=kit075.txt

KIT 75 - Psychological and Transformational Stages of the Mass

            Some of the more traditional religious ceremonies are
preceded by a procession exhibiting festive pageantry.
Participating in a procession fulfills our need to discover
whatever is holding us back from our quest and release ourselves
from it.

            But it is in the custom of performing ablutions that
our sense of guilt is sparked. It brings home to us the importance
of confronting our conscience as we recollect having offended or
abused or harmed a fellow being. By the same token it draws our
attention to the immaculate nature of that deep core in our being
in which we discover the sacred.

"There is a deep core in our being that is of the nature of a
mirror that can never be tarnished by the impressions upon it." 
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

            Just as in the Catholic Mass, we first need to go
through the Kyrie and Christe Eleison before participating in the
Gloria. We cannot approach the immaculate center of our being
without coming to terms with our guilt. To be honest with
ourselves, (otherwise it would be a masquerade), we resort to
ponderous soul-searchings. Memories of forgotten incidents besiege
our minds and pummel our emotions. Our reason will come to our
rescue, furnishing us with the most unconvincing arguments
intended to justify ourselves. We may fall for these unaware, yet
our conscience may not feel totally assuaged.

            Our assessment of our guilt avers itself not to be too
reliable. It easily overlaps with our resentment. We may feel
guilty for having allowed ourselves to be abused, or co-dependent.
Anger serves as our defense system. But we need to clearly
distinguish between rage and outrage. Consider rage as the
personal dimension of outrage and outrage as the impersonal
dimension of rage. Rage can degenerate as hatred; outrage can
erupt into heroism.

            Toying with the impelling emotions generated in the
drama of our lives, religion avers itself to be our saving grace.
By grasping the splendor in the heavens behind the iniquity in the
earthly drama we are lured out of our self-pity, which helps us to
heal. Is it worth missing out on the Gloria by being waylaid by
our hurts in our storms in our teacups, when life in all its glory
beckons us to participate in the cosmic celebration?

            Is it the act of glorification rising aloft from the
fervor of the congregation into the high vaults amidst the rafters
adorning the colossal masonry of the nave as incense echoes the
celebration in the heavens - or is it our incantations that
enchant those celestial beings by an eerie sortilege into an
upsurge of jubilation? It is as though a skylight had been
suddenly opened between earth and heaven.

            The Gloria of the Mass serves as a reminder that it is
only out of an act of glorification that we can raise ourselves
above our commonplace self-image in which we are encapsulated by
our trite emotions, our greed, our lack of mercy and compassion.
It brings home to us that it is our ability to honor our intuition
about a splendor that is continually trying to break through the
painful circumstances constraining us in the existential condition
that fosters our transformations.

            Of course those realms that we ascribe to the heavens
are not located elsewhere; they are not confined to us either. But
we accede to these by confectioning that very temple built in the
fabric of our own person, our body, magnetic field, aura, psyche,
securing a psychological area offering us protection against the
sacrilege rampant in the world, also within ourselves.

            It is indeed our faith in our intuition - a kind of
inborn sense of meaningfulness not based upon the judgments of our
limited minds - that gives us access to the higher dimensions of
our being, and by the same token of the universe. Incidentally let
us not confuse faith with belief which is based on authority.

            This is where the Credo comes in, bolstered by the
power of our personal convictions. It is a mode of cognizance, not
based upon our assessment of situations but upon the fact that our
thinking is of an identical nature to the thinking of the universe
when not limited by our personal focal center. This perspective
emerges only when we are able to grasp the cosmic and
transcendental outreach of our being.

            It is prayer, the act of glorification that shifts our
thinking from the commonplace mode to this cosmic and transcendent
mode. The effect of prayer is challenging to our minds by
revealing to us hidden causes behind events that do not make sense
in our lives or that of others. In our ignorance of that which is
enacted behind situations, sometimes dramatic, we tend to make
serious mistakes in our handling of our affairs with dire
consequences for ourselves and others. It is difficult for our
minds, functioning in their limited fashion, to grasp the
interaction between destiny and free-will. It is difficult to
gauge the cosmic laws whereby the interplay between our
covetousness and our dedication to service affects our destiny. Or
how this effects our personality, our attunement and our
fulfillment of our life's purpose. That the act of giving,
sacrifice, relinquishing even to the point of surrender should be
the ultimate issue in our lives defies rational common-sense. Why
this moral injunction about sacrifice epitomized in the rituals of
all religions illustrated in the oblation of the Agnus Dei, the
lamb of God, or the immolation of Isaac, culminating in the
Crucifixus of the Mass?

"Those who are crucified on earth will be free in the heavens and
those who are free on earth will be crucified in the heavens." 
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

[ FN(sa) kit075__1 ]


            It is not much use trying to argue with whatever we
ascribe to destiny - that is the bona fide of the enigmatic
intentions of the programming of the universe. But it is clear
that we cannot appraise this intention from our limited
perspective. However I think that we can agree that charity makes
peoples personalities appealing and welcoming.

            However the only sense renunciation could possibly
make is in resurrection - Resurrexit. That the quintessence of
whatever has been achieved in the process of becoming is feedback
into the pool of resourcefulness of the cosmos makes metaphysical
sense. However since that which has been achieved by
existentiation is that the virtual Totality should be diversified
in each of us, points to the original contribution of our personal
dimension - that the quintessence of our personality and know-how
must be resurrected.

            It becomes obvious to ones soul-searching that one
cannot expect ones being to be resurrected unless purified of its
blemishes. To extract the quintessence, Alchemists need to drain
away the dross. This is where one finds that asking for
forgiveness is not good enough; one needs to repent, which means
renewing ones pledge never to repeat the offense: the Confiteor.

            This pledge to service illustrated by Issaias send me
is a commitment to accept whatever the office asks of one in terms
of sacrifice to the point of persecution, torture, martyrdom.
There is a feeling that those called to cosmic service are being
eulogized by heavenly beings - the Sanctus. Moreover something in
the human spirit surges forth to honor, venerate, sanctify our
heroes who have lived up to this higher calling - the Hosanna.
They figure in our sacred treasure-house as living examples of the
value we treasure most. Only after this may the celebrant approach
in the Introit, the altar, the holy of holies to participate of
the Eucharist.

     "Hic est enim Corpus Meum; Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis Mea."
     "This is my body, this is the chalice of my blood."
(Excerpt from the Roman Catholic Mass, in the original (as far as
I (sa) know )  Latin and in English translation. )
                       
[ FN(sa) kit075__2 ]


According to PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN:
"The body of Christ represents the matter of the universe that is
continually being transmute into spirit (energy), and the blood is
the suffering implied by the incarnate condition, being
transfigured into joy."



            The ritual serves as a reminder that we do carry
within us the inheritance of the whole universe which may be
looked upon as the body of God. But if we are not aware of our
divine inheritance, it remains recessive in us - we cannot actuate
it in our personal idiosyncrasies. *
                               

"Be ye perfect as your Father."
(Jesus of Natzereth)

[ Fn(sa) kit075__3 ]



            The celebrants now return to their seats replenished
by the many-splendored bounty lying in wait in their own being.
Conversely by following the psychological stages celebrated in the
Mass the contemplative may in his/her own personal orison
experience this holy communion with the whole universe at all its
levels.

"The altar is amongst the stars."
TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

            The kind of peace that passeth all understanding in
the Dona Nobis Pacem could not possibly be reached unless one has
gone through the cosmic drama, enjoying the privilege of the gift
of life and suffering defeat and humiliation and despair. There is
no peace equal to that at the aftermath of a storm - when one has
confronted the challenge and come to terms with it. Hence the last
words of Christ: It has been fulfilled.

Ita Missa Est - the Mass is completed.

* Reference could be made here to the Greek myth of Zagreus, the
son of Zeus. When Zeus vacated his throne, his son Zagreus sat
upon it. While stupefied at the discovery of his resemblance to
his father as he looked into the mirror presented to him by the
Titans, they precipitated him into the abyss and devoured him.
Zeus shattered the Titans with his thunderbolt and men were born
out of the ashes of the Titans who had ingested the body of the
son of God.
[ That footnote is by PVK as part of this KIT 75 ]
    
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COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:


"Those who are crucified on earth will be free in the heavens and
those who are free on earth will be crucified in the heavens." 
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

[ FN(sa) kit075__1 ]

For heavens sake don't tell that to the Christians, they'll get it
all wrong, as usual.  They're half_way into S&M as it is.  They
start with the M, and before you know it you've got a Crusade --
killing all the infidels, in Jerusalem, in Germany, in Vietnam, in
Afghanistan & Iraq.

I mean, Jean Shepherd wrote a book, 'I, Libertine'.
But Spinoza wrote a book too, with a chapter, 'Of Human Bondage'.
Followed by a chapter on Freedom.  As joyous as anything written
since Bach.
And for PVK too, the goal is freedom.
Cf. Dylan Thomas, "surely time held me golden in the mercy of his
means, though I sang in my chains like the sea"

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

[ FN(sa) kit075__2 ] 

Not to be uncouth, nor to go out to do my Office with fly or
necktie loose, but -- even HIK said, best's I recollect,
Christianity is "very dear but very queer" --or maybe he said more
like, somewhat queer.
I say its weird, but they invented the button_down broadcloth
Oxford pale blue shirt -- I once bought a nice one at the Harvard
Coop, but I don't have it now out here on the Campra Tundra -- so
nobody notices.

But I mean, if you want to eat your god, join the Bachantes, at
least they throw good parties with lots of chicks.  
Some young draftee in the IDF once remarked to me, when I was
washing dishes on a base near Ashkelon, "They think we killed
their god -- it's very strange, but that's what they believe."

Mazaltov, we killed a god and they pray to a carpenter.
I mean, in Manhattanat least they pray only to the plumber, he
should get to the kitchen sink before Jesus stops by the sunlit
sitting room.

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


"Be ye perfect as your Father."
(Jesus of Natzereth)

[ Fn(sa) kit075__3 ]
 as quoted in the soi_disant New Testament, though maybe
'Natzereth' is a corruption of 'Nazir' --

corruption of a Tzadeh to a Zayin, with a suffix tacked on -- 

 because especially with that long hair -- nobody says he had long
hair, which is what Nazir's do, but the tradition always paints
him thataway -- I mean, it ain't a fixed tradition, like orthodox
iconography, but like , when was the last time you saw a picture
of Jesus on those revolving peppermint stick barber_poles -- 

 and apparently not eating meat nor even drinking wine -- 

I mean, this unemployed hippie carpenter is hanging around the
north shore of the Kineret, living off all the free fish, and
trying to say out the wy of the Roman patrols, and sounding like
he maybe just scored some really good weed, and so Hendrik says to
Schmendri, that's the Nazir, and Schmendrik says to Frendrik,
that's the kid who walked down the hill from Natzereth -- 

"no capon priest was the godly fre're, but a man of men was he"
(Ezra Pound, 'Ballade of the Godly Fre're)
and PVK once said, best's I recollect, at an Abode Camp lecture no
doubt, since I almost never heard him say anything except during
Camp lectures, Jesus was 6 feet tall and had red hair (only I
think maybe PVK said, or meant, Jesus was over six feet tall)  





I mean, the story get kind of garbled here -- first they're
sitting around for a nice little Seder up on Mt. Zion across the
street from that frat Yeshiva, only he's saying, you guys ain't
drinking wine, you're drinking my blood, and you ain't eating
matza, you're eating my body -- weird,
man --
and
then next thing you know, they've put him up and taken him down
from the Cross because it's erev Pesach -- the day before
Passover.  I mean, call me a proofreader and ask the Secretary to
recheck the Calendar before the Congressional Invetigating
Committee gets here. )

