Bhakti: Radical Transformation

How do we define unconditional love? What can we achieve if we truly believe? How do we establish a life firm in conviction of our highest purpose? How do we build the courage to uphold our calling with unshakable bravery? How do we establish a legacy of honor and virtue?

PILGRIMAGE TO NON-VIOLENCE

In his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., illustrated his view that, “The Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of non-violence is one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” Furthermore, that non-violent resistance is, “A courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love.”

Born in Vietnam as Lam Van Tuat in 1897, the Buddhist priest Thich Quang Duc self-immolated at the Phan Dinh Phung Square-Le Van Duyet intersection on June 11, 1963, in Saigon, to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the Ngo Dinh Diem regime.

The event was watched by thousands and its photos, including the one pictured above by Malcolm Browne for the AP, soon made global news, contributing to the end of the Vietnam War and the persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam.

In the August 2012 Time Magazine article, Malcolm Browne: The Story Behind The Burning Monk, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, in witnessing this remarkable act, shared, “He never yelled out in pain. His face seemed to remain fairly calm until it was so blackened by the flames that you couldn’t make it out anymore.”

Despite the flames that consumed the flesh of this devoted monk, empowered with the torch of compassion that exuded from his spiritual heart, he was able to overcome the emotional distress of burning himself alive, as peace radiated from his mind.

Following his self-immolation, Duc’s body was taken to Xa Loi Pagoda for a funeral. Witnesses claimed that after his body burned to ashes, his heart remained and became as solid as stone. The remnants of the undying heart of Thich Quang Duc are now in storage at the Vietnam National Buddhist Temple.

In a 1965 letter to Dr. King, explaining his support of the monks who had set themselves on fire during the war, the renowned Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who became famous for his eloquence in advocating for an end to the Vietnam War, wrote that they were not committing suicide as their aim was compassion toward their fellow beings, not self-destruction.

“Like the Buddha in one of his former lives - as told in a story of the Jataka - who gave himself to a hungry lioness that was about to devour her own cubs, the monk believes he is practicing the doctrine of highest compassion by sacrificing himself in order to call the attention of, and to seek help from, the people of the world,” he concluded.

OVERCOMING FALSE NEEDS

How do we discern between right and wrong, just and unjust? How do we alleviate ourselves of the false pressures of society that drain our will to realize freedom? How do we protect ourselves from the endless signals of unworthiness that bombard our collective consciousness? How do we liberate our children of the emotional burden of our ignorance?

In April 2012, the Washington Post published the story of 13-year-old Kamran Khan, who set himself on fire due to shame for his level of poverty, as well as the emotional build-up of his family’s struggles.

A highly gifted academic, Kamran received a free scholarship to the Mohmand Education Academy, a private school that endowed Kamran full tuition due to his academic promise. Ranking first in his class and sixth within the entire school, Kamran was to receive particularly special honors, yet he tremendously feared the burn of judgment from his peers.

Two years earlier, Kamran’s youngest sister was given for adoption as a newborn, as the family could not afford to support her. At the time, Kamran’s father was in Saudi Arabia looking for employment, and the marital strain weighed heavily on the sensitive, hopeless consciousness of young Kamran.

Following his self-immolation, Bibi, Kamran’s mother, raced her dying son to two hospitals, which either could not or would not treat him, until finally finding a burn unit equipped military hospital in the distant town of Kharian in Punjab province, which was far beyond her ability to afford.

Hopelessly abandoned, Bibi surrendered her attempts at rescue and used her gold earrings to pay for an ambulance to return her son’s body back to their hometown for burial.

Recounting Kamran’s life and accomplishments, at his Sunday funeral, she admitted that she, “Should have bought a new uniform for him.”

How do we overcome the collective hypnosis that skews our value system to create inner turmoil and feelings of unworthiness across all walks of life? How do we face the fire of judgment and criticism as we learn to lead honorable lives?

FULFILLMENT THROUGH BHAKTI

In deep prayer and meditation, as I sought spiritual guidance from our Lord Krishna to the emotional trials of my own life, burdened with the devastations of humanity and the pressure to make a difference, I was gifted with the presence of the Lord’s overwhelming love of the humble and sacred cow.

Lord Krishna, also known as Govinda, which means protector of cows, revealed the sacred cow as an example of the highest embodiment of bhakti, unconditional love and self-realized faith through embodied selfless service, surrender to its divine purpose.

As we look to the cow, we witness her ability to persevere and provide the highest service with minimal need. The cow, which shares over 80 percent of its DNA with humans, provides milk as nourishment, toils the Earth for generation of crops, secretes dung that fertilizes the Earth and ignites the sacred fire, known as agni that lights the path for our heart’s mission while also providing warmth. A highly intelligent, emotional being, out of her pure intuition, the cow sheds tears when there is a death in the household.

A devout servant of humanity and the planetary eco-system, the sacred cow knows only the bliss of service. In fact, happy cows generate oxytocin, the love-molecule within her very saliva, as she churns the Earth’s grass into all that we need to become one with the Atman, the eternal soul within. Studies demonstrate that cow saliva has therapeutic wound healing properties, both subduing inflammation and supporting connective tissue and epidermal regeneration.

Within us all is an electromagnetic blueprint of our fullest expression to serve our species, our planet and our universal kingdom. It is the resonance of our actions that creates the feelings that not only inform us, but also reveal within us our highest potential and activate our potential to address the challenges ahead. We rise to the challenge of each next moment along a universal strand of evolution.

Life is perfectly orchestrated for us all to realize the god-self within. By mastering the Universal Laws of Attraction, we realize that we actually do not need anything, for all is always provided, as a lesson, to deliver us into our greatest level of appreciation, gratitude and compassion. Our demons, both within and without, are our friends, for within us all is the unrealized drive for transformation, for evolution – Ascension.

Children of the endless pursuit of harmony, through bhakti, the fire generated within our heart’s molten core burns through the distractions that source brain fog and delusion.

Through bhakti, we each have a resonant impact on the collective consciousness that allows us to emotionally alchemize the distress and warfare of our brothers and sisters, to ease the tension between the extreme polarities of sentience.

As we surrender to the realization of the power within, through stillness of breath, mind-heart coherence and devotion to our realized purpose, we evolve our psyche through the most profound process of self-transformation ever known. The only limitation to our potential is our willingness to persevere, and such is the faithful pilgrimage of free will that drives a life of conviction in the divine cosmic forces that excite all existence into harmony and evolution.

The life we live is our self-activating language of love. How we allow ourselves to be and serve day-by-day generates the heat that unravels the divine code for our highest, holy expression. Our sacred script is written within.

Liberating ourselves from the mental constraints of judgment, against others and ourselves, we naturally create systems of equality by learning to channel our sacred energy in alignment with our own spiritual evolution, individually experiencing the magic of our higher awareness as we collectively bridge in purpose to restore Peace to our Kingdom.

THE POWER OF THE BREATH

When we feel emotionally devastated by the collapse of our external realities, we can remember the power we hold in this very moment to evolve our perspective based on the new feelings that we can create by transforming our actions and habits. It is through self-mastery in this moment that we bridge our path to our higher reality.

We are not our identity, nor our story, but a servant of the light within, the ascension of consciousness that climbs the spine to shatter the illusion that has blinded most of humanity.

We are each the product of our own spiritual metamorphosis realized through service. It is our embodiment of universal ancient wisdom that becomes our lifetime practice of liberation.

In Kriya Yoga, the breathless state, which is highly connected to Samadhi (total self-connectedness in Sanskrit), we can achieve a profound relaxed conscious state in which the pleasure of breathing prana, the cosmic energy, is far more nourishing than regular food or breath. In this state, the body can achieve a level of recovery and transformation beyond that achieved during sleep. It is in such states, that we are elevated above the collective hypnosis, belief matrix, that ensnares our minds and emotional systems, to transcend or delusion of hopelessness and dis-empowered. Through the pursuit of Samadhi, we rise above the net as we gradually dissolve the bars to our mental cages.

In Indian philosophy and religion, and particularly in Hinduism and Buddhism, Samadhi represents the highest state of mental concentration that can be achieved while still bound to the body and which unites them with the highest perceivable reality.

According to Indian Hindu monk, Yogananda Parmahansa, in God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita, “When by Kriya Yoga mortal breath disappears scientifically from the lungs, the yogi consciously experiences, without dying, the death process by which energy is switched off from the senses (causing the disappearance of the body consciousness and the simultaneous appearance of the soul consciousness).

Unlike the ordinary man, the yogi realizes that his life is not conditioned by exhalation and inhalation, but that the steady life force in the brain is continuously reinforced through the medulla from the omnipresent cosmic current.

Even mortal man, during the nightly state of sleep, rises psychologically above the consciousness of breath; his life force then partially becomes still and reveals a glimpse of the soul as the deep joy of sleep. The breathless yogi, however, realizes the state of conscious ‘death’ as a far deeper and more blessed state than that bestowed by the deepest blissful semi-super-conscious sleep.

When breath ceases in the Kriya Yogi, he is suffused with an incomparable bliss. He realizes then that it is the storm of human breath that is responsible for the creation of the dream wave of the human body and its sensations; it is breath that causes body consciousness.”

We are all constructs of the same universal divine reality, realizing Heaven within, and transforming our environment through the scientifically proven laws of resonance, that radiates cosmic energies from our organ system to liberate our species from the enslavement mechanisms of the negative ego consciousness grid.

Our organs are of celestial construct, designed to purify the Earth, as an interconnected cosmic rooting system, bridging Earth and Heaven. Within us each is the potential to elevate our perceived reality, within the present moment, gradually unconditioning ourselves from limiting beliefs and states of depression, anxiety, hopelessness and worthlessness.

Through the Ascension process, our inner drive to realize our highest state excites the Laws of Attraction to receive all that we need to achieve our highest bliss state, naturally. The natural Universal Cosmic Laws favor the spiritual evolution of all life, such is our divine birthright.

FACING OUR CHALLENGES WITH HONOR

We are what we become, in each and every moment, driven to transform by our own lack of joy. Knowing that all we need is already within us, and experiencing the very magic of reality equips us with the conviction, faith and strength to stand tall with our hearts high as we face the demons within our minds.

Illustrating this cosmic balance within us, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Taoism detail the Hun and Po as the ethereal and corporeal souls, or the formless and tangible consciousness.

Hun and Po, which are an expression of Yin and Yang, are typically associated with the Five Shen model of the Shangqing lineage of Taoism, which describes the “spirits” residing in each of the five yin organs.

Within this context, the Hun ethereal soul, is housed within the Liver organ system, as it stores the blood, and is the aspect of consciousness that continues to exist, in more subtle realms, even after the death of the body.

The Po corporeal soul, is housed in the Lung organ system, as it stores the breath, and is the aspect of consciousness that dissolves with the elements of the body at the time of death.

The Po represent the demons that we are each born into, the unresolved ghosts of our family systems and the darkness of society. These earthly elements are overcome by the Hun, the celestial spirit that we invoke within us to overcome that which we have incarnated upon this Earth to heal.

The human body is divinely designed to overcome all of life’s challenges, such is our divine spiritual lesson. Our challenges dissolve as we master our emotions, activating the ancient wisdom of our lineages that is stored within our DNA.

Overcoming our spiritual challenges, obstacles and test with honor and righteous, we become one with our celestial spirit, our Heavenly state embodied, transforming the darkness within into the light of our soul.

BRIDGING HIGHER PURPOSE INTO REALITY

How do we transcend the constraints of our linguistics and self-perceptions? Once we can perceive beyond our current paradigm, how do we manifest our highest contribution to humanity’s Ascension, solving large-scale issues from a higher level of consciousness?

In How Quantum Activism Can Save Civilization, Amit Goswami presents the idea of changing ourselves and our societies in accordance with the principles of quantum physics. Just as the body serves as a bridge between higher and lower states of existence, the Heavenly and Earthly realms, the brain is the God-seed, capable of realizing super-, quantum-consciousness, through radical self-transformation, bhakti.

Once a neurological pathway is established within the brain, the channels are further established within the body, and gradually, through a radical transformation in our own expression we can bridge these insights from source into creation.

Radiant thinking is a term coined by Tony Buzan, and most fully defined in The Book on Mind Mapping: How to Use Radiant Thinking. Radiant thinking in many ways emulates patterns found in nature. If radiant patterns are natural, then radiant thinking serves as an instinctive way for developing and defining ideas within the mind.

Radiant thinking usually begins with the central concept or problem at the center, and various ideas and solutions radiating out from that point. Each new point becomes the center of its own radiant thoughts, eventually generating branch after branch of diverse thought. One advantage to radiant thinking is that it can incorporate all thoughts--even those that do not directly relate to the central problem.

The brain works in a non-linear fashion, often making connections to a central concept or idea seemingly at random. These thoughts can “radiate” out from a central concept in dozens of directions.

Methods to describe and enhance this kind of creative thought can be grouped under the term “radiant thinking.” This method is the opposite of linear thinking, which attempts to generate ideas or come to a solution in a linear, or step-by-step process.

Because the brain is believed to work in this non-linear, radiant fashion, Buzan also notes that it may be easier to remember and associate ideas when discovered and defined in a radiant fashion.

By combining techniques to liberate the mind, establish inner peace, and take righteous action, we can realize our highest state of valiant contribution while forming new networks, alliances and partnerships to build the collective vision that is being broadcasted to humanity by the planetary field, the Planetary Logos – the electromagnetic field that nourishes, directs, and evolves all sentient life forms to their highest evolutionary state.

Guided from within by our very environment, as humanity is “turned back on,” our endocrine system, guided by the master pituitary gland, serves to restore the highest function to our divine embodiment.

As the emotional planetary strife escalates across the globe, there is a celestial mandate for a radical transformation in devotional living being experienced within the collective consciousness of humanity. As more answer the call, raising the planetary resonance and further activating our collective DNA to higher expressions of our DNA, a profound break-through will be reached that penetrates our own collective sense of our perceived capabilities.

The calling is rising, invoking our Ancient Power into being.