it is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as a Leyden jar is charged with electricity, and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical virtue in the man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the magical fluid."
Hence in order to preserve the charge from running to waste, the sacred or tabooed personage must be carefully prevented from touching the ground; in electrical language he (she) must be insulated, if he is not to be emptied of the precious substance or fluid with which he (she), as a vial, is filled to the brim. And in many cases apparently the insulation of the tabooed person is recommended as a precaution not merely for his (her) own sake but for the sake of others; for since the virtue of holiness is, so to say, a powerful explosive which the smallest touch may detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general safety to keep it within narrow bounds, lest breaking out it should blast, blight and destroy whatever it comes into contact with.
There is, no doubt, a psychological justification for the precaution. The Englishman dressing for dinner in the jungles of Nigeria feels that there is reason in his act. The young artist wearing his whiskers into the lobby of the Ritz will be glad to explain his idiosyncrasy. The Roman collar sets apart the man of the pulpit. A twentieth-century nun floats by in a costume from the Middle Ages. The wife is insulated, more or less, by her ring.
The tales of W.Somerset Maugham describe the metamorphoses that overcome the bearers of the white man's burden who neglect the taboo of the dinner jacket. Many folksongs give testimony to the dangers of the broken ring. And the myths - for example, the myths assembled by Ovid in his great compendium, the Metamorphoses - recount again and again the shocking transformations that take place when the insulation between a highly concentrated power field of the surrounding world is, without proper precautions suddenly taken away.
According to the fairy lore of the Celts and Germans, a gnome or elf caught abroad by the sunrise is turned immediately into a stick or a stone.
The returning hero/heroine, to complete his (her) adventure, must survive the impact of the world. Rip van Winkle never knew what he had experienced, his return was a joke. Oisin knew, but he lost his centering in it and so collapsed. Kamar al-Zaman had the best luck of all. He experienced awake the bliss of deep sleep, and returned to the light of day with such a convincing talisman of his unbelievable adventure that he was able to retain his self-assurance in the face of every sobering disillusionment.
While he was sleeping in his tower, the two Jinn, Dahnash and Maymunah, transported from distant China the daughter of the Lord of the the Islands and the Seas and the Seven Palaces. Her name was the Princess Budur. And they placed this young woman asleep beside the Persian prince, in the very bed.
The Jinn uncovered the two faces, and perceived that the couple were as like as twins. "By Allah," declared Dahnash, "O my lady, my beloved is the fairer." But Maymunah, the female spirit, who loved Kamar al-Zaman, retorted: "Not so, the fairer one is mine." Whereupon they wrangled, challenging and counterchallenging, until Dahnash at last suggested they should seek an impartial judge.
Maymunah smote the ground with her foot, and there came out of it an Ifrit blind in one eye, humpbacked, scurvy-skinned, with eye-orbits slit up and down his face; and on his head were seven horns; four locks of hair fell to his heels; his hands were like pitchforks and his legs like masts; and he had nails like the claws of a lion, feet like the hoofs of the wild ass.
The monster respectfully kissed the ground before Maymunah and inquired what she would have him do. Instructed that he was to judge between the two young persons lying on the bed, each with an arm under the other's neck, he gazed long upon them, marvelling at their loveliness, then turned to Maymunah and Dahnash, and declared his verdict.
"By Allah, if you will have the truth," he said, "the two are of equal beauty. Nor can I make any choice between them, on account of their being a man and a woman. But I have another thought, which is that we wake each of them in turn, without the knowledge of the other, and whichever is the more enamoured shall be judged inferior in comeliness."
It was agreed. Dahnash changed himself to the form of a flea and bit Kamar al-Zaman on the neck. Starting from sleep, the youth rubbed the bitten part, scratching it hard because of the smart, and meanwhile turned a little to the side. He found lying beside him something whose breath was sweeter than musk and whose skin softer than cream. He marveled. He sat up. He looked better at what was beside him and discerned taht it was young woman like a pearl or shining sun, like a dome seen from afar on a well-built wall.
Kamar al-Zaman attempted to wake her, but Dahnash had deepened her slumber. The youth shook her. "O my beloved, awake and look at me," he said. but she never stirred. Kamar al-Zaman imagined Budur to be the woman whom his father wished him to marry, and he was filled with eagerness. But he feared that his sire might be hiding somewhere in the room, watching, so he restrained himself, and contented himself with taking the sealring from her little finger and slipping it on his own. The Ifrits then returned him to his sleep.
In contrast with the performance of Kamar al-Zaman was that of Budur. She had no thought or fear of anyone watching. Furthermore, Maymunah, who had awakened her, with female malice had gone high up her leg and bitten hard in a place that burned.
The beautiful glorious Budur, discovering her male affinity beside her, and perceiving that he had already taken her ring, unable either to rouse him or to imagine what he had done to her, and ravaged with love, assailed by the open presence of his flesh, lost all control, and attained to a climax of helpless passion. Lust was sore upon her, for that the desire of women is fiercer than the desire of men, and she was ashamed of her own shamelessness.
Then she plucked his seal-ring from his finger, and put it on her own instead of the ring he had taken, and bussed his inner lips and hands, nor did she leave any part of him unkissed; after which she took him to her breast and embraced him, and, laying one of her hands under his neck and the other under his armpit, nestled close to him and fell asleep at his side.
Dahnash therefore lost the argument. Budur was returned to China. Next morning when the two young people awoke with the whole of Asia now between them, they turned to right and to left, but discovered no one at their side. They cried out to their respective households, belaboured and slew people round about, and went entirely mad.
Kamar al-Zaman lay down to languish; his father, the king sat down at his head, weeping and mourning over him and never leaving him, night or day. But the Princess Budur had to be manacled, with a chain of iron about her neck, she was made fast to one of her palace windows.
The encounter and seperation for all its wildness, is typical of the sufferings of love. For when a heart insists on its destiny, resisting the general blandishment, then the agony is great; so too the danger. Forces, however, will have been set in motion beyond the reckoning of the senses.
Sequences of events from the corners of the world will gradually draw together, and miracles of coincidence bring the inevitable to pass. The talismanic ring from the soul's encounter with its other portion in the place of recollectedness betokens that the heart was there aware of what Rip van Winkle missed.
It betokens too a conviction of the waking mind that the reality of the deep is not belied by that of common day. This is the sign of the hero's requirement now, to knit together his two worlds.
The remainder of the long story of Kamar al-Zaman is a history of the slow yet wonderful operation of a destiny that has been summoned into life. Not everyone has a destiny. Only the hero/heroine who has plunged to touch it, and has come up again - with a ring.
Stage Five of the Hero's (Heroine's) Return.
Master of the Two Worlds.
Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division. From the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back - not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other, yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other - is the talent of the master.
The Cosmic Dancer, declares Nietzsche, does not rest heavily in a single spot, but gaily, lightly, turns and leaps from one position to another. It is possible to speak from only one point at a time, but that does not invalidate the insights of the rest.
The myths do not often display in a single image the mystery of the ready transit. Where they do, the moment is a precious symbol, full of import, to be treasured and contemplated. Such a moment was that of the Tranfiguration of the Christ.
"Jesus taketh Peter, James and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them; and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spoke, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead."
Here is the whole myth in a moment. Jesus the guide, the way, the vision, and the companion of the return. The disciples are his initiates, not themselves masters of the mystery, yet introduced to the full experience of the paradox of the two worlds in one.
Peter was so frightened he babbled. Flesh had dissolved before their eyes to reveal the Word. They fell upon their faces, and when they arose the door again had closed.
It should be observed that this eternal moment soars beyond Kamar al-Zaman's romantic realisation of his individual destiny. Not only do we have here a masterly passage, back and forth, across the world threshold, but we observe a profounder, very much profounder, penetration of the depths.
Individual destiny is not the motive and theme of this vision, for the revelation was beheld by three witnesses, not one. It cannot be satisfactorily elucidated simply in psychological terms. Of course, it may be dismissed. We may doubt whether such a scene ever actually took place. But that would not help us any, for we are concerned, at present, with problems of symbolism, not of historicity.
We do not particularly care whether Rip van Winkle, Kamar al-Zaman, or Jesus Christ ever actually lived. their STORIES are what concern us, and these stories are so widely distributed over the world - attached to various heroes in various lands - that the question of whether this or that local carrier of the universal theme may or may not have been a historical, living man, can be of only secondary moment. The stressing of this historical element will lead to confusion. It will simply obfuscate the picture message.
What then, is the tenor of the image of the transfiguration? That is the question we have to ask. But in order that it may be confronted on universal grounds, rather than sectarian, we had better review one further example, equally celebrated of the archetypal event.
The following is taken from the Hindu "Song of the Lord", the Bhagavad Gita. The Lord, the beautiful youth Krishna, is an incarnation of Vishnu, the Universal God. Prince Arjuna is his disciple and friend.
Arjuna said, "O Lord, if you think me able to behold it, then, O master of yogis, reveal to me your Immutable Self." The Lord said, "Behold my forms by the hundreds and the thousands - manifold and divine, various in shape and hue. Behold all the gods and angels, behold many wonders that no one has ever seen before.
Behold here today the whole universe, the moving and the unmoving, and whatever else you may desire to see, all concentrated in my body. But with these eyes of yours you cannot see me. I give you a divine eye, behold now, my sovereign yogapower."
Having spoken thus, the great Lord of yoga revealed to Arjuna his supreme form as Vishnu, Lord of the Universe. With many faces and eyes, presenting many wondrous sights, bedecked with many celestial ornaments, armed with many divine uplifted weapons, wearing celestial garlands and vestments, anointed with divine perfumes, all-wonderful, resplendent, boundless, and with faces on all sides.
If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky, that would be like the splendour of the Mighty One. There in the person of the God of gods, Arjuna held the whole universe, with its manifold divisions, all gathered together in one. Then, overcome with wonder, his hair standing on end, Arjuna bowed his head to the Lord, joined his palms in salutation and addressed Him;
"In Thy body, O Lord, I behold all the gods and all the diverse hosts of beings - the Lord Brahma, seated on the lotus, all the patriarchs and the celestial serpents. I behold Thee with myriads of arms and bellies, with myriads of faces and eyes. I behold Thee, infinite in form, on every side, but I see not Thy end nor Thy middle nor Thy beginning, O Lord of the Universe, O Universal form!
On all sides glowing like a mass of radiance I behold Thee, with Thy diadem, mace and discus, blazing everywhere like burning fire and the burning sun, passing all measure and difficult to behold. Thou art the Supreme Support of the Universe. Thou art the undying Guardian of the Eternal Law. Thou art, in my belief, the Primal Being."
This vision was opened to Arjuna on a battlefield, the moment just before the blast of the first trumpet calling to combat. With the god as his charioteer, the great prince had driven out into the field between the two battle-ready peoples.
His own armies had been assembled against those of a usurping cousin, but now in the enemy ranks he beheld a multitude of men whom he knew and loved. His spirit failed him, "Alas", he said to the divine charioteer, "we are resolved to commit a great sin, in that we are ready to slay our kinsmen to satisfy our greed for the pleasure of a kingdom! Far better would it be for me if the sons of Dhritarashtra, weapons in hand, should slay me in battle, unarmed and unresisting. I will not fight."
But thereupon the comely god had summoned him to courage, pouring out to him the wisdom of the Lord, and in the end had opened to him this vision. The prince beholds, dumbfounded, not only his friend transformed into the living personification of the Support of the Universe, but the heroes of the two armies rushing on a wind into the deity's innumerable, terrible mouths.
He exclaims in horror: "When I look upon Thy blazing form reaching to the skies and shining with many colours, when I see Thee with Thy mouth opened wide and Thy great eyes glowing bright, my inmost soul trembles in fear, and I find neither courage nor peace, O Vishnu! When I behold Thy mouths, striking terror with their tusks, like Time's all-consuming fire, I am disoriented adn find no peace.
Be gracious O Lord of the Gods, O Abode of the Universe! All these sons of Dhritarashtra, together with the hosts of monarchs, and Bhishma, Drona and Karna, and the warrior chiefs of our side as well, enter precipitately thy tusked and terrible mouths, frightful to behold.
Some are seen caught between thy teeth, their heads crushed to powder. As the torrents of many rivers rush towards the ocean, so do the heroes of the mortal world rush into Thy fiercely flaming mouths. As moths rush swiftly into a blazing fire to perish there, even so do these creatures swiftly rush into Thy mouths to their own destruction.
Thou lickest Thy lips, devouring all the world on every side with Thy flaming mouths. Thy fiery rays fill the whole universe with their radiance and scorch it, O vishnu! Tell me who Thou art, that wearest this frightful form. Salutations to Thee, O God Supreme! Have mercy. I desire to know Thee, who art the Primal One; for I do not understand Thy purpose."
The Lord said, "I am mighty, world-destroying Time, now engaged here in slaying these men. Even without you, all these warriors standing arrayed in the opposing armies shall not live.
Therefore stand up and win glory; conquor your enemies and enjoy an opulent kingdom. By Me and none other have they already been slain. Be an instrument only, O Arjuna. Kill Drona and Bhishma and Jayadratha and Karna, and the other great warriors as well, who have already been killed by Me. Be not distressed by fear. Fight, and you shall conquor your foes in the battle."
Having heard these words of Krishna, Arjuna trembled, folded his hands in adoration and bowed down. Overwhelmed with fear, he saluted Krishna and then addressed Him again, with faltering voice.
“.....Thou art the first of gods, the ancient Soul; Thou art the supreme Resting place of the universe; Thou art the Knower and That which is to be known and the Ultimate Goal. And by Thee is the world pervaded, O Thou of infinite form. Thou art Wind and Death and Fire and Moon and the Lord of Water.
Thou art the First Man and the Great – grandsire. Salutations, salutations to Thee!....I rejoice that I have seen what was never seen before; but my mind is also troubled with fear. Show me that other form of Thine. Be gracious, O Lord of Gods, O Abode of the Universe.
I would see Thee as before, with Thy crown and Thy mace and the discus in Thy hand. Assume again Thy four armed shape, O Thou of a thousand arms and of endless shapes.”
The Lord said, “By My grace, through My own yoga-power, O Arjuna, I have shown you this supreme form, resplendent, universal, infinite and primeval, which none but you have seen. ...Be not afraid, be not bewildered, on seeing this terrific form of Mine. Free from fear and glad at heart, behold again My other form.”
Having thus addressed Arjuna, Krishna assumed a graceful shape again and comforted the terrified Pandava.
The disciple has been blessed with a vision transcending the scope of normal, human destiny, and amounting to a glimpse of the essential nature of the cosmos. Not his personal fate, but the fate of mankind, of life as a whole, the atom and all the solar systems has been opened to him and this in terms of an anthropomorphic vision; the Cosmic Man.
An identical initiation might have been effected by means of the equally valid image of the Cosmic Horse, the Cosmic Eagle, the Cosmic Tree or the Cosmic Praying Mantis.
Page Note.
“Om. The head of the sacrificial horse is the dawn, its eye the sun, its vital force the air, its open mouth the fire called Vaishvanara, and the body of the sacrificial horse is the year. Its back is heaven, its belly the sky, its hoof the earth, its sides the four quarters, its ribs the intermediate quarters, its members the seasons, its joints the months and fortnights, its feet the days and nights, its bones the stars and its flesh the clouds.
It’s half-digested food is the sand, its blood-vessels the rivers, its liver and spleen the mountains, its hairs the herbs and trees. Its forepart is the ascending sun, its hind part the descending sun, its yawning is lightning, its shaking the body is thundering, its urinating is raining, and its neighing is voice.” Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
.......the archetype
Body of life a beaked carnivorous desire
Self-upheld on storm-broad wings, but the eyes
Were spouts of blood,the eyes were gashed out, dark blood
Ran from the ruinous eye-pits to the hook of the beak
And rained on the waste spaces of empty heaven.
Yet the great Life continued; yet the great Life
Was beautiful, and she drank her defeat and devoured
Her famine for food.
End of Page Note.
Furthermore, the revelation recorded in “The Song of the Lord” was made in terms befitting Arjuna’s caste and race; The Cosmic Man whom he beheld was an aristocrat, like himself and a Hindu.
Correspondingly, in Palestine the Cosmic Man appeared as a Jew, in ancient Germany as a German, among the Basuto he is a Negro, in Japan, Japanese. The race and stature of the figure symbolising the immanent and transcendent Universal is of historical, not semantic, moment. So also the sex, the Cosmic Woman (Man), who appears in the iconography of the Jains, is as eloquent a symbol as the Cosmic Man (Woman).
Symbols are only the VEHICLES of communication; they must not be mistaken for the final term, the TENOR of their reference. No matter how attractive or impressive they may seem, they remain but convenient means, accommodated to the understanding.
Hence the personality or personalities of God - whether represented in trinitarian, dualistic, or unitarian terms in polytheistic, monotheistic or henotheistic terms, pictorially or verbally, as documented fact or as apocalyptic vision - no one should attempt to read or interpret as the final thing.
The problem of the theologian is to keep his (her) symbol translucent, so that it may not block out the very light it is supposed to convey. "for then alone do we know god truly" writes Saint Thomas Aquinas, "when we believe that He is far above all that man (woman) can possibly think of God".
And in the Kena Upanishad, in the same spirit: "to know is not to know, not to know is to know." Mistaking a vehicle for its tenor may lead to the spilling not only of valueless ink, but of valuable blood.
The next thing to observe is that the transfiguration of Jesus was witnessed by devotees who had extinguished their personal wills, men/women who had long since liquidated "life", "Personal fate," "destiny" by complete self-abnegation in the Master.
"Neither by the Vedas, nor by penances, nor by alms-giving, nor yet by sacrifice, am I to be seen in the form in which you have just now beheld Me," Krishna declared, after he had resumed his familiar shape; "but only by devotion to Me may I be known in this form, realised truly, and entered into.
He who does My work and regards Me as the Supreme Goal, who is devoted to Me and without hatred for any creature - he comes to Me." A corresponding formulation by Jesus makes the point more succinctly: "Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
The meaning is very clear. It is the meaning of all religious practise. The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to this personal limitations, idiosyncracies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes riped at last for the great at-one-ment.
His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, an anonymity. The Law lives in him with his unreserved consent.
Many are the figures, particularly in the social and mythological contexts of the Orient, who represent this ultimate state of anonymous presence. The sages of the hermit groves and the wandering mendicants who play a conspicuous role in the life and legends of the East; in myth such figures as the Wandering Jew (despised, unknown, yet with the pearl of great price in his pocket), the tatterdemalion beggar, set upon by dogs, the miraculous mendicant bard whose music stills the heart, or the masquerading god, Wotan, Viracocha, Edshu; these are examples.
"Sometimes a fool, sometimes a sage, sometimes as motionless as a python, sometimes wearing a benignant expression, sometimes honoured, sometimes insulted, sometimes unknown - thus lives the man (woman) of realisation, ever happy with supreme bliss.
Just as an actor is always a man (woman), whether he (she) puts on the costume of his (her) role or lays it aside, so is the perfect knower of the Imperishable always the Imperishable, and nothing else."
JOSEPH CAMPBELL. THE HERO (HEROINE) OF A THOUSAND FACES
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The Female and Male Wisdom Society (Artwork)
AMERA ZIGANII RAO. A PROFILE
AMERA ZIGANII RAO ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™
The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™
The Return To The Source. Ascension.
SOCIAL REFORM. THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND LOVE. SHAMANISM. PHILOSOPHY. TRUE (UNIVERSAL) LOVE. NEO FEMINISM™. ANTI MISOGYNY. THE ARTIST'S WAY. WIZARDRY. TRUE INTELLECTUALISM™. WISDOM. GONZO SPIRITUALITY. NIHILISM. SEX. SOUL. GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE™. SPIRITUAL EXISTENTIALISM™. THE VOID OF CREATION™. ALCHEMY & LIBERATION & HUMANITY™. HELL. SUFFERING. GROWTH. ASCENSION. LOVE. LIFE. DEATH. WARLORDS OF LIGHT™
Writer. Philosopher. Esoteric Mystic. Clair Cognisant. Seer. Hierophant. Enlightener. Inspirer. Visionary. Artist. Creative; Human Rights. Self Actualization. Liberation. Feminization. Masculinisation. Equalization. Spiritualization. Sexualisation. The Merging of Spirituality and Sexuality (again at last). Self Responsibility. Self Empowerment. Healing. Humanity. Imagination. Intelligence. Compassion. Passion. Revolution. War. Power. The Wisdom Society. The Warrior Society. Success. Strength. Happiness. Love.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
Writer, Speaker and Enlightener, Amera Ziganii Rao, is now putting together a comprehensive and unique programme of Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™. A programme of learning that is specifically about one particular kind of woman. And one particular kind of man. The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the true society that they come from and the one they, in particular, she can and has to return to and that anyone can join her and him in. This is about Paradise on Earth.
This is about The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity that is for all as a result of their healing and in particular, hers. This is about the kind of woman who is at the bottom of the pile in a Patriarchal Toilet Tribe from Hell Society™, the norm, the conventional world and the world of the Tribe. This is about the kind of man who is next in line from the bottom. The sensitive man and the female chattel. The High Priestess and High Priest of a profane society, that has long forgotten who they are.
This is about being at the bottom of the pile, for the forgotten and strangled shamans, and for her, the story of escape. Abused by her family, her friends, her men, her whole society, by the very nature of who she is and who they are and what has happened on this Earth. It is about women of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about men of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about the Cinderellas of this world. It is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™. Who she is and how, loving her is the secret to Paradise on Earth and how we have been living a lie for 8000+ years. A lie of male (non High Priest) religion with a male ‘God’ and with Patriarchs and Patriarchal types and Matriarchs and Matriarchal types ruling over us and making our lives hell, all in the name of family, the tribe and the way things are and should remain. Hate, fascism and profanity. A sick society that vilifies, more than anyone else, the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, just because it was told to. A sick society that calls her Eve. A sick society that has forgotten who we all are, let alone the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™. This is about us remembering and knowing who WE are.
This is a programme of healing for the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, to take them and particularly, her, from monstrous levels of low self esteem and lack of self knowledge, back to herself and it is a programme for all those who truly want to love her, and indeed, him. This is a programme for the greatest carers on Earth, who are vilified, destroyed, ridiculed, ignored, abused, used, misused and hated for being everything that those who would steal from us are not. This is a programme to turn Cinderellas into The Sacred Whore High Priestesses and for anyone who wants to love her or live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™. And this is a programme to turn sensitive men into Sacred Whore High Priests™ and for anyone who wants to love him and live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and High Priest Society. Love, humanity, Spirit and sex. This is a programme to reverse 8000+ years of witch burning, women hating and healer ridicule. This is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and all those who would love her and live by her values.
This is about the chance for Paradise on Earth. This is a programme for the most beautiful, kind hearted, wounded women and men on this planet. A programme of how to implement a system of how to beat life, how to survive life and how to resurrect from the grief that is a true life. Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity 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. How to turn grief into creation and survive and thrive, despite all the shit, all the pain and all the hurt. How to live in a world of madness, hollowness and cruelty and how to be a winner. How to stand up for oneself and to take back the power that has been stolen from anyone with heart, Spirit and sex. The art and science of Alchemy.
This is a programme, based on my scholarly and non scholarly work over 15 years (so far), if not for my whole life, and my extensive and intense, visceral experiences of self transformation from resignation, cynicism and despair to a state of relative bliss, and above all, the right to be. The programme and the courses and my speaking and indeed my forthcoming book, 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. Who the Sacred Whore High Priestess™ is and why she is here. And who the Sacred Whore High Priest™ is. Why we are here. Who we are and what we are and why we are. The beauty and glory of the truth. The meaning of life, no less. This will be on offer in the future.
My first book of consciousness, my first book of the spiritual politics of humanity, of authentic power and of self love and strength. A comprehensive series of online courses, live events and audio and visual material. Books, live events, CDs and DVDs. And one on one personal empowerment consultations. The Amera Ziganii Rao Method of Change™. The right to be and the way to have the right to be. And indeed, how to maintain the will to live without love. How to BE unconditional, self sufficient, self caring, self love. The right to be and the will to be and the unparalleled success that comes with that. The Lost Knowledge™. HOW to live. And how to heal others, the profane and the sick and the soulless. The others. My Business and that of any Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and Sacred Whore High Priest™, is Human Rights, The Right to a Sexual Society, Self Actualisation and Freedom.
My Business is To Overthrow Fascism, in the Home and in the Country. My business is also mastering destiny. Overthrowing the ultimate 'fascism'. Our journey on Earth and The Return To The Source. Our healing, our ascension and our redemption. Fate. The daily crucifixions of a true life, the challenges and the fury of being healers and people of love on a planet like Earth. Submitting to the journey to liberate and evolve oneself, through following one's heart, however much heartbreak and devastation it leads to on the long long long journey to freedom and then the longer journey to happiness. 'Long Road to Freedom', as Nelson Mandela says. My business is always taking risks, never giving up and making the endless sacrifices it takes to become whole. Enlightenment, Nirvana and then Parinirvana and beyond. My business is pain. My business is bliss.
My business is seeing the truly glory of Spirit on Earth. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™ and all that it is. Spirit, humanity, sex and love again at last. And the end of our legacy as either servants or witches or unpaid carers or indeed, ignored mistresses, other women, other men even, and the weirdos that are at the bottom of society. This is our world and it is time to take it back and I can show you how. And that makes my life, truly, worth living. I want you to feel the way I do. Alive, with the right to be and the belligerence to exist in this profane and male ‘God’ led world of male supremacy, female supremacy, domestic, casual fascism, tribe rules from hell, with beautiful and kind, love intelligence laden, female and male Cinderella warriors at the bottom, caring for everyone else and getting nothing but hatred, ridicule and isolation for it. The meek are already inheriting the Earth and I can show you how.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They told you I and my kind were dictators and that you were slaves, when all we had done was love you, honour you as companions and above all, we had let you just live. We were the holy communers, the ones who gave birth to human beings, the leaders of society, the creators of society, the vehicles of Divinity on Earth and the channels of wisdom. The ones who looked after everything and the ones who built everything and ran everything, because we could. And because we loved it. We are and were the force of creation. And you loved us and you lived. But they told you that you ‘deserved’ power too and that we were the ones standing in your way. And you believed them. The oldest ‘divide and rule’ strategy of hate in history and it worked. They used it and you bought it, hook, line and sinker. You had to give up sex, love, magic and your own spiritual gifts and you burnt, destroyed and violated me for 8000 years. The world calls that male supremacy. And indeed, family supremacy, Matriarchal supremacy and supremacy of the material world and all who believe in it. Men and women like you. When all that you are are slaves to a reptile force to generate hate energy for them to live and thrive and vampire the human race. The puppets of a hate force, that chose to destroy women and men like me, for hate to grow, so they could live. You bought it and it worked. The greatest fraud in the history of the world. I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They taught you that my mind was evil. My mind, my sex, my body and my ways of life. The humanity, the glory of sexuality and the glory of creation and creativity and the glory of Divinity in each and every one of us. Our souls. They taught you that human beings are separate from Divinity, that sex was wrong and that women who have minds of their own are uppity slaves. They vilified us but much much worse than that, they destroyed your relationship with all that is unseen, all that we honour and love. They taught you to hate what is really God. By teaching you to hate us, you hated all that is good in yourselves. They taught you to hate the light. They taught you to kill us. The daughters of The Universe. The High Priestesses of God. The Spiritual Mothers. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Avatars of The Universe. The Sacred Army of Love on Earth. The Shamans, the Mystics and the Communers. They called me Eve and blamed me for the downfall of the human race and created the awesome profanity that is religion. Of men, by men and from men. Of reptiles, by reptiles and from reptiles. Christianity, Islam and Judaism and every other philosophy around the world was poisoned. There are no female spiritual leaders left. It is all profanity. They chose you to represent them because they wanted to divide us and they did. They told you to hate me. And you believed them. Now I am back and I forgive you. I forgive you because I can. Because I came here to save your soul. And because I finally know who I am. I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past. I came here to return your soul to The Source. God, The Mother, The Universe. To return you to what is really God. Because I love you. And because She loves you and your kind, whatever you have done. Whatever you have done to me and whatever you have done to Her. And most of all, whatever you have done to yourself. We forgive you. This is your redemption. Your freedom and your ascension. We are here to save your soul.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
You bought the Sacred Whore like a piece of meat and you called that a wife. Your trophy wives. Your dancing girls. Your chattel and serving girls. Your piece of beauty. You bought us like you would cattle. Then you called it wives. Now you call it prostitution. The High Priestesses of the real God. You bought us to buy God, The Mother, The Universe and you caged us, separated us from our Divine gifts and skills in the Temple and drove us mad and then lost interest in us, because we had no gifts left, no excitement, no hunter in ourselves and no hope or joy left. Then you just called us mad and discarded us. You called us evil and you call love obedience, even though it had already killed us. You moved into our Temples and you played with the divination tools and thought you communed. The destruction of Atlantis was your gift. You stole us from God, The Mother, The Universe and you tried to usurp us. You vilified us, enslaved us and you still envy us today. You call it intuition. You might want to think about this when you hate us out of your jealousy. The mystic gene means physical tortuous pain and taking on the empathy of the human race. All their pains, evils and dark thoughts. We see and feel everything. We make crucial sacrifices to be near Spirit and the unseen and we go without for years. To be shaman is not glamour. I make it glamour. To be shaman is a specific Samurai existence, ascetic and harsh. We commune to be guides. And you take that and you shame yourselves because you just want the meat. You didn’t just want the meat. You wanted our beauty of spirit, our personalities and our love and kindness. And you destroyed them, because you caged us and called us wife.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
The High Priestess Sacred Whores, the High Priests and the true protectors. Those who do not have the gift like either the High Priests or especially like the highest of all, the High Priestess Sacred Whores but who honour, protect and facilitate them to the world. Who honour the Shaman Sacred Whores of this world most of all, and who know who they are and who they are not. Who know the difference, who do not envy and who protect and love the representatives of Spirit, GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE, on Earth. Who honour their wisdom and who honour the latent Shaman in themselves too and who honour the communing ability of the High Priestess Sacred Whores. The non violators. Our only friends. The New Society exists. It is called Enlightenment. It is called Love. It is The Holy Grail.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
The master race. It's all a lie. You are brought up to be a despot king and it is only your sister who ever tells you that you have become a pratt. The master race is all a lie. There are no kings in an equal world. Your father was misinformed. What he brought you up to be was a killer. Pure and simple. A misogynist. A modern misogynist. A polite killer.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
I enter the magical hours of pure feeling, pure thought, pure imagination and I think and I write and I 'mysticise' the Universe. I escape at will, the truth of my humanless, Samurai solitude, and I pursue the truth of love in myself and in everyone else. I am philosopher. I am shaman. I am alone. I frontier the Soul to be spirit on Earth.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
Amera Ziganii Rao 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, cultural and spiritual commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her Sacred Whore High Priestess Society consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is in her forties and lives in London.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
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, in this insane existence called The Universe. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
Copyright and intellectual property rights are serious issues. And legally protected. Please do not reproduce my work anywhere without due credit and obviously, never for financial gain. 'Big Sister' is watching you! Other than that, please continue to enjoy my original work and the work of (credited) others, for free, while I work on using my material in further professional formats. Thank you for your interest and support.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
Thank you to outside sources for artwork. Darkroomed by Amera Ziganii Rao
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