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Daily Readings from the Jewel in the Lotus Archives Index
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********************************************************************** KEY IN HAND - JALALUDDIN RUMI THE NACHIKETAS FIRE - B. P. WADIA PREPARING FOR WOMANHOOD - OGLALA DAKOTA CHANT PLASTICITY OF IMAGINATION - PICO IYER ********************************************************************** KEY IN HAND Every instant I give to the heart a different desire, Every moment I lay upon the heart a different brand. At every dawn I have a new employment. 'Tis wonderful that the spirit is in prison, And that the key of the prison is in its hand! JALALUDDIN RUMI ********************************************************************** THE NACHIKETAS FIRE To make our body of senses and limbs the stately mansion which puts forth the majesty and tenderness of Mother Earth; to make our emotions start from the spring of Love, glide forth in the river of gentleness and empty themselves in the Ocean of Compassion; to make our thoughts harbingers of goodwill and like birds rise in the Aether of Space, singing their songs - joyous and clear and fresh; to transform ourselves into the steady-burning Flame of the Nachiketas Fire - symbol of the Disciple; that is the task that lies before us. B. P. WADIA ********************************************************************** PREPARING FOR WOMANHOOD O You, White Swan Power of the place where we always face, who control the path of the generations and of all that moves, we are about to purify a virgin, that her generations to come may walk in a sacred manner upon that path which You control. There is a place for You in the pipe! Help us with Your two red and blue days! O Wakan Tanka, Grandfather, behold us! We are about to offer the pipe to You! O You, Grandmother, upon whom the generations of the people have walked, may White Buffalo Cow Woman Appears and her generations walk upon you in a sacred manner in the winters to come. O Mother Earth, who gives forth fruit, and who is as a mother to the generations, this young virgin who is here today will be purified and made sacred; may she be like You, and may her children and her children's children walk the sacred path in a holy manner. Help us, O Grandmother and Mother, with Your red and blue days! O Wakan Tanka, behold us! We are about to offer this pipe to You. O you, our four-legged relative, and who of all the four-legged peoples are nearest to the two-leggeds, you too are to be placed in the pipe, for you have taught us how you cleanse your young, and it is this way that we shall use in purifying White Buffalo Cow Woman Appears. I give to you an offering, O four-legged, water, paint, cherry juice, and also grass. There is a place for you in the pipe - help us! O Wakan Tanka and all the winged Powers of the universe, behold us! This tobacco I offer especially to You, the Chief of all the Powers, who is represented by the Spotted Eagle who lives in the depths of the heavens, and who guards all that is there! We are about to purify a young girl, who is soon to be a woman. May You guard those generations which will come forth from her! There is a place for You in the pipe - help us with the red and blue days! OGLALA DAKOTA CHANT ********************************************************************** PLASTICITY OF IMAGINATION The sculptor exemplifies the creativity of purifying, sifting, structuring and refining, resting in the unusual position wherein the acts of creation and of appreciation inconspicuously merge, so that every gesture of the sculptor is tending towards his conception of beauty and perfection. He adapts the human form to the divine purpose and at the same time disseminates divine ideas in a self-aware, but ego-less, activity. Leonardo would often give up sculptures midway because he felt he could not do adequate justice to his notion of divine perfection. Equally, Michelangelo, whenever he saw a thick and uncarved block, felt that he perceived a spirit waiting to be released. The sculptor is in the unusual position both of rendering beauty and attenuating the redundant dross into a pure refined truth. By reducing the excesses of self, he is subjugating self in order to release it. Eye and hand are perfectly attuned, the emotional elaboration upon the rational theme; he shows a sureness of vision but a plasticity of imagination. One could relate this to the Taoist notion of the uncarved block, which respects the integrity of the block, whether individual or collective, but also apprehends the sympathy that flows from non-being so that, when a sculptor is cutting away at himself to come to a chaster whole, he is also indirectly contributing towards the creativity of society. The sculptor obviously provides an important model for self-examination if you think of the way he must move around his object in order to see it from every angle and from every perspective. So, too, when we are engaging in the process of self-scrutiny, it is necessary not merely to consider ourselves in terms mental, physical, spiritual, rational, but also to have an empathic distanced grasp whereby we can see ourselves from the perspectives of other people and from each angle, and thus come to a rounded wholeness while cutting away that which is superfluous. The sculptor involves himself in a symmetrical flow whereby he is fragmenting in order to make whole, a process pregnant with important corollaries. Man is at the gateway between mortal and immortal, and the sculptor is poised on that threshold, trying to bridge the gap between a perceptible humanity and a dimly apprehended divinity. We think of Goldmund trying to sculpt and shape the perfect feminine spirit, the feminine principle that guides the universe, although the only way that he can approach the divine conception is by amalgamating all the women that he has known and the creativity from them that he has been privileged to receive. The prominent characteristics of the sculptor are detachment, beauty of ideal and clarity of vision. PICO IYER ------- You are subscribed to Jewel in the Lotus - Complete Daily Readings as email@domain.com Visit the TLO Lists main page: http://theosophy.org/lists/ To be taken off this list instantly: http://ezinester.com/mpb/unsub.cgi?70603&<!--$pid-->&<!--$phash--> |
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