=kit066.txt

KIT 66 - Embodying States of Consciousness Reached in Meditation

The Celestial Celebration on Earth and the Human Drama

            There are moments when our minds are stirred by a
compulsive need to explore uncanny levels of our being that
inspire in us a sense of wonder. We touch precariously upon the
unknown. At those magical moments we know that what we are
experiencing is real. At least the nebulous scene was adumbrated
with a tenuous sense of deja-vu that bears some semblance to what
we ascribe to reality. Yet we do not know how to convey these
impressions to others, let alone to ourselves in a lucid fashion.

            Such precious moments fill us with awe and delight. If
we have qualms about what our civilizations have done to our
beautiful planet, perhaps such moments confirm our hopes in the
continuing possibility of a wondrous effulgent world.
Unfortunately those fleeting impressions pass, leaving us with a
double-take before we were able to secure a handle on what
actually transpired. But we may perceive in this unusual encounter
the answer to an imperative, in fact possibly desperate need for
the most precious of all gems: the gift of the heavens in our
otherwise trite lives.

            Much as we would feel moved to recount the experience
from the roof-tops, it would be foolhardy to spell it out to those
who may have even repulsed such an experience a hallucinatory and
fanciful. If a zephyr of beauty has brushed across our world, let
us not expose it to those who would besmear it with mediocre
truism.

            Truly enough we have a valid argument for the scrutiny
of our questioning mind: Yes, come to think about it, there was
that 'deja-vu'! - a remote sense of something familiar - something
to assuage my mind's doubtfulness. Yes, I have witnessed the
likeness of the very same luster that gleamed across those
heavenly landscapes in the eyes of that child whom I shall never
forget.

            Why did it trigger off a memory of deja-vu? Because
matching experiences set up association processes in the mind. Was
that not a handle to cleave to in my temptation to demure to my
skeptic leanings? A glimmer of a reminiscence of having witnessed
on Planet earth something of the nature of the celestial realms
flickered on the horizon of my mind.

            In similar vein, listening to a choir may have evoked
a wisp of deja-vu. The composer was attempting to convey a feeling
of the atmosphere of the heavens in a sacred celebration.
Conversely lofty human emotions may open to the composer vistas of
heavenly splendor. For example, in his soul-searchings triggered
off by his love for Clara, Brahms touched upon an intangible level
of his being. It came flooding in as a flurry of notes, melodies,
and rhythms. In so doing, he built a bridge giving us access to
unknown strata of ourselves. To make this miracle happen, one has
to allow oneself to be uplifted, moved to the very core of one's
being by an intuition that bespeaks of a splendor beyond the
apparent world. Does it not seem ironical that we should let
ourselves be confined to a slice of our being (the physical and
mental) when our total being actually fans out in a vast spectrum?


            In their musings, people in a contemplative mood have
sometimes culled clues as to the nature of these spheres. Then, in
the wake of those who have trodden the no man's land come the
philosophers who build systems to account for the testimonies of
the mystics. In the scriptures of all religions, the references to
celestial spheres are legion: often codified in intellectual
cosmologies, angelologies, etc., to be stored in the archives of
our minds. These may offer the advantage of providing us with a
topography of the unchartered reaches, the landscapes of the soul.
This has been particularly elaborated by the Sufis.

            The Sufi Sheikh AHMED AHSA'IL points out to the
existence of a level of our being he calls 'Jism A', our celestial
body which communicates the nature of our Super-celestial being
'Jism B'  down to our subtle body (or effigy) 'Jasad B'.

            Can you identify with this template behind the
structure of your mind, which he calls 'Jasad B' - an archetypal
level of our understanding? Thus through the mediation of our
higher bodies, the cosmic programing provides for a practical
means of communicating something of the nature of the heavens to
the earth.

            Conversely, our subtle mind/body (Jasad B) and
celestial body (Jism A) ensure the feed-back of the know-how and
wisdom we have gained by our interfacing with the physical and
psychological environment encountered on earth will become part of
the divine programming. We could well envision ourselves after
death, distilling the impressions of the earth, transmitting their
gist higher up to our Super celestial being. Imagine the prospect
offered of being able to occupy oneself totally to being creative.
Imagine creating out of the interface between the many splendored
planes beautiful and meaningful structures like an artist or a
musician!

            Important is that we learn to work with ourselves to
translate the impressions transpiring through from lofty levels of
our many-tiered being into our personality. These may eventually
even gel into our physical atmosphere, perhaps even countenance.

Of course the ultimate work of art is the human personality.

"Man's art is an extension of the divine art."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

Here we are the artist, the fabric and the work of art.

            No sooner we pay attention to our deep need for this
precious food for our soul, we awaken covert unconscious memory
which suddenly erupts. We remember what seems to be our eternal
being. At least it seems eternal in comparison with our
personality that changes so rapidly. Can you remember the
countenance of your eternal face?

            Reverting back to our physical body, we cannot fail to
be devastated by the contrast. We have a feeling of having
incurred defilement in the course of our descent through the
spheres. On the other hand, in comparison with our existential
frame, our celestial nature seems embryonic. Obviously owing to
our incarnation, we have on the other hand matured and enriched
ourselves through the interface and osmosis with the physical and
psychological environment. Our latent qualities have unfurled and
we have distilled wisdom out of the know-how gained by meeting the
challenge of life.

            At this point, it is an ingratiating thought to
realize that our celestial counterpart is still present within the
very configuration of our physical frame, interspersed with its
defilement just like the pristine voice of Caruso is still present
within its distortions owing to the bad recordings of the time.
Imagine a holographic slide in which two similar yet different
images are superposed - one blue the other violet. You can toggle
from one to the other. By dint of your will-power and creative
imagination, you can correct, reverse the distortions in the blue
one to approximate to the violet, while honoring the maturity
evidenced in the blue one. You are able to confirm that you can
ally wisdom with innocence.

            Having captured a hunch of the nature and even
features of your angelic being, can you see how the attunement of
the celestial spheres tends to configure your psyche, even your
body (at least the expression of your face and your deportment).?
To be creative, we need to customize consciously and willfully
that which the universe is doing beyond our compass. This means
that we need to be inspired by the splendor that is continually
endeavoring to seep through the very shaping of things, and at the
same time take into consideration the drama on earth.

            While acquiescing to the shocking accounts we are
continually assailed with of the greed, the cruelty, the deceit,
the grossness, the vulgarity, that comes through or tries to come
through our humanness - the rape of the Planet, could we ever be
appraising the incredible wealth and bounty gained by dint of
incarnation - by the people, by our civilizations, by our cultures
and our technologies, by the thoughts and emotions aroused in our
encounters, interrelationships with others, with beings of all
kens and at all levels? The nostalgia, tenderness, perseverance,
faith, idealism, realism, loyalty, caring, sacrifice, imagination,
compassion, generosity, honesty that breaks through in the human
venture is overwhelming and warms us to the values gained on the
Planet.

            Of course such a bounty cannot be achieved without
conflicts, disruptions, disasters, chaos. Orderliness does not
beget change, rather it encourages complacency. Change requires
involvement, courage, venture, risk of a disaster, humiliation in
defeat, deprivation, suffering to the point of being the victim of
a terrible ordeal or calamity. Modern physics points to the fact
that to evolve, which means to change, living systems have to
'fluctuate from equilibrium.'8 Our incentive shifts the software
of the universe. Indeed free-will unleashes forces beyond one's
control or knowledge.

            The dramatic fiasco on earth that we cannot fail to be
involved with is due to the fact that, according to the Sufis,
God's motivation in the whole process called creation is to
bequeath His/Her ultimate asset: free incentive. To understand how
this comes about, can we place ourselves in the antipodal
perspective to our usual one? Suppose that you were to bequeath
the best of your assets out of love. Since indeed the most
treasured resource in life is free-will, the Sufis ascribe to God
the foremost quality Rahmaniat - magnanimity. So let us consider
our free incentive which is the very springhead of creativity as
the ultimate divine gift.

            Unfortunately the price of that act of generosity is
that, by the very fact that the totality gets funneled down into
each fraction of the totality, the many-splendored bounty
potentially present in the totality gets constrained, limited.
Each expression of the totality (that is ourselves) sees and
assesses things form his/her point of view. Consequently greed,
rancor, conflict, hatred, violence, profanation crowd in; or
alternately simply apathy, resignation, sardonic irony - being
low-key. One needs to protect oneself against the abuse of that
very free-will. Willy-nilly we are involved in the drama.

            How do we uphold the values that we inherit from our
celestial inheritance in the middle of real life situations? We
are at the cross-roads between heaven and earth. How does the
celebration in the heavens of our souls interface with the drama
in our psyche? How do they interact, inter-mesh, then gel in our
personality? To what extent do they match or are they pulling us
in opposite directions? Are we doomed to have to compromise in
order to adapt ourselves to the commonplace, or can we uphold our
ideals in the middle of it all, while still honoring all the
values garnered by human endeavor, sometimes at the cost of hard
strife? Can we remain high, radiant, aware joyous while meeting
situations instead of escaping them? The clue is we touched upon
in our discovery of our heavenly inheritance. In this perspective
it is clear that in the handling of ugly situations (with selfish
or unfair motivations of people around us) there is an option
offered us between reacting in the same vein, giving vent to our
resentment, concupiscence or gratification; or applying those
values that we cherish as they come through us, such as
magnanimity allied with sovereignty, truthfulness allied with
compassion, beauty allied with rigor, wisdom allied with
innocence, or alacrity with serenity.

            Or are we fooling ourselves? Are we justifying our own
handling of situations on the misleading adage that the end
justifies the means? It is the means that constructs the end.
Recognizing our humanness without trying to justify it, yet
honoring our celestial inheritance, can we get these two poles of
our being to cross-pollinate? That is precisely what personal
creativity is about.

            How do we celebrate the betrothal between heaven and
earth in our personality? Dare you see things from two
complementary perspectives at the same time? Have you ever, while
climbing the high mountains, surrounded by evescient clouds
lighted up by an array of most amazing hues, watched a storm
raging in the valley? And hiking in the valley have you been
shattered by an alarming outbreak of thunder and lightning while
capturing evanescent blue patches of sky as the dark clouds rushed
by, above? Both perspectives are complementary, depending on where
you are - your vantage point.

            I am sure (or at least hope) that you experience
moments when the forces of life are aroused with a vengeance and
you give vent to the lightning and thunder bursting forth in your
own being. One's frustration as one meets opposition to one's
commitment in life will ignite anger. In this scenario all the
forces of violence, unkindness, rancor, hatred are rife. To
succumb to them is just too easy. Here is your chance to fulfill
that covert wishful thinking that you may be entertaining: of
being a knight. Violence is energy. It can be harnessed by
catalyzing a creative act. This energy might just provide one with
the push to achieve precisely that for which one had not been
previously sufficiently motivated.

            We are endowed with the option of becoming a new
person. We do not have to be what we have always been. We can even
shake off the conditioning of the past and our forestalling of our
future prospects.

            But evolution proceeds by leaps and bounds. It takes
an outburst of energy to bring about a change - a quantum leap - a
total departure from the past. It takes the pain and glee of the
drama on the earth to pen a clearing in our sky revealing the
splendor of the heavens, thus sparking that change.

            The power thus wrought will erupt in your will: in
fact the clue, the clue to a radical change is in . . . resolve -
making a binding pledge to change.
    
==================================================================

[ Editorial Note (sa), "More of Less"  (Celso, Celso's Bar and
Grille, Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, near New Buffalo commune ]

Here's a bit of boilerplate, Mate:

[ 'SOS' = 'divergent text from the SO SURESNES KIT' ]

[ Skimming only, I find no significant divergence in the Kaivan
KIT XX text from the SOS KIT XX text ]* 

* I have cross_checked this Kaivan KIT 62 against the SOS KIT 62
only by skimming the starts and stops of the paragiraffe (1), not
by reading the sentences.
(1) A 'paragiraffe' (singular, 'paragraph') is, obviously, an
extended paragraph, eg a KIT.  ]

Kaivan KITs 61__72 are published as SOS KITs 61__72 (with Kaivan
KIT 30, published as SOS KIT 31 ) in a booklet by the SOS, long
flogged or peddled , as Everyman progresses, at Zenith Camp, it
should only evolve indeed into an 'Institute'. ] 

[ I also happen to have at hand, thanks to Rinatya Nachman (24
HaShalom, Rosh Pina 12000, Israel, renatia@bezeqint.net ) xeroxes
of the following KITS, which I hope similarly to skim if not
precisely peruse:  SOS KIT's:  96, 97, 98, 101, 102,  105, 106,
107, 110 ]

----------------------------------------------------------------
                  
COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:

"Most folks at Zenith wouldn't know a dervish if they tripped on
one." (sa)

A dervish who has been sniffing glue, heaven forfend, is termed a
'goofy Sufi'. (sa) 
                                 
Someone at Camp once said to me, "Now I know who you are, you're
the dervish."  I said back, "Only part_time."

---------------------------------------------------------------



