Don Juan

Don Juan is not purely and simply a blasphemous dissolute, he is rather a hierophant of this small god of great power known in antiquity under the name of Eros or Amor (Love). It is the magic of Eros that he represents, and it is the mysteries of Eros over which he presides in the capacity of a priest.

Don Juan was neither a blasphemous dissolute nor a false-hearted seducer, nor even a brutal adventurer, but rather an obedient and courageous servant of this childlike divinity who loves and commands elan, enthusiasm and ardour, and who detests and forbids the weighing, measuring and calculating of reason with its laws of utility and advantage, circumspection and respect for convention and, lastly, its priority of a cold head over a warm heart.

However, love has not only its  right to exist, but also its transcendental metaphysics, philosophy and mysticism. Don Juan was more than a victim or dupe of love – this apparently capricious goddess. He embraced her philosophy and mysticism and was therefore her conscious collaborator, her hierophant initiated into her mysteries. And it is thus that he has become an archetype – the archetype of love for its own sake, the lover par excellence.

Don Juan lives through the energy of amorous influence for the energy of amorous influence – by nourishing it and maintaining it like a fire which should never be extinguished. This is because he is conscious of the value of this fire and of the mission that htis fire has in the world. In the eternal conflict that there is between law – of right, of reason, and of the divine – and love, he takes the side of love, for which courage is necessary.

And it is thus that Don Juan represents an idea, an archetype, an arcanum. He represents the young man on teh Card of the sixth Arcanum of the Tarot “The Lover”, who has chosen the fire of love as such and multiplicity instead of the unicity of the love of his eternal sister soul – since Babylon, the woman appointed to the mysteries of erotic magic, has convinced him.

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XXI, The Fool

Matter and Memory

The state of the brain

continues the remembrance;

it gives it a hold on the present

by the materiality which it confers upon it:

but pure memory is a spiritual manifestation.

With memory we are in very truth

in the domain of the spirit.

Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory

Fields of the Blessed

The grief-stricken birds, the host of wild creatures, the flinty rocks and the woods that had so often followed his songs, all wept for Orpheus. The trees shed their leaves and, with bared heads, mourned for his loss.

Men say that the rivers too were swollen with their own tears, and naiads and dryads tore their hair, and pulled on black garments, over their fine robes. The poet’s limbs were scattered in different places, but the waters of the Hebrus received his head and lyre.

Wonderful to relate, as they floated down in midstream, the lyre uttered a plaintive melody and the lifeless tongue made a piteous murmur, while the river banks lamented in reply. Carried down to the sea, theyleft their native river, and were washed up on the shore of Lesbos, near Methymna.

Here, as the head lay exposed on that foreign shore, its hair dripping with beads of foam, it was attacked by a savage snake: but Phoebus at last appeared, and checked the snake in the very act of biting, turning its open mouth to stone, and petrifying its gaping jaws.

The ghost of Orpheus passed beneath the earth; he recognised all the places he had seen before and, searching through the fields of the blessed, found his Eurydice, and clasped her in eager arms. There they stroll together, side by side: or sometimes Orpheus follows, while his wife goes before, sometimes he leads the way and looks back, as he can do safely now, at his Eurydice.

Ovid, Orpheus in the Underworld

Releasing Energy

Light – is it Sunlight? – out from Spirit-deeps

struggles to shine;

translated into lively strength of will

clear through the cloudiness of sense it burns,

releasing energy that turns

passionate drives into creative thrust

that ripens into work amongst mankind

Rudolf Steiner, Calendar of the Soul, Thirty-first week

Glimmer of Dewdrops

And on the first day of the week when the sounds of the temple bells sought their ears, one spoke and said: “Master, we hear much talk of God hereabout. What say you of God, and who is He in very truth?”

And he stood before them like a young tree, fearless of wind or tempest, and he answered saying: “Think now, my comrades and beloved, of a heart that contains all your hearts, a love that encompasses all your loves, a spirit that envelops all your spirits, a voice enfolding all your voices, and a silence deeper than all your silences, and timeless.

“Seek now to perceive in your self-fullness a beauty more enchanting than all things beautiful, a song more vast than the song of the sea and the forest, a majesty seated upon a throne for which Orion is but a footstool, holding a sceptre in which the Pleiades are naught save the glimmer of dewdrops.

“You have sought alawys only food and shelter, a garment and a staff; seek now One who is neither an aim for your arrows nor a stony cave to shield you from the elements.

“And if my words are a rock and a riddle, then seek, none the less, that your hearts may be broken, and that your questionings may bring you unto the love and the wisdom of the Most High, whom men call God.”

And they were silent, every one, and they were perplexed in their heart.

Kahlil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet

The Hymn of the Pearl

Black Pearl by Mbz1

When I was an infant too young to talk, in my father’s palace, Reposing in the wealth and luxury of those who nourished me, My parents equipped me with supplies and sent me out from the East, our country, on a mission.

From the wealth of their treasuries they gave me a great cargo, Which was light, so that I could carry it by myself – The cargo was gold frmo the high country, silver plate of the great treasuries, Emerald jewels of India, and agates of Kosan; and they armed me with steel.

They took away from me the jewel-studded garment shot with gold, That they had made out of love for me, And the robe of yellow colour (tailored) to my size. But they made an agreement with me, Impressed it on my mind, (so that) I might (not) forget it, and said:

“If you go down to Egypt and bring from there the one pearl, Which resides there near the ravenous dragon, You shall put (back)  on that jewel-studded garment and teh robe, which you like; And you shall be a herald for our kingdom, along with your well-remembered Brother.

So I started out from the East, on a hard and frightening road, accompanied by two guides; For I was unused to traveling on it. I passed the borders of the Mosani, where there is the inn of the Eastern traveling merchants; And reached the land of Babylon.

The Hymn of the Pearl

Love

A man must have gazed long at the face of incarnate, crucified Love and pondered deeply on Love’s actions if, when it comes to the point, he can speak of his own failing love in thise terms: “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all thigns.” (1 Cor 13.7).

In such love, however, contemplation comes to blossom in the truth of a human life; it shows whether he has really acted so as to allow God’s word to be paramount in his life, God’s truth and love to triumph over his untruth and egoism.

That is what is meant by worshipping in spirit and truth; it also involves renouncing “ultimate knowledge” for the sake of “ultimate love”. For as knowledge, it will pass away…but love never ends.” (1 Cor 13.8).

The love which “surpasses knowledge” can only be “known” (Eph 3.19) in something more-than knowledge, which is in fact love itself, a loving together with God and from God, just as God’s truth is one with his life of love which pours forth in a threefold stream.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer

Monkshood

“The taking of the poison Monkshood is an example of one illegitimate way into the Spiritual world: however, if the entry is complete, and the entrant is not an initiate, then there is no return.

“This is one reason – one reason among many – why the Schools keep their secrets from the common herd. You can enter the Spiritual world in a split second, if you want. The problem is alawys that of finding a way back.

“Just so, you can enter the world of the demons, if you are not too worried about returning to the Earth. But” – he grimaced – “I am reasonably confident that you would want to come back pretty quickly, if you caught sight of the demons.”

He paused, and perhaps because he was thinking of the dog which follows the Fool around in the Tarot card, he nodded towards us. “Have you ever been attacked by a wild animal?” He must have known what our answer would be.

“A dog,” we replied truthfully, “a mad dog.”

Mark Hedsel, The Zelator

Walking on Water

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea rose because a strong wind was blowing.

When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. They were frightened, but he said to them: It is I; do not be afraid. (John vi, 16-20).

And Peter answered him: Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water. He said: Come! So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out: Lord, save me! Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying: O man of little faith, why did you doubt? (Matthew xiv, 28-31).

Jesus Christ walking on water reveals still another mystery than that of the sun of the spiritual world, the centre of celestial gravitation. For not only did he stand on the water – which would suffice to reveal and demonstrate this truth – but he also walked on the water, ie, he moved in a quite definite direction in the horizontal sense. He walked towards the boat where his disciples rowed.

There, in his walking towards the boat, it is already contained in germ – essentially revealing it – his whole work, temporal and eternal, ie, his sacrifice, his resurrection, and all that is implied in his promise: “Lo, I am with you always, until the end of the world: (Matthew xxviii, 20).

The boat with his disciples is, therefore, and will be until the end of the world, the aim of the I am walking on the water. His enstasy, his profound centreing in himself, does not distance him from the navigation of the agitated sea of history and evolution, and does not make him disappear into the other sea – the calm sea of nirvana – but rather, on the contrary, it entails that he walks, until the end of the world, after the boat with this disciples.

Unknown Author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter XII, The Hanged Man

Smokeless Fire

The fourteenth dream queen Trishala saw was of a smokeless fire.  The fire burned with great intensity and emitted a radiant glow.  Great quantities of pure ghee and honey were being poured on the fire.  It burned with numerous flames.

This dream indicates that the wisdom of her son will excel the wisdom of all other great people.

After having such fourteen wonderful dreams, Queen Trishala woke up.  Her dreams filled her with wonder.  She never had such dreams before.  She narrated her dreams to King Siddharth.

The king called the soothsayers for the interpretation of dreams and they unanimously said, “Sir, her Highness will be blessed with a noble son.  The dream augur the vast spiritual realm, the child shall command.  Her Highness will become the Universal Mother.”

After nine months and fourteen days, Queen Trishala delivered a baby boy.  The boy was named Vardhaman meaning ever increasing.

Immediately after the birth of prince Vardhaman, Indra, the King of Heaven, arrived with other gods and goddesses.  He hypnotized the whole city including mother Trishala and King Siddharth.

He took baby Vardhaman to Mount Meru and bathed him.  He proclaimed peace and harmony by reciting Bruhat Shanti during the first bathing ceremony of the new born Tirthankara.

After renunciation and realization of Absolute Self Knowledge, Prince Vardhaman became Lord Mahavir, the twenty fourth and the last Tirthankara of Jain religion.

Fourteen Auspicious Dreams (Jain)