Essene Joy Yoga and Spiritual Evolution: Excerpts from Day’s new book!
By Day of Greenleaf, Yaiyr
As the above title indicates, this article is a compilation of some extremely appropriate excepts from my book titled: Essene Joy Yoga: Experiencing Heavenly Happiness on Earth! Perhaps unexpectedly, it is also a book that includes excerpts from the wisest spiritual sages of east and west, ancient and modern. And that is because Joy, in Sanskrit Ananda, is part of the Triune Deity that in Sanskrit is called: Sat-Chit-Ananda: Existence, Consciousness, Bliss (Joy). It turns out, as the following excerpts will make clear, there is no real separation between the highest level of spirituality and the highest level of Joy on the Spiral Ladder of Ascension expressed in Spiritual Evolution. Nasarean Bhakti-centered Yogis give thanks, joyfully, for the gift of Eternal Life on a Spiral of Ascension in Sat-Chit-Ananda.
Excerpts From Day’s Joy Book
Excerpts From Chapter One:
A Joyfull Beginning!
It is with GREAT JOY that I write this book on ESSENEJOY YOGA! ☺Not only because it is a fun topic, but because it is an IMPORTANT TOPIC!
How important is Joy Yoga? It teaches us how to EXPERIENCE HEAVENLY HAPPINESS ONEARTH! Does that sound important enough to read this article in its entirety? If so, do so! I promise a joyful ride! ☺
In fact, let us begin by defining the word I just used above: JOYFUL. Why? Because it is a truly awesome word! ☺ Here, check it out:
JOYFUL: 1. Full of Joy. 2. Feeling, expressing, or causing joy, happiness, gladness.
It most literally means ‘Full of Joy’ because the word ‘joyful’ (originally: joy-full) is created by combing two words: ‘Joy’ and ‘Full’.
Brothers and Sisters, if we are going to be ‘full’ of something, why not be full of Joy?
Now, back to our definition of ‘Joyful’. Since it most literally means to be ‘Full of Joy’, let us return to the same unabridged Webster’s Dictionary used above and this time define the key root word: JOY.
JOY: 1. Extreme happiness, a very glad feeling, great pleasure; delight. 2. The cause of joy or happiness or the expression of that feeling.
That unabridged Webster’s Dictionary then lists the following synonyms of the word ‘Joy’ (a synonym is a word of similar meaning):
If we are going to be diligent scholars in our study of Joy – and I suggest we should be ☺ – it seems wise and appropriate to take the time to look up the definitions of each of those six synonyms. All in favor of being wise and prudent are invited to feast your eyes on the following definitions of six very joyful words. I have always loved the word ‘DELIGHT’ and it is the first of the six synonyms of Joy:
DELIGHT: noun form:1. Great pleasure or joy. 2. Joyfulness. 3. A high degree of pleasure or satisfaction or joy of the mind, an inner feeling of extreme gladness. Verb form of Delight: 1. To give great pleasure or joy or gladness to others.
GLADNESS: 1.Great cheerfulness that is pleasurable. 2. Inner brightness, shiny happiness. 3. Joyfulness.
RAPTURE: 1. The state of being carried away with joy, love, etc.; ecstasy. 2. To be lifted up in joyful ecstasy; 3. Being carried away in body or soul in rapturous joy.
ECSTASY: 1. Great joy, rapture, a feeling of delight so strong that it both fills and raises the mind and soul.
HAPPINESS: 1. Pleasure without or beyond the dominion of pain; 2. Blessedness; 3. Deep, joyous satisfaction; 4. Fortuitous elegance; 5. Appropriateness.
The listed synonyms for happiness in this unabridged dictionary are worth noting; they are: Bliss, Blessedness, Felicity, Aptness.
We just completed number five (happiness) from that list of six synonyms of the word Joy. Let us move to number six; exultation is defined as follows:
EXULTATION: 1. Leaping up inwardly in joyous happiness; rejoicing; inwardly leaping for joy; 2. Rapturous delight; 3. Victorious joyfulness; 4. Triumphant cheerfulness.
Now consider the following definition of the opposite condition of Joyfulness: JOYLESS.
JOYLESS: 1. Unhappy, sad, lacking joy.
Honest answer, dear readers: Which condition sounds preferable to you? Joyfulness or Joylessness? If you answered JOYFULNESS, I promise you this: If you read this entire book you will have received THE KEYS TO HEAVENLY, JOYOUS, HAPPINESS! Even so, it is one thing to be given a key; it is another thing to use the key. ☺
Day’s Insights on ‘Happiness’
In the many definitions above, the word that most consistently was linked to the words Joy and Joyful and their various synonyms was HAPPINESS. The definitions made clear that in relationship to the words Joy and Joyful, we are not talking about a mild or moderate degree of happiness, but an ELEVATED, BLISSFUL, RAPTUROUS DEGREE OF HAPPINESS. Even so, a beginner at Essene Joy Yoga will rise on the Spiral Ladder of Happiness, one rung at a time, each rung up being a higher degree of joyfulness.
Everyone – well, pretty-much everyone ☺ – wants to BE HAPPY! Consider the following information about the most popular elective course at Yale University.
Back in 2018, I clipped an article out of the New York Times titled, Yale’s Most Popular Class: Happiness. It described the amazing fact that when Yale offered a class about Happiness – the course is called Psychology and the Good Life and teaches how to live a happier lifestyle – a full 25% of the student body at Yale signed up for the class. That made it the most popular class in the 316-year history of that prestigious university.
The instructor of the class was quoted as attributing the stunning popularity of the class to: “the mental health crises we’re seeing at places like Yale.” The article reports that a 2013 study found that over half the students at Yale sought mental health care from the university while at school. One of the students enrolled in the class on happiness said: “In reality, a lot of us are anxious, stressed, unhappy, numb.”
Although this article is on JOY YOGA and HAPPINESS, it would be wrong not to honestly acknowledge that the majority of the population does not feel joyous or happy in a stable way. And statistics show that the trend is in the direction of more people feeling less happy and joyous.
Many studies have found that the percentage of unhappy people in all age groups has risen dramatically in the years since that old 2018 study. That is especially true for children and teens. A number of studies have found that the number one reason for the spike in unhappiness of people of all ages in the past ten years has been their increased use of social media and, in general, the internet. It is now an established fact that the more hours per day a person uses the internet and/or social media the less happy they will be. That is according to statistics; you might be an exception. Then again, you might not! ☺
In this book, I present the Essene Way of happiness, which is a deeply spiritual, holistic form of happiness. That Essene Way of happiness is called ESSENEJOY YOGA. But before sharing Yahshua’s remarks on Joy Yoga, I want to share some additional excerpts on happiness in general.
The deeply spiritual person, such as an Essene Yogi, has such a high degree of inner satisfaction from a life well-lived, he or she can look at hardships and challenges and meet them appropriately. That does not mean we are feeling front-burner happiness as we deal with horrible atrocities or tragedies or even just a real bad day. Rather, it means that our FOUNDATIONAL, BED-ROCK HAPPINESS – our Ananda – the deep awareness by our soul that the universes is a good thing and that all bad things are transcended in time via spiritual evolution, well, in THAT LIGHT – the Supernal Light that knows that Unconditional Love is already Victorious and that hard knocks are but temporary bumps in the spiral path to the higher heavens – WE STAY MUCH MORE CENTERED COME WHAT MAY THAN THE AVERAGE HUMAN.
When appropriate we mourn and sometimes may feel a bit more stressed than usual, but that foundational spiritual centeredness, once we are reasonably advanced on the spiritual path of holistic wellness, does not abandon us entirely even amidst the worst experiences, and we cheer back up a lot quicker than the average human. Why? Because we TRUST THE UNIVERSE TO COME OUT OKAY! That sort of trust is a major theme of The Holy Megillah and is joyfully expressed in the following lyrics from a song by my longtime friends, the Sunheart band. Omni, the lyricist, writes (and beautifully sings) this song titled, ‘Trusting’:
Chorus: Trusting, trusting, all the time we are trusting; Trusting, trusting, all the time we are trusting;
Trusting EACH OTHER to be all right Trusting EACH OTHER to come out OK Trusting EACH OTHER to be free
(repeat chorus)
Trusting OURSELVES to be all right Trusting OURSELVES to come out OK Trusting OURSELVES to be free
(repeat chorus)
Trusting THE CHILDREN to be all right Trusting THE CHILDREN to come out OK Trusting THE CHILDREN to be free
(repeat chorus)
Trusting THE WORLD to be all right Trusting THE WORLD to come out OK Trusting THE WORLD to be free
(repeat chorus)
Trusting THE FUTURE to be all right Trusting THE FUTURE to come out OK Trusting THE FUTURE to be free
(repeat chorus)
Trusting OUR LOVE to be all right Trusting OUR LOVE to come out OK Trusting OUR LOVE to be free
Those lyrics point to the sort of deep trust in the universe that is linked to realizing that WE ARE A FRACTAL IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF THE UNIVERSE, a spiritual realization found within by those that experience I AM, a realization that the wonderful identity and process of unfolding of the universe is our own, hardships on the path notwithstanding. The mature form of I AM consciousness is linked to the ‘WE ARE’ Realization: we realize that all of the other fractal units of the universe are also created in that embryonic Image and Likeness. As this article will explore, the fact that we are created in the embryonic Image and Likeness implies that there is a process of ongoing maturation – a training school for souls – that is linked to the terms Karma and Sat-Chit-Ananda. This book explores that process in great depth. We call that process of maturation of souls SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION.
In the last sentence of the first paragraph of the above excerpt from Andy Baggott’s book, Blissology, he writes:
Blissology teaches a different approach to life – one that allows you to find happiness and keep hold of it in any situation.
So, what is ‘Blissology’? We know that the ending ‘ology’ means ‘study of’; thus, ‘Blissology’ is ‘The Study of Bliss’. Sounds like an important thing to study; just ask all those Yale students that signed up in record numbers for the course on happiness! ☺
In the second paragraph of the excerpt from Blissology, Baggott writes:
Happiness is the birthright of every human being on this planet. It is a state of being in which we are in touch with our true inner nature and fully connected to our inner wisdom.
Essene Yoga agrees that ‘happiness is a birthright’ in the sense that it is encoded into the very fabric of the universe of which each soul is a fractal part. It is our birthright in that it is a part of our deepest nature, as revealed in the yogic phrase: SAT-CHIT-ANANDA. ‘Sat’ is ‘Existence’ (Being); ‘Chit’ is ‘Consciousness’ (Mind/Wisdom); and ‘Ananda’, the third part of the term, is BLISS.
Although Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence, Consciousness, Bliss) is the core identity of each human being, the vast majority have not yet become dedicated yogis – spiritual practitioners – and thus far have very limited levels of Self-Realization. Thus, many are experiencing rather primitive expressions of Sat-Chit-Ananda compared to the levels experienced by dedicated spiritual practitioners. This maturation can begin only when we are ready to turn the spotlight within and take responsibility for improving the quality of our thoughts, words, and deeds. As Baggott stated in the third paragraph of the excerpt from Blissology:
We are not just living in our universe – we are an active part of it. Our thoughts and feelings mold our reality. Only by focusing within and changing our patterns of thought and behavior can we have any real influence on our lives. Change yourself and you change your reality.
Like Essene Joy Yoga, in the last paragraph of the excerpt from Blissology, Baggott makes clear that those who choose to claim their birthright to true happiness will wholeheartedly practice the art of happiness:
Practicing feeling happier moment by moment is the key to understanding happiness and living in bliss.
As we practice those things that we find cause deep, holistic happiness for ourselves and others, then – and only zen – ☺ we understand the true nature of happiness! We find it within us, to the degree that we share it around us.
Excerpt From Chapter Two:
Step One to Bliss: PAY ATTENTION
In the story that Baggott told about a monk going to visit his guru who was about to drop his body, the monk did a smart thing; he asked the elderly sage for spiritual advice:
“Master,” said the monk, “What are the three most important lessons for one who is seeking enlightenment?”
The abbot lay silently for a few moments and then, with an ever-broadening smile, said, “Attention. Attention. Attention.”
Baggot said of that advice:
These were indeed wise words. Whatever we give our attention to becomes our magnet of attraction. If you practice giving your attention to happiness, you will attract happy people and enjoyable experiences into your life every day.
Similarly, in Survival In The 21st Century, Viktoras Kulvinskas, my friend for over forty years (in our most recent adventure, we hiked to a mountain hot spring pool and ate boiled ganjah) writes about the significance of our use of our ATTENTION. He reveals that the most fundamental way that we choose and create positive, happy life experiences for ourselves and others – or the reverse – is how we use our faculty of attention. We read:
Any long-held emotion leaves a sort of permanent imprint or preconditioning in the astral body which makes it easier and more automatic to indulge in the same emotion in the future….
We select… the substance which we incorporate into the astral body according to the emotions we allow our attention to dwell upon, the higher and purer the quality of our emotions, the higher will be the vibratory rate of the astral substance we incorporate into our astral bodies.
Most thought forms are not merely mental patterns but also have astral [Day: emotional] matter incorporated into them according to the emotions we associate with the idea or thought pattern….
The most fundamental aspect of free will is the control and use of our attention. Whatever we allow our attention to dwell upon, we create and become. Our habits develop according to the way in which we have most often used the attention.
Habit patterns obey Newton’s first law which states that any object in a state of rest or uniform motion relative to its surroundings will remain in that condition unless acted upon by an outside force. Therefore, to change habits, we must apply will in the form of concentration to direct the flow of attention to new modes of behavior until the old habit vibration pattern is deflected into a new one. Once this transference has taken place, the new habit is just as easy, or easier, to maintain if it is in harmony with cosmic law and the vibration of the universe which constitutes the total environment. Good habits are self-maintaining energy patterns….
The mind moves in cycles of concentration and relaxation…. We must master the mind or it will master us. Yoga practice is based on learning how to gain control over the attention. The individual who can master his or her attention can master anything. Concentration is sustained attention on one subject or process.
The more microscopic attention becomes, the more macrocosmic its experience. The more one concentrates within a point, the more that point becomes inclusive of the whole universe.
Concentration produces intelligence and not vice versa. One who truly learns to concentrate will never lack intelligence.
Meditation is concentration on that pure existence out of which the entire universe is manifested. The place where that universal essence of consciousness must first be found is within the individual…. If the attention is kept… on the essence of pure being which is pure consciousness within ourselves, we realize our identity with that pure consciousness which is God.
I hope you enjoyed reading those words from my old friend, Viktoras, andpaid close attention! ☺
Excerpt From Chapter Three:
Happiness and Sat-Chit-Ananda
In truth, teaching theWAY OF HAPPINESS is not different from teaching aboutSPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT. The higher degree of enlightenment you experience, the more SPIRITUAL JOY – ‘BLISS’ – wells-up in your SPIRITUAL HEART. The spiritual masters, the Greatest yogis of east and west – and let’s throw in ‘north’ and ‘south’ too ☺ – call that THE HIGHEST HAPPINESS.
Certainly, there are more limited, fleeting forms of less healthy ‘happiness’, less enlightened ‘joys’ – such as getting drunk – but as a yogi, you go on to discover TRUE JOY right where the masters have said you will find it: WITHIN YOU.
In fact, True Joy – spiritual happiness – is one of the threefold aspects of Deity in whose Triune Image and Likeness we are each an embryonic fractal unit. The Hindu Yogis and Essene Yogis call that Original Triune Deity: SAT-CHIT-ANANDA. I will explain that term.
‘SAT’ is Being itself, neither masculine nor feminine but the Source and perpetual ‘Crown’ of each. It is the spiritual ‘I AM’ (literally: ‘AM’ or, in Hebrew: ‘YAH’) that we are each part of, and which is inclusive of – and forms a Creative Trinity with – the other two parts: ‘Chit’ and ‘Ananda’. ‘CHIT’ is the Sanskrit word for CONSCIOUSNESS and is called in the Megillah THE DIVINE MIND. Equally significant in that Creative Divine Trinity is the third term: ‘ANANDA’. Ananda is the Sanskrit word for JOYOUS SPIRITUAL BLISS; in the Megillah, it is called THE DIVINE HEART.
We, my dear readers, are created in the EMBRYONICIMAGE AND LIKENESS OF SAT-CHIT-ANANDA. That is exactly why the masters insist that HIGHEST HAPPINESS – SPIRITUAL JOY (in Sanskrit: ANANDA) – IS FOUND WITHIN YOU.Quite literally, Ananda is part of you!
A helpful excerpt on ‘True Happiness’ – ‘Higher Happiness’ – is found in a book titled, The Handbook to Perpetual Happiness. That many-decades old book, out of print the last time I checked, was not widely read even when it was new. It gives me JOY to share a lengthy excerpt of words of wisdom from an old book that you almost certainly would otherwise never read. The author, A. Ramana, like me was a big fan of esoteric scientist Walter Russell. He writes:
The Wise have long known that Real Happiness is not found or contained in objects or in any objective experience, but is in God, who always already dwells in the Heart of all beings, as the very Self of everyone and the Substance of everything.
Down through the ages, Great Thinkers alike have known or glimpsed with awe, reverence and humility the Reservoir of Unlimited Potential that ever abides, usually undiscovered and untapped, in the inner core of man’s own being. This usually unknown, unused Source of creativity, Itself, is the secret to potential greatness in those who discover and tap It, and give It a channel of expression in their lives. …. It is the location of Real Happiness. ….
This One Presence and Power, or Substance, even now dwells in the core of every living being as the very Self of all beings. ….
Isn’t it time that we awaken to a Higher Understanding of Reality and Truth, and begin taking responsibility for our habits and our compulsive life patterns? We can be happy without this perpetual and maddening demand, this need for more, and better, and different acquirements and accumulations which all soon wear out or become outdated or old fashioned, or grow old and stale.
Jesus said it this way: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and worms and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
Here the “heaven” Jesus is speaking of is not in some future time nor in some “other world” or distant place. The last sentence of the quotation actually mystically locates it for us. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” is saying, “your heart is where your treasure is.” It is the Spiritual Heart…. It is the Source of our being. This is the Location of Real Happiness.
It’s the “place” where we realize our conscious connection and oneness with God…. It’s the very Heart and Essence of our being, its our existence itself, our conscious awareness itself, prior to our being conscious of anything in the world including the body. It is the Self, made “in the image” (and likeness) “of God”.
This inner revelation (when it occurs as our own Awakening) of realizing and living life from this point in us where we are actually centered in the Divine, brings with it the solution to all our problems. And, it is itself the achievement of total and everlasting happiness or joy. ….
We are not done with this excerpt from Ramana but will briefly pause to notice how similar what he just said above is to what my old friend Viktoras Kulvinskas previously taught us. In his Survival In the 21st Century, Viktoras wrote:
The most fundamental aspect of free will is the control and use of our attention. Whatever we allow our attention to dwell upon, we create and become. Our habits develop according to the way in which we have most often used the attention.
Habit patterns obey Newton’s first law which states that any object in a state of rest or uniform motion relative to its surroundings will remain in that condition unless acted upon by an outside force. Therefore, to change habits, we must apply will in the form of concentration to direct the flow of attention to new modes of behavior until the old habit vibration pattern is deflected into a new one. Once this transference has taken place, the new habit is just as easy, or easier, to maintain if it is in harmony with cosmic law and the vibration of the universe which constitutes the total environment. Good habits are self-maintaining energy patterns….
We must master the mind or it will master us. Yoga practice is based on learning how to gain control over the attention. The individual who can master his or her attention can master anything.
Excerpt From Chapter Four:
Joy and Spiritual Evolution
I will now share several great excerpts on the topic of SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION and how it is linked to OUR EXPERIENCE OF PROGRESSIVELY HIGHER LEVELS OFINNER JOY/ANANDA, the‘HIGHER HAPPINESS’. One of the greatest writers on this topic was Sri Aurobindo, a yogi from India whose philosophy was quite similar to the Nasarean Essene tradition. Unlike many yogis of India, Aurobindo believed that planetary life here on Earth can be embraced joyfully in our EXPERIENCE OF INCREASING DEGREES OF SAT-CHIT-ANANDA IN SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION.
Actually, I will be quoting from two different books by Sri Aurobindo. This first excerpt is from a compilation of Aurobindo’s writings on the topic of SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION. The compilation is titled, The Future Evolution of Man, and was brilliantly organized by the compiler, P.B. Saint-Hillaire, a student of Sri Aurobindo. Here first is a brief excerpt from the Introduction by Saint-Hillaire:
Man today is becoming poignantly aware of his power to influence for good or evil his own destiny. At this critical moment when he questions his future, we believe it important to present to the public the most significant passages from those books of Sri Aurobindo which deal with this problem, the future evolution of humanity.
You will see that, as I have asserted above – SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION (like everything else in the universe) IS LINKED TO SAT-CHIT-ANANDA. Aurobindo considered THE ROLE OF ANANDA (JOY/BLISS) TO BE KEY.
We read in Aurobindo’s The Future Evolution of Man:
Man’s highest aspiration – his seeking for perfection, his longing for freedom and mastery, his search after pure truth and unmixed delight – is in flagrant contradiction with his present existence and normal experience.
Such contradiction is part of Nature’s general method; it is a sign that she is working towards a greater harmony. The reconciliation is achieved by an evolutionary progress. ….
An evolution of consciousness is the central motive of terrestrial existence. The evolutionary working of Nature has a double process: an evolution of forms, an evolution of the soul.
Man occupies the crest of the evolutionary wave. With him occurs the passage from an unconscious to a conscious evolution.
To put that last sentence above into ‘Essene Lingo’: ‘Conscious Evolution’ is ‘Intentional Evolution’, a condition in which we consciously – intentionally and knowingly – participate in our spiritual evolution. Until then, we are like animals that are evolving but are not conscious of that fact and are not intentionally participating in it.
At each step one receives an intimation of what the following step will be.
The nature of the next step is indicated by the deep aspirations awakening in the human race.
A change of consciousness is the major fact of the next evolutionary transformation, and the consciousness itself, by its own mutation, will impose and effect any necessary mutation of the body.
There is no reason to suppose that this transformation is impossible on earth. In fact, it would give the truest meaning to earthly existence.
Man’s urge towards spirituality is an undeniable indication of the inner drive of the Spirit within towards emergence, its insistence towards the next step of its manifestation….
As a result of this new relation between the Spirit and the body, the gnostic evolution will effectuate the spiritualization, perfection and fulfillment of the physical being; it will do for the body as for the mind and life. ….
Quick note: When Aurobindo uses the term ‘gnostic’ he is using it in the general sense of its meaning ‘wise and evolved’; he is not using the term in a sectarian manner to refer to any past group called ‘gnostics’. The root word ‘gnosis’ simply means ‘to know’, and Aurobindo uses the term ‘gnostic’ to refer to ‘wise ones’ or ‘knowing ones’ or ‘highly evolved humans.’ He continues:
A spiritual Ananda [reminder: ‘Ananda’ means ‘Bliss’] can flow into the body and inundate cell and tissue; a luminous materialization of this higher Ananda could of itself bring about a total transformation of the deficient or adverse sensibilities of physical Nature.
Sri Aurobindo communicates in such advanced – even transcendental – language that it is a good idea to read key sentences like the one above twice, with full attention. Seriously, a cup of green tea might be helpful! He was truly – literally – a genius and his language – even though English was his second language being from India – is more complex (in an ‘advanced’ sense) than most people have ever before read. He continues:
A vast calm and a deep delight of the gnostic existence rise together in a growing intensity and culminate in an eternal ecstasy. In this universal phenomenon is revealed the eternal Bliss, Ananda.
‘Eternal ecstasy’ sounds good to me! How about you? He continues:
An aspiration, a demand for the supreme and total delight of existence is there secretly in the whole make of our being…. In the body consciousness this demand takes shape as a need of bodily happiness, in our life parts as a yearning for life happiness, a keen vibrant response to joy and rapture of many kinds and to … satisfaction; in the mind it shapes into a ready reception of all forms of mental delight; on a higher level it becomes apparent in the spiritual mind’s call for peace and divine ecstasy.
This trend is founded in the truth of the being; for Ananda is the very essence of the Brahman [Deity], it is the supreme nature of the omnipresent Reality.
The supermind itself in the descending degrees of the manifestation emerges from the Ananda and in the evolutionary ascent merges into the Ananda.
That means that our soul comes from Bliss (Ananda) into the material realm via ‘Involution’ so as to learn and grow (‘evolve’) and then ascends into even higher Bliss via spiritual evolution. This higher experience of Bliss is, so to speak, the next octave on the Spiral Ladder of Being. Aurobindo’s key point is that Involution and Evolution are not opposed to each other; rather, they are two phases of the Cosmic School System.
It (Supermind) is not, indeed, merged in the sense of being extinguished or abolished but is there inherent in it, indistinguishable from the self of awareness and the self-effectuating force of the Bliss of Being.
Quick note: Aurobindo uses the term ‘supermind’ to refer to the ‘spiritual mind’ of the soul that is senior to the ordinary mind. He teaches that the supermind is already in each of us but is latent, unrealized until we ‘fan the flame’ of spiritual evolution via spiritual practices such as yoga and meditation. He continues:
In the involutionary descent as in the evolutionary return supermind is supported by the original Delight of Existence [Ananda/Bliss/Joy] and carries that in it in all its activities as their sustaining essence; for Consciousness, we may say, is its parent power in the Spirit, but Ananda is the spiritual matrix from which it manifests and the maintaining source into which it carries back the soul in its return to the status of the Spirit.
A pause so that I can explain the difference between two similar terms used by Aurobindo in the above paragraph: 1) INVOLUTIONARY and, 2) EVOLUTIONARY. After this somewhat detailed consideration of those terms and how they relate to spiritual evolution, we will return to Aurobindo.
The word involutionarystems from INVOLUTION. That word refers to Spirit intentionally involving itself in the physical world on behalf of the evolutionary process. It can be described as the compassionate descent of Spirit into Matter.
The word evolutionary in Aurobindo’s philosophy refers to the ascent of the physical world toward the spiritual world and a greater experience of Sat-Chit-Ananda.
The words involutionaryand evolutionary are two aspects of the same process, the process Aurobindo calls SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION. They work together like complementary sides of the same coin.
Here is a brilliant excerpt on the topic of INVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION. I think that you will enjoy [in-joy!] it. I also think that it will aid your understanding of Aurobindo’s use of those terms (involution and evolution). This profound excerpt is from the book An Evolutionary Agenda for the Third Millenium. The author, Alan Sasha Lithman, writes:
Only that which is already in-volved can e-volve. A child, a flower, a universe, is born, not made, carrying within its core its own seed-self, its own unique genetic code of consciousness, its own self-rhythm of unfolding and becoming. Working from this evolutionary premise, this universe, then, did not arbitrarily arise or arrive, but unfolded from some self-existence preceding yet paradoxically present within it.
This unfolding or evolving implies a complementary process of infolding, involving… simply to explore and experience the endless mystery, joy and wonder of Self-discovery. Playing out this radical proposition, let us pursue the possibilities and methodologies of such an involutionary-evolutionary phenomenon….
Both in the sentence directly above and in the sentence directly below are references to those Aurobindo-related terms: ‘Involution/Involutionary’ and ‘evolution/evolutionary. Lithman writes:
Involution-evolution, I believe, provides a more comprehensive metaphor and vison for cosmogenesis. It also mirrors the inner and outer movements, ascending and descending spiral threads of the DNA molecule, reflecting in macro-scale that fractal seed/symbol of consciousness coded in the universe’s embryonic core.
In this scenario, then, an eternal and ever-present Self involves itself and its infinite Consciousness into an ultimately (and paradoxically) finite point, spiraling inward like the nautilus, like the galaxy or the whirling petals of a flower time-lapsed in reverse. In which case, the point where this Self is fully involved becomes the genetic beginning point for evolution….
Lithman includes a note here in which he says that Sri Aurobindo described the process of the Spirit becoming a new point at the beginning process of a new cycle of universal evolution – that stage being Involution (Spirit becoming In-volved, in-bedded) – by the word Inconscience because the Higher Consciousness of the Spirit thereby willingly self-conceals itself, appearing to be unconscious matter. Lithman continues:
Evolution then represents the return journey that must somehow carry within it the evolutionary will….
Such an evolutionary perspective would resolve the enigma of missing links: Of how Life and Mind inexplicably emerged from insentient and unconscious Matter, of how Matter Herself sprang forth from apparent nothingness, acknowledging that the principles of Life and Mind, the potentials of vital and mental Consciousness, were already there to begin with, involved in Matter, just as matter was already there in the potential of Being….
I (Day) boldfaced that last portion of the above sentence because it exactly describes the point that Lithman is taking-up from his mentor, Sri Aurobindo. Lithman continues:
At the same time, this perspective would address the issue of intention and direction, affirming that the universe and its emergent evolutionary process are in fact “motivated”; are the Self-expression of Being, willing… to fully discover and experience itself: A Self whose essence is the delight of Being….
Read that above sentence again; I want you to pay attention to the reference to the evolutionary process itself being “motivated”; it is motivated by Divine Purpose in the direction of Love and Goodness. Lithman continues:
If Reality, as this work proposes, is conscious, is Self-Conscious-Being, then ‘It’ is not simply an impersonal or intention-less state of awareness but a meta-personal Presence: a Person…. In which case, it is not simply an It… but an androgynous S/He as well as something altogether beyond our mind-bound conceptions and definitions: An inseparable creative Whole… that appears or presents Its Self according to the local observer-self’s level of consciousness, sensory development and integration.
In other words, by experiencing Her Self through this endless multiplicity of forms, selves, organs of sense, levels and dimensions of being, S/He can experience unlimited self-diversity within an ever-present Self-unity, tasting, feeling… while at the same time, remaining forever Her Self, Whole, One: Oneself bursting into a million-faceted selves in order to experience the boundlessness of Being, the limitlessness of love.
We will continue the Lithman excerpt, but first we will let Yahshua answer a key question that arises in the above paragraph. Since Lithman has made clear that Deity – the Ultimate Monad that is the All-Inclusive One (the Whole) – can (and does) experience the universe (taste, feel, etc.) through every micro-monad (every soul like you and I), the question arises: Do the micro-monads – the parts of the Whole – exist only for that purpose, or do we each also have that same ability and same true-self-identity? The answer to that matters to us because we are each one of those ‘micro-monads’ that are part of the macro-monad, the Universal Oneness. As part of that ONENESS, are we also real individuals?Yahshua’s answer is quite reassuring – and is truly profound. We read it under the following subtitle in The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of the Essene Way:
Yahshua on Monads as Points of View in Spiritual Evolution
111. Yahshua said, “In Sacred Geometry, as you know, the Monad is often symbolized as a Point. 112. Each Point is a Oneness that is part of the All-Inclusive Oneness that consists of all points; that All-Inclusive Monad is called the ‘Universal One’. 113. But few philosophers, even amongst the wise Pythagoreans, realize that each ‘Point’ – each Monad, each Soul – is literally a ‘Point of View’. 114. We are all Points of View, and we each have a particular perspective.
115. “The Universal One can simultaneously see through the eyes of every Point of View. 116. And every Point of View has the freedom to change its perspective according to its own Self-Development in Spiritual Evolution.
117. “The amazing thing is that the Universal One gets to experience, and thus learn from, every Point of View imaginable, simultaneously and also throughout eternal duration, even as each Point of View evolves and thus changes its perspective many times.
118. “As each Point evolves by stepping into actuality as a Line, each Point then manifests its own World-Line – its own eternally unfolding personal history – and each Line, even as it evolves throughout duration and changes its perspective, always is a Point of View that is itself being viewed by the Universal One.
119. “The Universal One, then, has all access to everything ever viewed by any Point of View, along with every consideration ever considered by those points, and also has access to all of the insights and lessons that will continue to be had as each Point of View evolves and thus changes perspective numerous times throughout Eternal Duration.
120. “The Universal Monad has such an unfathomable body of knowledge and wisdom that it is not possible for any Individual Monad to accurately imagine just how much that actually totals, and even that unimaginable total is constantly increasing as each Individual Monad keeps learning, keeps evolving, keeps contributing everything it views to the ever-expanding Universal Intelligence.
121. “Even the Universal Monad continues to evolve as it continues to receive and process the lessons of every evolving Individual Point of View. 122.The eternal journey of any particular Individual Point – Individual Monad – is that point’s personal ‘World-Line’. 123. Each Individual World-Line, in motion through the universe, is actually a ‘Life-Spiral’, one Life-Spiral of countless Life-Spirals on the Spiral Ladder of Spiritual Evolution.
124. “While the Universal Monad receives the insights of every Individual Point of View – and thus gains knowledge and wisdom from that relationship – so can each Individual Point gain knowledge and wisdom from its relationship with the Universal Monad. 125. That incredible storehouse of knowledge and wisdom within the Universal Monad can be accessed by the Individual Monad, to the degree that is appropriate at any particular stage of spiritual evolution.
126. “That is the ‘Great Universal Intelligence’ – the Divine Mind – that we each have sensed and sometimes intentionally have accessed. 127. Even when we are not intentionally accessing it, we benefit from that relationship because it is within us and all around us, all the time, influencing us via intuition and, in truth, by every lesson that life presents to us, informing our own evolution by including us in the One Universal Evolution.
Wow! To say the least, the Lord Christ has a way with words! That is appropriate since he himself is called ‘The Word’!
We return to Lithman’s An Evolutionary Agenda:
All this, then, the sub-atomic and interstellar galaxies, light-spinning within and around it and us, are forms, fields and figures of Conscious Being (in which consciousness is the very substance of being) unfolding itself in an unbroken stream that appears to us through the device of time-space in discrete intermediary phases and stages of Conscious Being engaged in a process of self-knowing, a peek-a-boo play (in Sanskrit, called the Divine’s Lila); becoming progressively more conscious of itself through various forms, filters and instruments of expression, sensation and cognition…. And it is here, now, where we find ourselves, both in this evolutionary chapter and in this evolutionary moment….
For as a species, we are in fact the recipient of all that aeonic evolution that has preceded us: the torch-bearer of that consciousness which threads and spirals all the way back through a… tunnel to that first moment of becoming, that first divine urge, that fire-to-be which emerged, passing itself on like a molecular torch through our Cosmo-genetic DNA, and impelled by that irresistible inner fire-to-be, that spark forever coded and kindled in the very core and nature of Being…. A Fire of Consciousness slowly gathering momentum as its inner will evolves more and more consciousness-sensitive instruments and organs through which to express, sense and experience itself; evolution accelerating in micro-bursts with is potential for self-will, self-awareness, self-development; allowing for swifter “evolutionary downloads” – for a swifter evolutionary unfolding, operating in progressively-more-rapid cycles, frequencies, wave lengths and vibrations….
Self is now beginning to more consciously determine the adaptation and mutations of its form rather than the limitations of form dictating the movements and constraints of the indwelling Self; Consciousness flowing inexorably now toward that which moves at the friction-less speed of light, the speed of grace, the speed of being in an eternal present. It is this Consciousness, then, this Conscious Being, that both presses from within and without, pressing us forward from our past while simultaneously attracting us from our future, inviting and impelling us now to break through our metal web, to consciously and courageously collaborate in our own self-evolution: The ultimate act of activism.
By now, my readers know that Viktoras Kulvinskas, author of Survival In The 21st Century, is an old friend of mine. My favorite portion of that book is his section on the various types of yoga. The following excerpt is from that section and is on the topic of spiritual evolution. Viktoras titled this excerpt from that section, God in Evolution:
By the means of the evolutionary process, God organizes the essence of pure existence from a state of simple homogeneous vibrations into an infinity of organized patterns of energy which exist on all lower planes of manifestation. Eventually, self-conscious intelligent beings are developed through which consciousness can function and directly manifest its will on any plane of creation. The human is one variety of such beings.
In human evolution, INDIVIUALISM must precede UNIVERSALISM. People have to go through the stage of ego identification in order to become organized, independent, self-sustaining entities which can later realize their oneness with cosmic consciousness and be used as divine instruments by that pure consciousness.
It is each person’s evolutionary individuality of difference which, in the form of the organized subtle bodies, ultimately unites him or her with all existence. Oneness with God is not a state of blank conformity; it is experiencing oneself as the one in all and the all in one. Enlightenment is experiencing oneself as pure existence or consciousness…. We must learn to include everything in our awareness. As pure consciousness, all exists within us.
Dualism is transcended by including it in oneness, not by denying it. Descent of spirit into matter is one phase of evolution. Ascent of organized matter back into spirit is another phase of evolution.
We will continue with the above excerpt, but I want to point out that what Viktoras described above is an example of what is referred to as ‘Involution and Evolution’. That is the spiral descent of Spiritual Seed into the womb of matter (Involution) that will grow – ‘evolve’ – into higher consciousness and make the upward spiral journey we call ‘The Ring of Return’ (Evolution). And as we learned from Aurobindo, that journey both begins and ends in DIVINE BLISS.
Viktoras continues:
FREE WILL of evolving organisms develops as matter returns to spirit, as does the Karmic responsibility of the evolving organism which accompanies the use of free will….
As mind is developed in the human stages of evolution, there is the possibility of directing the flow of attention and becoming an… co-creator with God.
An individual’s free will operates within certain limits. An individual has free will only when he or she unites his or her individual will in harmony with God’s will, which alone can know all the infinite indirect causal factors entering into any given situation and all possible future consequences of any action….
All seeming mistakes are only relative. They become our teachers and thus lead us to perfection…. By virtuous self-discipline or good action, a person’s evolution can be speeded up. From the point of view of an evolving organism, good actions are preferable because only through perfecting oneself in harmony with all can oneness with God or pure consciousness be experienced.
There is no choice for us whether to learn or not to learn. We have only a choice of what means to learn by. We can learn by our mistakes through the process of karmic retribution, or we can learn by obeying the command of our own inner consciousness which is the presence of God within us.
We can learn the hard way or the relatively pleasant way. The ‘hard way’ is what is known as ‘The School of Hard Knocks’. We all do a bit of that, but we have the option to dedicate ourselves to flowing with universal law rather than knocking our head against it! Viktoras continues:
We cannot avoid participation in the process of the universe which is an educational and perfecting process. Through consciousness, all mistakes become our teachers, and are transmuted into wisdom. Education is largely a process of developing the instrumentality by perfecting the subtle bodies. A person is not capable of receiving any more truth than his or her subtle bodies are able to tune in on. Evolution is a process of perfecting organisms or instrumentalities for consciousness to function through.
The term ‘subtle bodies’ used above by Viktoras refers to the series of progressively less dense – less dense than the obvious physical body – bodies that are also called ‘sheaths of the soul’. Viktoras continues:
By meditation on the process of evolution, we learn how to act in total harmony with the rhythm of the universe and all the forces in our circumstances. Only then does suffering cease. Suffering is the safety check system by which evolution warns any evolving organism that it is stepping out of line with God’s evolutionary purpose. Thus the evolutionary process is kept in order.
In the first clause of the first sentence in the above paragraph, Viktoras has suggested an actual practice we can engage in: MEDITATION ON THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION. Here the word ‘Meditation’ is used in the sense of ‘Contemplation’. I suggest that you try two versions of that practice: 1) Contemplate the concept of ‘the Evolution of the Universe’ including – but not limited to – our planet and all life forms including humanity; and, 2) Contemplate your own personal spiritual evolution. In both versions of this meditation practice, keep in mind the term used by Viktoras: ‘The Process of Evolution’. In other words, we do not go from stage ‘A’ to stage ‘Z’ without passing through the intermediate stages.
Back to Viktoras:
In a state of harmony everything relates constructively in a manner conducive to the evolution of everything else. At the highest level this becomes the state of the one in all and the all in one. The motto “one for all and all for one” is the best guide for spiritual living if it is applied universally so that no one and no thing is left out.
Quick question: How many of you recognize the above ‘motto’ – “one for all and all for one” – from an old book that became an old movie that has been remade numerous times? Hint: The title has the word ‘Three’ in it.
Viktoras continues:
The progress of evolution is not a straight-line progression. Evolution accelerates as it progresses. The more we grow the more we have to grow with.
Viktoras is about to use another of our key words, spiral, linking it to spiritual evolution which, in his last excerpt above, he made clear “is not a straight-line progression.” He writes:
Evolution proceeds in an exponential spiral, higher forms of energy evolving faster because their rate of vibration is more rapid….
Enlightenment for any individual is a process of organizing a vehicle of experience and expression on the superconscious plane. This body must be organized out of energy substance of the plane that comes above the mental plane in vibratory rate.
Enlightenment or living in the eternal now is a state of perfect timeless patience. In that state the person experiences his or her self as all existence.…
In the first sentence of the paragraph directly above we meet a key term: The Eternal Now. Here we see it linked to the beautiful term ‘perfect timeless patience’. I imagine that, as God and Goddess eternally contemplate the process of countless cycles of Involution and Evolution within the Eternal Duration that is always NOW IN PROCESS – Spiritual Evolution – they demonstrate this quality purrrfectly: Perfect Timeless Patience!
We conclude this excerpt from Viktoras Kulvinskas as follows:
If at present, the human is an imperfect being, he or she is also an unfinished being. People will be perfected in the fullness of the evolutionary process. This knowledge should not lead to laziness however. At the human state in evolution, we are responsible for deliberately and consciously taking a hand in accelerating progress. We must participate in evolution in a practical way on every plane of manifestation including the physical plane.
Evolution? Tag, you’re it!
Kulvinskas mentioned one of the key words related to spiritual evolution: Spiral. That inspires me to share the following excerpt from Jill Purce’s classic (1974) book on spirals titled, The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul. Purce writes:
The spiral tendency within each of us is the longing for and growth toward wholeness. Every whole is cyclic…. It starts from a point, expands and differentiates, contracts and disappears into the point once more. Such a pattern is that of our lifetime, and…that of our universe….
We begin our lives, as it were, a point…. In mathematics the point has location, but no dimension. Having no dimension, it is total possibility, and since it may expand equally in all directions, it is necessarily the centre. [Day: Purce is from England; they spell ‘center’ as ‘centre’]
Purce illustrates the above idea of the point having the potential to move any direction in manifestation; in a previous excerpt, she had made clear that the directional movements we make in life, for good or ill, are a product of our choices.
Purce continues:
If life is a path ‘through’ time, and therefore a continuum, we may also imagine it as a line; and further, since it returns and yet flows on, it is a spiral…. Any circular movement carried into the fourth dimension (of space-time) becomes a spiral; which is why apparently cyclic processes in time never repeat themselves [Day: exactly]. Even the earth’s orbit around the sun is a spiral in time, and every year is different [Day: at least somewhat] from the last….
…. there is but one order [boldface added by Day] and this order runs throughout both microcosm and macrocosm. Thus it is possible to say that our consciousness is a sphere, that we appear to circumscribe [Day: encircle] it spirally, and that the sphere of our consciousness as a whole appears to have its own spiral path; this is the microcosmic analogy to the movement of our own globe [Day: Planet Earth] spiraling round both itself and the sun….
This spiral of the sun (or of the earth’s yearly movement) is that of our self relating to the outside world, while the spiral of our chart, revolving like the earth on its own axis, produces that of our inner being. The combinations of these two macrocosmic spirals in time, from our birth moment onwards, correspond to the main movements in the evolution of our consciousness.
In time, these cycles are spirals, whose symbolic direction [Day: positive or negative]… is [the result of] the element of choice….
…. It is the task of the Yogi to return in consciousness on the upward spiral….
Yes, my friends, this life that we are living, is, in fact, a great spiral dance!
The Holy Megillah refers to this Spiral Dance as a ‘creative whirlwind’.The Nasarean Hebrew word for this creative whirlwind is Sa’arah. We read:
25. And the Spiral Dance was the Sa’arah, the Whirlwind. 26. And the Whirlwind was the Breath of Yah upon the void, the Air of Being blowing upon the void of Non-Being. 27. And from the Sa’arah came forth Sparks of Light, Nitzot haAur. 28. And each Spark of Light is a Seed of Light, a Zera haAur. 29. And each Seed of Light is a Soul, a Nephesh, a Spiritual Being.
30. Behold: Elohim created each Being in the embryonic image and likeness of Elohim, male and female, each wearing Yah as a Crown of Glory. 31. And the image is manifest in the Attributes.
This is an important fact: ‘Each Soul is a Seed of Light.’ A ‘seed’ always contains genetic information related to its future growth and attributes. A ‘Seed of Soul’ is no exception! The growth – development – of a Soul into a Christ-like Being occurs via spiritual evolution on the Spiral Ladder of Being.
In Yahshua’s sermon titled, Introduction to Essene Yoga, he said this on the topic of spirals.
465. “One important practice of Eternal Life Yoga is to become aware of the significance of The Cosmic and Terrestrial Spirals that Manifest as Cycles and Seasons.”
Yahshua also addressed another of our key terms: ‘Involution and ‘Evolution’. In Chapter Seventy-Six of Godspell, Yahshua answered a question that pertains to the ongoing, complementary process of Involution/Evolution:
64. A disciple asked Yahshua, “Lord, I have heard You say that ‘Spiritual Evolution is both an inhale and an exhale’; what exactly do You mean?”
65. Yahshua replied, “The out-breath – the exhale – of YHWH is the movement from the Spiritual Center of All into the outer-physical reaches of the All, and the in-breath – the inhale – is the return from the outer-reaches toward the inner-center. 66. That is true on every scale that you can imagine; it is a Universal Pattern of Creation that is called by yogis, ‘The Breath of Life’. 67. This is the movement of the Cosmic Spiral and of every spiral within every spiral of every scale within the Cosmic Spiral of YHWH.
68. “Consider that the Cosmic Out-Breath of YHWH is like when a human farmer scatters seed in a field. 69. The harvest that will later come when those seeds produce fruit is comparable to the in-breath. 70. And what makes that comparable to Spiritual Evolution is that the original planted seed has grown/developed – evolved/unfolded – to the point where it in turn fruits – ‘goes to seed’ – and produces even more seeds than the farmer originally scattered or planted. 71. It is important to understand that the process continues to unfold, each planting followed by a harvest, each harvest by a more abundant planting, a cyclic expanding spiral that consists of spirals within spirals each with countless sub-spirals, throughout Eternal Duration. 72. The out-breath – the scattering of seed – is when Shemesh leads the dance, the harvest-breath – the in-breath – is when Shemayah leads the dance.
73. “I tell you truly, without the Eternal Breath of Life, the Eternal Now would be childless and creation could not expand in Sat-Chit-Ananda as it currently does. 74. That ‘expansion’ is the purpose of Spiritual Evolution, but Spiritual Evolution itself employs the two-movements of the Cosmic Breath: Involution and Evolution.”
I now pick-up where I left off in my excerpt from Sri Aurobindo’s The Future Evolution of Man. He had referred to the terms ‘Involutionary’ and ‘Evolutionary’ and, having further studied those terms, we continue the Aurobindo excerpt:
A supramental manifestation in its ascent would have as a next sequence and culmination of Self a manifestation of the Bliss of the Brahman: the evolution of the being of gnosis would be… an evolution of the being of bliss….
In the liberation of the soul from ignorance… the spiritual ascension takes up this peace of liberation into the bliss of a perfect experience and realization of the eternal beatitude, the bliss of the Eternal and Infinite . . .
Peace and ecstasy… and a deep delight of all-existence are among… the bliss that is the Infinite. In the gnostic consciousness at any stage there would be always in some degree this fundamental and spiritual conscious delight of existence in the whole depth of the being; but also all the movements of Nature would be pervaded by it, and all the actions and reactions of the life and the body: none could escape the law of the Ananda.
Recall that the word Ananda means Bliss and that it is considered to be the Heart of Deity and, therefore, the Heart – the spiritual core linked to Divine Love – of every fractal part of ‘The All’. We can’t escape the law of Ananda because it is within us. It is our own SPIRITUAL HEART and, via spiritual practice (Joy Yoga), we FAN THE FLAME.
Sri Aurobindo continues:
Even before the gnostic change there can be a beginning of this fundamental ecstasy of being translated into a manifold beauty and delight. In the mind, it translates into a calm of intense delight of spiritual perception and vision and knowledge, in the heart into a wide or deep or passionate delight of universal union and love and sympathy and the joy of beings and the joy of things. In the will and vital parts it is felt as the energy of delight of a divine life-power in action or a beatitude of the senses perceiving and meeting the One everywhere, perceiving… beauty and a secret harmony of creation…. In the body it reveals itself as an ecstasy pouring into it from the heights of the spirit and the peace and bliss of a pure and spiritualized physical existence.
A universal beauty and glory of being begins to manifest; all objects reveal hidden lines, vibrations, powers, harmonic significances concealed from the normal mind and the physical sense. In the universal phenomenon is revealed the eternal Ananda.
It is important to note that, unlike many Hindu yogis, Sri Aurobindo just said that ALL OF THE ABOVE CAN HAPPEN TO US WHILE IN A BODY ON PLANET EARTH. That is very different from the more common and ascetic view of the majority of Hindu and Buddhist sects that affirm that physical incarnation is doomed to be nothing but suffering and must be escaped if we are to find Ananda. Aurobindo agrees that we can evolve to even more ‘spiritualized bodies’ and on to progressively higher heavenly realms, but asserts that we can experience a profound level of spiritual evolution and Ananda/Bliss here and now, even as human beings on Earth. We Nasareans happily agree! ☺
I said that I would be excerpting from two different Aurobindo books. I just shared the first one – from The Future Evolution of Man – and now will share one from the promised second book, a 1,114-page scholarly masterpiece, The Life Divine. Sri Aurobindo writes:
Our endeavor has been to discover what is the reality and significance of our existence as conscious beings in the material universe and in what direction and how far that… leads us, to what human or divine future….
If there is a self-existent Reality of which our existence here is a result, then there must be a truth of that Reality which is manifesting, working itself out, evolving here, and that will be the significance of our own being and life. Whatever that Reality may be, it is something that has taken upon itself the aspect of a becoming in Time….
That bold-faced-by-me last sentence above is saying that whatever the Self-Existent-Reality is, it clearly has chosen to operate via spiritual evolution (the process of ‘becoming’ or ‘unfolding’) through Eternal Time (Eternal Now manifesting as Eternal Duration; in other words, it is ALWAYS NOWthroughout eternity).
Aurobindo continues:
The significance of our existence here determines our destiny: that destiny is something that already exists in us as a necessity and a potentiality, the necessity of our being’s secret and emergent reality, a truth of its potentialities that is being worked out….
Those potentialities of each soul are ‘being worked out’ – emerging – via spiritual evolution.
If there is a Being that is becoming, a Reality of existence that is unrolling itself in Time… that reality secretly is life’s significance.
It is consciousness and life that must be the keywords to what is being thus worked out in Time. …. For the essence of consciousness is the power to be aware of itself and its objects, and in its true nature…. It must have the power to emerge completely, its destiny must be to evolve into its own perfection which is its true nature. ….
Keep in mind that what has just been said about the purpose of ‘Being that is becoming’ and ‘Reality of existence unrolling itself in Time’ being to ‘evolve into its own perfection’ APPLIES TO YOU!
This perfect and natural condition of consciousness is to us a superconscience, a state which is beyond us and in which our mind, if suddenly transferred to it, could not at first function; but it is towards that superconscience that our conscious being must be evolving. …. It is this to which we have given the name of Supermind or Gnosis. For that evidently must be the consciousness of the Reality, the Being, the Spirit that is secret in us and slowly manifesting here; of that Being we are the becomings and must grow into its nature.
Tag! You are THAT!
For what is involved and emergent is not a Mind, but a Spirit, and mind is not the native dynamism of consciousness of the Spirit; Supermind, the light of gnosis, is its native dynamism. If then life has to become a manifestation of the Spirit, it is the manifestation of a spiritual being in us and the divine life of a perfected consciousness in a supramental or gnostic power of spiritual being that must be the secret burden and intention of evolutionary Nature.
All spiritual life is in its principle a growth into divine living. It is difficult to fix the frontier where the mental ceases and the divine life begins, for the two project into each other and there is a long space of their intermingled existence. A great part of this interspace… can be seen as the process of a higher life in the making. As the mind and life become illumined with the light of the Spirit, they put on or reflect something of the divinity, the secret greater Reality, and this must increase until the interspace has been crossed and the whole existence is unified in the full light and power of the spiritual principle.
On that auspicious day, Brothers and Sisters, we will know what spiritual evolution intended for the human being from the very beginning. AND EVEN THAT STAGE IS BUT THE NEXT STEP UP THE SPIRAL LADDER OF BEING.
But, for the full and perfect fulfillment of the evolutionary urge, this illumination and change must take up and re-create the whole being, mind, life and body: it must be not only an inner experience of the Divinity, but a remolding of both the inner and outer existence by its power; it must take form not only in the life of the individual but as a collective life of gnostic beings established as a highest power and form of the becoming of the Spirit in the earth-nature.
There can undoubtedly be a spiritual life within, a kingdom of heaven within us which is not dependent on any outer manifestation or instrumentation or formula of external being….
We will return to the Aurobindo excerpt from The Divine Life, but I wish now to pause to take a closer look at two things Aurobindo said above about the role of ‘Time’ in spiritual evolution.
1) Aurobindo said above: “If there is a self-existent Reality of which our existence here is a result, then there must be a truth of that Reality which is manifesting, working itself out, evolving here, and that will be the significance of our own being and life. Whatever that Reality may be, it is something that has taken upon itself the aspect of a becoming in Time….”
2) Aurobindo also said of the role of ‘time’ in spiritual evolution: “If there is a Being that is becoming, a Reality of existence that is unrolling itself in Time… that reality secretly is life’s significance.”
3) Thirdly, Aurobindo said of the role of ‘time’:
It is consciousness and life that must be the keywords to what is being thus worked out in Time.
Although we will, as promised, return to Aurobindo, I will first illuminate just how the above relates to YOU… and to all other living souls. In his book, The Body of Time and The Energies of Being, Bruce Thomas writes:
At any moment there are three basic directions in which I can move my hand in space: I can move it in a line forwards/backwards, left/right or up/down. Even the most complicated and subtle curves can be plotted simply as a combination of movement in these three dimensions of space. Again, I can give any location on earth by specifying three figures: longitude, latitude and height above sea level. Or, if I wanted to meet you somewhere, I would give you the same kind of information: walk ten blocks down High Street, turn left, walk two [blocks] across, go in the building and go up to the fifth floor.
But if I wanted to make certain of meeting you there, then it wouldn’t be enough just to tell you where to go: YOU WOULD ALSO NEED TO KNOW WHAT TIME TO BE THERE [all bold and caps throughout this excerpt were added by Day]. The time that we arrange to meet would be included in the information as a kind of FOURTH DIMENSION….
This book already exists in geometrical space, here in my hands, but it is only through the length of time it takes to read it that the contents are revealed and some sense can be made of them. So too, both in the time it takes me to read this and as I continue to move through my life(not through three-dimensional space but through time) from childhood to old age, from birth to death, I am a being of four dimensions.
All that I experience, each little event and perception that impresses itself on my senses, falls into a natural order. If I look back at the course of my life so far I am looking at a fourth dimensional line taken through time. This line is what mathematician Hermann Minkowski calls a ‘world-line’.
Your current incarnation is a ‘world-line’ that is an extension of a world-line that is inclusive of all of your previous incarnations and will be inclusive of all of your future ones. All other Beings also have their own such lines. These lines, in any present moment, can move into any one of countless potential alternative realities that may be conjured into actualization/manifestation – and thus walked/experienced – depending on the choices you make. Thomas continues:
We know that none of us has the same world-lines: each one takes a different route through the world, and through life, like a different path across a field or like different paths across a sheet of paper. So time opens out into an additional dimension: my own life, and all other lives, follow their own paths across a surface of time. THIS ADDITIONAL DIMENSION in which a world-line is free to change its direction, is THE FIFTH DIMENSION.
OUR CHOICES OF WHERE AND WHEN WE MOVE lie on this sheet, or flatland, of time. A plane in time has five dimensions: the three dimensions of space, plus two dimensions (length and breadth) of Time.
The plane of time allows for the possibility of following another world-line. But not only that: THIS PLAIN OF TIME MUST ALSO, LIKE FLATLAND, BE CONTAINED IN A THIRD DIMENSION OF TIME, just as a sheet of paper is contained in the third dimension of space, such as a room.
THIS CONTAINING-WORLD IS THE SIXTH DIMENSION. It has three dimensions of space plus three dimensions of time.
This SIXTH DIMENSION can, of course, contain any number sheets of time, extending in any and all directions. This absolute whole of solid time contains all actual, and all potential world-lines: all possible pasts, presents and futures. IT CONTAINS EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS, AND ANYTHING THAT COULD EXIST IN ANY PLACE AND AT ANY TIME. WE SOMETIMES CALL THE SIXTH DIMENSION ‘ETERNITY’….
In eternity all things are present, and all things are possible. Our senses allow us to experience only one point on a line that stretches through an inconceivably vast world called the ‘ETERNAL PRESENT’, in which all time – all we call ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ – exists together.
Clearly, above, Thomas’ ‘Sixth Dimension’ that contains “everything that exists, and anything that could exist in any place and at any time” – his ‘ETERNAL PRESENT’ – sounds the same as the Magdalene’s description of ‘ETERNAL NOW’. Both Thomas and Magdalene assert that this ‘Eternal Now’ is the ‘Ultimate Domain’ in that there are no variables – not even potential variables – outside of that domain.
Here is an excerpt from Miriam the Magdalene on the Eternal Now and the fact that it manifests itself as Eternal Duration. This excerpt is from The Hoy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of the Essene Way. The name ‘Miriam’ is the Hebrew version of the Englishized name ‘Mary’.
Miriam on The Eternal Now that Manifests as Eternal Duration
37. A disciple asked Miriam, “What is the relationship between ‘The Eternal Now’ that we all experience every ‘this moment’ and the sort of ‘Time’ that manifests as ‘Unfolding Cycles and Seasons’, even the cycles of day and night, youth and old age, even the birth and death of entire worlds and stars?” 38. Miriam replied, “You spoke a key word when you said ‘Unfolding’. 39. The sort of ‘Time’ you ask about is not different than ‘The Eternal Now’; rather, the relationship is that ‘Time’ is simply the continuing unfoldment of ‘The Eternal Now’.
40. “That ‘Now’ – which is also called ‘Supernal Duration’ or ‘Eternity’ – is an aspect of Yah that existed even prior to ‘The Creative Wish’ that set in motion manifestation via The Divine Plan of Creative Unfoldment Motivated by Supernal Love in Spiritual Evolution.
41. “Love (the Divine Heart of Yah) and Wisdom (the Divine Mind of Yah) are crowned by – and in – Yah; together these three are ‘The Holy Creative Trinity’ that is the Supernal Procreative Power that lives in the unfolding Now even while spiraling as ‘The Great Dance of Cycles and Seasons’ that is ‘The Inhale/Exhale of Universal YHWH’.
42. “The Divine Plan is the plan of ‘Universal Unfoldment’, and that unfoldment can also be called ‘Spiritual Evolution’. 43. The reason this is an ‘unfoldment’ of Yah throughout Now (Eternal Duration) is that everything that has ever come – or ever will come – into manifestation was originally latent within the aspect of Yah that we call Ain Sof, including even the Divine Plan. 44. Ain Sof is the Cauldron of Potential within Yah that everything that will become manifested must first step out of, that step being an extension from Unmanifest Potential into Creative Manifestation. 45. All of it – the unmanifest and the manifest – are within Yah, and even the Eternal Duration of Universal Unfoldment always experiences itself in the Eternal Now of Yah.
46. “In the light of all that I have just said, you can clearly see that, in the term ‘Eternal Now’, the word ‘Eternal’ is every bit as important as the word ‘Now’.
47. “In brief, the answer to your question is that the relationship between ‘The Eternal Now’ and ‘Time’ is that ‘Time’ (the ‘Cycles and Seasons’) is a characteristic – an inherent quality – of ‘The Eternal Now.’”
Above, Miriam linked the topic of ‘Now’ to that of ‘Spiritual Evolution’. One of the best modern era writers on spiritual evolution is Barbara Marx Hubbard. In her classic book, Conscious Evolution, in a chapter titled The Evolutionary Spiral, she writes:
To understand our new story, we must look at our past as a movie of creation, a photogenesis, accelerated in time. It can best be visualized as an evolutionary spiral unfolding as one continuous process of transformation… and now to us, going around the next turn of the spiral….
This story is not outside ourselves. It is within…. The experience of generations of existence lies in our genes…. We are the universe in person….
The new story begins in the Great Emptiness, the void, the field of all possibilities – – the mind of God. Approximately 15 billion years ago, out of no thing at all, in one quantum instant appeared everything that potentially is. The spark of life that animates each of us was lit at the dawn of creation. In those first 3 seconds after the original “flaring forth”, as cosmologist Brian Swimme called it in The Universe Story, the precise design was established that led to matter, life, self-reflective consciousness, and, now, our awakening to the world process of creation….
Quick comment: In Nasarean terms that ‘precise design’ that existed prior to the physical manifestation of the countless potentialities is called The Divine Plan.
Barbara Marx Hubbard continues:
We can see our spiral as one continuous process of transformation. Each turning point on the spiral represents a breakthrough in consciousness and freedom. We can see the appearance of the great religions when sensitive humans were touched by the fire of the Spirit at the core of the spiral, coming in contact directly with the designing intelligence running through the whole process. We see the core of the spiral as Spirit in action, the unmanifest in form, pressing each being to fulfill its potential and now breaking through in the minds of millions of humans, ready to more fully express Spirit in action in our own lives….
Let’s ask ourselves this key question: What is the significance of the next turn on the spiral? What is happening to us now? ….
We seek now to fulfill our vast and yet untapped potential as individuals and as a species capable of conscious evolution…. We may have entered what Peter Russell called a phase of “super-exponential growth”, leading to a chain reaction… to a higher level of consciousness.” He wrote in The White Hole in Time:
‘Could it be that in much the same way as the destiny of matter in a sufficiently massive star is to become a black hole in space, the destiny of a self-conscious species – should it be sufficiently full of love – is a “spiritual supernova?” Is this what we are accelerating toward? A moment when the light of inner awakening radiates throughout the whole. A white hole in time?’
In his book Living Time, Maurice Nicoll writes:
According to Ouspensky, the three dimensions of time enter into every moment. If we picture a straight line along which past, present, and future lie, this is the line of the fourth dimension. At right angles to this line is the fifth dimension and the perpetual existence of every moment is established by this dimension….
The circle of life can now be turned into a spiral. ‘The fifth dimension is movement of the circle, repetition, recurrence…. If we imagine that one end of the curve rises from the surface, we visualize the third dimension of time, or the sixth dimension of space. The line of time becomes a spiral.’
The figure of the spiral, Ouspensky observes, ‘is… an approximation to the spiral of time. It is merely its possible geometrical representation. The actual spiral of time is not analogous to any of the lines we know, for it branches off at every point.And as there can be many possibilities in every moment, so there can be many branches at every point….
Notice that once again we have come across that very special word: SPIRAL.
Nicoll continues:
A figure of three-dimensional time will appear to us in the form of a complicated structure consisting of radii diverging from every moment of time…. All these radii, taken together, form the three-dimensional continuum of time. This represents every possibility. If we could experience, follow, be conscious in every one of these radii, we would realize ‘every possibility’…. We may in our dreams sometimes glimpse possibilities that belong to the moment, the directions of other branches of radii that exist but which we do not follow – this time.
All these radii, or lines of possibilities branching from every moment, form a three-dimensional continuum which Ouspensky calls the time-solid….
Nicoll explains that some souls make choices that result in unfavorable falls in spiritual evolution. Their world-lines may descend while the world-lines of other souls spiral upward in spiritual ascension.
Ouspensky describes… other types or forms of recurrence…. descending and ascending… The second group descending is composed of those whose lives are descending in recurrence. ‘With each new life they “fall” more and more easily, offer less and less resistance. Their vital force gradually weakens….’
…. The whole tendency of the accumulated past presses them down. Try as one will to help them, they slip beyond one’s reach….
The Third group is that composed of people whose lives are ascending…. An ascending life connotes inward changes…. Ouspensky gives us two images to assist thought about change in recurrence – the spiral and the branching off of lines at every point of the spiral. Some of these branches or lines must be on the same level as the life itself, some must rise above the life and some below it…. If the life changes for the worse, it must follow the descending branches and so becomes a descending spiral, and vice versa.
The ‘vice versa’ here means that if we follow the ascending branches of possibilities in any given moment, we choose an ascending spiral.
If it [Day: your life] follows branches on the same level [Day: rather than stumbling down to lower levels or ascending up to higher rungs of the Spiral Ladder of Being] it must remain the same quality [Day: of life] although with variations.
At every moment of the life these branches [Day: possible directions based on our choices] enter and I think that we have to conceive of the life as… simultaneously following several different directions from which a resultant direction arises. As a result, the life either evolves or degenerates….
The ‘alternative futures’ you might experience obviously relate to your ‘future incarnations’.
We return to Bruce Thomas’ book, The Body of Time and the Energies of Being:
With a little imagination we can almost see the trails we have left behind us (like the lines of light left behind by cars on a time-lapse photograph taken at night).
No two world-lines are the same. We each meet our own events and experiences, though we continually meet with and cross the world-lines of others while some world-lines can run closely beside each other….
Just as my sense of the outside world becomes linked to the sense of passing-time, so my psychology, my sense of myself and my own inner world, is also linked to the sense of passing-time. Around me there is a stream of ever-changing events and situations just as inside me there is a stream of sensations, thoughts and feelings….
That, dear readers, includes the feeling of JOY. That point is well made in the following excerpt fromanother great writer on the topic of evolution, Tomotom Stiftung (1911-2001), a German philosopher who, in his writings, went by just his first name: Tomotom. In his book, PRO-EVO: Pro Evolution: Guideline for an Age of Joy, Tomotom writes:
Many revelations throughout the ages have illuminated a primary cause of evolution: Chinese philosophers already had, 5,000 years ago, mentioned a primary cause – the Tao – whereby the Prime Force (Zero) was activated and kept going. Zero and One are the basis of the binary numbering system known in China for thousands of years, with which the world with all its forms and happenings can be comprehended mathematically.
A quick pause to quote a related passage from the Chinese Taoist book, Tao Te Ching:
The Way (Tao) begot One, then the One begot Two; then the Two begot Three, and three begat all else. – Lao Tzu
Back to Tomotom:
This primary cause of evolution, the evolution-drive, can be imagined, for example, as an infinitely fine high-frequency vibration constantly operating in the same direction in all energy particles and therefore also in the cells of our bodies….
Through this “influencing”, energy-forms constantly receive vast numbers of “impressions”, bits of information. These are stored by energy-forms insofar as they can. The ability to receive them and the accuracy of the storage grow with the increasing complexity of the energy-forms….
Energy is the building material of the universe. All its known forms are continuously changing. Yet the energy – the Prime Force – is wholly preserved; only its structures and state of motion change. All energy forms – including man – are evolutionary transitions to other forms. The purpose of the changing energy forms, and therefore also the meaning and purpose of man’s existence, is to be a transition and step in the course of evolution….
Cosmic evolution, from the simplest to ever more complex and conscious energy forms, is the cause of our existence; it is the constructive, positive, the fundamental “good”. Whatever is directed against cosmic evolution – whatever works against it – is the obstructive, negative, the “bad”, “evil”.
A person’s thoughts and actions that further his own evolution and that of his environment are in tune with cosmic evolution, work in the same direction; they are pro-evolution. A person’s thoughts and actions that impair his own evolution and that of his environment work against – obstruct – cosmic evolution; they are anti-evolution…. Pro-evolution-ness is the object and unfailing measure for judging the rightness and worth of the behavior of energy forms; it is therefore also the absolutely certain ethical standard: right, good, sensible, valuable, is that which promotes evolution – that which is pro-evolution; wrong, bad, evil, senseless, is that which impairs evolution – that which is anti-evolution….
Now Tomtom relates pro-evolution thoughts and actions to our main topic: JOY.
Pro-evo thoughts and actions produce joy and well-being; anti-evo thoughts and actions cause unhappiness and harm. A person’s pro-evo thoughts and actions further him and his environment. They are in accord with cosmic evolution – the stream of life in and around him. Through this correspondence there arises in him a harmonious “field” that releases in him the feeling of true joy – inner lightness and happiness; and his life, in interaction with his environment, unfolds in the best possible way.
The pro-evo thinking and acting person is happy, relaxed and well balanced. His existence is in harmony with the universe. Anti-evo thoughts and actions of a person damage his own evolution and that of his environment. They are not in correspondence with the evolution-trend of the cosmos.
Tomotom is about to inform us how we can know that we have slipped into anti-evo behavior:
When we are without joy, unhappy or morose, in a bad mood, irritable, restless or discontented, then our behavior has in some way not been pro-evo. We should immediately re-evaluate our goals, tasks and modes of behavior: give up the anti-evo ones we find and replace them with pro-evo ones, so that we can be filled with joy and our life unfold in the best possible way…. Several times a day we should test whether our thoughts and actions are pro-evo. If they are not, we should correct them right away. And harmony and joy will fill us again….
As previously promised, we will (in the next chapter) return to Bruce Thomas’ book The Body of Time and the Energies of Being. But first I want to comment on his previous linking of our ‘choices’ with our life experiences on our individual world-line. In those words, Thomas linked our power to choose between one ‘direction’ or another with that of choosing/conjuring ALTERNATIVE REALITIES. I refer to this previously quoted passage:
We know that none of us has the same world-lines: each one takes a different route through the world, and through life, like a different path across a field or like different paths across a sheet of paper. So time opens out into an additional dimension: my own life, and all other lives, follow their own paths across a surface of time. THIS ADDITIONAL DIMENSION in which a world-line is free to change its direction, is THE FIFTH DIMENSION. OUR CHOICES OF WHERE AND WHEN WE MOVE lie on this sheet, or flatland, of time.
CHOICES EXIST IN ANY MOMENT OF YOUR PRESENT LIFE-LINE. While some choices are simply practical in nature – what clothes to put on, what to eat for lunch, whether to answer an incoming phone call or to instead let the caller leave a message – other choices are potentially profoundly life-changing: a choice of career, a choice of marriage partner, a choice of life-style, a choice of spiritual path, a choice in regard to a lower-level temptation to abandon a higher-level practice… and so on.
Even our simple, practical choices all add up and can dramatically affect the quality of our life experience, and that is even more so true of major life-decisions. THANK GOODNESS WE CAN ALWAYS MAKE A GOOD NEW DECISION IN THE PRESENT MOMENT TO ALTER THE KARMIC CONSEQUENCES OF PREVIOUS BAD DECISIONS. We can choose to change our career path;we can choose to end a bad marriage; we can choose to become a dedicated yogi/wizard of a wonderful spiritual path – even if we had previously chosen lower practices on The Spiral Ladder of Being.
Previously I shared a long excerpt from The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of the Essene Way in which Yahshua shared his teachings on ‘Monads’ (‘Souls’). In the midst of that long excerpt on Souls was a brief reference to ‘World-Lines.’ Because we were not yet discussing ‘World-Lines’ at that point, I did not comment on that reference. I will share that reference below and end this Chapter Four with a brief comment on it.
113. “But few philosophers, even amongst the wise Pythagoreans, realize that each ‘Point’ – each Monad, each Soul – is literally a ‘Point of View’. 114. We are all Points of View, and we each have a particular perspective.
115. “The Universal One can simultaneously see through the eyes of every Point of View. 116. And every Point of View has the freedom to change its perspective according to its own Self-Development in Spiritual Evolution….
118. “As each Point evolves by stepping into actuality as a Line, each Point then manifests its own World-Line – its own eternally unfolding personal history – and each Line, even as it evolves throughout duration and changes its perspective, always is a Point of View that is itself being viewed by the Universal One…
121. “Even the Universal Monad continues to evolve as it continues to receive and process the lessons of every evolving Individual Point of View. 122.The eternal journey of any particular Individual Point – Individual Monad – is that point’s personal ‘World-Line’. 123. Each Individual World-Line, in motion through the universe, is actually a ‘Life-Spiral’, one Life-Spiral of countless Life-Spirals on the Spiral Ladder of Spiritual Evolution.
We see above than not only was Yahshua aware of ‘World-Lines’ before modern mathematicians, but also – in the last verse above – used language that I consider to be a reference to what modern physicists call ‘String Theory’. I will explain.
One school of thought in modern physics proposes that the very smallest ‘particles’ are tiny ‘strings’. Thus, the term ‘String Theory’. However, when you read books on that topic – I have read several – you learn that what they call ‘strings’ are not straight strings; they are tiny ‘whirls’, tiny ‘spirals’. I believe that is what Yahshua is referring to in verse 123 as ‘Life-Spirals’.
Yes, the Lord Christ was ahead of his time! But that should not surprise us; after all, he invented time!
Excerpt From Chapter Six:
Yahshua’s Sermon on Joy Yoga
I now deem the reader to be purrrfectly prepared to read Yahshua’s remarks on Essene Joy Yoga. This ‘mini-sermon’ on Joy Yoga is one segment of his full sermon titled, Introduction to Essene Yoga. In that full sermon, Yahshua provides remarks on each of The Fourteen Primary Yoga Practices of Essene Yoga, one of the fourteen being Joy Yoga.
Since pretty-much everyone wants to BE HAPPY, it makes great sense to study how to be happy in the most healthful, holistic, and long-lasting way you can find.
I am going to show you the Essene Way to holistic happiness. I will begin by sharing Yahshua’s description of Joy Yoga given in Chapter Sixty-One of The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of the Essene Way. After providing the mini-sermon in its entirety, I will share some comments.
On the topic of Joy Yoga, Yahshua said:
789. “Yihud im Simchah [Union with Joy] is called Joy Yoga. 790. Joy is the fruit of a well-lived life that results in a relatively high-degree – relative to other human beings of your era – of Bliss Consciousness. 791. The goal of Joy Yoga is, as the term declares, Union with Joy. 792. The various practices of Joy Yoga are the various means by which Nasarean yogis seek to experience Union with Joy. 793. I will name several such practices, but first want to remind you of the last word spoken by the Nasarean woman, Simchah, at the time of her ascension unto Elkush: PLAY! 794. Her last word was intended as her final teaching on Joy Yoga before ascending to become the Chief Messenger Angel of Joy. 795. Like Simchah who became Angel Simchah’el, Beten-Jahlah and I emphasize the importance of various forms of ‘play’.
796. “In a world where the ‘Group Consciousness’ includes violent warfare and abundant murder and mayhem – such as in this ‘Contested World’ – it is far more challenging to remain joyful than when you reside in a higher heaven where the vibrations are far more harmonious. 797. Yea, I tell you truly, to find joy amidst a violent Group Consciousness is not easy, and even the Lord and Lady have shed tears at the human folly that leads to so much pain and discord in this world. 798. The key to experiencing joy even amidst a violent world is to view everything within the scope of spiritual evolution and the belief in the Ultimate Universal Salvation of all Beings that will bring Ultimate Joy to Universal YHWH, the All. 799. That way, all the sad things that you see can be viewed as heading for eventual healing and salvation and can thus be incorporated into an attitude of peaceful joy regardless of outer circumstances. 800. “In light of the above, I hereby spontaneously invent a new practice within Joy Yoga. 801. It is as follows. 802. Sitting comfortably with erect spine, deeply contemplate the significance of the fact that Simchah’s final word was ‘Play!’ 803. Then contemplate the various things that you have discovered that most seem to fill you with joy, including – but not limited to – various forms of play. 804. Then ask yourself: ‘Have I been playing enough lately?’ 805. And: ‘Have I been doing enough of these things that fill me with joy?’ 806. Even if you have been playing enough, see if you can think of ways to play even nicer, even fairer, ever-more joyfully in daily life circumstances, come what may.
807. “Another practice that I have developed for Joy Yoga I call, ‘The Art of Happiness’. 808. This is an example of how Wisdom Yoga is also a sub-yoga within Joy Yoga. 809. It is an example of Wisdom Yoga because it involves conducting a life-long study of ‘The Art of Happiness’. 810. Keep a journal of your ongoing observations; feel free to change your mind as your understanding of ‘The Art of Happiness’ increases. 811. Incorporate what you learn into your practice of Joy Yoga.
812. “Another practice of Joy Yoga – this one developed by Beten-Jahlah – is called ‘The Fourfold Joy Contemplation’. 813. This is the practice of CH_6. 814. Those are the four bodies represented by the four levels of The Essene Pyramid: 1) The Most Physical Body called ‘Etsem’; 2) The Subtle Emotional Body called ‘The Feeling Body’; 3) ‘The Subtle Thinking Body’ that is especially related to the Sixth Chakra; and, 4) The ‘Soul’ that we call ‘The Spiritual Body’. 815. You make ‘fourfold joy’ – joy in each of those four bodies – an object of contemplation.
816. “A related practice to the one just given is as follows.
817. Make it a daily practice to also cultivate – not only contemplate – Fourfold Joy.
818. “Here is The First Key Precept of Joy Yoga: ‘There is no lasting joy without forgiveness of self and others.’
819. “Here is The Second Key Precept of Joy Yoga: ‘The most joyful hearts are the most forgiving hearts.’
820. “Here is The Third Key Precept of Joy Yoga: ‘Joyfulness and resentment cannot occur simultaneously in the same person; thus, ‘The Art of Joyfulness’ includes ‘The Art of Forgiveness’.
821. “Working with – perhaps I should say ‘playing with’ – The Three Key Precepts of Joy just given is a great practice for Joy Yoga.
822. “Here is an assignment: Think up a good Joy Yoga practice of your own and practice it!”
Day’s Commentary On Yahshua’s Sermon on Essene Joy Yoga
I will comment on several excerpts from the above mini-sermon by Yahshua on Essene Joy Yoga. In verses 790 and 791, Yahshua reinforces our previous linkage of ‘Joy’ with ‘Ananda/Bliss Consciousness’ and then declares THE GOAL OF ESSENE YOGA:
790. “Joy is the fruit of a well-lived life that results in a relatively high-degree – relative to other human beings of your era – of Bliss Consciousness. 791. The goal of Joy Yoga is, as the term declares, Union with Joy.”
Notice that Yahshua asserts in verse 790 that Joy is aFRUIT OF A WELL-LIVED LIFE. In other words, as this article has emphasized, YOUR DEGREE OF JOY IN LIFE IS LINKED TO YOUR KARMA AND YOUR LEVEL OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION. The goal of all humans – and especially spiritually oriented persons such as Essene Yogis – should be to have a well-lived life.
Truly, a well-lived life is one of Inner Joy even amidst the challenges of life, even in the midst of the travails associated with a Group Consciousness manifestation that, to put it mildly, is more than a little unenlightened. War and mayhem is part of the Group Consciousness experience of the human species at this stage of its evolution. It is not easy to maintain a high degree of inner joy amidst violence and discordant vibrations in a shared group environment that includes millions of humans that are not living, quote: “well-lived lives”. In the following verses Yahshua acknowledged what a big challenge it is to maintain personal joy in the midst of planetary war and mayhem:
796. “In a world where the ‘Group Consciousness’ includes violent warfare and abundant murder and mayhem – such as in this ‘Contested World’ – it is far more challenging to remain joyful than when you reside in a higher heaven where the vibrations are far more harmonious. 797. Yea, I tell you truly, to find joy amidst a violent Group Consciousness is not easy, and even the Lord and Lady have shed tears at the human folly that leads to so much pain and discord in this world. 798. The key to experiencing joy even amidst a violent world is to view everything within the scope of spiritual evolution and the belief in the Ultimate Universal Salvation of all Beings that will bring Ultimate Joy to Universal YHWH, the All. 799. That way, all the sad things that you see can be viewed as heading for eventual healing and salvation and can thus be incorporated into an attitude of peaceful joy regardless of outer circumstances.”
Above, Yahshua gave the ‘KEY’ to experiencing joy even amidst a violent world. That key, he said, is: TO VIEW EVERYTHING AS BEING WITHIN THE SCOPE OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION AND TO BELIEVE THAT THIS WILL “ULTIMATELY” LEAD TO ALL SOULS EXPERIENCING SALVATION.
Why would that key unlock the experience of INNER JOY even on a violent planet? Because: if we interpret everything that is ‘bad’ and ‘painful’ as being within the context of an ultimately victorious form of spiritual evolution that eventually – ‘ultimately’ through long duration of Eternal Now – results in universal salvation of all Beings, those ‘sad-bad’ things are recognized as temporary ‘owies’ that will eventually be raised up to heavenly SAT-CHIT-ANANDA. That realization enables us, IF WE ARE ‘LIVING A WELL-LIVED LIFE’, to know that everything will eventually come out okay.
That belief is well-expressed in the lyrics of that song written by my friend, Omni, that I shared in full earlier and now provide a pertinent potion of:
Trusting, trusting, all the time we are trusting; Trusting, trusting, all the time we are trusting; ….
Trusting THE WORLD to be all right; Trusting THE WORLD to come out OK; Trusting THE WORLD to be free….
Trusting THE FUTURE to be all right; Trusting THE FUTURE to come out OK; Trusting THE FUTURE to be free…
Trusting OUR LOVE to be all right; Trusting OUR LOVE to come out OK; Trusting OUR LOVE to be free….
Those that trust and truly believe in the ultimate victory of love and goodness throughout the universe via spiritual evolution can be counted amongst the ‘positive ones’, the ‘happy campers’ known as ‘Those who see the Proverbial Cup as Half Full.’ ☺
Some people and some religions do not believe in the sort of Universal Salvation that Yahshua and Nasarean Cosmology joyfully affirms. Understandably, when they look around themselves, they see little evidence that such a violent world can eventually become heavenly, or that demonic-acting people are going to experience eventual salvation. The key to this ‘hard thing to believe’ – but ‘greatest thing to hope for – is the victorious nature of spiritual evolution in Sat-Chit-Ananda, the fundamental reality of ALL THAT IS.’
I never tire of sharing the following amazing verses from the Nasarean Emerald Tablet Scrolls (a section of The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of The Essene Way) on the topic of Universal Salvation and its link to Victorious Spiritual Evolution. The speaker is the Nasarean Green Wizard, Hermon:
45. Universal Salvation must by definition be unlimited. 46. Eventual Universal Salvation is The Great Hope Of The Ascending Spiral Of Being. 47. Because the All is still unfolding, and due to ill choices by many Beings, many Beings suffer in hell-pits of their own creation; thus, the eyes of limited wisdoms see no evidence for the Universal Salvation of All Beings and mock the idea.
48. Even so, due to the fact that the Nod of Wisdom to Love is the Highest Wisdom that is exterior to every limited wisdom, the Ultimate Victory of Universal Love is not only assured but is acknowledged – by the wise – as always present and most present.
49. To make that acknowledgment is to acknowledge the Ultimate Victory of Supernal Love as the Universal Archetype of Victory, the most unlimited form of Victory and thus the Highest Victory, the only form of victory that delivers Ultimate Universal Salvation to all Beings.
50. All of the limited wisdoms can be transformed by the Highest Wisdom that is the Nod of Wisdom to Universal Love.
51. The Compassionate Mercy of Unlimited Love is the Christ Child that is born in the manger of every willing soul, the ‘nod’ being the ‘seed’ that impregnates Love so as to birth Sparks of Love-Wisdom, resulting in the eternal expansion of Wisdom in Love. 52. For, Love is not without Wisdom. 53. Rather, Love is impregnated by Wisdom. 54. The Perpetual Expansion of Love is the Most Unlimited Love, and the Highest Truth could not be otherwise….
Having begun my commentary on Yahshua’s mini-sermon on Essene Joy Yoga by looking at his stated ‘goal’ and the related ‘cosmological theory’ behind it, I will focus on THE PRACTICES. Yahshua lists a number of JOY YOGA PRACTICES. He introduces the first one with the following general introduction to the topic of ‘practices’:
792. “The various practices of Joy Yoga are the various means by which Nasarean yogis seek to experience Union with Joy.
793. I will name several such practices, but first want to remind you of the last word spoken by the Nasarean woman, Simchah, at the time of her ascension unto Elkush: PLAY!
794. Her last word was intended as her final teaching on Joy Yoga before ascending to become the Chief Messenger Angel of Joy.
795. Like Simchah who became Angel Simchah’el, Beten-Jahlah and I emphasize the importance of various forms of ‘play’.”
Yahshua’s First Joy Yoga Practice: A Meditational Exercise on the Topic of Joyful Play in Our Own Lives
Yahshua then turns the topic of Simchah and her last word ‘PLAY’ into a Joy Yoga Practice:
800. “In light of the above, I hereby spontaneously invent a new practice within Joy Yoga. 801. It is as follows. 802. Sitting comfortably with erect spine, deeply contemplate the significance of the fact that Simchah’s final word was ‘Play!’ 803. Then contemplate the various things that you have discovered that most seem to fill you with joy, including – but not limited to – various forms of play. 804. Then ask yourself: ‘Have I been playing enough lately?’ 805. And: ‘Have I been doing enough of these things that fill me with joy?’ 806. Even if you have been playing enough, see if you can think of ways to play even nicer, even fairer, ever-more joyfully in daily life circumstances, come what may.”
Yahshua’s Second Joy Yoga Practice: Conduct a Life-Long Study (starting ‘now’)On The Art of Happiness Including the Keeping of a Journal on the Topic And the Incorporation of What You LearnInto Your Daily Life Practices
After giving the above First Practice of Joy Yoga, Yahshua gives a second one that features a beautiful term: ‘The Art of Happiness.’ Yahshua said:
807. “Another practice that I have developed for Joy Yoga I call, ‘The Art of Happiness’. 808. This is an example of how Wisdom Yoga is also a sub-yoga within Joy Yoga. 809. It is an example of Wisdom Yoga because it involves conducting a life-long study of ‘The Art of Happiness’. 810. Keep a journal of your ongoing observations; feel free to change your mind as your understanding of ‘The Art of Happiness’ increases. 811. Incorporate what you learn into your practice of Joy Yoga.”
Yahshua’s Third Joy Yoga Practice: ‘Fourfold Joy Contemplation’
812. “Another practice of Joy Yoga – this one developed by Beten-Jahlah – is called ‘The Fourfold Joy Contemplation’. 813. This is the practice of contemplating joy in each of ‘The Four Bodies of the Human Being’ as you move through daily life. 814. Those are the four bodies represented by the four levels of The Essene Pyramid: 1) The Most Physical Body called ‘Etsem’; 2) The Subtle Emotional Body called ‘The Feeling Body’; 3) ‘The Subtle Thinking Body’ that is especially related to the Sixth Chakra; and, 4) The ‘Soul’ that we call ‘The Spiritual Body’. 815. “You make ‘fourfold joy’ – joy in each of those four bodies – an object of contemplation.”
Yahshua’s Fourth Joy Yoga Practice: ‘A Variation on Fourfold Joy Contemplation ’
Yahshua’s Fourth Joy Yoga Practice is a variation on the third; we read:
816. “A related practice to the one just given is as follows. 817. Make it a daily practice to also cultivate – not only contemplate – Fourfold Joy.”
Yahshua Gives ‘The Three Precepts of Joy Yoga’Including Several Practices and An Assignment
Having given the above four Essene Joy Yoga Practices, Yahshua then gives what he calls, ‘The Three Precepts of Joy Yoga’; please notice that each one is linked to THE PRACTICE OF FORGIVENESS IN JOY YOGA.
818. “Here is The First Key Precept of Joy Yoga: ‘There is no lasting joy without forgiveness of self and others.’
819. “Here is The Second Key Precept of Joy Yoga: ‘The most joyful hearts are the most forgiving hearts.’
820. “Here is The Third Key Precept of Joy Yoga: ‘Joyfulness and resentment cannot occur simultaneously in the same person; thus, ‘The Art of Joyfulness’ includes ‘The Art of Forgiveness’.
821. “Working with – perhaps I should say ‘playing with’ – The Three Key Precepts of Joy just given is a great practice for Joy Yoga.
822. “Here is an assignment: Think up a good Joy Yoga practice of your own and practice it!”
You were just given an assignment from the Lord Christ; here it is again boldfaced:
822. “Here is an assignment: Think up a good Joy Yoga practice of your own and practice it!”
In verses 818 through 821 above – the verses that preceded the above assignment of the Lord, each of those three verses are linked with forgiveness. This is the purrrfect moment to share a beautiful excerpt on the topic of the Joy of Forgiveness. It is from a book titled, The Greatest Forgiveness. The author, Dr. Zhi Gang Sha, writes:
Unconditional forgiveness, which is greatest forgiveness, can transform negative soul records beyond comprehension. It is the number one way to self-clear and self- transform all kinds of negative shen qi jing, which can block us in every aspect of life.
Negative soul records are the root cause for all challenges in health, relationships, finances, business, and every aspect of life. Therefore, to transform all your life challenges is to remove the root cause, which can be done through unconditional forgiveness.
Sincere forgiveness practice offered unconditionally can transform all life because it can transform the root causes of all challenges. Therefore, forgiveness is the key to transform all life.
Forgiveness brings inner joy and inner peace.
Every single time I do forgiveness practice, even for a few minutes, I feel a shift. Many times, I notice that not only do I feel lighter, the physical space around me also feels more spacious, as though obstacles around me have been removed.
In fact, I know deeply in my heart that obstacles have been removed. Negativity has transformed to positivity. Since forgiveness has become an integral part of my daily life, I know what true freedom, joy, and peace are.
Other Joy Yoga Teachings and Practices Given by Yahshua in Other Parts of the Megillah
Besides the information on Yahshua’s Essene Joy Yoga that we got in the ‘mini-sermon’ I just shared and commented on, there are other significant sayings of the Lord related to this topic in other parts of the Megillah. A number of additional Essene Joy Yoga practices are included in those sayings including the Communion with the Tree of Life Root of Joy and the linked Joy Mantras and Contemplations.
Since I am going to give part of Yahshua’s description of the Chief Messenger Angel of Joy, Simchah’el, let us precede that with the very earliest Megillah account of the Nasarean woman Simchah’s deathless ascension to become Angel Simcha’el. Sure, you already know her famous last word – ‘Play!’ – but now you get the proverbial ‘rest of the story’.
In the Nasarean Book of Genesis section of the Megillah, we read the following account.
25. Adam and Eve’s seventh child, a joyful daughter named Simchah, made people happy just by her presence. 26. She loved to laugh and dance, and she found joy in even mundane tasks. 27. Behold: when Simchah walked into a room, people felt joy within themselves, and it seemed that the room grew lighter. 28. And when the great workers of the Nasareans looked as though they needed recreation, Simchah organized playful events. 29. And when she grew old, her favorite thing was to play with the children. 30. Yea, and though old, she still took great joy in dancing, wherefore the people of Kush began to call her Old Woman Dancer. 31. Others called her, The Old Laughing Woman. 32. But the Nasareans always called her by her name: Simchah. 33. For Simchah means Joy, and all her life she was the epitome of Joy. 34. Behold: she was so joyful that she did not die, but ascended into heaven. 35. Yea, and that was in this manner: Laughing from the depth of her soul, she began to dance. 36. Lo, she spun and whirled like a youngster, then leaped into the air. 37. But, behold: she did not return to the ground! 38. Simchah levitated above the crowd, then, glowing brightly as she became a Cherubah, spoke one word before ascending to Elkush: “PLAY!” 39. She was 343 years of age when she ascended without dying. 40. And she now serves as the Angel of Joy of the Tree of Life for this world. 41. And her Cherubah name is Simchah’el.
Yahshua gives us both a long version and a short version of the Words of Communion with the Essene Tree of Life Root of Joy that is linked to Simchah’el. The long version – it is only a little bit longer – is as follows:
98. “On the morning of the third day after Sabbath, commune with Malak ha Simchah, the Angel of Joy. 99. Speak these words: ‘Angel of Joy, open my eyes to the beauty that surrounds me! 100. Fill me with Joy, that I may bring Joy to others! 101. May all Beings dance to your song!’
Here is the somewhat shorter variation of the Words of Communion with the Angel of Joy. We begin with Yahshua’s introduction to the shorter versions of all the Communions in which he also gives us permission to compose our own Words of Communion for Joy:
874. “Now, as promised, I will provide a shortform version of the Daberim Ha Yihud, the Words of Union called ‘Communions’. 875. Either version, long or short-form, is good to use, and you may compose your own versions as long as they are good, prayerful words that prepare one to enter ‘Communion’ with a particular branch or root force of the Essene Tree of Life.”
876. Yahshua said, “Receive now a gift: My ‘short-form’ of the Daberim Ha Yihud, the ‘Words of Union’ (‘Communions’)….
Skipping some verses we pick up where Yahshua gives the shorter Words of Communion for Joy:
889. “On the morning of the third day after Sabbath, commune with the Tree of Life Root Force of Joy. 890. Inwardly, ask the Angel of Joy to guide you into greater communion with that force; for, lo: that is a chief purpose of that Chief Angel. 891. Then speak these words out loud: ‘I am filled with Joy and share it joyously!’”
In Godspell Chapter 62 of the Megillah, Yahshua gives us the Symbol of Contemplation linked to The Communion with the Angel of Joy; you contemplate the symbol at any chosen point just before or after reciting your Communion Words, most typically after:
390. “The Symbol for Contemplation of The Root Force of Joy is: An Illustration of a Smiling Face.”
My readers now realize – some of you likely already had – that the symbol I use so often in my writings – the ‘smiley face’ ☺ – is the Symbol of Contemplation of the Tree of Life Root Force of Joy! I use the simple version of the ‘smiley face’ that my keyboard can easily provide, but here is a VERY BEAUTIFUL VERSION DONE BY PRIESTESS TERESE:
Having given the Symbol of Contemplation for the Essene Tree of Life Root Force of Joy, Yahshua describes the sort of Joy that he is referring to:
391. “This being a root force of Mother Earth, we are speaking of the forms of Joy related to natural planetary life as a human being. 392. This is the kind of Joy that is referred to in the name of this Second Root Force Triad: The Harvest Of Joy In Planetary Life Triad. 393. This kind of Joy is only experienced by those that first plant the Seeds of Joy that correspond to this sort of harvest.”
Shortly I will describe in detail what Yahshua is referring to in verse 392 above as ‘The Harvest of Joy in Planetary Life Triad’. For now, suffice to say that he is referring to JOY THAT CAN BE EXPERIENCED HERE AND NOW ON PLANET EARTH WHILE IN THE FORM OF A HUMAN BEING.
After the Symbol of Contemplation for Joy, Yahshua gave what he called ‘The Concept for Contemplation of the Root Force of Joy’; you contemplate it in conjunction with the Communion Words and Symbol Contemplation, either before or after the Symbol is okay. Yahshua said:
394. “The Concept for Contemplation of The Root Force of Joy is: Joyfully Sharing Joy.”
Having recited your Communion Words, Contemplated the Symbol for Joy, and, also having Contemplated the phrase ‘Joyfully Sharing Joy’, those that have been initiated into the practice recite the ‘Sound of Power’ for Joy; anyone that has read this far deserves to chant it; you were initiated by my appreciation for your diligence in studentship!
Here it is:
Ahhh-Khah-Lah-Lah
Here is just a portion of Yahshua’s remarks on Simchah, the human woman that ascended to become the Chief Messenger Angel of Joy:
395. “The Chief Messenger Angel of The Root Force of Joy is: Simchah’el. 396. In Mattanah, we read the following. 397. ‘Adam and Eve’s seventh child, a joyful daughter named Simchah, made people happy just by her presence. 398. She loved to laugh and dance, and she found joy in even mundane tasks. 399. Behold: when Simchah walked into a room, people felt joy within themselves, and it seemed that the room grew lighter.’”
In regard to the phrase ‘She loved to laugh’, here is an excerpt from a book titled, Laughter Yoga: Daily Practices for Health and Happiness. The author, Madan Kataria, M.D., writes:
One of the reasons the frequency of daily laughter is declining is because laughter has been left to chance. We cannot be passive spectators waiting for something to make us laugh. We need to make a commitment and be actively involved in bringing more laughter and joy in our lives….
Everyone has a choice. If you choose to be sad, nobody can stop you; if you choose to laugh, no one can stop that either. … The decision to glide through trying times with a smile or laugh is entirely your choice. So why not decide to laugh?
The core teachings of laughter yoga are: know laughter, do laughter and be laughter. Try it and see the difference for yourself.
Know Laughter. In order to bring more laughter into your life, be aware of its benefits. Ongoing scientific studies… have proved that laughter has a profound effect on the body and mind. Not only does it help to prevent illnesses, but it can also contribute toward healing chronic diseases: both physical and mental. Understanding the benefits of laughter will motivate you to get involved in laughter yoga exercises.
Do Laughter. Knowledge alone is not enough; you have to practice laughter to experience the benefits…. My advice is: believe in laughter, believe in its healing value, and believe that it can change your life. Then go ahead and do it.
Be Laughter. This is the ultimate stage of laughter, which teaches you how to actually live it. It is when you can take laughter with you wherever you go. Laughter should reflect from your ever-smiling face. It should become evident from your words, behavior and attitude. You should not only laugh during good times, but also keep your spirits high through challenging times. This can happen only by consistently practicing laughter yoga and making it an integral part of your life.
The Power of Giving Laughter. Laughter is a sign of life. It creates happiness. It helps people cope with grief, aids creativity, and eliminates boundaries. It makes hard things easier. When we share our joy, our joys multiply; when we share our sorrow, our sorrows diminish.
Our lives today are pummeled by everything from economic difficulties to war and health pandemics. Everyone needs some laughter to ease the stress of these and other problems.
Like many clichés, “Laughter is the best medicine” contains a lot of truth. Scientists have long known that when you laugh, your brain releases powerful chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins ease pain, increase alertness, and literally bring you the feeling of joy.
No wonder the great Nasarean Wizards and Wizardesses, led by the Lord Christ and the Lady Christ, have been described as being very humorous in a good-natured way! ☺ Like the extremely joyful Simchah, THEY ALL LOVED TO LAUGH!
Before ending this Joyful article on Essene Joy Yoga, I will fulfill the promise I made above that I would: “… describe in detail what Yahshua is referring to… as ‘The Harvest of Joy in Planetary Life Triad’. This will enable us to arrive at an even greater understanding of the sort of Joy that Yahshua linked to Essene Joy Yoga.
I previously wrote: “For now, suffice to say that he is referring to JOY THAT CAN BE EXPERIENCED HERE AND NOW ON PLANET EARTH WHILE IN THE FORM OF A HUMAN BEING. But now the time to provide additional information on the term ‘The Harvest of Joy in Planetary Life Triad’ has arrived.
As will be made clear in the following excerpt from a sermon of Yahshua that is given in Chapter 93 of The Holy Megillah, the four triads (two Root Triads and two Branch triads) of the Essene Tree of Life are given in a particular order on purpose. You will learn that the triad that we are particularly focused on – ‘The Harvest of Joy in Planetary Life Triad’ – is the fourth in the sequence FOR A GOOD REASON.
This excerpt is a small portion of Yahshua’s Sermon onTree of Life Symbology:
26. Yahshua again pointed to the illustration of the Tree of Life on the wall and said, “Besides the Top Center ‘Deity Branch’ and the Bottom Center Taproot that symbolizes ‘Mother Nature’, you will notice that there are two triads – two trinities – of branches, one on each side of the illustration, and there are also two triads of roots.
27. “Those of you that were in attendance when, on My previous visit here, I preached a sermon on Essene Yoga, will recall that I gave names to each of the two triads of branches and, likewise, named each of the two triads of roots. 28. As an initial preface… I will remind you of the names of all four triads.
29. “From the vantage of the viewer, the Top Left Triad of Branches consists of Wisdom, Love, and Power. 30. It is called: The Triad of the First Creative Trinity. 31. Like all of the four triads, it is said to be ‘Crowned by Yah’.
32. “The Top Right Triad of Branches consists of Eternal Life, Holy Work, and Peace. 33. It is called: The Activity of Life Triad.
34. “The Bottom Right Triad consists of Sun, Water, and Air. 35. It is called, The Triad of the First Three Natural Elements Necessary for Life on Planet Earth.
36. “The Bottom Left Triad of Roots consists of Soil, Life-Force (or ‘Life’), and Joy. 37. It is called, The Harvest of Joy in Planetary Life Triad….”
Yahshua goes on to describe that triad:
69. “The name of that triad is The Harvest of Joy in Planetary Life Triad. 70. While the branches [of the Essene Tree of Life] represent spiritual forces that, with Power burst into the physical universe first in the form of Stars/Suns, the very last root force – Joy – represents a movement of ascension in that the Spiritual Branches are being so fully harmonized with the Root Forces in the physical realm that a state of SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING WHILE IN PHYSICAL INCARNATION is achieved.”
There we have it: Yahshua is making the point that the sort of Joy that we are dealing with in Essene Joy Yoga is that which results when all of the Branches and Roots are harmonizing so well that the individual – or Group Consciousness – EXPERIENCES SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING WHILE IN PHYSICAL INCARNATION.
AND IF WE ASK HOW THE ABOVE STATE IS ACHIEVED, YAHSHUA SAYS:
71. “The Root of Joy is the culmination of living righteously as a human being.”
It is the ‘culmination’ – the last Root of the fourth and final triad of the cyclic sequence – which means that an Essene Yogi has completed a round on the Essene Tree of Life. But that ‘round’ is really a ‘spiral’ and the rotations are, in fact, ongoing and cyclic in nature.
The first of the triads is called ‘The Triad of the First Creative Trinity’ and consists of the forces that first existed and caused creation: LOVE, WISDOM, POWER.
After we come into creation as Sparks of Being created in the Image and Likeness of Sat-Chit-Ananda in that First Creative Trinity represented by that FIRST TRIAD OF BRANCHES, then we are subject to the SECOND TRIAD OF BRANCHES called: The Activity of Life Triad. That Second Triad consists of the Branches of Eternal Life, Holy Work, and Peace. Because the Second Triad deals with what we do (kri/karma) and the consequences of that ‘doing’ after having been given the gift of life by the First Triad, it is aptly called The Activity of Life Triad.
If our life currently includes being incarnated on a physical planet like Earth, that is represented by the THIRD TRIAD – the first of the two root triads – which consists of Sun, Water, and Air and is called: The Triad of the First Three Natural Elements Necessary for Life on Planet Earth.
Yashuah teachings that to the degree that we have successfully harmonized the forces of those first three triads we are prepared to successfully culminate the FOURTH TRIAD – The Harvest of Joy in Planetary Life Triad – with the final branch of that final triad: JOY.
So that you can better understand verse 72 below, I am attaching at the end of this article an illustration of the Essene Tree of Life. If you look at the Fourth Triad on that illustration – the Root Forces of Soil, Life (Life-Force/Chi), and Joy, you will see how Joy is, indeed, pictured as heading up toward the spiritual realm of Love, Wisdom, and Power, the First Creative Trinity, the place where the cyclic spiral journey began.
Yahshua said:
72. “It is thus appropriate that this last root force is moving upward in sequence back toward the spiritual realm.”
Though we previously received the following Three Key Precepts on Joy Yoga in our excerpt from Yahshua’s Sermon on Essene Yoga, the fact that he ended this other sermon – Sermon on Tree of Life Symbology – with another reference to that teaching shows how important it is to him. Yahshua said:
80. “This talk has thus far been entirely intellectual and I want to end with something heart-centered. 81. I have pointed out that the Tree of Life culminates in Joy. 82. I give this congregation, as I have previously given My Companions, Three Precepts of Joy Yoga.
83. “The First Key Precept of Joy Yoga is: ‘There is no lasting joy without forgiveness of self and others.’ 84. The Second Key Precept of Joy Yoga is: ‘The most joyful hearts are the most forgiving hearts.’ 85. The Third Key Precept of Joy Yoga is: ‘Joyfulness and resentment cannot occur simultaneously in the same person; thus, ‘The Art of Joyfulness’ includes ‘The Art of Forgiveness’.
86. “Peace be with you!”
Yes, dear readers, I agree with Yahshua: PEACE BE WITH YOU!
The last words of this article are from the Foreword to Deepak Chopra’s book, Why is God Laughing: The Path to Joy and Spiritual Optimism. That Foreword was written by Mike Myers, a comedian and friend of Deepak’s. He writes:
Plainly put, “ha-ha” is related to “ah-ha”, the sound one makes upon the realization of truth….
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