Prem Moodaley
Death – “Alchemical Initiation into Wisdom”
“She dances wildly with Death and Births the alchemy of deep wisdom”
When we dance with the Feminine – we are constantly confronted with the Death Mother. This Dark Mother is an alchemical energy that seeks to bring the force of Her Nature into our lives for change to occur, and for deeper wisdom to manifest through us.
Never have we been so confronted with the Death Mother as we have in this last year. She is everywhere – calling us to a deep attunement to the rhythms of Life and to the ever present opportunity for rebirth and renewal.
We have been taught to fear death to wildly resist its presence in our lives. Oftentimes we miss its gifts, these opportunities to grow through a deep pruning of what has been before. We complain, we fight, we distract ourselves endlessly hoping, just hoping that its dark presence will go away and we can go “back to normal” often times burying and denying the opportunity for new life, that is begging to come into being/form.
“I find the happiest wild women are those who relish the opportunity to let entire phases of their lives die out, like flowers withering under the first frost.”
Danielle Dulsky
When I speak of Death here, I am not merely speaking of physical death, although this too is an opportunity for renewal and regeneration, I am including here the psychological deaths that are really the jewels in the mud of our lives, the ones that bring us to our knees, the situations we face that cry out for change, for the release of our neurotic attachments and illusions. This is I believe the death we most fear – the death inherent in the alchemy of change and the rearranging of our carefully constructed comfortable static lives.
“I am a daughter of some ancient Black Madonna
who brings new life through shaking our bones.
Even the chaos of a storm has a logic.
A tornado turns to a secret clockwork, that comes from the Creators hand.
You, simple woman, cannot see what is:
coming in the midst of the storm.
Just lay low and take shelter and then when
the calm comes
walk into the light.
Open your eyes in amazement at what the dust was covering from your sight before the storm came.
Rebirth is a shedding of your illusions.”
Psalm Isadora
In the feminine motifs – there is the imagery of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. All three of these aspects are initiating points in the cycle of our lives. The Crone particularly is a Death Mother, teaching us of the transience, the effervescence of life, she is the Wisdom holder, gathering the seeds of our many life lessons and preparing us for a new cycle, a new birth into deeper love, wisdom and truth. She initiates us into Bone Wisdom – the bare naked truth of our Being. She is ancient, has been around for a very long time and knows “the way” and will allow no less than the sacred engagement with the flow and cycles of our lives.
In Tantra – the initiate is often instructed to meditate in the cremation grounds so that this death wisdom is deeply integrated into the body. Oftentimes we are instructed to “die before we die”. Kali, the Baba Yaga, Calleich, Ceridwen, The Norns, the Morrigan, Hekate, Sekhmet are among the Crone Goddesses who invite us into newer ways of beings, encouraging us to allow the old to die so that new life, new vision, new possibility can come into being through the alchemy of death.
“The Crone Mother – offering the Pomegranate, symbol of Fertility and New Life”
Die to all that has gone before. Let go of the limited, the small, the cramped spaces of your mind. Rest in the velvet black darkness of the Mother’s embrace. Who are you now? Dissolve into the infinity of Her deep and abiding Love and Support. Be still and know.
She Invites you to:
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Copyright
Prem Moodaley
Easter 2021
Resources:
Danielle Dulsky: Woman Most Wild: Three Keys to Liberating the Witch Within 2017
Resurrection – “Behold the Feminine Christ”
“Red Priestess – She who Births/Resurrects Ancient Mother-Wisdom”
What is called for at this most pivotal time of humanity’s evolution is the deepest attention to the resurrecting and the birthing of Core Feminine. This is the path of the Mother. It is the most vital work we are most called to now. It is most important to understand this point – this journey is not one that is made on an intellectual level, it is rooted in a place of embodied Heart awareness wedded to Truth. It cannot be comprehended on the level that we are used to serving from, it comes from a place of cellular embodiment – this is the path that we need to choose and give our attention to now as we move into the challenging years ahead.
I see 2021 as the year of Resurrection, the birth of the path of Illumined Embodiment. We each are called to walk this path in our own way and yet there is one common growth point into expansion, as we open to more and more of this potent Feminine Light which holds our deepest wisdom, we are also called to include all of humanity in our awakening. No longer is our awakening just for our own individual liberation from bondage, but it includes all of humanity, all creatures, the Earth, and all beings everywhere, the whole collective. This means as we reach higher we also dig deeper into our collective humanity and expand our yearning beyond just our personal desire for freedom. This takes both great maturity and also enormous guts and courage as we let go of all the comfortable illusions provided by the status quo/system and stand naked in the truth of the Tremendous, Tremendous Love that wants to birth through us.
As women we have been systematically stripped of our power and our natural alignment with Her Grace. Resurrection implies new birth and new life where we do the trench work of excavating those exiled aspects of Our/Her power that we have relegated to the deepest unconscious. We have no idea how much power and love we hold within, nor do we have any idea that this Grand Power of Love desires most of all to be birthed through us. Power, not based on the patriarchal model but power that is inclusive of all and which carries the fragrance of a Love that knows no bounds or boundaries. In order to excavate these exiled aspects we face our deepest wounds. It is only when we walk across that Sacred Threshold, that doorway into the unknown, that the the Divine Child is born within us, born through our very body and through intimacy with the Divine Breath, our most Sacred Connection to Love.
“Sacred Threshold”
“This Second Coming is
not a return of Christ
but a new arrival of
Female Presence, once
Strong and Powerful, but
enchained since the dawn
of patriarchy”
MARY DALY
It is surely a fight worth giving up everything we have ever held sacred for. It is this miracle of new life riding on the sure wings of Grace and Alignment, of Courage and the Deepest Trust in our Soul purpose: as the unfoldment of this Great Love for all beings, that Unity is birthed, and that the Original Blueprint for humanity can be resurrected.
“It is a fight worth giving up everything we have held sacred for.”
Make no mistake, we will be tested from every angle, all our attachments and illusions brought to light. The path requires discipline, facing our personal shadow, guts and loads of Grace. It is only by demonstrating the deepest self love and respect for the Divine Vessel that we each are that this Resurrection/Birth can even take place. It requires the Fiercest Love and single minded purpose to bring this forth. We face this evolutionary choice point now…every moment, every breath, every thought significant in this Divine Resurrection of Love.
The Mother is waiting….It is time to bring Her Home.
“The birth of the Resurrection”
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Copyright
Prem Moodaley
Christmas Eve 2020
Trust – A Revolutionary and Evolutionary Act of Courage
Trust requires unconditional opening to Love
At this time of immense uncertainty we are being given an evolutionary opportunity to leave behind the safe shores of our intellect and merge with the Heart – this ancient resonant awareness of the Divine Feminine – the Sacred Mother within all things – permeating all of creation, the very core of our existence.
This resonant Field of magnetic frequency is Love – not the love that we are conditioned into, and that we are taught to find outside of ourselves, but a Love Field that is buoyant and fluid, and that is deeply resonant with Power, Grace and Wisdom – an invisible, all encompassing unfathomable Love – yet deeply and immediately available.
“You are encircled
by the arms of the Mystery of God”
Hildegard of Bingen
“There is an Intelligence, a Love within which we are enfolded,
a larger Field in which we live” Anne Hillman
Language is very limited and words trap us in concepts that imprison us from our deepest knowing, from having direct experience of that which cannot be imprisoned in words. Our words are our past and we are deeply conditioned into their learnt meanings. Words like God, Divinity, Love, Wisdom, and actually any word that our intellect serves up to us may sound wonderful but until we have a direct experience of that word – a lived, felt and embodied knowing – we cannot live that energy in our lives. This is one of the biggest traps we face as we embark on a journey into embodied awakening. The path requires that we move from our learned intellectual concepts to direct experience, engaging all our senses especially our feeling sense. This is what true Gnosis is – direct and unmediated experience of Truth and of Love.
Sensing Love is the first step on our journey into Trust
We live in a cultural milieu that has programmed us into patriarchal values through every system of the world – our political, educational, economic and even our religious systems – whose values are reinforced through the media everyday, urge us to find our sense of security in the outside world. Life has become a game to survive. Thus, it is quite daunting to embark on a journey to find that sense of safety, our essential rootedness in the “ground of our being” within. We deeply engage our edge – and this requires immense trust and surrender, courage and grit – a step by step, breath by breath relinquishing of all that we have previously relied on to feel safe.
We rarely grasp the reality of living in a field of Love and instead we feel victimized by life never truly grasping the deep soul lessons of the challenges presented to us and the rich opportunities for awakening to the Love and Truth within and around us.
The straight and the narrow path requires us to open unconditionally and to allow this Love in, through our intention and attention to its Presence. We reroute our habitual patterns of identifying with our story, our wounds and the projections of our relentless habitual mindsets, and come to a place of living in the present moment, in the Heart, deeply trusting our journey, allowing ourselves to be guided like a little child into our next steps. Trust requires us to become a child again and again, allowing this great field of Love to live life through us, rooting ourselves into the deep nourishment of our awakened Heart. It requires a complete reversal of the focus of our attention – away from the world into the boundless love of the open Heart.
Trust requires us to become a child again
At this most poignant moment in time – when all our safe and secure structures are falling around us – we may ask: What if this disintegration of the known is not a disaster but an evolutionary opportunity used by Love to call us home again. What if this moment requires us to take off our armour, put down our swords and release ourselves from the sophistication of our deeply conditioned educated intellects, and to actually become a child again, simple, open and innocent. This is what Yeshua (Jesus) means when he says that in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven we have to become children again. This is what Rumi is calling us to when he speaks of the Field beyond right and wrong and this is what the Heart of Life – “The Mother” is beckoning us to seek now.
Would we be willing to leave the safe shores of the mind and plunge into the unknown territory of the heart and learn to trust again, to be a child again, and to “allow” that field of Love to take us Home. At this time, we all face uncertainty in varying degrees – the way into the Trusting Heart calls us to an evolutionary choice point now – to face the unknown with pure innocence and trust, or to live the known status quo into another generation. The path through the shadow of the times we live in, absolutely requires us to go within and activate the Heart of a Love that has the power to activate our intrinsic Soul force which is ultimately the only power we have to change the world.
“Choose Love, Love!
Without the sweet life of Love, living is a burden—–
as you have seen..” Rumi
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Copyright
Full Moon September 2020
Resources: Quotes:
Anne Hillman : Awakening the Energies of Love, Discovering Fire for the Second Time – Bramble Books 2008
Elif Shafak: The Forty Rules of Love – Viking Books – 2010
Matthew Fox: Hildegard of Bingen – A Saint for Our Times – Namaste Publishing 2012
Slow-Magic – Deep Elemental Harmony with all Life
“With all my body, I touch the earth.
My hands touch the earth.
My face touches the earth.
My breasts touch the earth.
My heart touches the earth.
My belly and genitals touch the earth.
My thighs and knees and toes touch the earth.
I breath deeply and my breath is united with the earth.
The whole earth breathes. Breath is everything.
I delight in the earth, its presence, its energy.
The earth is real!
Only your superficial contact with the earth is not real.” (1)
In the book Tantric Quest the yogini Lalita Devi introduces her student Daniel Odier to the magical “tattwas”. The tattwas are the basic building blocks of all of existence – its the Earth, our bodies, air, fire, water, space and ether. It is the whole living, breathing, erotic reality of all existence.
This vital link between humans and the elemental nature of life has been broken down because of the weight of the patriarchal lens of separation and gratification that has seeped into the very fabric of our living and has co-oped our senses and cut us off from the intrinsic sensuality of living gracefully and graciously in harmony with the phenomenal world.
“When was the last time you felt the deliciousness of water caress your skin?”
The soul strives to experience its erotic nature – it is its reason for being, for incarnating into the world of form. Slow-magic happens when we are committed to restoring this deeply intrinsic holy relationship with the sensual nature of the elements – uniting our being with Earth, Human and Life Divine.
To do this we have to slow way, way down. It is in our soft steps, our breath and our attention to the completely innocent moment, empty of conceptual goals that we can truly grasp this magic with its offering of beauty, of love and of grace. This is the magic that is all around us, woven into the very fabric of creation, the Mother Herself – awaiting our recognition.
It is in these sacred pauses that we can truly access this Heavenly love that is all around us. We begin to foster a deep love of the ordinary day and the living of it becomes a sacred feminine art. Each day becomes a celebration of the erotic present in the ordinary. When we restore this curiosity – this innocence, this wonder, this awe, we begin to release ourselves from the imprisonment of our jaded worldview, our senses over stimulated by “too much” and we tap into a field that is overflowing with simple abundance.
“The bliss of taste”
“The Sun and Moon and Earth
Danced together
To bring you this delight.”
We begin to truly connect to the Earth, and her vast veins of sensual magic. We become transformed, pared down to that which truly gives our soul joy. We live generously in the moment. The Mother of Life takes her place in the center of our lives, gushing forth Her Love and we having slowed down are open to receive Her.
“The art of making a cup of tea”
The priestess, wild women and mystics of old truly knew how to do this, how to live in harmony with the elemental nature of life – and it is from this matrix that they could weave their tapestry of magic. They mined each slow moment for its gifts with the alchemy of intention and attention and because of this they could heal, soothe and bring forth their wisdom and their visions. They truly lived and died with this reverence, completely satiated, overflowing with life, their soul dancing in ecstasy.
“Tasting dark chocolate,
A ripe apricot,
A luscious elixir –
Savor the expanding joy in your body.
Nature is offering herself to you.
How astonishing
To realize this world can taste so good.
When sipping some ambrosia,
Raise your glass,
Close your eyes,
Toast the universe.
The Sun and Moon and Earth
Danced together
To bring you this delight.
Receive the nectar on your tongue
As a kiss of the divine. (2)
“Slow-Magic”
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Copyright
May 2020
Resources:
(1) Tantric Quest – An Encounter with Absolute Love – Daniel Odier – Inner Traditions 1997
(2) The Radiant Sutras – Lorin Roche – Sounds True 2014
Impermanence – Twilight nature of Time; Dissolution of Polarity into Emptiness;
“The Wild Death /Life Mother – A “Baba Yaga” moment”
Journal Entry: 19 March 2020
” It feels like I’m standing on the sharp point of a sword – the sharp point of a single moment – a moment in our collective history where all time is coalesing and collapsing in one single collective breath. There is at the same time a deep surge of creative energy coming forth – blasting forth from the old world of the past that is dying. Nothing, nothing will ever be the same again. It is as if all the work, processes, initiations, tests, frustrations and struggles collapse in the expansion of this one precious empty moment.
“Pinpoint of time at the center of Eternity”
This single moment shrouded in the twilight mists of time begs the single question – what will I create now? We are all at that point now – where the big questions need to be asked. This is a chance to start again – if we could grasp its abundant potentiality beyond our personal preferences and comforting illusions. It may look chaotic on the outside but as souls on the path of evolution – this is a benevolent moment – extremely supportive to the evolutionary processes that we agreed to birth into the world. If we can see beyond our narrow vision and embrace the story from a larger evolutionary perspective then this is “the moment” – a gift – a revelation – an answer to a prayer.”
And so support is at hand in the form of the Wild Mother – she who destroys and she who gives life. She who is ever present to take us from all that makes us sleepy and initiate us into a new way – a way of magic, of miracles, a way of Love.
“Baba Yaga, the Wild Mother, is just such a teacher we can consult in these matters. She instructs the ordering of the house of the soul. She imbues an alternate order to the ego, one where magic can happen, joy can be done, appetite is intact, things are accomplished with gusto. Baba Yaga is the model for being true to the Self. She teaches both death and renewal.”
So the questions linger:
Am I willing to allow the Wild Death/Life Mother to have her way with me?
Am I willing to allow my Primordial Feminine Nature to reach out from the deep caverns of my inner spaces and shatter the patriarchal illusions to free me from an insiduous enslavement to a dying identity?
Am I willing to live into this turning point and to throw out all the concepts I have collected – especially the spiritual ones, and to sit in the raw nakedness of my vulnerability and to know that this is the only way that the Divine can be birthed through me into the world to create anew?
Am I willing….?
These are the questions we need to ask now – it is an opportunity if we can see it that way – a precious opportunity to begin again – not for us but for the future and for the past which stand waiting for us to make our choices – on that pinpoint of time suspended in eternity. May we make that choice “Now”
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Resources:
Clarissa Pinkola Estes Ph.D – Women who Run with the Wolves – Ballantine Books 1992
Meggan Watterson – The Sutras of Unspeakable Joy – 2016
Freedom: “The Art of Allowing; The Courage to Be”
In this Sutra – I explore Freedom. In a world matrix which influences our every thought and action – freedom is something that feels elusive. No matter how many material possessions we own, how much knowledge we have accumulated or titles we have – many of us feel a silent oppression. We have a faint dream of innocence, of childlike trust and yet this elusive way of being completely eludes us as we live a life of just trying to survive the day.
The “Veil of Separation” from the Source of All Creativity – The Great Mother – Sophia/Shakti – a River of Love that bathes both the Earth and the Heavens and “Everything in between” – has been so entrenched within our psyches, that we live in a consciousness of scarcity and struggle and pathological control. We have totally bought into the belief that our power lies outside of us. The Art of Allowing and Being is one of the forgotten Arts of the Sacred Feminine – I have called it the Freedom Code.
How then can we seed a new way of living in the world, how can we in our own small way plant another seed and allow it to flower and obliterate the patriarchal conditioning that keeps us enslaved to being the “doer” of our lives. At a time of world crisis – there is very little we can do but plant new seeds in our own lives and through our visions – for our children in the future.
“Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“Sophia” “Shakti” – Mother of Freedom”
The foundation of this new way of being is Trust – without trust in the Invisible Presence of Benevolence, Immense intelligence and Love we cannot find new way to live our lives. We learn to relax and allow this Force to move through us and create our lives from within. This deep relaxation into the Truth and Love of this “Timeless moment” is the only practice we need. At the end of all our angst, our searching, our striving – it comes down to this “Now” – in deep relaxation and attunement. The Courage comes in the Trusting and the living into the “Unknowing”. The false ego mind hates this of course, as it has been bred to attune to the outside – with its distractions and distorted creations. We have not realized that it is our endless distraction and striving that has taken us away from our True Core Power. This Power is known as Shakti. And this power can only be tapped into, in the present moment, and by attuning and listening and slowing down. It is this alignment that we have been seeking for our whole lives believing that it is outside of us.
We allow the events in our lives to unfold and by listening deep within we are guided in our next steps. This is a complete undoing of all we have believed ourselves to be and like the Fool in the Tarot we are willing to surrender to the flow and within that flow all our soul needs are met.
“The Fool”
This new way of being eventually becomes the default setting on our inner compass and its Evolutionary potential is Revolutionary. Through this revolutionary act we are able to channel Beingness into Creative actions that serve the whole of Life. This way of being is entirely fuelled by Love – a Love that our minds will never able to understand – an Unfathomable Love that flows through Everything.
One of my favourite quotes is by Franz Kafka –
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Prem Moodaley
Copyright 2020
February Full Moon 2020
The Seer – Grail Queen – Guardian of the Heart
The Grail Queen
“The One Who Is at Play Everywhere says,
There is a space in the heart where everything meets.
Come here if you want to find me.
Mind, senses, soul, eternity – all are here.
Are you here?”
Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.
Listen to the song that is always resonating.
Give yourself to it with total abandon.
Quiet ecstasy is here,
And a steady, regal sense
Of resting in in a perfect spot.
You who are the embodiment of blessing,
Once you know the way,
The nature of attention will call you to return.
Again and Again, answer that call,
And be saturated with knowing,
“I belong here, I am at home.” Radiant Sutras
The Seer is the Guardian of the Mysteries, the Gatekeeper of the Heart. In these times of immense planetary upheaval we are being called to a new way, and way of razor sharp discernment that cuts through and reveals in deep clarity the difference between what is real and what is unreal. The Seer is the one who has found the way – She who knows how to knit together the polarities – the schisms – the broken, and it is She who holds them in unity in Her immense heart.
She is able to navigate this world with fearless courage. She is the Joan of Arc of the 21st century. She is able to travel anywhere without losing her integrity and deep faithfulness to Love and to Truth which pours forth and radiates from Her being in Divine Revelation.
She knows why she is here at this time – at this precise moment in history. She knows that it is only in Her deep union to all of life that Life itself can rise from the ashes and be reborn and resurrected in Love. She not only allows Life – but she is immensely trusting of its flow through Her – and its ability it to carry her to where She most needs to be. She is the embodiment of Surrendered Love to Love itself and it is this flow that is Her salvation in a world that needs her gifts and her prayers.
“In the clarity of the Love within – She finds the Flow”
The True Grail Queen of the Heart is of an ancient Lineage – a lost sisterhood of the Feminine soul. She has been born to seed Love Codes within the body of the Mother of Life on this planet – Sacred Earth. Her task in awakening from the Dream is three-fold:
*She has to withdraw all projection of Love and Security from sources outside of herself. This is a core piece of work.
*Her next step is to take those projections and place it back in Her heart where it belongs – within Her very own body – it is in the depths of Her heart that the vast Sacred bridal Chamber is revealed and it is there that the True Beloved awaits Her coming.
*Through the many distractions within the collective dream matrix of world – with its push and pull, its false promises – the newly born Grail queen has to be in deep faithfulness, loyalty and trust to the Core Sacred Union within – this is where deep abiding courage, faith and trust is needed. She faces the temptations, the numerous voices of the shadow self – hellbent on pulling her out of Her Sacred Seat within, Her very own Sacred Temple – and She guards its Silent, Empty, Vast Open spaces.
“She wishes for you to enter this temple
Where each breath is adoration
Of the infinite for the incarnate form”
– Radiant Sutras
As we move into a new decade – a decade of increased instability we are at this moment most called to birth the forgotten values of the Heart – the True Seat of Our Holy Soul. This is the Divine Nectar within – the original alchemy of Love itself.
We turn away from a materialistic consumer culture that has gone mad in its power hungry frenzy – and we choose and choose again – to open, to allow, to be soft, to slow way-way down, to “not know”, to trust, to feel and to place love, peace, forgiveness, silence, compassion and courage as the jewels in the crown of our soul destiny. This is why we are here and it is for this that we are born.
“Life wants to breathe through you as magically and powerfully
as it breathes through a thunderstorm,
or the leaf on a tree,
or the radiance in a newborn baby’s eyes”
Way of Mastery
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Prem Moodaley
Copyright 2020
Lunar Eclipse – 10 January 2020
Resources:
Lorin Roche: The Radiant Sutras – Sounds True 2014
Way of Mastery – Volume 1 – The Way of the Heart – Shanti Christo Foundation – 2012
Attunement – Deep Slow Inner Receptivity to Love
There are two ways to awaken. There is the way of Striving. This is the way we take on the path as if we are negotiating a goal – a journey to success. This path is governed by a strong intellect – by a way of “doing” that is strenuous – driven by personal will and ridden with tests. It is as if we have an inner tyrant that goads us on and we become devoid of juice – our patriarchal conditioning has co-opted our spiritual journey and we become dry, and serious and without joy.
And then there is the path of attunement – this is the path of slow sensuous melting, a deep inner receptivity to love and relaxing into the ocean of Being that carries us in “this” moment into Love. This journey is one of deep attunement into the Now moment. There is no goal or future place to land. In this moment we are in Unity – slowly melting our rigid inner structures into the honey gold of the heart, the arms of the Beloved always around us. Our evolution is one of deeper and deeper surrender, and we negotiate our challenges from a place of softness, of slow dissolution, and deep, deep trust.
“Deep Relaxation into Love”
This silent relaxed attunement to the Love and Rhythm of the Universe is a journey of deep slowing down. It is a complete attention and connection with the Absolute Reality of Life – in communion with the whole web of sensual reality. It is a deep sensitivity to all the flavors and tastes of Life – of the fluid river of emotions, the sights, the sounds, the deep erotic nature of touch, rooted in Beingness and at the same time, at home in this world. It is both the incarnation of the soul in the body and its liberation – in each moment – and in each breath.
“When she paused, her whole body seemed suspended in space,
in total wellbeing, and calm openness.
I sometimes had the impression that the sky and the trees listened to her,
that the waterfall quieted down,
that the air stopped moving.”
By opening to the sensual reality of life we allow the Life to penetrate us completely and in this penetration we awaken to the Fullness of our Being as the Divine Herself. “The tantrika is like a river that never stops flowing in the divine because the divine never stops flowing in her.”
“The senses declare an outrageous world –
Sounds and scents, ravishing colors and shapes,
Ever-changing skies, iridescent reflections –
All these beautiful surfaces
Decorating vibrant emptiness.
The god of love is courting you,
Light as a feather.”
THE RADIANT SUTRAS
“Magdalene-Christ”
“The God of Love is Courting You”
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Prem Moodaley
Copyright 2019
Mary Magdalene Feast Day 22 July 2019
Resources:
Daniel Odier: Tantric Quest – An Encounter with Absolute Love – Inner Traditions 1997
Lorin Roche: The Radiant Sutras – Sounds True 2014
Temple – Bridal Chamber, Inner Sanctuary, Cave
The journey from the Head to the Heart is one of the most profound initiations on the Path of the Initiate. It is in the Heart that the deepest most profound alchemy occurs and it is within this most sacred space that we die to all that we have been before. The River of Light that is Heaven melts into the molten gold of the Earth and in this alchemical union we are born into the Embodiment of our Holiness.
“This Magnificent Refuge is inside of you.
Enter. Shatter the Darkness that Shrouds the Doorway.
Be Bold. Be humble.”
Saint Teresa of Avila
In Daniel Odier’s book Tantric Quest – an Encounter with Absolute Love – the Yogini Lalita Devi teaches him about this inner sanctuary of Consciousness. “Guard the Silent Empty Open Temple” she warns. “What does the worshiper do? He cleans the temple. How? By asking all who have been sitting there forever to leave so he can sweep, throw fresh water drawn from the river on the stones, scatter rose petals.”
The seat of consciousness is this Inner Temple, this cave of the Heart – the womb where Consciousness is seeded and rooted. Who then are these silent ones who obscure the Radiance of this Love? These are the rusted, corroded conditionings, the social mores and regulations, the rigid defences, the relentless noise in our heads, the walls – and the psychic debris that have made their home in our hearts for eons. How do we wash down the temple? We dissolve these voices – caste out the illusions and meet the Beloved in the fresh open spaciousness of our Inner Refuge – our Temple.
“Washing down the Temple of Consciousness
Scattering Rose Petals”
Our Embodiment holds this sacredness – The heart of Heaven is not “out there” –the Holy of Holies is within. In Tantra the material world is suffused with this Love, a quantum field of Power, Grace and Wisdom known to Christian mystics as Sophia. The body holds the precious heart which is a portal to accessing this Grace as is – its Holy Breath.
Sophia
“The Garden of Your Body holds Your Precious Heart”
What are the sacrificial offerings placed on the alter of this most Holy Living Temple? The offerings are all the threads of our conditioned self preservation —the force of the egoic mind that obscures that which is Eternal Union – the Flame of Love – Union with the Beloved – this is the Sacrement, this is the Consecration, this is the Holy Vow. The mind with all its control, all its projections, all its worries can never know the logic of this alchemy. It is only the courageous heart that can take that leap – that can risk everything in its Desire for Union, its Desire for Freedom and its Desire for Sovereignty.
At this narrow part of the journey some of the “edgy” questions we might ask are:
Am I willing to let go of my desire for security in the world and my constant need to ensure it?
Am I willing to let go of my desire for affection/validation from others outside of myself?
Am I willing to let go of my desire to control my life and everything and everyone in it?
Am I willing to allow situations to be as they are without trying to change them?
Am I willing to be present in “this moment” to Reality – no matter how it is showing up?
Am I willing to unclench my fist, my mind, my body – and relax into and trust the invisible presence of the Beloved holding me close in this moment?
This deep allowance of Life to be Lived through the Living Heart can only take place in a mind Surrendered to Truth and Desiring of a Love that knows no end. To let go of likes and dislikes and to open to what is happening in this moment in daily life is the practice that finally allows for the slow dissolution into the Eternal Silence and Beauty of the Heart where the Eternal Lover awaits us.
“Eternal Silence and Beauty of the Bridal Chamber”
“At the very core of your heart, entombed in the shadow, is the ineffable diamond of Christ, who is pure Beauty. You are Mary, waiting at dawn. The stone has already been rolled aside. Meet the Beloved in the garden of your body. ”
Fred Le Motte
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Prem Moodaley
Copyright 2019
Full Moon May 2019
Resources:
Tantric Quest – An Encounter with Absolute Love Inner Traditions 1997
Fred Lamotte – Poetry – amongst other beautiful books – “Savour Eternity One Moment At A Time” – St. Julian Press 2016
Initiate – crossing the Threshold; saying “yes”
The Initiate
The path of the Initiate is the path to the Eternal Bridal Chamber of the Heart, where in its Holy Silence we find the Beloved.
The path is one that leads from fear to courage, from a darkness to light and from knowledge to wisdom. We turn away from the endless distractions and false promises and attachments from a world that seeks to keep us a prisoner of limitation and claim that expansive presence of light within.
We say yes to reality as it unfolds in our world – going beyond the likes and dislikes of the transient ego personality with its fears – desires – attachments. We begin to touch the stillness within – that well of Love where our true security lies.
To cross this threshold the Initiate – has to pass what has been known The Dwellers of the Threshold – those temptations and dualities that creates a fall back into egoic consciousness and the comfort of the known. Crossing the threshold means entering into the unknown that place where the limited mind cannot go. This is the death before you die. The initiate dies to the ego illusions, the false internal constructs and the conditioning fed by the personal and collective history. This is truly and auspicious moment when we face the death of the transient limited personal identity and fall into the arms of the Eternal Beloved of the Heart.
Meeting the Beloved in the Secret Chamber of the Heart
One of the most inspiring stories I have read recently is about Etty Hillesum. She lived during one of the most horrific times on the planet – The German Nazi occupation – She was a Jew living in The Netherlands whose life eventually ended in the gas oven of Auschwitz. Her short life – she was only 29 years old, was a journey into the Beloved of the Heart whom She realized with every breath was Her only salvation in a world gone mad.
Etty Hillesum (1914-1943)
(15 January 1914 – 30 November 1943) was the author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. In 1943 she was deported and killed in Auschwitz concentration camp.
The following excerpts are from Her journal.
” I had the profound thought that I carry my own climates and weather conditons within me and independent of those outside. The fact that one carries one’s own seasons and landscapes within suddenly gave me a tremendous feeling of strength and independence” (Etty, 446)
“I have already died a thousand deaths in a thousand concentration camps. I know about everything and am no longer appalled by the latest reports. In one way or another I know it all. And yet I find life beautiful and meaningful. From minute to minute.” (Etty, 456)
“I shall never be able to give thanks for my daily bread when I know that so many others do not have theirs. But I hope I shall be thankful…for something else. For having God dwell in me. And that has nothing to do with being well fed.” (Etty, 237)
By saying unconditional “yes” Etty demonstrated a unique and remarkable faith that was willing to endure the journey into unity no matter what events transpired nor what tests were put in her path. In the short time that she had left she had to embrace all the polarities that were playing out in her life and truly died into her deepest truth. She was carried by grace all the way to the end and her courage, her depth of surrender, her ability to have equanimity in the face of overwhelming cruelty is truly an example that will endure eternally.
My hope is that none of us would have to face the trial by fire that Etty had to face and endure, but her courage can be an inspiration to us in this dark and difficult world that is playing out before us. It is my prayer that each of us says “yes” – there is no time like the present moment to take up this journey into Love and Truth – surely this is the only work – the most important work to be done.
“Etty never looked back after giving her “yes” to God, leaving us a true example of a life lived with freedom of spirit as we see in this most remarkable reflection that comes from the depth of her being.”
“Offerings of Scented Jasmine”
“Somewhere inside me the jasmine continues to blossom undisturbed, just as profusely and delicately as ever it did. and it spreads its scent round the House in which You dwell, oh God. You can see, I look after You, I bring You not only my tears and my forebodings on this stormy, grey Sunday, morning, I even bring you scented jasmine.”
In this pulsing chamber of the Heart the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine merge not as genders but as a Field of Luminous Frequencies that has the Power to set the world on fire and whose alchemical dance has potent implications for the evolution of all life on earth.
Song of the Initiate – a new vision of the 23rd Psalm
“My Beloved is with me
I want for no thing
He lays down with me in fertile pastures
besides flowing waters
He restores to me, my soul.
He guides me on the path that leads to my highest destiny.
and, even though I may walk through the darkest valley,
or face my deepest shadows –
I fear no harm
For He is always here –
enfolding me in Love.
He prepares a sumptuous feast for me
in the presence of my enemies –
and anoints my hair with fragrant oil.
My heart overflows.
Surely Goodness and Love
will follow me all the days of my life –
and I will dwell in His Sacred Heart,
for all Eternity.”
(prem)
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Prem Moodaley
Copyright 2019
Full Moon-February 2019
Resources:
The Unfolding Journey – The God Within: Etty Hillesum and Meister Eckhart – Novalis Publishing Inc. 2014.