In the book “Jung’s Map of the Soul, An Introduction”, Murray Stein recounts the story of an incident that happened with a patient of Jung’s. The patient had a dream of a golden scarab beetle. As they were discussing this, they became aware of a sound outside the window, and when they looked, there was a Swiss version of the same kind of beetle (Cetonia aurate) trying to get into the room.
Referred to as synchronicity, these sorts of events in which an occurrence in the outside world and an occurrence in the inner world mirror each other, have happened to many of us. Sometimes we see them as profoundly meaningful, sometimes we dismiss them as coincidence, sometimes they go unnoticed.
Occurrences like this should come as no surprise to anyone with a knowledge of the Hindu concept that the innermost soul of every being, the atman, “the self” (which is the opposite, generally speaking, of what we in the west consider to be the “self”) is identical to the universal Brahman—who is the great, underlying soul of the universe. (I’m expressing this in my own terms—and there are many, varying schools of philosophy in Hinduism, but this is a primary, and widely accepted thread, that runs throughout Hindu thought.)
One may question whether there is a clear division between the inner world and the outer world. Is there an inner and outer at all? This question flies in the face, not only of the material, atheistic view of the physical world as a sort of stand-alone event, that props itself up with its own laws of physics and has it’s own discrete, independent, unchallengable existence, but it also is quite different from the day-to-day perception that we, to the extent that we subscribe to a modern, western headspace tend to have of the world around us. As modern people, for us, things happen from external causes; events are required to follow the rules laid down by Newtonian physics and, for most of our lives on most days, that is that. The thunderstorm occurs, not because the gods are angry, but because the air currents and humidity are acting in a certain physical way.
Yet even modern physics has overturned this prosaic worldview, decades ago, with quantum physics and other even more arcane theories and concepts. Certainly, going back in time, for most of the societies that have gone before us, the inner world and the outer world are not two distinct happenings. They are intertwined—and life is, or can be, magical, mystical, pervaded with spirits, with numinous presences, with events and atmospheres far more meaningful and profound than the prosaic constructs we have deluded ourselves into seeing as “reality”. The “primitive”, animistic view of tribal people that knows the world as one filled with consciousness—where every stone, river, bird, or mountain is filled with life and awareness may be closer to the truth than our own sophisticated, but destitute, perception of reality.
“Reality” is far grander than anything we might imagine, and God and the gods more real than we might ever have thought possible. The underlying mystical reality of time and eternity far more present and profound than our own carefully-trained blindness has allowed us to see.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons / A scarab beetle, for the occasion of the marriage between Amunhotep III and his wife, Queen Tiye
There is a reason that in the cave art of southern France, and in many spiritual traditions, including ancient Egypt, there are part human, part animal figures depicted—it is because they really are neither human nor animal, they are gods, archetypal beings. They are entities that have a consciousness that belongs to a more profound level of reality—the magical level. Though animals are innocent, unlike humans, and that sets them apart from humans, still animals are not necessarily, in and of themselves, magical beings. They are magical beings only when they have an unbroken connection with the magical realms, on a level beyond the world, with the mystical beings that live there and belong there. Otherwise, they are innocent beings caught in the net of the physical world.
PBS showed a program this evening about the Christmas Truce of 1914, when German and British troops held a spontaneous cease-fire on Christmas Day.
The truce started near Ypres, Belgium, when German troops began singing Christmas carols; the British answered by singing the same, familiar carols in English.
Then the Germans took steps into no-man’s-land in between the two frontlines, carrying small trees lit with candles. The British climbed out of their trenches, and soldiers from the two sides began greeting each other, shaking hands. During the day, the truce spread along the lines until around 100,000 men from both sides were taking part. They spent part of the day recovering the dead who they’d been unable to retrieve until then because of all the shelling—and buried them, holding joint services. They exchanged stories and gifts of cigarettes. There were a few games of football.
In some places the truce lasted for a week until New Years Day. In most places, it ended that Christmas day or the day after, when commanding officers on both sides threatened to charge the men with treason and have them shot if they did not immediately return behind their own lines.
There were repeated warnings that the soldiers must go back to their lines and resume fighting.
Under threat of being shot, they did resume fighting. The war lasted another four years until 1918, resulting in an estimated fifteen million deaths.
Photo: Redvers / Public Domain photo from Wikimedia Commons / The text on the cross reads “1914 – The Khaki Chum’s Christmas Truce – 1999 – 85 Years – Lest We Forget.”
Petroglyphs from the Anasazi people at Canyon de Chelly
There were some things in the book “The Divine Life of Animals” by Ptolemy Tompkins that I could not completely agree with. These were made up for though by a few really profound statements.
One of these was that the Paleolithic world was another world. He talks about “our fall out of that world.” As I understood it, this was not meant metaphorically or as a simile. He did not mean that it was “like” another world or just that human consciousness was different then. He said, and I believe he meant, that the Paleolithic was quite simply, another world.
This seems to make absolute sense. Consciousness creates the world. Hindu tradition talks about four ages, the yugas. We are in the last—the most decadent and despair-filled. While the accepted chronology for the four ages may be quite different than what I imagine it to be, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no valid connection at all between these various concepts.
The concept of the earth having several ages or several worlds is present in many traditions—with varying chronologies—or no chronologies.
Was the first world an ethereal world—one with forms, but no matter as we know it—an earth of light and beauty?
Did the Paleolithic world come next? Was the Paleolithic a world of magic?
The rock art all over the world depicts magical creatures, gods, spirits and spirit-beings. There are some who may be angels or ancient astronauts (is there a difference?)—beings from other dimensions.
All things were alive and conscious—the rocks, the clouds, the sun, the moon, the rain, the storms, the rivers, the drought. Animals were killed for food, but they did not die when they were killed. They were prayed to and their souls journeyed on.
All things then were alive and magical. There was fear, even suffering, wonder, and awe, but there was no death. All was filled with the life of the Great Spirit. There was art, beauty, worship, and if there wasn’t much science, it wasn’t much missed. There was though, in fact, highly developed mathematics, astronomy, and engineering—the evidence of which can still be seen in the alignments with the stars of the great megaliths scattered across every continent.
It was a world of magic—and, truly, an altogether other world.
The Jomon people were the earliest inhabitants of Japan. It is thought that, when later people arrived, perhaps from Korea around 2,000 years ago, they intermarried and became Japanese. There is no indication that the Jomon people were killed. Some may also have been driven to the north, where they are today the Ainu.
The earliest pottery in the world was created by the Jomon, and has been dated to 16,500 years ago. They were long thought to have been simply hunter-gatherers, but they appear to have made a transition from that stage of culture since permanent planned settlements have been found extending as far back as 10,000 years ago.
Graham Hancock mentions evidence that they were growing rice as early as 12,000 years ago.
Off the coast of Japan, underwater, have been found many extraordinary formations which look like giant temples. Archaeologists and divers are quite unable to decide conclusively whether these are man-made or natural. There are, on land, stone circles, megaliths and a number of stone structures left by the Jomon which, rather than being either natural or man-made, seem to be both—they seem to be natural rocks, placed and arranged by people.
Interestingly, this almost reminds one of Japanese rock gardens, and the art of arranging nature in a way that brings out its inherent grace and beauty, which is uniquely Japanese.
Apparently, huge stones are still revered today and are called iwakuru. Busloads of tourists still visit these stones in Japan, I guess with cameras in hand.
The Jomon seem not to have left their ancient islands.
The only reality is the lights of heaven, like the starlight and the presences of the great beings who illuminate eternity, eclipsed though they may be by the lights and atmospheres of the day, yet they are always there. When the mundane cracks a little, and chips, or even disintegrates, they shine ever more brightly, magically, through the gaps.
Photo: Ian Poole / Dreamstime.com / Wildebeeste at dawn in South Africa
Released a dragonfly caught in an enclosure. He flew away. Definitely gives meaning to life.
The world of the angels is not so far away–it is here–within a fraction of an inch–as soon as we are not distracted by the trampling highway of life that we have set ourselves on.
Geese living at the tank of the Milapore Temple, Chennai
The earth is a sacred being—along with all aspects of the natural world.
All ancient peoples (and tribal peoples today) knew this. The early inhabitants of India, the seers who wrote the Rig Veda, (the oldest book in the world) knew this and worshipped the forces of nature—Vayu the wind, Indra the storm God, Agni the God of fire. Narayana, in ancient temples and inscriptions, is the God of the sea, Ganesha is the elephant God, and Hanuman is the monkey God, who brought the armies of monkeys to fight alongside Rama.
To see the earth as sacred, one need not look at it from a purely Hindu perspective, though Hinduism offers a lens with an especially crystal clear view. As I see it, and all of these are only my own perspectives, nothing more, there is truth to be found in all spiritual traditions.
In Christianity too, and in all faiths, one can find windows to the sacred nature of the earth. Sometimes one has to look a little more intently though, and sometimes more and more layers of obfuscation have been laid over the top of the original truth. So, to get back to Hinduism, which seems to have a clearer glass to look through…
Sea of the Bay of Bengal, near Mahabalipuram
The two first incarnations of Vishnu were the fish and the turtle or tortoise—both are sacred beings: Matsya the fish and Kurma, the tortoise. Matsya saved all the creatures of the earth by pulling through the sea the great ark holding the animals at the time of the flood. Kurma supported the mountain of the earth on his back so that it didn’t sink during the churning of the oceans.
It is not just the animals and the elemental forces of nature that are sacred, but also the plants. Every temple in India has a sacred tree. Generally the tree was there before the temple. People pray to the tree, who grants their wishes.
The mountains are sacred too and emblematic of Shiva—the power and presence of the Cosmos.
Vishapaharana, a form of Shiva, who swallowed poison to protect others
To see the presence of God in nature is not a primitive way of looking at things. (Though it is a way that we in the west have mostly left behind us.) That we have left it behind does not make it primitive, nor does it make us more “advanced”. It simply means that we have taken a wrong turn.
It means that we in the west have traveled the farthest down the wrong track, having left behind the life-sustaining principles of the universe. This wrong track has led us to where we are today, with the air polluted, the forests half gone, the animals dying and disappearing, and the great ecological catastrophe in the Gulf. The rest of the world sadly follows suit.
Now today, we stand by on the sidelines, watching horrified as BP takes over American coastlines and airspaces, and, unhindered, kills American wildlife (on the Fourth of July). Not that it matters in the slightest whether it’s the Fourth of July or any other day.
When we no longer see the earth as sacred, when we see the natural world, the land, the oceans and the animals as resources, rather than as spiritual beings, then we do not see them as they are.
This lack of reverence leads to desecration, to the destruction and annihilation of all that is sacred—to handing over the fate of the planet to those who will, inevitably, destroy it because, in looking at a mountain, they do not see the presence of God. They see only a wealth of coal and minerals, so the mountain must be destroyed to get to those.
It is sometimes said that science and technology are neutral and can be used for good or ill, but there is a problem with this. Accepting a neutral stance is a denial of the sacred nature of life and the soul. It is like a tone-deaf person listening to music—it is missing the point. A tone-deaf person may just have a disability and may be fine in other aspects of life, but when we are missing the point of the spiritual nature of the natural world, that is much more serious, it is a fatal point to miss.
(Yet the great heroes of the past, and even the present, do use technology in the defense of what is just—so clearly it is a complicated topic.)
The Goddess Durga, 15th century, the Chennai Museum
In looking at the sea though, when we do not see the face of the divine, but see only a resource under the waves, when we only notice that with technology, we can get the oil to keep our houses warm or cool and our cars running, then we are missing the meaning of existence.
Like shadows in a dream, we watch our species destroying the earth, and this predicament stems from elevating our human selves, our greed and our needs, to a divine status—to worshipping ourselves, our technology, our science, and our power to dominate all that stands in our way. Nevermind that this is the way to death, and that it brings death to all the gods and to the earth herself—which may be, in fact, the underlying intention. Still, we cling to our “way of life,” which is only a way of death.
There is another truth though, on another level, beyond the physical destruction of the planet.
Though the physical dies, only the physical form can be killed, the sacred is eternal, living from eon to eon, cycle to cycle, world to world, along with the souls of all innocent creatures, who are blessed, on truer levels, with lives of peace and freedom.
The soul of the seas, the rivers, the trees, the sparrows and the pelicans, the gods of the wind and the mountains dressed in mist do not die, but live on from world to world, epoch to epoch, because their soul, who is the one, eternal soul, is living and is life itself.
Only the physical form is killed, and those who are expressions only of the physical, the walking dead.
Yet the soul of the wind, the pelican, the sea turtle, the moon who lights the sky, the sun, the shining rain, the trees, are all aspects of the sacred, single soul who rides, with grace and magic on the glad clouds of eternity—all are expressions of the one single great soul.
One thousand year old vines at the sacred grove, Puthupet
As for ourselves—the part of us which is absorbed in our unique, personal lives will pass away like the burning smoke in the winds.
While the part of ourselves which works for and cares only for the innocent beings who are the essence of God will fly away one day with them on the wind-enchanted wings of the spirit.
Many wise people in India today feel that this age that we are in will last still many thousands of years. Perhaps they’re right, they’ve often been right before, but I’m not so sure…either that this age will last a long time or that it will be a good idea if it does.
Indeed though, both views are true—the prophecies of doom, with the coming end of time, and also the prophecies of a new heaven and a new earth—magical and eternal. And on what time scale these events may take place, who really knows?
Photos: Sharon St Joan
(Please be reminded that, as this is my personal blog, it has no connection whatsoever with, nor do the views expressed reflect those of, any other individual or any organization.)
