freedom
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
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
Alchemy: transmuting, transformation, blending, magic, third force, fire, chaos, base metals into gold, eternality
tapas
In the last sutra – I wrote about “The Firepit of Consciousness” – in this sutra, we explore alchemy, which is a stage of the journey where intense transformation takes place deep within and beyond the playground of duality. There is a beautiful Sanskrit word that describes “Alchemy” it is called “Tapas”
Shambhavi Lorain Chopra in her gorgeous book “Yogini” speaks about this fiery transformation – “Real tapas is more than any enforced asceticism. It is the heat that rises from a passionate form of the Divine energy seeking to transcend all limitations. Tapas is the heat of spiritual inquiry and aspiration that makes the sadhaka consume all the fleeting needs and desires in life. The fire in the soul connects with the life-fire in the body, finding expression through the heart, leading one to liberate or detach oneself from illusion, creating the way to self-realization. This is the real inner movement of tapas.”
“You are a Ruby in the Heart of Granite – how long will you try to deceive us? “- Rumi
Alchemy is the testing ground on the path of Sovereignty, Awakening and Freedom as it burns away all that does not serve the evolution of the Soul. For a moment, let me describe the three layers of the personality that I have encountered –
At the level of the first layer of the personality – we are totally hooked into the collective unconscious and our personal story. The collective unconscious – is the place where duality is most active, with its numerous distractions, pushes and pulls, stories and games. Everything is divided and separate – and “I”, “Me” and “Mine” is most important to the personality. Attachment and judgement underlies everything. There is a total identification with name, form and personal history.
The middle layer of the personality is less dense but there is still identification with name and form. This is the layer of the seeker. The personality seeks to discover the answers to the deeper questions of life. We explore who we are beyond our personality through teachers, workshops and books. This is a very tender and beautiful space but we still can get caught in the collective mindset, the values of the patriarchy and the “survival of me”
The inner layer of the personality is the most tender, vulnerable and naked space. In this space one has seen through the illusions, and the Soul has started to manifest on a conscious level in the life of the seeker who has had a glimpse of the treasure within. The Soul is now shining through the many veils and shrouds that has veiled its Luminous Presence and most importantly – the personality has chosen the Soul – also known as the “Inner Beloved”.
burning the veils of Illusion
Its at this inner layer where the process of alchemy ignites the fire of transformation and we are remade and reborn “In the Firepit of Consciousness”. We feel exposed, vulnerable and tested and it takes the courage and grit of the Spiritual Warrior to bear with the process of the heat of transformation. We are cleansed of all that is illusionary and there are whispers of the holy marriage within. Andrew Harvey speaks of this in his book – The Way of Passion – A Celebration of Rumi – “Purification is frightening, because in the fire there is a lot of spitting and black smoke, a lot of difficulty happens. Then, expansion: the fire enters the log and the Light enters, you burn in the fire and the blaze is without interference now because the impurities have been burned away.” You close your ears to the “noise” of the world and you claim your Sovereignty.
The writings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to The Red Goddess – Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, The Yoginis and The Red Priestesses of all traditions throughout the ages.
References:
Andrew Harvey: The Way of Passion – A Celebration of Rumi – Frog Ltd. 1994
Shambhavi Chopra: Yogini – Wisdom Tree 2006
Copyright Prem Moodaley 2016
Samhain 31 October 2016
Introduction to the Scarlet Sutra
Part 2
Sovereignty – to rule, dominion, authority, noble, honour, leadership, a force, brilliance, beauty, truth, strength, courage, vision, freedom
This first sutra gives an brief overview of Sovereignty. In the material world we associate sovereignty with royalty and material abundance and worldly power. This is not the sovereignty that this sutra seeks to describe. Sovereignty with regards to feminine embodiment is not about the “individual” or “becoming a goddess”. This sutra is not about serving the needs of a false self bound up with personal identity and serving the needs of that personal identity. Sovereignty here speaks deeply and lovingly to the Feminine Soul and Union with the Vastness of Existence. As one of my dearest teachers says…..its about “Having a love affair with Existence” When we journey into the depths of our Royal Sovereignty we let go of all the roles and identities that make up this small self we believe ourselves to be, and melt into the vastness of our True Essential Beingness which is Existence itself….Love itself….
A woman walking this path sets her soul free from the weight and baggage of her personal identity, her story, her cherished beliefs and opinions. She unchains from all that keep her bound to limitation within the ego mind and within the society in which she finds herself……She allows Existence in….
The Lalita Sahasranama – the 1000 Names in Praise of the Goddess Lalita ……….is a song encoded with the attributes of Feminine Sovereignty.
The first stanza translated describes the beauty of this Noble Feminine Presence, the very Nature of Femininity – this Sovereign Sacred Feminine encoded within us all.
“You are the Mother of All
You are a Great Queen
You sit astride the Lion
Born from the Firepit of Consciousness
You have come to Light the World”
“You are the Mother of All”——not just a Mother but the Mother of All….speaks to the universality of this all encompassing Blissful Nature of the Mother Matrix. It encompasses everything…..all dualities find a place of safety and rest here. All creation is fed at the bosom of the Divine manifestation of Motherhood that this sacred name is describing to us.
“You are a Great Queen”——we add the nobility and deep royal qualities of Leadership, of Presence, of Fortitude and Courage to our understanding of what it means to embody the feminine.
“You sit astride a Lion”——this line describes the Lion throne of the Feminine Soul. In tantric language, the seat is the place where the feminine sits, unshakable in the face of all the challenges in this dualistic world. Many female deities across all cultures are pictured sitting on the back of a lion. Linda Tucker in her book Mystery of the White Lions – Children of the Sun God writes “female deities such as Atamgatis and Cybele from classical mythology are shown astride lions, while the Great Mother of Asia Minor, Rhea goddess of the earth and wild beasts, is inevitably represented with lions at her side, seated upon lions , or in a lion-drawn chariot. The Japanese personification of ultimate wisdom and he mother of enlightenment, Mojubosatsu, rides the back of a lion. Similarly, the Germanic goddess Freyja, head of the Valkyries, is depicted astride a great cat, while her Babylonian counterpart, the Goddess Ishtar, rides a lion betokening her feline potency. Across the continents and the ages, this portrayal of female leonine figures is consistent.”
The Leonine Sovereign also alludes to the mastery of the instinctual nature. The wise instinctual nature is deeply integrated into the Heart. We see Her sitting on a seat of ferocity and wild instincts in perfect equanimity and mastery. She has not tamed her instincts but has mastery over it.
“Born from the Fire-pit of Consciousness….You have come to Light the World”——-Once we have gained mastery over our overwhelming need for survival and the insatiable desires of ego-mind then the deep soul femininity rises from the Fire-pit of Consciousness – an alchemical transformation takes place within the crucible of Fire…..from this we are born to “Light the World” as healers, teachers and wise-woman.
Sovereignty is intimately aligned with both Awakening and Freedom. Each primordial quality contains the other within it. Without Sovereignty you cannot awaken to the Truth and Infinite Love within yourself, and you cannot be free. Likewise you cannot be Awakened without embodying both Sovereignty and Freedom. And Ultimately you cannot be Free without establishing Sovereignty and Awakening in every particle of your being.
The Soul can be likened to a caged bird who sings a song dreaming of freedom….Of Union with Existence….
We might ask ourselves ——-What song is our soul singing today?
As we contemplate an increasing unstable world and the challenges that face us in our daily lives we might choose to remember the words from the ancient hymn praising the Sovereign Goddess Lalita:
You are called to remember that you are not just a Mother, but the Mother of all Creation….. Not only are you a Queen but you are a Great Queen……your Sacred Seat is the back of a Royal Beast…..the Lion…….and dearest sisters when all seems dark and lonely, remember…….You have come to Light the World.
The writings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Sovereign Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, The Yoginis, and the Red Priestesses from all traditions throughout the Ages.
References:
Mantra and the Goddess – A Poetic Interpretation of the Sri Lalita Sahasranama by Swamini Lalitambika Devi – O Books 2010
Mystery of the White Lions – Children of the Sun God by Linda Tucker – Hay House 2001
Copyright Prem Moodaley 2016
September New Moon