My yoke is easy: My dharma is penance

"The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Rembrandt



"I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go." — Abraham Lincoln

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.  — Matthew 11:28-30

"He who with sincerity seeks his real purpose in life is himself sought by that purpose."
— Hazrat Inayat Khan

I'd always wondered why my dharma seemed to be penance, so in 2003, at the age of 56, I traveled to the School of Metaphysics in Windyville, Missouri, because they claimed to be able to tell you what your dharma actually is. Turns out they truly can do what they claim. Here's a transcript of the session in which they lay the light of my dharma on me.

September 13, 2003. You will search for the identity of the entity referred to as Lawrence Michael Clark. You will relate this one’s dharma from the past and past lifetimes in general in terms of incarnations.

This would be penance. There is a very strong urge within this one and a configuration of attitudes which promote the need for, as well as the capacity for, penance. This is the ability to assess and to give according to the assessment. We see that it is the obligation and the duty and the debt that this one has in any situation, and we see that it does manifest in ways that are appropriate to this. We see that there have been many incarnations in which this one has been somewhat negligent in this regard, inasmuch as this one either did not perceive or did not admit or did not assess accurately the people, places, and things in the life for this one to be able to understand how this one was accountable and how this one was responsible and what this one was responsible for. We see that this then left many situations in many lives where things were left undone, where there were opportunities that were pushed away, from the scattering of attention or the denial of the situation at hand. We see that this then built a considerable amount of energy toward that of penance, of being able to pay what this one owes, and we see that it is through this ability that this one has formed different understandings through subsequent lives, where the penance has become this one’s dharma. We see that this is very strong within this one and there is a constant awareness — even when it is unconscious it is still present, it is a force in this one’s consciousness and therefore in this one’s life — that this one is obligated, is how it is often seen, and we see that it is through this one accepting and moving beyond the limitations of obligation to be able to perceive the benefits of obeisance and generosity that this one will be able to come to a new level of understanding of the dharma itself. This is all.

Very well. What would be the relevance of this one’s dharma to the present lifetime?

In the present we see that this one tends to become distracted through the conscious configuration of obligation. We see that this one has different attitudes about this and we see that some of them are embracing, others are resistant, and we see that it is through this that the awareness is limited of the dharma itself. It would be helpful for this one to begin to develop an image of penance which is desirable. It would be helpful for this one in this to be able to see what it brings to the world personally as well as in this one being connected with living beings. We see that there is a sincere need within this one as well as many others to recognize the sense of duty, purpose, responsibility in order for there to be a greater or heightened sense of connectedness. The sense of duty comes from within the self, it does not pose itself externally; its origin is not apart from this one. And as this one will reconcile this thinking, then there will be a greater flow from within the self of what this one needs to do and why. There is also a need for this one to recognize that the sense of obligation does give this one the sense that there is a need for gratitude. And it is in the embracing of gratitude that this one will become free of the negative connotations to obligation, and these when they are no longer present will make space for there to be joy in the penance — the ability for recompense.

"It is the highest and holiest of the paradoxes that the man who really knows he cannot pay his debt will be forever paying it. He will be for ever giving back what he cannot give back, and what he cannot be expected to give back. He will be always throwing things away into a bottomless pit of unfathomable thanks."  — G. K. Chesterton, St. Francis of Assisi

The recompense of penance is joy

At-one-ment 

Washed in the Blood of the Lamb are We

Awash in a Sunburst Sea

You—Love—and I—Love—and Love Divine:

We are the Trinity

You—Love—and I—We are One-Two-Three

Twining Eternally

Two—Yes—and One—Yes—and also Three:

One Dual Trinity

Radiant Calvary

Ultimate Mystery

Related posts:
http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/07/rejoice-35-years-at-himalayan-institute.html
http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/09/find-what-you-love-and-let-it-kill-you.html

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-cremation-ground-aum-gold-13-ways.html

The King and Queen of Death; the tombstone epitaph of America

Their Royal I-nesses: the Clumps

Who to vote for? It's like Sophie's choice, only the exact opposite. I tried to decide who was more despicable, and failed.

They are the King and Queen of Death.
The soul-crushing banality of venality.

The tombstone epitaph of America:
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"  — Matthew 16:26




"I feel a strong desire to tell you — and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me — which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs — pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them."  — C. S. Lewis 

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.  —Proverbs 16:18

Revelation 3:14-22

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Thank you, Deborah Mary Newell Tornello, for the Lewis quote!
related posts:
http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/01/america-completely-materialistic-house.htmlhttp://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/07/keepers-of-crypt.html

When conscience speaks, no other voice may intrude

Rudolf Steiner, the conclusion to a lecture given May 5, 1910:

It was the Christ-impulse that first made it possible for humanity to realize that God, the Creator of things and of the external sheaths of man, can be recognized in our inward life. Only by understanding the divine humanity of Christ Jesus were men enabled to understand that the voice of God could be heard within the soul. In order that men should be able to find something of the divine nature in their own inner life, it was necessary for Christ to enter into the evolution of humanity as an external historical event. If the Christ, a divine being, had not been present in the body of Jesus of Nazareth — if he had not shown once and for all that God can be discerned in our inner life, because he had once been present in a human body — if he had not appeared as the conqueror of death through the Mystery of Golgotha, men would never have been able to comprehend the indwelling of Divinity in the human soul.

If anyone claims that this indwelling could be discerned even if there had been no historical Christ Jesus, he could equally well say that we should have eyes even if there were no Sun. As against this one-sided view of some philosophers that, since without eyes we could not see the light, the origin of light must be traced to the eyes, we must always set Goethe's aphorism: 'The eye is created by light for light.' If there were no Sun to fill space with light, no eyes would ever have developed in the human organism. The eyes are created by light, and without the Sun there would be no eyes. No eye is capable of perceiving the Sun without having first received from the Sun the power to do so. In the same way, there could be no power to grasp and recognize the Christ-nature if the Christ-impulse had not entered into external history. What the Sun out there in the cosmos does for human sight, so the historical Christ Jesus makes possible what we call the entry of the divine nature into our inner life.

The elements necessary for understanding this were present in the stream of thought that came over from the East; they needed only to be raised to a higher level. It was in the West that souls were ripe to grasp and accept this impulse — the West, where experiences which had belonged to the outer world were transferred to the inner life most intensively, and in the form of conscience watched over a generally weak ego. In this way souls were strengthened, and prepared to hear the voice of conscience now saying within them: The Divinity who appeared in the East to those able to look clairvoyantly into the world — this Divinity now lives in us!

However, what was thus being prepared could not have become conscious experience if the inward Divinity had not spoken in advance in the dawning of conscience. So we see that external understanding for the Divinity of Christ Jesus was born in the East, and the emergence of conscience came to meet it from the West. For example, we find that conscience is more and more often spoken of in the Roman world, at the beginning of the Christian era, and the further westward we go, the clearer is the evidence for the recognized existence of conscience or for its presence in embryonic form.

Thus East and West played into each other's hands. We see the Sun of the Christ-nature rising in the East, while in the West the development of conscience is preparing the way for understanding the Christ. Hence the victorious advance of Christianity is toward the West, not the East. In the East we see the spread of a religion which represents the final consequence — though on the highest level — of the eastern outlook: Buddhism takes hold of the eastern world. Christianity takes hold of the western world, because Christianity had first created the organ for receiving it. Here we see Christianity brought into relation with the deepened element in western culture: the concept of conscience embodied in Christianity.

Not through the study of external history, but only through an inward contemplation of the facts, shall we come to knowledge of these developments. What I am saying today will be met with disbelief by many people. But a demand of the times is that we should recognize the spirit in external phenomena. This, however, is possible only if we are at least able initially to discern the spirit where it speaks to us in the form of a clear message. Popular consciousness says: When conscience speaks, it is God speaking in the soul. The highest spiritual consciousness says that when conscience speaks, it is truly the cosmic Spirit speaking. And spiritual science brings out the connection between conscience and the greatest event in the evolution of mankind, the Christ-event. Hence it is not surprising that conscience has thereby been ennobled and raised to a higher sphere. When we hear that something has been done for reasons of conscience, we feel that conscience is regarded as one of the most important possessions of mankind.

Thus we can see how natural and right it is for the human heart to speak of conscience as “God in man.” And when Goethe says that the highest experience for man is when “God-Nature reveals itself to him,” we must realize that God can reveal himself in the spirit to man only if Nature is seen in the light of its spiritual background. This has been provided for in human evolution, on the one hand by the light of Christ, shining from outside, and on the other by the divine light within us: the light of conscience. Hence a philosopher such as Fichte, who studies human character, is justified in saying that conscience is the highest voice in our inward life. On this account, also, we are aware that our dignity as human beings is inseparable from conscience. We are human beings because we have an ego-consciousness; and the conscience we have at our side is also at the side of our ego. Thus we look on conscience as a most sacred individual possession, inviolable by the external world, whose voice enables us to determine our direction and our goal. When conscience speaks, no other voice may intrude.

So it is that on one side conscience ensures our connection with the primordial power of the world and on the other guarantees the fact that in our inmost self we have something like a drop flowing from the Godhead. And man can know: When conscience speaks in him, it is a God speaking.

Source: 
http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwn.rsarchive.org%2FLectures%2FDates%2F19100505p01.html&date=2010-07-19

Mr. Tambourine Man

Since 1963 Bob Dylan has been a tremendous help in my life.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to 
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to 
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin' swingin' madly across the sun
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to 
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to 
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Coked and Cooked

Will there be a third debate, or will Trump's coke-fueled flameout incinerate him before then?

Not I, but Christ in me

"I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."  — Galatians 2:19-21

May wisdom shine through me

May love radiate from me

May strength course through me

That in me may arise

A helper of humankind

A consecrated servant

Selfless and true

~ Rudolf Steiner

The Shining Path: Anthroposophy

Rudolf Steiner:  "There is nothing into which Anthroposophy cannot shed its light as an impulse, nothing into which it is not called upon to shine."

"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. 

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."  — Matthew 5:13-16

"I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."  — Galatians 2:19-21

Weave in Wisdom — Live in Glory — Strive in Virtue

May wisdom shine through me
May love radiate from me
May strength course through me
That in me may arise
A helper of humankind
A consecrated servant
Selfless and true



~ Rudolf Steiner










Thank you, Chris Manvell!

Noted in passing: Mike "Timmy" Pence is a Calvinistic case of arrested development

"Only in passing may the spiritual aspirant regard the adversary."

—from the maxims of Martyrion      

Not I, but Christ in me

"Thinking, in its own nature, certainly retains the real self or ego, but it does not contain self-consciousness.... self-consciousness arises only through the bodily organization.... however, this must not be taken to imply that self-consciousness, once it has arisen, remains dependent on the bodily organization. Once arisen, it is taken up into thinking and shares henceforth in thinking's spiritual being."  — Rudolf Steiner

"The shortest cut is to cut the ego." — Swamiji

Swamiji and Gopala [Glenview, Illinois, 1975]

"He [Swamiji] said, 'Isn't this a cremation ground?' referring to his ashram. 'You come here to be burned, and if you can't get that into your head, there's no point in your being here!'"
— Swami Veda

Job's final wisdom: "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

The Solar Plexus [The Manipura Chakra : The Altar of Humanity] 

Moses and the Golden Calf

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

                            — Shakespeare

I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

                            — Goethe

From the after-the-fact notes of a member of the audience at an Esoteric Lesson given by Rudolf Steiner in Berlin on March 22, 1912:

Our occult exercises are supposed to bring us to imaginative knowledge. Not so long ago they had imaginations that could be understood by any pupil without further explanation. Today such imaginations must be explained in words, because very few esotericists would be able to understand them by themselves. An imagination will now be given here that's useful for any esotericist who has the feeling that he's not making any progress in spite of his efforts. The pupil should imagine that his teacher or master is standing before him in the shape of Moses, and that the latter asks him: “So you'd like to know why you're not getting ahead on the esoteric path?” “Yes.” “I'll tell you why. It's because you worship the golden calf.” Then the pupil sees the golden calf next to Moses. The latter lets fire come up from the earth that consumes the golden calf and turns it to powder. He throws this powder into some clear water and gives the mixture to the pupil to drink. A few centuries ago any esotericist would have been able to understand this image. Now it must be explained as follows.

When we go back in our memory, we get to a point where our memories stop and ego-consciousness began. What lies before that is what we made out of ourself in previous incarnations and brought into this one. That's the golden calf that we worship without realizing it — our sheath nature.

The pupil should now replace the image of the golden calf with the image of what he was as a child, before he had an ego-consciousness. He becomes fully aware that what he feels is his ego is just a Luciferic effect. For ordinary consciousness is based on memory and memory is a Luciferic force, since it's Lucifer's task to carry the past over into the present. If one strips oneself of what one has through ego-consciousness, then what remains is what we've brought with us from other earth lives.

Some people may feel that it's hard to have to think of themselves like that, but we won't be prepared to meet the Guardian of the Threshold without strict concepts like that.

Then the pupil should imagine that fire burns the child's form that he is; he's become a little bigger since then, but basically he's still the same sheath-man that the child was, except that the illusion of an ego has been added. He sees how the form turns to powder, and this becomes a strong awareness that all parts of these physical, etheric, and astral sheaths must become as indifferent to him as a pile of ashes, as indifferent as clay is for a sculptor before he's made something out of it. He must think away his physical body and its outer shape, his etheric body with its memory, his astral body with its sympathies and antipathies — or think that they are a pile of ashes.

One might not be able to put this into practice right away. It doesn't mean that one should suddenly hug someone one disliked, but when we carry out this imagination as an exercise, we must be able to get rid of all antipathies.

And the powder is thrown into the pure water of divine substance, the way it was before the Luciferic force worked on it. This is how the sheath nature is to be sacrificed and the divine substance is to be given back. But an esotericist also arrives at the insight that everything that's now only a pile of dust for him was formed out of the spirit. His body's shape was sculpted by the spirit, the spirit made him into what he now is as a form. And we should take what the spirit has made out of us back into ourselves. We should drink the water again in which the dust was dissolved. Then we have it pure, after the golden calf was burned, pulverized, and dissolved. If we do this, we'll feel that a whole place in us seems to become empty; it's the place where the ego usually is — we feel that this is getting empty. Then one can either become a Buddhist and go into a region for which a man should feel that he's too worthy — into nirvana, into an extraterrestrial sphere — or one can arrive at a new awareness of the Christ impulse and can feel it stream into the place of our ego that has become empty.

Christ would never have been able to come to earth among the Hebrew people if Moses hadn't destroyed the golden calf, thrown it into water, and given it to Israel's children to drink. This doesn't mean that one should do this imagination every day — but maybe every 3 or 4 weeks. It's basically just another clarification of our Rosicrucian verse.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0266/19120322e01.html

Psalm 51

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

"I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." — Galatians 2:19-21

Related posts:

http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-cremation-ground-aum-gold-13-ways.html
http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2016/07/rejoice-35-years-at-himalayan-institute.html