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"Dharma"
By
Alan Schneider
–––––––– A Gift –––––––––
What is the Truth?
– Dharma –
Where am I?
– Karma –
What am I?
– Maya –
Who am I?
–
Atman –
What am I?
– Brahma –
Where am I?
– Krishna –
What is the Truth?
– Yoga –
Dharma
is devotional service to God, including personal sacrifice, good works,
and all forms of yoga, prayer, and meditation. Dharma is inherently
rewarding – this action burns, or releases, Karma and also develops a
relationship with the Divine Consciousness. For this reason, Dharma is
to be performed without the consideration of either punishment or
additional reward, but is simply offered in the awareness of a higher
purpose in life – the Supreme Absolute Truth. My gift of these words is Dharma.
Karma is God
manifesting in the multiplicity of forms which we experience with our
senses as the physical universe of matter, energy, and action. Karma
exists at every level from the most minutely personal – a subatomic
particle – to the most universal – the known cosmos itself. Karma is
generated by willful action, or desire, and released through Dharma and
non-attachment to the material forms of the world around us. Karma is a
condition of temporary, separate manifestation that establishes where we
are in our spiritual development.
Maya is the
human sensory experience of Karma. Because Karma is a manifestation of
God in multiplicity, or many separate forms, it cannot be known as the
ultimate Truth of God by anything which is itself separate – including
the human physical form. Our senses can only show us reflected images of
the Truth. We learn through culture and experience to assemble these
images into a model of existence which we accept as reality. Maya is an
illusion created by the senses – this is what we are without
Enlightenment. Maya is driven by Karma and generates desire and
attachment to that extensive and complex interaction of the senses which
is the ego. We frequently believe that this ego is who we are, but this
is simply another, more deceptive, illusion occurring in Maya.
Atman is the
Soul. This is the spiritual core or essence of God found in all the
separate forms manifest in Karma. The Atman radiates from, and is part
of, the Divine Consciousness. In this sense, even a common pebble has a
Soul, or spiritual consciousness. The human form is a special creation,
and has Atman which is very close to God, close enough to generate total
Self awareness. Much of the time, this awareness is distracted by the
attachment to Maya, but can be turned inward, away from the senses,
through meditation. This process ultimately leads to the discovery of
the Soul as a level of transcendental existence beyond the senses,
originating in God. This is who we are.
Brahma is
the Collective Soul, the sum total of all Atman manifestations. Brahma is
the source of all Creation at every level of manifestation, including
Karma and Maya. Brahma is the Divine Idea radiating from, and within,
the Divine Consciousness. As the process of meditation draws the
personal human awareness into the Soul, a powerful and profound bond is
established between the two which enables the direct knowledge of Brahma
through the Atman. The senses are what we are in the separate Karmic
reflection of Maya. Brahma is what we are as the collective Creation of
God.
Krishna
means “Christ-like”, or “Pure in Form”, referring to a condition which is not
diluted by any type of separation, specifically from Divine
Consciousness through the expression of Karma. Brahma radiates from
Krishna – the Personality, or Mind, of God – the literal Divine
Consciousness. This Supreme Absolute Truth (SAT) is actually manifested in
transcendental form as Krsna, and is not knowable in Maya. The addition
of the “i” and “h” symbolically renders God’s Identity into a form which
the human ego can describe. Krsna is the ultimate reality and unified
condition of everything. Through Brahma, Krsna manifests in the
multiplicity of Karma, and the individuality of Atman.
This duality
establishes the dynamic relationship the ancient Chinese mystics called
the Tao – the Divine Union of universal Female and Male manifestation
which creates all of the known forms of existence. The Female form of
the Tao is called Yin, and is an expression of the Atman. The Male form
is Yang, and is a complementary expression of Karma. The Yin is passive
– the Atman exists in Divine Form, but resides in the background of human
awareness, and must be sought out by that awareness. The Yang is active
– the influence of Karma is immediate as dynamic action and literally
generates Maya as a reflection in the foreground of awareness. However,
Maya non-exists in the form of a separated (if persistent) sensory
illusion. Krsna achieves the Creation of human awareness in this way as
the ultimate Gift of Love in Free Will. The Tao establishes precisely
the condition of balanced forces required to enable our awareness to
both seek and ignore the Truth on an independent personal basis. Krsna
is total, complete, and unconditional Love and Acceptance, an infinitely
powerful single Consciousness that also manifests the ultimate challenge
to consciousness – Karma! Just as Karma is where we are as an expression
of separation, so it is that Krsna is where we are in reunification with
the Supreme Absolute Truth.
Yoga
literally means “yoke”, and is a reference to an ox yoke, used to
harness one or more oxen to a cart. The spiritual meaning of Yoga is
“union”, specifically, the union of human awareness with the Atman,
thence Brahma, and ultimately Krsna. The use of the term “yoke” is very
insightful. Like human beings, the ox is an expression of the separate
condition of Karma, and it would seem that it would be in an ideal
condition in a wild and unrestrained state. The paradox (pair-of-ox?
paired-ox?) of Karma is that this separate condition is really the least
satisfying state, creating a sensory manifestation that requires endless
gratification as the price of temporary survival. In fact, the oxen and
human beings are both being guided in a better direction through Yoga.
In the service of the carter, the ox is afforded a measure of care and
protection not found in the wild. In the service of the Atman, the
awareness is directed away from the doomed temporary manifestations of
Karma and Maya, through Yoga as the vehicle of Enlightenment and higher
consciousness. Our awareness is reincarnated through the agency of Karma
at the level, and under the circumstances, required to regain the
highest level of consciousness attained in the previous incarnation –
the death of awareness is not inevitable with the death of the body and
physical sensation as Maya would seem to indicate.
Yoga begins
with the simple practice of Asana, or physical postures, and then
advances through successively more refined techniques, including Dharma.
Yoga dispels the attachment to the illusion of Maya through this ongoing
Enlightenment process. When we have achieved the advanced state of
Enlightenment in which Krsna is experienced everywhere as Life in Divine
Manifestation, and all Karma and attachment have been released, we have
come home to the Supreme Absolute Truth in transcendental Samadhi.
All suffering
is the result of attachment to Maya, although this cannot be known from
that perspective. The great challenge of Dharma is to live in
Enlightenment through Yoga, and without forming attachment to the senses
and subsequently directing our actions through the motive of desire. The
essence of desire is the illusion of gratification through manipulation
of the senses. This approach to living may seem to be successful for a
period of time, but only generates more Karma by reinforcing the
illusion that we are separate from the objects of our desires, and in a
separated condition, when we are all ultimately united in Love by God. I
give you this Gift.
------ from Alan
with Love ------
©2006 / Alan Schneider
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
--- Welcome to The Circle of Light ---
-- Presented by Alan Schneider –
- Volume One, Number One –
- 02/26/2023 -
The
above figure is known in Hindu religious contexts as The Sri Yantra. A
yantra is a visual depiction of a spiritual process or practice,
as opposed to, for example, a mantra, which is an acoustic or
auditory representation. In a word, a yantra is a picture of a
divine expression.
Sri is one of many Hindu goddesses worshipped throughout
India, and, as portrayed in this yantra, is the Author of Creation,
shown as initially emerging from a point at the center, then radiating
forth in a complex pattern of interlinked triangular forms, representing
the Hindu Trinity of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and,
finally, Shiva, the Destroyer aspects of God. The yantra then transmutes
into, first, a ring of eight lotus petals, then a subsequent ring of
sixteen petals. The lotus is considered to be a Divine expression of
Purity in Hinduism. The significance of the number of petals is quite
complex, as is the slight reduction in petal size from the inner to
outer rings – the implication being that the process of Creation is
progressive and successively diversified, assuming new forms as it
radiates forth from the initial point of emergence in the center. The
petals also have Sanskrit letter designations associated with each one,
often not shown in the yantra design (probably for stylistic
considerations?) and in any case complex enough that their meanings
constitutes an additional discussion too extensive for commentary here.
The final transition of form is seen in the outer representation of four
T-shaped structures known as “Gates” arranged around the sides of the
yantra. These are presumed to simultaneously represent the emergence of
Creation into the basic physical forms we experience in the senses – the
four directions of the compass, the four states of matter (earth, air,
fire, water / solid, gaseous, plasmid, liquid), and the four essential
dimensions of perception – length, width, height, and duration (among
other possible implications).
The sensory experience
of existence is, in fact, essentially both chaotic and momentary,
passing into memory instantaneously as soon as it is registered in the
senses – what we perceive is memory,
not immediate reality, because this is the best our
as-yet-only-partially-evolved brains can manage. The brain then
associatively organizes this flood of memory traces into the meanings
we eventually accept as “reality”. Thus it is that only the approximate
categorization of external reality is possible in the face of the
evident chaos from which everything emerges, and into which everything
eventually returns. The Sri Yantra represents one such categorization of
meaning…
Although this is not evident from the design, Hindu seers
generally hold that the point of origin at its center is, in fact, a
point of light, and the entire design is, therefore, composed of
subsequent expressions of light, the ultimate implication being
that (since the physical world is, as far as we know, the final form of
the design emerging from the four Gates) everything we perceive in life
is essentially composed of light!
To a certain extent, astronomical and physical science
confirms this contention – the perceptible universe is thought to have
instantaneously emerged from a super-singularity (mega-black hole) into
an expansive and expanding super-radiant, incredibly hot field of plasma
(read: radiant energy, i.e. proto-light) in a Grand Expansion
that lasted for hundreds of millions of years before finally cooling
enough to permit atomic star formation in the presence of proto-gravity.
From our current observational perspective, the process has now “cooled”
enough (over the past appx. thirteen billion years) to support the
planets of our solar system, and bio-chemical life on Earth. It is of
note here that most optical detectors still rely on a process by which a
photon of light strikes the detector element, thereby releasing a
detectable electron and a residual gamma ray in the reaction. The
electron can then be channeled into an appropriate detection circuit for
measurement and subsequent analysis. This process of energy conversion
from the very high energy photon into the slightly-less energetic
electron suggests the progressive mechanism of energy transfer to
successively lower-energy, “cooler” states that eventually resulted in
human evolution on our planet.
The Russian Guru Michael Ibanov (who took the spiritual name “OmRam”)
has asserted the contention that particularly natural light in
any form, and to any extent, carries a “living” spiritual proponent
within its radiant structure – that light is a living spirit –
and can be interacted with on that basis through a meditative technique
he referred to as Sun Gazing. The author has outlined the
approach he has taken with this technique, producing stupendous results,
in his website, The Universal Light, at
www.searchlightforyou.com,
under the Wisdom/Meditation link, and refers the reader to this source
for additional information. Although it is certainly an absolute
over-simplification, glossing past billions of years of history and
countless physical and chemical steps along the way, the probable fact
remains that everything began as light, and, from the highest
perspective of consciousness, returns to light through Divine
Grace and patient meditative practice!
The human condition has always been problematic and fraught
with all manner of challenges and sufferings. We have only emerged as a
distinct species arguably four million years ago – a nano-interval on
the cosmic time scale – and are still undergoing the evolutionary
process now as of this writing. As fantastic an evolutionary
marvel as the human brain is, it remains distinctly limited at the
current stage. Science tells us that there are at least ten
additional dimensions of being beyond the three or four (many
authorities doubt the absolute existence of the fourth dimension of
time) that we perceive in our minds through the neurological capacity of
our brains, processing the chaotic inputs of our physical senses to do
so.
For all apparent proposes, we live in a momentary condition
of perception culled from chaos that is still only conditionally “real”,
defined by culture, and always impermanent. The macro-consequence
of this in-reality-distinctly-limited level of perception is that we
live in a vision of existence that is fragmented into
compartments of understanding which seem to be in fundamental conflict
with each other. Science tells us one set of “truths”, the mind
perceives another (frequently very different, emotional) set, and
religion and spirituality offer yet another set, all of which
seem to – and do – have many irreconcilable differences. This is
the best outcome that the brain can produce at the current stage of its
evolutionary development, and the aforementioned disparities account for
the vast majority of human conflict and suffering.
To this author’s knowledge, the only alternative to this
sensory trap – because that’s what this life really is – resides in the
use of meditative and other legitimate alternative consciousness
development techniques to shut down the “normal” mental process, still
the mind, and, with faith and patience, open the doors of transcendent
awareness.
This
is the message of the Sri Yantra!
=
Fron Alan With Love –
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__________________________________________________________________________
---
The
War Prayer ---
By Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain)
"Lord our Father, our young
patriots, idols of our hearts,
go
forth into battle - be Thou near them!
With them -- in spirit -- we
also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to
smite the foe.
O Lord our God,
help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to
cover
their smiling fields with the pale
forms of their patriot dead;
help
us to drown the thunder of the
guns with the shrieks of their
wounded, writhing in pain; help
us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of
their unoffending widows with
unavailing grief; help us to
turn them out roofless with their
little children to wander
unfriended in the wastes of
their desolated land in rags
and
hunger and thirst, sports of the
sun flames in summer and the
icy winds of winter, broken in
spirit, worn with travail,
imploring thee for the refuge
of
the grave and denied it --
For our sakes who adore Thee,
Lord, blast their hopes, blight
their lives, protract their
bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their
steps, water their way with
their
tears, stain the white snow with the
blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of
love,
from Him who is the Source of
Love, and who is the
ever--faithful refuge and friend of all
that are sore beset and seek
His aid with humble and
contrite hearts!"
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
--- Welcome to The Circle of Light ---
-- Presented by Alan Schneider --
- Volume One, Number Two, 03/27/23 -
- Share LOVE -
- Embrace LIGHT -
- Teach TRUTH -
- Practice PEACE -
As we struggle through this frequently difficult, stressful, and
always challenging condition called life, we still hopefully
have the time
and inclination to stop and ponder the larger questions it
presents to us:
“Why am I here?”, “Why is life so often filled with suffering?”,
“How
long will I be here?”, and “What form of existence will follow
this one
after the transition known as death?”
Let us address these questions, all of which inevitably bring us
into the arena of faith and spirituality. “Why am I here?” and
“Why is
life so often filled with suffering?” These two questions are
intimately
related to each other. The Buddha has said that all life is
suffering, and
the ultimate cause of this suffering is desire, linked to desire
action, as
we proceed to attempt to fulfill the apparently endless
succession of
desires present in existence. He also said that desire is
fundamentally
illusory, because our experience of life is illusory, thus, all
our struggles
to obtain gratification are doomed to be, at best, only
temporary
distractions from the realization of the ultimate truth that we
are only
collectively present as transitory expressions of our culture!
The only
real peace to be had in life was to be found in esthetic living
and
meditation in fulfillment of Dharma – higher consciousness.
Ultimately,
suffering is interwoven into the fabric of life, and its purpose
is to lead
us back to the Truth of Dharma – the attainment of enlightenment
by
turning away from worldly, materialistic concerns and embracing
peace
through meditation, selfless service, and sacrifice.
“How long will I be here?” If the practices just outlined in the
previous paragraph are sincerely followed, this question is
placed in a
far different context. If life, immediate as the physical senses
seem to
tell us it is, remains nonetheless a sensory illusion, what is
the relevance
of its continuity? What exists beyond the obsessive collection
of the
objects present in that illusion? Again, suffering, viewed from
an
enlightened perspective, offers some answers, as it redirects
awareness
away from the material toward the existential and spiritual
deeper
meanings of existence. The great south Indian Guru Ramana
Maharshi
has said that only The Self (i.e. God) is real, and it can only
be known
through, again, meditation and esthetic living. If such
practices are
faithfully followed, we no longer need dwell on the duration of
life,
because we have successfully shifted focus to its meaning and
purpose.
“What follows death?” Perhaps a more relevant question is “What
creates life?” Astronomical science maintains that all existence
emerged
into being from a singularity (black hole) approximately
thirteen billion
years ago, and for a period of several hundred million years
thereafter
manifested as a hot (in the vicinity of at least three million
degrees f.)
luminous gas plasma (read: cosmic fire), expanding at the speed
of light
through the void of space. Eventually, after several billion
more years
this plasma lost energy, cooling down to form the first stars,
galaxies,
and planets we observe today. On Earth, this cooling process
produced
the necessary conditions to create and sustain life as we know
it. Thus,
we all ultimately have originated in cosmic fire and light! I
propose that
by emphasizing moral, spiritual living and seeking
enlightenment, we
can at least optimize the likelihood of returning to the light
from which
we were created following the death of the physical form. I give
you all
this gift of hope and salvation…
- From Alan With Love -
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