Introduction and links to related topics Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Subramuniyaswami - Current and 162nd satguru (1927-) of the Nandinatha Sampradaya''s Kailasa Parampara. He was ordained Sivaya Subramuniyaswami by Sage Yogaswami on the full-moon day of May 12, 1949, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, at 6: 21 pm. This was just days after he had attained nirvikalpa samadhi in the caves of Jalani. Yogaswami, then 77, ordained the 22-year old yogi with a tremendous slap on the back, saying, "This will be heard in America," and conferring upon him the mission to bring the fullness of Saivism to the West. Local devotees called the initiation a coronation.
That same year, while still in Sri Lanka, Subramuniyaswami founded the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order and Saiva Siddhanta Church at the Sri Subramuniya Ashrama in Alaveddy. Returning to America, he spent the next six years preparing for his teaching mission through intense sadhana and tapas. He began actively teaching in 1957 when he founded the Himalayan Academy. In 1970, he established his international headquarters and monastery complex, Kauai Aadheenam, on Hawaii''s Garden Island of Kauai. Five years later, he designated a portion of the 51-acre holy site as the San Marga Sanctuary, future site of Iraivan Temple, carved of white granite stone in Bangalore, India. To spearhead a growing Hindu renaissance, he founded Hinduism Today in 1979, an international monthly, full-color magazine acclaimed the world over as the the greatest advent in Hindu publishing this century. In August of 1986, the World Religious Parliament in New Delhi honored Subramuniyaswami as one of five Hindu spiritual leaders outside of India who had most dynamically promoted Sanatana Dharma in the past 25 years. He was given the title Jagadacharya, "World Teacher." In 1995 the Parliament bestowed on him the title of Dharmachakra for his remarkable publications. In April of 1988, he was selected to represent Hinduism at the five-day Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival, held in England at Oxford University, and again in Moscow from January 11 to 15, 1990; and in Brazil, June 57, 1992. At Chicago''s historic centenary Parliament of the World''s Religions in September, 1993, he was elected to the Presidents'' Assembly, a core group of 25 men and women representing the world''s faiths. In late 1996 Gurudeva transformed "Hinduism Today" to a magazine, a quantum leap that extended its global reach and impact in Hindu communities. In 1997 he responded to President Bill Clinton''s call for religious opinions on the ethics of human cloning and spearheded the 125th anniversary and diaspora pilgrimage of Sri Lanka''s Sage Yogaswami. In Kerala, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad honored him as "The Hindu Voice of the Century." Throughout that same year he was a key member of Vision Kauai, a small group of indigenous and political leaders meeting to fashion the island''s future based on ethical values.
Over the years Subramuniyaswami has written hundreds of tracts and books, which have been distributed in the tens of thousands in many languages. Especially in the 1980s, he lectured worldwide and established the worship in numerous Hindu temples. Gurudeva teaches the traditional Saivite Hindu path to enlightenment, a path that leads the soul from simple service to worshipful devotion to God, from the disciplines of meditation and yoga to the direct knowing of Divinity within. His insights into the nature of consciousness provide a key for quieting the external mind and revealing to aspirants their deeper states of being, which are eternally perfect, full of light, love, serenity and wisdom. He urges all seekers to live a life of ahimsa, harmlessness towards nature, people and creatures, an ethic which includes vegetarianism. From his ashrama in Hawaii, Gurudeva continues to follow his satguru''s instruction to bring Saivism to the Western world by teaching others to "know thy Self by thyself" and thus "see God Siva everywhere." Through the ordained swamis of the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order, he trains young men in the ancient path of brahmacharya, enlightenment and service to humanity. Over 30 full-time monks, along with extended family groups in eight countries, have joined to fulfill this parampara''s mission to further monistic Saiva Siddhanta and Hindu solidarity.
The name Subramuniya is a Tamil spelling of the Sanskrit Shubhramunya (not to be confused with Subramanya). It is formed from shubhra meaning "light; intuition," and muni, "silent sage." Ya means "restraint; religious meditation." Thus, Subramuniya means a self-restrained soul who remains silent or, when he speaks, speaks out from intuition.
Aham Brahmasmi - (Sanskrit) "I am God." Famous phrase often repeated in the Upanishads. In this ecstatic statement of enlightenment, "I" does not refer to the individuality or outer nature, but to the essence of the soul which is ever identical to God Siva (or Brahman, the Supreme Being) as Satchidananda and Parasiva. One of four Upanishadic "great sayings," mahavakya.
Sthiti - preservation, represented by His lower right hand in a gesture of blessing, abhaya mudra, saying "fear not;"
Yene - Yene, Anganta. The meaning of the Anganta Yene is known to all India. It is the action of an elemental (bhut), who, drawn into the sensitive and passive body of a medium, takes possession of it. In other words, anganta vene means literally "obsession".
The Hindus dread such a calamity now as strongly as they did thousands of years ago. "No Hindu, Tibetan, or Sinhalese, unless of the lowest caste and intelligence, can see, without a shudder of horror, the signs of ‘mediumship’ manifest themselves in a member of his family, or without saying, as a Christian would do now, ‘ he hath the devil’. This ‘gift, blessing, and holy mission’, so called in England and America. is, among the older peoples, in the cradle-lands of our race, where longer experience than ours has taught them more spiritual wisdom, regarded as a dire misfortune."
Trinity - The Trinity derives from the Neoplatonic, Gnostic understandings of ancient philosophy in which 3 basic facts prevail:
a) There is one Immutable, Ineffable, Pre-manifestational Reality.
b) Everything is periodic or cyclic.
c) The cosmos is a hologram in which each part is a reflection of the whole.
These 3 facts are symbolized in Hinduism by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; in Egypt by the Uas, the Ank and the Djed and in Xtianity by "Father, Son and Holy Ghost." In my own system, I sometimes refer to them symbolically as Abraxas, Khronos and Isis.
Spiritus Sanctus est Spiritus in Materia. Id Est Aqua Hydor Theon Hypostatis Metres. The sanctified spirit is that which has been made into matter, that is put into water. Mary impregnated by the Holy Ghost is just another way of saying that many are conceived naturally. To be baptized is to be born into the body, i.e., to manifest.
Speaking out of the "Holy Ghost," which is apparently what all masses, communions, oblations and sacrifices refer to, any sexual act itself joins or reaffirms the "hologram" to the Unity. In the embrace of another, the Holy Ghost re-connects, in a physical way, its separations. The two, formerly separate and opposed, have created a third thing, which is their union. (What happens on the physical level is simple reproduction and is of no metaphysical concern, except insofar as it paralyzes spiritual "reproduction"). The Xtians prefer to do all this symbolically, what with their "brides of Christ" and all. Moreover, when we speak of Mary as "conceived by the Holy Ghost," we simply mean metaphorically that she has conceived "naturally." The Satanists, therefore, assume (incorrectly) that overt, gross public copulation or multiple orgies constitute a defilement of Christ, when in fact, the Son is hardly involved with sex at any level and the Holy Ghost, actually, is exalted by "publicity." The true "sin against the Holy Ghost" is not blasphemy per se, but commercial advertising (including Church propaganda) or special interest exploitation which seeks to use, abuse, pollute, destroy, subvert or pervert the unity, ecology or collective holo-mind/body/spirit of the world for the sake of personal, private gain.
The "sacrifice of the child" -- that is, not the actual, living child, but merely the protoplasm of conception --which is what takes place in redirected or deferred heterosexual orgasm (can we refer to this as "tantric" sex?) should be especially appealing to us in today''s crisis of pathological Mega-Birth. That is, it has much needed Neo-Catharist overtones. But the creation of a Moonchild (described by Crowley, Grant, Parsons, et al.) would apparently be the opposite goal, resulting in the "psychic foetus" of an astral entity.
We mustn''t overlook the meaning of homosexuality and masturbation, however, since these lead to culminations without any question of issue from outset, and so, constitute refinements on sex magick. Grant, in his Nightside of Eden says that the "qliphotic" version of Arcanum XIII, "Death," is sodomy. In other words, sex which avoids the production of life is absolutely restricted to physical re-union of Self with Other. And the only other "physical" way we can "reunite" is to pass through the gates of Death. Thus heterosexual "tantric" sex and homosexuality are exactly the same thing so far as the physical plane goes. The union of homosexuality, however, extends beyond Eros into brotherhood and thus is closer to the "spirit" of the "Holy Ghost."
Since the union of self with other is specifically what we''re concerned with, masturbation would seem to be pointless until we recall that the purpose of union is not orgasm. Orgasm merely affirms the authenticity of the union. Whether the "other" is another person (or thing!) or one''s own body, scarcely matters. Mind and body are reunited in all cases. The physical is simply the mirror of the spiritual. For the solitary union of self with other, the orgasm is not just the ultimate and most subtle link, its the only link between the physical and spiritual planes. As a device for astral impregnation, moonchildren aside, masturbation obviously ought to be considerably more effective than sex with a physical partner (provided it doesn''t degenerate into sense-gratification). But as a substitute for "transcendental sodomy" it is much less satisfactory.
Finally, I''m bound to say that those who have closed and forever locked the sexual door may still be able to unite self and other in a number of asexual, exotic and abstract ways, some of which may have a certain limited but unique value.
Pisces - Pisces The fishes; the twelfth sign of the zodiac, a watery, common or mutable sign; one of the houses of Jupiter; corresponding anatomically to the feet. This sign is the last of the circle, and consequently it again ushers in the first sign, Aries.
It is Omega in the saying, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." It signifies the conditions preceding the beginnings of rebirth, where the close of one cycle heralds the birth of the next. Its emblem is a pair of fishes; and mythology presents us with many stories of jewels or money cast into the sea and found again in the belly of a fish; the story of Jesus has one such; the story of Polycrates another. This sign is associated with deluges, world saviors, the dawn of a new cycle after closing of the old, and fishes and Jonahs, and similar symbols and allegories.
In the Hindu system it is Mina (fish or fishes), equivalent to the number 5, which may be taken to indicate the five exoterically recognized elements (pancha-mahabhutas). This sign also suggests particularly the cosmic element water -- i.e. space. In the Brahmanical zodiac Mina is presided over by Agni, the god of fire (12 SZ).
Some Christians have held that Jesus was born at the moment the sun entered the sign of Pisces, but the real time of his birth is unknown, and both the Hindus and ancient Babylonians also associated their Messiahs with fishes (SD 1:653). It is also associated with the man-fish, Dagon or Oannes; and one is reminded of ancient Christian iconology and teaching that the Savior Jesus was the big fish, and that Christians themselves were the little fishes.
Assigning the twelve sons of Jacob in the Hebrew system to the twelve signs of the zodiac, Zebulon is ascribed to Pisces, he who dwells at the haven of the sea and is a shelter for ships.
|
