On Thurs 7 Aug 08 @9PM I had a deeply moving and spiritual experience when I lit candles and deeyas for Tibet. This was in unison with everyone in my time zone and done globally. I'd like to explore this and share my experiences with you and hear yours as we participate in universal collective prayer events together. I hope to work together with all the universe's beings as we move toward the ideal of Universal Collective Prayer.
Come join me in Universal Collective Prayer!
May God Bless Us All!
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Showing posts with label the divine mother. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the divine mother. Show all posts
To lead you must have knowledge else well it would be like the blind leading the blind. The Goddess Saraswati in Hinduism is the embodiment of knowledge. She represents the respect for knowledge...the knowing in the religion that the need to know is important enough to worship it i.e. focus and meditate upon it so it can be acquired...knowledge is found everywhere depending on what you are seeking to know about...but according to Hinduism the highest knowledge to be pursued is that of the self...and most societies would agree that the search for self knowledge is best expressed and documented in the Arts...music, poetry, theatre, literature and I guess in the modern day context...films, documentaries, TV shows and yep blogs...Youtube! :)
And so as we move into the last leg of three days dedicated to the goddess Saraswati we salute her here in the form of one of her embodiments...MUSIC! :)
You can purchase the above beautiful poster from this site.
As we move into the 2nd set of three in the nine nights festival called Navraatri we focus on the Divine Mother in the form of the goddess Lakshmi. For us here on UCP one of her leadership skills is her ability to support others. Since any leader at some point in time needs to be there to support her followers. It might be a novel angle for some to approach leadership from but really a leader has to also sometimes support...mentor...nurture...and today on the Day 4 of The Divine Mother Leadership Series we will focus on Maa Lakshmi's role as supporter.
She sits at the feet of Vishnu massaging them...Vishnu is a leader in his own right and so it may appear that Lakshmi is simply the follower in such an illustration...however in the material world in our day to day lives...can't we see that even leaders need to support their teams at times? For instance in the corporate world can't you see how a team would best work if the leader went to each of the team members and figuratively speaking 'sat at their feet massaging them'. In that time they could sit there and listen to the thoughts and ideas of each of their team members in a relaxed and loving manner...this in the end makes the leader very strong...as she now knows intimately the views of each of the team members...so her ideas when put forward as the team leader is in the end a true agglomeration of the parts...and there is no better vision or viewpoint from a leader than a summation of all the parts...which when in gels together just right and flows from the leader can in act synergy and then the whole is greater than the sum of its parts! :)
Today is Mother's Day as marked in some parts of the world...North America and here in Trinidad. It comes a week after the procession of La Divina Pastora in Siparia, Trinidad and a week and a day after the First Saturday of the month of May.
If following my blog you will know I decided back in April to keep a pilgrimage every first Saturday to visit the statue of the Virgin Mary, as my first visit up to Mount St. Benedict here in Trinidad, was coincidentally during the Hindu celebration of Nav Ratri and on a First Saturday in April. So I decided I'd keep to this pilgrimage pledge and pay homage to the Virgin Mary in statue/murti form up at Mount St. Benedict every first Saturday for the next four months as I learnt this is a practice carried out by some Catholics. So my pilgrimage will end in July but it might be so nice I might decide to do it twice!:) That Mount surely seems to have a divine vibe going on up there...the peace, the presence...the awe that you feel when you bow to the statue of the Divine Mother in the church. I feel the vibe also has to do with the energy that is seeped there because so many devotees are there crying their woes out to the mother with such pure energy of devotion. I found out from my Brother in the sharing the Eucharist that is the Christ- Greg Kirk that it is OK to take photos within a church of the murtis...statues...but I've opted not too...it doesn't seem in good taste and it would only invade the sanctum of the devotees there...but the statue of the Virgin Mary there is so beautiful in form and art as well...a must see...I also take advantage of the fact that Catholics unlike Hindus have these padded thingys on which you can kneel onto in surrendering to the mother...so quite a comfy perk...but I have to get accustomed to having shoes on in there...I'd much prefer be barefooted...but I follow their ways when I'm in their place...I like the candles although just like deeyas in a way...just different in make up but same idea...and to me just as lovely to light and a practice to follow...
On this first Saturday visit I took my mother and my niece...three generations of women all in one...my niece was not so into it...or I feel she felt it but is at the age that she won't admit it and also still figuring so much out...but my mum feels exactly like me about the vibes up there and everything...she even says that after you leave the mountain after a certain distance away from it you can feel when you lose the vibe...and I say I'd have to agree...My mum thinks as me that she saw Jagadamba Mata when she bowed to the Virgin Mary statue and we had a talk on our drive down about how while pregnant in the nursing home, the nurse used to ask her (my mother) if she was Catholic when seen praying to the Virgin Mary statue and she explained no Hindu but same Mother... As we continued chatting about La Divina Pastora we both did not realise as my mother would later discuss with me that well the very next day the procession was on in Siparia...I was thinking for my 3rd 'first' Saturday I'd like to visit Siparia too...and my mum wished to join me...
You see in Siparia there is a statue in a church there that is seen as La Divina Pastora by Catholics but Hindus ever since have seen it as Suparee Mai or the Mother of Siparia...my mother told me the story that my great grandmother (her grandmother)...our family has roots in the area of Avocat and Siparia and well my great grandmother used to see the lady...according to the story my mother recalls the baby used to come out of a well...and then age over the day until the end of the day she was an old lady...and that happened everyday...the church was later built there...that's how her story is...passed down...Hindus considered the female form to be an incarnation of the Divine Mother in Hinduism some form of Shakti. But there are different versions to the story and here are some links about the story, the famous church and the Procession of La Divina Pastora in Siparia: The Stories and the Festival The Church
Daisy Voisin the legendary Parang queen was a staunch believer and worshipper of La Divina Pastora and a native of Siparia. Her funeral was done at the famous church and her famous parang band was named what else...La Divina Pastora...
So on this Mother's Day I celebrate the Divine Mother in the form of parang! Here she is Daisy Voisin singing about Trinidad's history...Spain, England, India...Independence...you hear in Spanish...
In the true nature of Universal Collective Prayer as I celebrated the Hindu festival dedicated to the nine nights celebration of the Divine Mother-Nav Ratri I began to contemplate on the Divine Mother as celebrated in Catholicism and I expressed it in this post. It took me on a pilgrimage...it wasn't planned but like outlined in the video about the Virgin Mary in that previous post...I was up on the Mount St. Benedict church on the first Sat of the month. I had gone with the thinking to take part in my first mass ever and perhaps even share in the communion...but I didn't realise that the special masses that were being done every 30 minutes for Lent were not on anymore as it was the Saturday before Palm Sunday and so instead busy preparations were being made for the start of the Holy Week! :)
So I was up there visiting the statue of the Divine Mother inside the church (out of reverence I did not take any photos inside the church and I'm not clear if it is allowed or not officially anyway). So in a way I was worshipping her on the first Saturday of the month of April so I've since decided like in the video to go up to the Mount for the five consecutive first Saturdays...assuming I'm on the island through out that period. I intend to carry out the meditation in my own Hinducentric way however...here is how I feel about the Divine Mother as I expressed when having to comment to a fellow Intent member who is of a Protestant background and from Sweden who I loving refer to as The Fairy Godmother Sara! :)These we my comments to her when she shared her views about the said post I did previous to this one on the Divine Mother.
Fairy Godmother Sara: Hi, Babita. I watched two of these videos so far. The first one I stopped after a while because it made me smile a bit with all the violence but the second one I really appreciated. Thank you for sharing this beautiful inspiring and fantastically performed artwork. There is so much RICHNESS in hindu art and icons.
The clip with mother Mary was also inspiring. I have never come that close to catholic worship, living in a sekularised protestant country with agnostic parents. Not that I'm complaining. I'm grateful for the freedom it has given me. Now I feel I understand better why some catholics are so intense about defending their faith, which means alot to me. I love understanding, thank you :)
Repairing her heart... beautiful. The Holy Mother, indeed....However the thought strikes me that if they want to repair her heart maybe they shouldn't keep depicting it with swords and arrows in it and keep reminding themselves about her suffering. It seems they repeat the cycle every sunday? Poor spirit of motherhood...
Love to you, Babsy! I hope you are doing well. Sara
Me: Hey Sara....Fairy Godmother...Maa Durga she is a strong form of Shakti in Hinduism...pretty independent and yep can appear fierce at times...notice her chariot is usually a tiger or a lion...and they alone can do real damage...she is known to kill many a demon a.k.a. raksha in Hinduism and so yep can come across as violent or fierce...but it is just the eternal battle between good and evil...a turmoil within...it is just the iconography of it my dear Godmother...
About the Mary one ...dunno I don't see it like you...in feeling the pain of her and Jesus...I don't know for me it is deeply spiritual...you have to go deep within and feel it then come back out of it...the reason it is repeated I believe is cause we need to continually go in and feel deeply until we become enlightened...upon enlightenment we can feel the pain but be inwardly disidentified to it...or detached...in Hinduism it is said to be loving but detached...different from just ignoring it or not going into it...which is the mistake many make...
You have to feel pain before you can transcend it and that does not come easily...in my understanding of Jesus he never became detached to it but what he did...you see he was the greatest Bhakti yogi....so after he felt and took the whole pain and sufferring of the entire human race on him...he said to the father...the lord of the Universe ...or the Universe...God...to take it from him...he then made the ultimate surrender...he offerred it all up to the Lord or the Universe...and it is in that moment he became one with it...enlightened...due to his Ultimate Surrender...but it is the process of going into the pain...feeling the pain of others...so much compassion...that made him capable of this ultimate surrender...it showed him the way...the love and the light...so in reflecting on the pain of him and his mother the Holy Virgin Mary...I think we learn from them...and become ourselves closer one day to the Ultimate Surrender...
So...my dear friends in this dance that is Universal Collective Prayer I intend to go about the rest of the Holy Week in this vein and in my five consecutive first Saturday visits to the Mount.
However being up on the Mount and seeing all the preps for the Holy Week...It made me all excited...I wished I could be a part of the celebs but my full time job and my energy levels simply don't permit...perhaps one day Universal Collective Prayer however will be able to get more immersed into the celebs and take footage of the events and bring them to you on here. However for now I instead asked my dear brother in sharing (metaphorically) the Eucharist that is the Christ-Deacon Greg Kirk to share his thoughts on the past Lent season and his thoughts for the Holy Week. I will re-post what he wrote for me here now, along with the thoughts of my other Mexican Brother Ezequiel Rodriguez and to honour him I will publish it in the original Spanish it was written and then the English translation done by my soul sister Adriana Ochoa whose thoughts on how she will spend the Easter holidays with her family will also be shared.
Also you will see some of the beautiful sights up at the Mount one of my favs being those two priests looking at the church...it looks so Merlinish somehow to me...they seem so ancient and wise like Wizards really! :) And I mean that in full respect as I see Wizards in my Universal Collective Prayer as good, wise and showing us the light...if some feel disrespect by that analogy...the prayers apologises as the prayers intent here is really not to be antagonistic to the religious beliefs of others but instead as much as possible to join well in Universal Collective Prayer! Also I believe in taking action after we dance, meditate and reflect in Universal Collective Prayer and you can see I'm proud to be Petrotrin as my company is a major sponsor of the Drug Rehabilitation Centre being built up there at the Mount. The place is truly a thing of beauty, prayer and peace! :) Brother Greg's Post: For Babita: Lent, Holy Week and a woman caught in the act of adultery Babita: I have attempted to answer your request for a blog about my experience of Lent and this coming Holy Week. As you know, the season of Lent is that liturgical season from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday in which Christians are asked to identify and turn away from the darkness of sin. During Holy Week and especially during the Easter Tridiuum, Christians remember the final events Jesus experienced in this life, prior to Easter and Resurrection. If you had asked me to blog about Lent and Holy Week several years ago, my response would have been tremendously different than the one I offer now. For several years, I strove to fulfill the obligations of sacrifice and penance that Lent calls for including days of fasting and reflection on the suffering of Jesus. My celebration is much different now. I can only explain the change with the following story.
Journeying with the Third Jesus has convinced me that mortification and the glorification of suffering and pain are not helpful on the path to transformation. Moving from town to town, watching Jesus reach out to the marginalized – the lonely, the sick, the suffering - touching them with peace and healing has convinced me that suffering will come to us on its own accord. Our task is to bring light and love to those around us. Joy, peace, wholeness, these are the virtues one should embrace and give birth to in this world. What we place our attention on grows stronger.
For me, everything changed with the woman caught in the act of adultery. It is the event that set the stage for the Passion of Jesus, making the cross inevitable. In a way, it propelled the Christian world to the events remembered during Holy Week.
On a bright sunny morning, I followed the Third Jesus out from the Temple to the portico where a group of eager people had assembled and waited for him, obviously hungering for his message. When Jesus sat down, I knew it was to teach. He had just began his familiar discourse on love, beauty and truth when several “religious men” burst across the portico and threw a naked woman at his feet. “Good teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.” “In the law of Moses, such women are to be stoned.” “What do you have to say about her case?” Jesus looked these men in the eye with a sad knowing. He rose and asked me for my prayer shawl. I took it from my shoulders and handed it to him. He lowered himself to his knees and helped the woman to stand, shielding her from the stares of onlookers with his body while he wrapped the shawl around her. He sat her on his seat. Next he lowered himself to the sandy courtyard and began tracing with his finger in the sand. At first I thought he was doodling or drawing. I moved closer and looked over his shoulder. He had written the following words in the sand “Malachi’s sins.” Under this heading, several sins were listed including the words “lust” and “adultery.” I was horrified. Malachi was the leader of these assembled religious men. It was his voice that confronted Jesus with the question about stoning. Malachi then walked over and read the words of Jesus. At first, his hands gripped the rock he was holding so hard that the flesh on it turned white. His face was a contortion of blood red and anger. Jesus slowly rose from the ground, looked Malachi in the eye and said “let the one among you without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” The older men let loose of their stones first Babita, Malachi held his until the end, finally throwing it down hard at the feet of Jesus. As they withdrew, one by one, I overheard Malachi hiss “this means the death of him, the authorities will not accept this total lack of regard for the law.” When they had left, Jesus touched the woman’s arm gently and with obvious love said “sister, where have they gone?” “Has no once accused or condemned you?” She responded “no one sir.” Jesus responded “neither do I condemn you, you are free, reflect on where on you have placed your attention and what you intend for the future.” His kissed her forehead and we walked out of the portico. After a long silence I asked him what it was all about. Jesus shared with me that the entire incident was a “set up.” He shared that in his culture, there had to be two adult witnesses to adultery other than the accused. He sadly informed me that the “religious men” had formed a conspiracy in order to trap and embarrass him, they were willing to kill a human being in order to enshrine their orthodoxy. He then announced that this is the dark side of Religion, the need to worship the law and follow it to the letter. He smiled and said “follow the spirit of the law, follow love to the letter.” “Always remember little brother, it is people the Divine loves.” “There is something about love that can be so very threatening.” “Afraid of its demands, some would rather extinguish the light of its possibility.” “Always remember, love makes all things possible.”
Lent has been a time of recommitting myself to the path of love again – of saying yes to loving God by loving others Babita. Holy Week will be a time to reflect on the teaching of the Third Jesus and moving closer to the cross and resurrection, to the surrender of the self to Self. Holy Week will find me washing the feet of several parish members on Thursday night in order to remember the teaching of Jesus on selfless love and service to others. Good Friday will find me preaching at two services, encouraging people to make peace with the ego as part of the process of surrendering self to to the Divine. For the person who chooses to love, new possibilities and new life always emerge. This will be celebrated on Easter. It is simply a matter of trust. This coming week is about trusting in the Divine and the new light and love this trust always brings. On the matter of that woman who Jesus freed Babita, I think she went on to discover a new type of love, a love that included healthy love for herself, a love that made everything new. Could the following song be her song? It is a song about transformation. It is the possiblity of this transformation that I will celebrate this week.
Love, Greg
Eze's Thoughts: LA DIVINA TRINIDAD Anoche, de nuevo, tuve la grandísima fortuna de tener un encuentro cercano del tercer tipo con la D I V I N I D A D!!! En esta ocasión el Gran Maestro Jesús no me habló. TUVE EL MUY ESPECIAL HONOR DE PODER "MORAR" en su inmenso y muy amoroso corazón! Lo que sentí fue increíblemente único y muy bello. Lo que puedo lograr a traducir a nivelhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4920299974971333050 lógico y objetivo fue lo siguiente:
Vamos muy bien. Si le ponemos número y porcentaje solo he podido comunicarles tan solo un trece por ciento de todo lo que el mundo material y espiritual tiene que ofrecernos. Es por eso que requiero de una mayor participación de parte de todos ustedes, ya que nuestro proyecto logrará ayudar a muchísimas personas en toda la faz de la tierra. Sentí que los que hora me acompañan en este sendero, sendero lleno de LUZ, VIDA Y AMOR DIVINOS para muchos de ellos este será solo un camino temporal. De todas maneras sean bienvenidos, mientras tanto a transitar por este particular sendero. Habrá otros que me acompañarán SIEMPRE! Ya que anteriormente ya hemos estado juntos y hemos trabajado juntos para la Gloria d Dios, nuestro Creador y Señor. A ustedes les digo BIENVENIDOS sean hermanos y hermanas en este glorioso sendero. Lo anterior "solo" fue un pequeño mensaje de Cristo-Jesús. Nuestro hermano mayor y salvador. Aún hay mucho más que compartir, espero hacerlo tan pronto reciba mi nueva computadora. Muchísimas Gracias. Reciban un fuerte abrazo de uno de los muchos mensajeros del Amor del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo. AMORIFER-ALDEN
Divine Trinity Last night I had the privilege of having a; close encounter of the third kind with divinity. In this occasion Jesus did not speak. I had the special honor to bask in his immense and loving heart! What I felt was incredibly unique and beautiful. What I can translate in a logical and objective way is as follows:
We are going through the right path. If I can put numbers and percentages I have only communicated 13% of what the spiritual and material realm have to offer. That is why I require a more eager participation of you, because our Project can help more people on Earth. I feel that the ones that are walking with me in this path, a path filled of LIGHT, LIFE and DIVINE LOVE they will go by my side for a time. Any way be more than welcome, to walk this specific path.
There will be others that will be with me forever. Because we have been together before working for the Glory of God our Creator . I welcome you dears Sisters and Brothers in this glorious path.
This was a small message of Christ-Jesus our elder brother and savior. There is much more to share, I will as soon as I get my new computer. Thank you very much.
Receive a big embrace of one of the many messengers of love from the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit.
Adriana's Plans:
Dear ones: Now I am catching Pedro over there. He is very excited, because last time we could not make it and stayed in Hemosa Beach, which by the way was fabulous. We are spending the Holy Week over there. Since I was little I enjoyed this week so much, because I always knew that at the end Jesus's rebirth was the culmination. Infinity is real, love is real.
I loved to watch Jesus Christ Super Star, and the Zeffirelli's movies although I cried and cried with pain. I want to make it special for Pedro, and get a retreat of love with God consciousness. A week of loving lent.
George and Rodrigo are going to a retreat near Mexico city which is beautiful, silence reclaims its own place.
I wish you all to have the most aware Holy Week ever.
With all my love Adriana Also on Intent- Me, Adriana, Greg and Ezequiel are seen as the Tea Gang and at one point we were being called the Rat Pack...but then I always listen to the Beatles and so does my Eucharist sharing friend Bro Greg so one thing lead to another and well...check out this lovely thing Adri created! :)
As today is the last day of Nav Ratri and a Friday normally considered auspicious in Hinduism for the worship of the Divine Mother and in anticipation of a certain pilgrimage of mine in the morn I ask you to pray, ponder and meditate on the following aspects of the Divine Mother as intepreted through Universal Collective Prayer...
I've seen the 1975 Indian film all through my life growing up...seen it several times and the song clips. My mum now owns the dvd of it! :) I've often wondered though how people can be so mean while watching it...if I ever had a company slogan it would be "Don't Be Mean!" akin to Yahoo's "Do No Evil" perhaps! :) In this film there are some mean people and things being done to this lady...made me wonder growing up if some of the meanest people exist in India (but I think some of it has to do with resources per person so it is a matter of survival) alongside some with very strong faith in the Universe! :)
I never got when seeing this film why the ladies put the limes thingy in the lady's prayer stuff and why Santoshi Maa got mad in the first place...I mean isn't she all knowing so...but I guess the Universe works in mysterious ways and so pretending to be mad would have been to teach the meanies a lesson and to test the faith of the lady who did no harm...
Either way the film stands as an ultimate work in showing ones surrender onto the Divine Mother and it has one of my favourite offerings to the Divine Mother ever on its soundtrack...'Mein To Aarti Utharoon Re Santoshi Mata Ki' sung by Usha Mangeshkar, the song done in worship just before the meanies put the limes in...I also like the dancey sequence done here too it kinda makes you want to get up and dance with the ladies even the meanies...but why didn't they whip out actual mangeeras?:)...we used to whip out actual mangeeras when I use to dance...So I'm sharing that tune with you and some others from the film whose soundtrack is overflowing with super tunes in surrender to the Divine Mother! :)In the second tune-'Madad Karo Santoshi Mata' it is where the ultimate surrender occurs after the meanies put in the limes and everyone feels the wrath except the devotee but she is blamed and then the devotee surrenders...check it out! Although like with any real ultimate surrender it requires some tears...
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