In the North we enter the darkest days. It feels like early evening all afternoon. For many these holidays are not bright with the Christall radiance of the newborn sun, but fraught with inward midnights.
Yet the mystics of all our wisdom traditions share one message about this fierce quiet onslaught of night. If we have the courage to embrace our unlit places, with absolutely no resistance, they deepen into boundless Being, softening like bruises, until they seep a mysterious glow. Grace chimes our bell-hollows. Night herself becomes the path.
Hindu devotees called Krishna "the dark Lord." His beloved Radha only found him after long nights of yearning. India's mystic poet Laladev cried, "Give me the daring to take hold of the dark!"
Islam patterns its mystical path after Mohammad's "night journey" (Isra), which leads to the mystical ascent (Miraj). According to the New Testament, Jesus did not become Christ by rising into light, but by descending until he "emptied himself." In Philippians, chapter 2, the Greek word for this experience is "kenosis," self-emptying.
"The divine darkness" was a common designation for God among Medieval Christian contemplatives. According to one of the least known but most important of them, Dionysius the Areopagite, true spiritual mysteries "are veiled in the dazzling obscurity of a secret silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness." Wrote Blessed Jan Ruysbroeck in the 13th Century, "The unfathomable waylessness of God is so dark and wayless it encompasses within itself all ways."
"Even the darkness is not dark to thee," sings the Hebrew poet in Psalm 139, "for the light and the darkness are one." I have often said in my poems, "Darkness is not the opposite of light, darkness is the womb of light." Now I dedicate my prayer to all whose souls have been cast into this luminous night. When the darkness is most intense, the stars come out.Painting by Toshiyuki Enoki
Dark Days
The Rest of Winter
With your softest breath,
polish all those dusty thoughts
from your heart mirror.
Are you looking for a quiet place?
Friend, you are already here.
Repose in your own blood
between pulsations,
every vein in this body a grotto
for the pilgrim mind.
Find the secret chamber in your chest
where you have no enemies
and no one is to blame.
Make your heart an empty chalice
filled with the nectar of reflection,
where thirsty souls kneel down
to lap up moonlight just before dawn.
In this place where your journey
has no beginning,
prayers for peace need not be spoken
because they’ve already come true.
Here, even the word "love"
and all the names of God
disperse like smoke of sage in desert air.
You too evaporate
into the finer element you were
before you breathed.
You are the sparkling sky
in the lungs of a hummingbird,
the stunned stars’ silence,
an afterimage in the blackness
where a flame just blew out.
Remember that your flesh
is made of swirling suns
that vanished eons ago.
You are a threadbare remnant
of luminous entangled trails
leading to this moment of gratitude.
Distant constellations bow to you
like visiting kings bearing gifts
made of shadows.
Don’t try to understand.
Just stumble into your own rhythm,
which feels like not moving at all.
These weary bones need no
discipline of stillness.
They merely want to heap themselves
in fur, under a hay mound
of last summer's dreams.
Be the nest inside the egg,
the womb that carries her own savior,
the wind that drops its milkweed silk
in a furrow between your breasts.
Whether you wander in loss
or abundance, this seed holds light
through the darkest season.
Whatever you meant when the fragrance
was so sweet you closed your eyes
and murmured, "Mmmmm,"
just smolder away into That.
Solstice Meditation
"Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day: for you, darkness is as light." ~Psalm 139
I feel darkness dissolve into photons of uncreated brilliance. Why could I not see this before? The void granulates into sparkling virtual particles, while light is woven from velvet threads of dark matter, mater, the Goddess. Darkness and light are not contraries, but the chiaroscuro of a single wondrous No-thing in whom opposites converge.
I feel silence dissolve into a carillon of infinitesimal bells. Why could I not hear this before? Silence is the chant of my ancestors, the harmony of angels, the sound of Mary humming praise songs in my body. She has forgotten the words. Yet every neutrino springs from her transcendental voice. So the second century Gnostic Valentinus wrote, "The true Virgin Mother is mystical eternal silence."
When I surrender to the glory of the Unknowable, lover and beloved dissolve into pure love. Why could I not feel this before? Love needs no story, needs not two lovers, not even one. Love only wants to dissolve. So the primordial sage Ashtavakra declared, as his first and last commandment: "Layam vraja: Dissolve now!"
How weightless all becomes when I stop grasping for an explanation, for a correct view, for a path. Embracing all by letting it all go, I fall into grace, because "I" dissolve, and grace wells up like a tear of emptiness...
This instant of surrender has no duration. Therefore it is the doorway to eternity. It happens at the end of my exhalation, just before the next inhalation is given - not taken. A dot glows in my chest, a spaceless Bindhu containing the wild unbounded ocean of Being. This point without dimension is a portal, a black hole at the center of my flowering hridaya chakra, giving birth to suns and whirling out galaxies, even before the Word can say, "Let there be light."
Here I Am. Yet this Am is prior to the beginning. It is perfect un-created joy. It is the unfathomable eternal silence of the Solstice pause between breaths. My mind cannot understand it, because there is nothing to stand on. Yet in this tiny pointless divine heart, my own heart bursts wide open, because there is no "I" who sees, only pure seeing. Seeing what? Seeing the radiant Gnosis of the Christ, whose face is unfathomable night.
Icon: Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, Vilnius, Lithuania
The Longest Night
Now listen to your broken heart.
Sink into the wound and bathe
in the balm of midnight.
Don't follow a star.
Your destination is
the gray stuff in cocoons,
neither wing nor worm.
Let your root find sap in black loam
oozing the light of distant suns.
What are a thousand golden petals
or
the fragrance of balsam and myrrh
compared to the yearning
of the shadow for its cause?
When you are truly silent
you'll hear birthless seeds
singing in the dark,
bursting thin sepulchers of ice,
already whispering,
"April, April..."
Faith is to fall
through the long Winter night
and witness your falling,
which means to rest
in the groundless
until you are healed
by your loss.
Painting by Lori Sweet
Epiphany
Drop your reins.
Let the camel lead you,
the animal
of your breathing.
Follow the star
between your eyebrows
over the empty desert
of yearning
into the valley of your
missing rib.
Something unspeakable
is born here
in the night of the heart
because there was no room
at the inn, which is of course
your mind.
A whinny in the dark,
a moo of contentment,
barn smells of
straw dust and dove,
mist of ewe breath
in the sheepfold.
Here is a stable
for the lost and weary.
Over the feeding trough
a lady gazes down
into the hay.
Has someone lit
a little fire?
Strange beams fall upward,
but their warmth
is familiar, spilling
a tender incandescence
as of distant starlight
come home.
The lady's face, bemused
not so much
with amazement
as with the certainty
that nothing could ever
surprise her again.
Who is born here
if not you?
Be the bread.
Be the oil.
Be the nail in the
wooden roof beam.
Feed shepherds.
Anoint kings.
Anoint donkeys too.
Turn everything you touch
into Christ.
Image: detail from Adoration by Notti
Love It All
I love infant Jesus. Love the Pagan Solstice Christmas pine. Love Madonna Mushroom. Love Goddess Shakti. Love the 2nd Century Gnostic Valentinus who said, "The true Virgin Mother is mystical eternal silence." Love the wild vine of my Buddha nature, broken jar of Mary Magdalene, spilling juiciness over my crown, already fermented as it trickles down my vertebrae. Love the perfect consistency of my contradictions. Love luscious holly berries of fire and snow entangled on the cross of paradox. Love the tree of life in the garden of this body: I am the worm in the apple. Love the newborn sun, and what his gurgling baby bijas say: “Hum! Phwat! Bham! Zing!” which I translate to mean, "Every particle of me is made of Mother Mater Matter Dust, each atom a cathedral where pilgrim gamma rays arrive from the clustered salty rim of Margarita galaxies to celebrate the miracle of my flesh. O Christ, irradiate the world through these fingers and toes. I am your circle dance. Let there be no more talk of our separation." Here, after thousands of years of religious combat, body and soul Christalize into a single magnum mysterium, granulated in subnuclear particles of glory. And where does this alchemy occur? In a stable? A tavern perhaps? Or the nameless roadside shrine of my chest, the oat crunch of cows and the dander scent of dog fur, through the flame in the hay in the manger of my heart, that has ever been burning yet never lit til Now. Here I celebrate the birth of God, who is this Breath.
Painting: Sacred Bond by James Neafsey
Hug
Native Americans came herefrom somewhere else,just like Europeans.So did Asians, Arabs, and Africans.Were there pilgrims from another starThey also came from somewhere else.And where is "somewhere else"?Maybe we all camefrom the same placejust beneath your heartbeat,where breath rises and returns.Some day we'll all go home.Our Mother will hug usand we'll remember each other."Oh, its you, I forgotthat all of us comefrom right here!"
Art by Jane Ray
The Practice Of Winter
A widowed bud bursts her icy veil.
Bitter joy of the flicker crying,
"I alone remain in the kingdom of silence."
Smell of fresh earth from your body.
This is the practice of Winter.
No more mountain tops.
Yearn for the valley.
Listen until you hear listening.
Mother your own heart.
Welcome the sky into your diaphragm,
the moon into your belly, rising, setting,
wolf-gray mist in the ancient cedars of your alveoli.
a lady bug lands like a ruby kiss
between your eyebrows.
This is the practice of Winter.
Through your blood, fatted salmon swim upstream
toward the waterfall of breathing.
Last night's rain snakes down
your switchback trail of vertebrae.
Mud tastes sweet, the syrup of the sun.
Aloneness whispers, “Touch my fern,
my hemlock, the dripping jewel
of my quietness after the shriek
of the fox's desire.”
Hu, Hu... plaint of the snowy owl,
rugged mantra clapping one hand to keep warm,
no dreaming allowed.
This is the practice of Winter.
Wandering wayless off trail.
Take the path of the ordinary,
chosen by deer for its stillness.
Crystal attention, sound of snow,
your open palm so full of stars
you have to find a better word
for emptiness.
Photo from our hike, Mt. Rainier.
The Wine Of Silence
The wine of silence
has loosened my tongue.
I have fallen in love
with the unspeakable.
I only want to sing
what cannot be named.
After midnight,
while others are sleeping,
I listen to stars
roaring in the void.
The stream of the world
flows back to this
ineffable fountain
in my chest,
vanishing into the darkness
where creation begins
as a murmur,
"Let there be light."
Very quietly
in the un-created garden
an inch
below my heartbeat,
a seed explodes
into a flower,
God explodes
into a universe.
Image: James Web Telescope, exploding star, Times of India
Mansions
I call God by his personal name. I call Goddess by her personal name. Signifying God with words like "Consciousness," "Energy," "One," or "Source" no longer suffices. Such terms may suffice for those merely interested in philosophy, doctrine, or the entanglement of conceptual argument. But for those who drown in foolishness, the wild insouciance of devotion, the madness of divine love, mere concepts of the intellect lack fire. What fire? The fire of communion. Union may be impersonal, but communion is always personal.
For such astonished fools, only words like Shiva or Kali, Krishna or Radha, Christos or Mary carry the living flame. There is an abysmal difference between the concept of "God" and the experience of God, an unfathomable gulf between the belief and the flavor. One is just an abstraction, narrowing the mind into a mere idea, while the other is a conflagration that consumes not only the mind but each neuron in the body, satiating the vast hunger of the heart. Belief is of the intellect, but experience is an alchemic transformation of the entire organism. Tis is why the Psalmist sings, "Taste and see that the Lord is good!"
God is a psycho-physical experience, transmuting the cells and atoms of the flesh every bit as much as the mind. This is the message of Yoga: the physiology of enlightenment. And this is the message of Christianity: "Glorify God in your body!" (1 Corinthians 6:20) The nativity of Christ-consciousness in the infant body of Jesus is a sign that our own flesh, and all that we call "matter," cannot be separated from the Spirit, the breath of creation, the dance of grace through form.
We do not taste God by reading a book, or taking a class at university. These are only preliminary discussions about the thought of God. The experience of God happens in an amazed or broken heart, nourished by tears of yearning. When the yearning is deep enough, grace appears in the form of a teacher, a real teacher whose candle is lit, and who passes that flame to your own candle. This is initiation. The wick is your body. When that flame embraces you, every cell becomes a lamp, every atom a spark, all of you consumed in the breath of the Divine.
If someone asks me, "Do you believe in God?" I answer, "No, of course not. How could a mere belief contain the divine mystery? I do not want to believe, I want to taste and see!" To believe is to carve a graven image out of thought. This idea of "God" is more dangerous than any idol carved of silver or gold. Men will kill for such an idol of thought, and they will kill millions. But no one has ever killed for God. God is love, and love does not kill.
Now is the time for us to transcend every thought of God and begin to listen to the mystics instead of the philosophers, the preachers, and the politicians. The mystics speak not knowledge, but un-knowing, not ideology, but ecstasy. The mystics speak from the silence of astonishment.
Now here, my friend, is some supreme foolishness: the drop contains the sea! For billions of years, the elemental ocean of the Self has been evolving each of us into a person, a droplet, an infinitesimal singularity which expresses the infinitude of Being in a hologram, through incarnation in body after body, so that the Self could experience communion as a person, with another person. The end of all this evolution, the goal of the universe's longing for its Self, is the joy of union with God. Do you think, after such a cosmic journey, the goal would be to disappear into an ocean of "oneness," without a trace of personhood?
In truth, your drop has its own unique flavor, and when the drop returns to the ocean, the whole ocean tastes like this drop. When Jesus returned to God the father, he did not lose his identity as Jesus; rather, the ocean of Christ-consciousness took on the flavor of Jesus. And that is why you may have a personal relationship with him today, even in the depths of the most "non-dual" meditation.
The bee makes a pilgrimage to many flowers, then comes home to the hive. In the hive there is one honey, tasting of the whole garden. And that taste contains the savor of each blossom. So, in God's piquancy, you may taste Krishna, Amitabha, or the Goddess. You may savor the fragrance of Jesus, the personhood of Mary Magdalene, or beloved poets like Rumi, Mira, Dorothy W., all the ancestors. Scripture calls this ocean of flavors, "a cloud of witnesses," and "the communion of saints," signifying the truth of diversity in the Unity, and the glory of each sparkling Soul in the sacred darkness of the Godhead.
So Jesus whispered this mystery through his remarkable words in John 14: "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. There I go to prepare a place for you..."
Painting: 'Adoration' by Gerrit Van Honthorst, b. 1592
Angels Aren't This Lucky
Someone created the earth
so that we could say
"Thank You."
Angels are not this lucky.
They serve without choice.
But you may freely take
the form of the bee
or the rose,
the seed or the furrow.
You might
become
a flame, a wick,
a nipple or a baby's lips.
You could be wine or the cup,
a stranger at the door
or the host who says,
“Come in, friend,
drink, get warm,
then tell me your name.”
The part you play in
this world doesn't matter,
as long as you dissolve
into a golden arrow
shooting upward,
a breath
returning your portion of Light
to
the fountain of stars.
Annunciation by Simone Martini
Newborn
Stars have a secret.
They are always tumbling
into orbits of glory.
They do not attempt to fly.
Darkness is their wing.
If you don't believe me,
you are still trying
not to fall.
Plunge more deeply
into the womb of night
and you will draw very near
to the radiance of your Birth.
Painting by Peruvian artist Artemio Coanqui
Lecture by Charlie Lutes
Charlie Lutes, founder of the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, with Maharishi
Initiation
Ever since the human being has been on the path of evolution, there has been an inner urge for him to return from whence he or she came, a silent urging for him or her to return home. To forsake this world of shadows and to stand vertical in the Eternal Light, that is his and her real Destiny. There are some who have heeded this call and set about to discover the best means of accomplishing this task. The answer has always been the same down through the ages: “Ye must be Born Again,” that is, you must be reborn of the Spirit and forsake the material and physical life of birth and death.
How can this best be done now that we recognize the purpose and end goal of such a transformation? The way is through Initiation. Initiation means to be taken through the “Secret door of Redemption” by one Empowered to do so for those seeking the Inner path to Eternal Salvation. Initiation, especially of this nature, is not to be taken lightly. In the case of Transcendental Meditation©, one is Sponsored before God. One is reconnected to God. One is given the means to purify oneself and to be raised up to become one with the Almighty.
Initiation carries a very deep and sacred meaning, not to be lightly bantered about. It is said that if one takes the Initiation of the Master and then betrays the Master, it is a thousand-fold better that he/she had never been born. To betray the Master, means to betray what was given to you (the Initiation, the Word) in great Trust. One may fall away from the Master for one reason or another, but never betray what he gave you; for in you, was planted the Seed of Eternal Life.
The Word and the Seed are One and the Same (“and the Word shall free them”). The Word manifests the Power of the Holy Spirit, Absolute, and frees you; it grows in you as the Eternal Light. It has to remove all of the contamination of the ages in order to Shine forth in you and ultimately make you one with the Light that “knows no shadows”. This is the sleeping Word (the Mantra) that comes to life in you in Initiation and unfolds you into what you truly are. So Revere the Word. Use the Word. Rely on the Word for comfort when you are troubled, for you are now the Word and the Word is you.
The Word is the Seed
To betray the living Word in you, is to betray the real purpose of life itself; it would be like selling a diamond of incalculable worth for the price of a bowl of porridge.
Down through the ages, it was very hard for one to find the way to Initiation. Yet, the sacrifice, no matter how great, was eagerly sought because the prize was so very great. It meant to be lifted from the grave forever, the final resurrection of the Soul. The human has always mourned the loss of his/her Spiritual awareness and has lived on through the ages in hope that sometime he/she would again find their way back from whence he/she came, through the subjugation of their lower nature by the Higher Self.
The Noble Self, through Love must be awakened. The sacrifice on the Cross must be acknowledged. The segmented, fragmented self must be made Whole (Holy).
The Sword That Slays the Dragon
The thirst for higher Knowledge must come, and through Knowledge comes understanding and compassion. The heart responds to a Higher Vibration, and thereby Love for Self, for God and for humanity it is quickened. This is growth towards Cosmic Consciousness where the Universal and the individual mind join in a Cosmic Status, beyond the boundaries of relativity.
The earth has only recently passed the middle point of its evolution. So, as far as humanity is concerned, few there are that are at the present time seeking, or are even so willing, to step onto the Path, no matter how graphically the benefits of so doing are pointed out to them. It does not register on their consciousness as a need for them.
The Seven Initiations must be undergone; the opening of the Seven Centers of Light contained in the body. The sixth sense must be awakened. All this is embodied in the Initiation when the Eternal Word is bestowed to the Inner Self… this is the Sword that slays the dragon.
“So straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few there are who find it...”
The Inner Path
It is for certain that no one can travel the Inner path unless they are first Initiated onto the Path, and this can only be done by one who is Empowered to do so.
In the past, great Initiations were known as the Mysteries and later on, came the Mystery Schools. Only the purest and noblest individuals were given an Initiation, and they were true seekers. In every age, those who were Initiates of the Mysteries were known as the Lights of this world, even though they were unknown to the mass of humanity. Still, humanity benefited from their being here.
Initiations and the Mysteries can be traced back to Atlantis, into Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, Persia, India, China, Europe and America. An Initiate is not only told the Mysteries, they are also shown and given the experiences necessary to know the inner Truths. As a result, the Secret Teachings also become factual. As down through the Ages, the same applies today; Initiation is the way to expansion of consciousness and this aids one to understand and travel the straight and narrow Inner Path to Liberation.
Where before one was blind to the inner Truths, one now Sees, and where before one only had faith, one now Knows. We now begin to operate in life through expanded Awareness, rather than through limited reason.
~Charlie F. Lutes
Transcribed from notes taken from a lecture given by Charlie F. Lutes. Transcribed for publication at the Institute of Spiritual Sciences (ISS) by Diane M. Rousseau LHD PhD, 2022. Charles F. Lutes - Rousseau lecture notes archives. Copyright © 2022 Institute of Spiritual Sciences (ISS).
Winter, Yes
When the mind descends
into the heart
the problem becomes
it's own solution
because the concept
dissolves into free energy,
your smile, or the tear
of a stranger, set
in the clutter of your path
like a jewel for you
to love.
The energy of wordless
humming, a gentle dance of
immaculate chaos,
the harmony somehow
always here...
What's the answer, friend?
To find the place
where the question
does not arise.
What do you feel?
Here's what I feel,
a vast cathedral
in my rib cage
where I listen to a litany
of silences
and taste the wine
of not knowing
and fall down weary
as a thousand spent petals
returning to the seed
of Winter, yes,
where I discover
the Birthless born,
Infinity informed,
Darkness shining,
Beauty breathed
through the body of God.
Image, detail by Rembrandt
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