Introduction: Just a playful series of dialogues regarding love and magic and the path to perfection

Introduction: Just a playful series of dialogues regarding love, magic, and the path to perfection.

Or, what does a magician do when a tiny bit of depression sneaks into his room, unbidden, yet cloaked in stealth, like a thief falling upon a woman still asleep, whose sandals are golden, whose breath on her neck is warm, and whose voice is the rapture of the birds’ songs at dawn?

Perhaps the magician asks, What is this? What secret gift is hidden within it? And then instantly he writes a story that unfolds itself as he listens to the voice, the muse that speaks in response.

(When asked, How do you know when your story/poem is good? The poet responds, I know it is good when it enchants my self.)

The Master’s Three Students

And it came to pass that in the same day three different students of the master approached him and asked him to help them resolve their issues concerning love and the path to perfection.

The first student, Rama, was your typical devotee. Nothing else really mattered to him than the path and its attainment. But like all three students, he was hung up on the idea of short cuts. He knew, if he really tried, he could pry open the master’s mind, find a way inside, and get a free ride.

And so on this day, about 8 AM, he literally tied a rock to his ankle (I am not making this up), and stood on a cliff by a river. And there he called out to his master, “Master, I can not live this way with my doubts, my anguish, and my pain. I know you can help and give me a shorter way. Do not let me die. If you don’t give me your shatipat, and transfer to me the very essence of all your teachings, I shall surely in the next moment cast myself into this river and drown.

Don’t make me into a clown. I know the secret that binds all masters—you can not die without passing on to at least one student the essence of your wisdom. Why not do that here and now. You shall then be free and I shall gain all that I most deeply need.

And so, not at all impressed with the student’s stunt, but all the same weighing all options and considering all results, the master disgruntled and dour, detached and yet feeling like an elephant caught in a trap, replies, “Very well. Here. Look into my eyes.”

And in that moment a stream of light like the sun and the moon combined passed from the master’s eyes into the eyes of the disciple who sought a short cut for becoming wise.

And this is precisely what happened, and I speak with insider’s knowledge on this point. For the student who would later surpass even his own master offered me a brief taste of that same delight:

For nine hours, the disciple felt that his entire inner body was radiant with light. A light of ecstasy like the goddess Dawn, the very edge of every moment her body within his, her smile his own—luminous magenta, vermilion, russet, golden rays, silver, opalescent, all of these combined, her own eyes shining within his.

As tears slowly drift down my cheeks, I recall Brahma’s own words on this point which the disciple experienced even as now do I, though for him it was far more intense.

And Brahma spoke with a voice of rolling thunder, volcanoes exploding, and yet also in the same instant as quiet and gentle a single drop of water falling from a sliver of the edge of a willow leaf into a still pool:

She (the goddess Dawn) is the first feminine form born of creation. Wonder is her secret name. And until the end of time, every being, whether mortal or divine, shall renew its spirit by drinking the wine of light with which she shines—this is its taste which is also her embrace; and if you listen carefully, it is the sound of her voice—Can you not hear it even in this moment? There is a stillness so fine that the entire universe is captured and enraptured, made one, complete, and yet also set free--her countenance is this grace; it is the light I tell you that shines from her face.

And so for nine hours the disciple sat in absolute and total rapture, enchanted, enthralled, mesmerized, for he was united from within with the goddess Dawn and one with the light with which she shines.

Intoxicated with inner light, the disciple went on to achieve great fame for his accomplishments in yoga. But having not prepared himself through rigorous training before receiving the shaktipat, that is, the inner wisdom of the master and the lineage, the outer world seemed at best an annoyance. The prana and the yama, the nadis and the chakas, the kundalini and the bliss of her bite came a little too easy, were a little too clear, were the only subject he wanted to hear.

And so the affairs of men, the stream of karma that defines and unwinds human history, never captured his interest as did this inner light. For every night, before falling asleep, without the need or companionship of a real woman, he could focus within and in an instant be united with the goddess.

And so this disciple who then became a great master failed to attain his destiny which was to transform the world by first transforming himself. Having gotten a free ride, the deeper purposes of life he could not abide. And so he left to you and to me the task of fulfilling an unattained destiny. Tens of millions may have died if you and I did not clean up the mess he passed on to us and left to us as part of our inheritance--an inheritance defined by pride and indifference to the suffering of a world whose pain he denied.

Later that same day, at 1:30 PM, Jerrad, a second student appeared on the scene. And this student was also very persistent. But his rant had a different quality. In a way, his style was more clever and better designed the spirit of the master to capture and to entwine.

This is the line of his argument. He says to the master, “As you well know, I am not of this land, and the spirit of this land is not part of my ethnic lineage. The archetypes of my people are altogether different.

We do not know what it is to sit and find peace like a stream that flows from the masters and from spiritual myths and dreams. For us, well-being is never found from turning within. The path and its attainment require for us a careful, even an alchemical combining of opposites.

As you must know full well, everything in this solar system evolves under and through the guidance of this law: it is through the attraction of opposites that the highest learning curve is attained. It is actually not from the threat of karmic pain or the negative consequences of wrong actions. The wisdom of which I speak is not passed down from master to discipline in the form of great lineage. Rather, it is the actual desires, known and unknown, hidden in the student himself that serves as the primal substance from which the elixir of illumination is extracted.

I know that you in this very instant can guide me, even as Krishna guided Arjuna there upon the battlefield amid two great armies—he guided Arjuna through the innermost fibers of his being until he attained from within the supreme vision of being one with all things. In case your memory is not fully complete, let me just refresh your memory on what Krishna said of himself:

I am the infinite, eternal, and the immortal Self--no fire can burn, no water dissolve, no air dry, and no sword pierce…. Before such glory space melts away into nothingness, time vanishes into non-existence, and causation dwindles into emptiness. Ranging beyond names and forms, passing free into woods and forests, mountains and rivers, into day and night, clouds and stars, passing free into men and women, animals and angels, as the Self of each and all am I. Truth flows from me just as light radiates from the sun and fragrance emanates from a flower...I am the transcendental bliss, the absolute intelligence, the supreme synthesis of consciousness that shines in the shrine of every heart.

Yet as you also know full well Krishna in his youth made love with hundreds of women. He knew as you must know from experience also that love accelerates like nothing else the path to perfection.

As you must know, things have been slow. I am not getting enough action, and as Krishna said, “I am never without action.”

You must also know that I have commitments that others, more enchanted with fanciful illusions about ideals and self-transformation, seek only to sit in bliss and do nothing else. I, by contrast, seek to reduce the suffering of mankind. I am not blind. I am not a complete idiot to thinks to himself that each must find his own way.

We are all one. Separation is an illusion. The suffering of one is the suffering of another. The reason I exist is to serve.

I am not so selfish, possessed, and obsessed, ensorcelled with the concept of self that I would ever seek my own enlightenment as if there is such a thing as enlightenment of the individual without also the enlightenment of the world.

No, I am not a dimwit, an idiot, and a blind fool like so many others who feed on the milk of insane complacency bred into the stagnancy of feudal societies’ that take those with talent and demand they accept conformity and not change the world.

By changing myself, I would change the world—that is the precise wisdom and illumination I seek. Not for myself to sit in a cave and meditate, but to become a vibration that vibrates in the hearts of all others on earth.

Okay. Okay, replies the master. I am falling asleep here listening to your rant. I get the feeling this is going to be a long day. Get on with it. Tell me exactly what it is that you want, as if I don’t already know.

The student replies, Well, thank you. Here is the precise problem. There is a separation between me and the object of my contemplation.

I have a knack for wisdom and prophecy, a gift I have had since birth, yet love has not touched my life. I hear the birds sing. I see the trees blossom in spring. I taste the fruit the seasons produce and the beauty of the earth speaks to me continuously. But all my searching has been done in solitude. I no longer know how to find a mate. I cannot even imagine what it would be like for another to be there for me and to share what is within my heart.

Yet I am not brain dead. All methods of contemplation and the best methods of wisdom are focused on one thing: you become the thing you wish to be in the here and now. I just can’t seem to make the leap.

I watch others who love. I watch them walk. I listen as they talk. At times, the sights and sounds are unbearable. The pain of what I exist without is too great.

I note the caress, the tenderness, the affection that flows unbroken like a stream of living water that animates and brings to life their entire being. God’s own grace is upon them—as they nurture, as they heal, as they seek to make and to be complete. There is a tenderness in their intimacy that is so soft and gentle and yet so divine in its design that it outshines all the stars in the sky. In such love and in such love alone does life become fully alive.

The master replies, You know, if you wrote all of that into a song, it might make it to the top of the charts. In any case, you want me to do what?

Jerrad goes on, Well, to put it simply, I can feel the energy of such love and it is after all not just two people making love and being in love and loving each other heart to heart. It is simply an energy. If I had the energy in myself of this love, of their love, I would create a field of vibrations around myself that would not just attract, but in truth create this love. By being it, I would almost in the same moment, in the same day, cause it to manifest in my life in the outer world even as it exists within my soul. By mastering the vibration of two joined in love heart and soul, I attain it in a relationship and I then have the power to inspire and to transform anyone anywhere in the world.

The master responds, Ah, I get it. So simple. Here, you can feel the vibration of this love you seek?

Jerrad: Yes.

Master: Well then, simply breathe it in as if each breath draws it from the air itself and focusing on this vibration you then will the air to transform into this energy that then fills your body from within.

In this way, the air is impregnated with the vibration and your body then is the womb that gives birth to the dream, your very blood and body cells radiate the feeling of love. And as you imagine, obviously, women will then find your very presence enchanting.

Go with my blessing and perform this exercise. This very day a woman will call you and ask if she can become your consort, both physical and divine, for she herself will not be satisfied until like Arjuna demanding from Krishna—that you guide her too through the innermost fibers of her being until she drinks as you shall drink the divine wine of being one with another and in that same instant of being one with all things.

And so it was that later that day the student performed his breathing exercises and it went this way: he felt through the power of breath and imagination combined (as well as a little help from the master’s grace) that a woman’s body he did embrace; it was not erotic at all for this surpassed the knowledge of Eros with his skill wielding an arrow tipped with desire and shot from a bow.

No, the sensual caressing, the loving making, of being within another, of tension and release, of hunger and rapture, of a thousand undulations and endless explorations of skin upon skin —it all came down to this: kundalini as a insatiable hunger rising from the depths of DNA, physical matter, and biochemical and vital energy, rose up within his body and united with Shiva, a state of transcendent awareness in his brain. There was no withdrawal from the world. The outer world is part of the consciousness attained.

I imagine if you looked carefully at his aura at this point you might think for an instant that you saw blue faced Krishna himself staring back at you from his face. But actually, the student just got what he wanted after all—a short cut to getting rid of all those feelings of being separate, incomplete, operating at less than full throttle, lacking the creative spark, the sense of operating in the dark without being united from within to a lover’s heart. Yes, he got his inspiration both personal and cosmic.

Just sitting in a room with him, a woman would begin to feel that she had been healed of all the pain she has ever felt. There was an attraction, like a gravity well pulling her toward him, an electrical storm with little mini flashes of lightning and St. Elmos’ fire flowing down her arms. And water, like love, like a stream, deep as any enchanting dream, that flowed from his heart right through the core of her own.

It was so bad he had to place the proverbial “bubble” around himself to conceal his energy so he could move about without being distracted with the undesired attention of women suddenly awakened with their own kundalini unleashed with insatiable hunger for finding Shiva within.

Was there a downside to this story? Krishna had Srimati Radharani as his eternal consort. Jerrad has not yet found such a companion.

Surely, we all seek another who is our other half. And the spirits of the sphere of Venus exist to guarantee that on the path to perfection, that one day, we will attaint that experience. For their task is, as I have mentioned, to produce an experience of love with another that is so deep, the oneness so complete, that in that instant the disciple is able to continue on and enter the sphere of the sun where all opposites are overcome. There, indeed, one feels one with all things, having united from within with one’s opposite on a level that produces eternal and divine being.

But Jerrad did not ask for such a consort, did he? He only asked for something much smaller in size, more personal, that his journey might get through the bottleneck, over the obstacles and hurdles that stood in his way. Divine oneness and attainment will have to wait for another day.

Yet I ask, is Venus like a way station, a place where the weary traveler in search of truth may find peace and rest before continuing on with his journey in search of the heart of God? Or is Venus, that is, the experience of love, the Celebration itself for which the stars and galaxies were created that the universe might show forth a faint trace of the joy from which God creates? I do not yet know the answer at this point. Let’s see how the story unfolds.

Later, around 11:30 PM, a third disciple of the master came rolling in like fog from the sea, like waves from a storm that still rages a thousand miles away.

Master, he said, I know that other students of yours think of you as a lineage holder or else someone who can solve their problems with a glance from your eyes or a flick of your wrist. At times, they may indeed think that you can remove whatever aches and pains they have today so that they all go away.

I would not be as these. I know that you do not wish to speed things up just so someone can feel he is ahead of the game. Rather, you would slow things down so people get it right the first time around.

All the same, endlessly, I notice, you leave hints and suggestions with the hope that someone might end up asking you a really good question. And a really good question is one that validates another’s life, granting even a master new insight—for the very depths of his heart stir in response.

Okay. Okay, says the master. What you say is all fine and nice. But get on with it, will you? I know you too want me to give you something that must be given before this day can come to an end. I am beginning to feel like a woman fast asleep still walking among dreams who knows that dawn is her thief.

Third disciple: Oh, right then. My question. I already know how to perform the highest magic on earth—I weave together a spell whose design is divine, for the full power of the male and the female, the electric and the magnetic fluids, I carefully combine into an electro magnetic volt that I then place in the space of akasha.

Intricate, delicate, with perfect will and perfect love, I place within the volt the desire, the ideal, the dream, the vision I seek to manifest on earth. In doing this, I am not weak. The purposes for which I have entered the world I am on track to complete. I am not beset by doubt. The inspiration and motivation I already have to accomplish my mission are far more than I need.

Yet it occurs to me, from this feeling inside that the opportunities the divine offers are infinite, that perhaps the greater magic is not in doing but in being. I can combine in myself the full powers of the masculine and the full powers of the feminine. I can do that so easily it is just a matter of sitting down and breathing.

It is rather that to participate fully in the unfolding of creation there must be another with whom I share all that I am, who feels what I feel, with whom I am free to be and to embody the final end that I seek.

The master, waving the back of his hand in a dismissive gesture, say, That is all good and fine. Very nicely put. But you have to be far more specific if you are going to get anything out of me. It has been a long day and my patience is wearing away.

Disciple: Shouldn’t the relationship be ….. I mean, what I want is a relationship that embodies the full masculine and the full feminine mysteries, in their full electric and magnetic fluid potentials.

Master, stifling a yawn, Yes, and so? What do you want me to say? You obviously don’t need me to give you instructions on how to breathe. You don’t need my shaktipat. Why not just go for it? Anything else on your mind?

And that was that. The student went off and became himself a magic volt that brought forth another magic volt in the form of a woman. And the two became one as was intended. After all, this is a story about magic and in magic you get to dream and to envision and to manifest that dream and that vision.

As for the master, he watched that third student walk off. And he thought to himself, I know he pulled a fast one on me. I just can’t figure out what it is he did that used me to make a short cut for him on his path to perfection.

And then the master thought about it some more. As he went on thinking, he used his clairvoyant vision. He looked over the horizon and saw a storm at sea a thousand miles away raging. He looked up at the sky and sensed the jet stream flying so high. He felt the winds of the earth and its storms with thousands of flashes of lightning flashing all over the world.

He let his mind drift into the seas and walked among the undines with their dreams of love, of being one, and of being free. He dropped down into the depths of earth into mighty chambers of furious magma waiting to rise and through new lands to give birth.

And then he felt the pull of the moon and the earth, their attraction like two lovers forever embracing, intimate, dancing together in every moment with harmony, beauty, and peace.

And the master thought to himself, It has been a very fine day. I think I will wander off now and see if there is not some other planetary civilization in another part of the galaxy where I might be needed more than I am needed in this place.

But I will miss the earth. She will always be my true love and the one who inspires all my dreams. Her beauty is more than any one race of beings will ever appreciate.