I could now relax my grip on the rudder

Back when the Divine Mother confirmed that the level of enlightenment associated with Ascension was indeed sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi, she asked me to promise to explain the matter to readers and I did. (1)

When I asked Sri Shankara to confirm two matters on An Hour with an Angelthis week, (2) I told myself that it would be advisable to explain those two matters to readers as well. But let me work my way up to them please.

Sri Shankara acknowledges that he and all the other masters are returning in the name of unity and reunification. He says:

“My purpose, as you know, is unity. Now, that is going to be a theme of all the masters. So let me be clear about this. There is not one master that returns … that does not come with a theme of unification.” (3)

You can see more and more of the returning masters saying that they’re here to serve the cause of unity. Next week on An Hour with an Angel, we’ll hear from the new Buddha, who also is here to serve it. And certainly the Lord Maitreya said it as well. (4)

I’ve called the cause of the reunification of the world’s religions “cross-cultural spirituality” and have done as much as I could to promote it. (5) Leibniz, Huxley and others have called it the Perennial Philosophy. (6) Helena Blavatsky called it Theosophy and Annie Beasant, referring to the same body of knowledge, called it the Ancient Wisdom. (7)

For me, the relationship that holds the key to the reunification of the world’s religions is this: What Christians call the Father, Son and Holy Ghost = What Hindus call Brahman, Atman and Shakti. These three terms refer not to persons (except in the divine sense) but to levels of reality, each with their own level of enlightenment (within Third Dimensionality).

They could be described as the Transcendent (the Father, Brahman), the Phenomenal (the Holy Ghost, Shakti, the Divine Mother) and the Transcendent within the Phenomenal (the Son, the Christ, the Atman, the Self). I’ve discussed the three elsewhere, at some length, and don’t wish to do that again here. (8)

By “Transcendent” I mean that which transcends the material world, the world of matter,mater, Mother. By “Phenomenal,” I mean the world of matter.

What I wish to do here is to underline that these three levels of reality are known to all sages, but called by different names. Lao Tzu knew the Mother and called the Father “the Way.” (9) Buddha called the Father the “not-born” and our “common essence.” (10) I’m prepared to argue that his name for the Mother was Dharma. She is the universal law.

We could work our way through the sages of other religions finding the names they used for the three levels of reality. In that way we could link up the world’s religions and render their sayings equivalent.

Now I mentioned a second threesome: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Why? Well, I used to conduct unofficial research while in India asking people who the equivalent was of the Christian Trinity and they would respond with what is called in Hinduism the Trimurthy (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva).

I’d reply that the Trimurthy was not the equivalent. (These next comments are meant specifically for Indians rather than the rest of the world.)

The Trimurthy is a subset of Shakti. One has to realize that Shakti or “energy” is the active phase of the passive Father, Brahman. And by the same token each of the members of the Trimurthy is itself a subphase of Shakti.

Given that Shakti or “energy” is a sine wave known as Aum, then Brahma is the energetic phase of that sine wave (Akar) associated with creation, or rajas. Vishnu is is the energetic phase of that sine wave (Ukar) associated with preservation, or sattwa. And Shiva is the energetic phase of that sine wave (Makar) associated with transformation, or thamas. I apologize if my western readers don’t understand what I just said.

Now I know that asking Hindus to accept what I just said may require a tremendous amount of adjustment, but adjustment of this kind is being asked of all religions at this time. It’s the price of the reconciliation and reunification of the world’s religions, or more specifically of spirituality.

It’ll take a tremendous amount of adjustment for Christians as well to accept that, when Jesus said “I am the truth, the way and the life,” he was not speaking about himself as Jesus, but of the Self, the Christ, the Atman. If Jesus wasn’t speaking as Jesus, then where is the foundation for saying only the followers of Jesus will be saved? It’s no longer there.

We’ll all need to adjust in the time ahead if we want to release the truth from its metaphorical packaging.

You heard Sri Shankara say that both these conjectures were correct. (11) Hearing him say that was for me the culmination of research that had been underway since 1977.

But leaving that aside, I now can say with greater certainty that these two relationships contain, I believe, the key to reunifying the world’s religions.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost = Brahman, Atman and Shakti, ≠ Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Given that we’re all going to be involved in the work of creating world unity, perhaps I can share more of the impact on me of reaching this stage of having Adi Shankara corroborate this relationship. I’ve felt jubilant but very weary as a result of reaching it. It was as if I had gained the farther shore, at least in my spiritual research, and could now relax my grip on the rudder.

I felt the same way when the Divine Mother acknowledged that sahaja was the level of enlightenment associated with Ascension. At last a critical piece of research had been confirmed. All else is built upon the foundation of key points like these. And there are not many people in the world I can share these matters with. Most people I share them with stare at me with blank incomprehension.

So this is my expansion on the exchange that happened, this time with Sri Shankara. I report this simply because you also may be finding yourself in work of a similar nature in the incredible times ahead of us.

Footnotes

(1) See “The Divine Mother: Come to Me as I Come to You – Part ½,” Oct. 17, 2012, athttp://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/10/the-divine-mother-come-to-me-as-i-come-to-you-part-12/. See also “Archangel Michael: Detailed Instructions for Dec. 21, 2012 and After,” athttp://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/12/archangel-michael-detailed-instructions-for-dec-21-2012-and-after/.

(2) Steve: Let me ask you two questions that you don’t need to take a long time to answer. I’ll ask them both at the same time. And the first is, is what Hindus call Brahman, Atman and Shakti the same as what Christians call the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? And the second is, what is the connection between what Hindus call Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and the gunas or the cosmic forces of rajas, sattwa and tamas?

Sri Shankara: I can answer this very quickly. There are no differences. (“Sri Shankara: Everywhere You Look Will be a Monsoon of Love,” June 26, 2013, athttp://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/06/sri-shankara-everywhere-you-look-will-be-a-monsoon-of-love/.

(3) Loc. cit.

(4) “Maitreya: I am Among Many who Return to Walk Among You,” June 4, 2013, athttp://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/06/maitreya-i-am-among-many-who-return-to-walk-among-you/.

(5) See “Cross-Cultural Spirituality” at http://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/cross-cultural-spirituality/.

(6) See “The Perennial Philosophy” at http://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/back-to-the-basics-2/the-perennial-philosophy/.

(7) Wisdom is a name used by Moses, Solomon, Isaiah and others to indicate the Divine Mother. Blavatsky and Besant use the term “Theosophy” (the wisdom of God) for the “Ancient Wisdom” but it’s really another way of saying “the Divine Mother.” Here’s Solomon on the subject:

“Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.” (Proverbs 9:1.)

“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.” (Proverbs 3: 13-18.)

(8) See Footnote 3.

(9) “It began with a matrix:
The world had a mother.” (Lao-Tzu, The Way of Life. The Tao Te Ching. trans. R.B. Blakney. New York, etc.: Avon, 1975, 105.)

“Nameless indeed is the source of creation,
But things have a mother and she has a name.” (Lao-Tzu, WOL, 53.)

(10) “Monks, there is a not-born, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded. Monks, if that unborn, not-become, not-made, not-compounded were not, there would be apparent no escape from this, here, that is born, become, made, compounded.” (The Buddha in Trevor Ling, The Buddha’s Philosophy of Man. Early Indian Buddhist Dialogues. London, etc.: Dent, 1981, xiii.)

“There is but one common essence.” (The Buddha in Dwight Goddard, A Buddhist Bible. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966; c1938, 283.)

(11) “Sri Shankara: Everywhere You Look Will be a Monsoon of Love,” ibid.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, accused of trying to help friends bring millions of euros into Italy from Switzerland by plane Photograph Francesc0 Pecoraro/AP

Reuters in Rome, The Guardian – June 28, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/n9vg9g8

A senior Vatican cleric suspected of trying to help rich friends bring millions of euros into Italy illegally has been arrested as part of an investigation into the Vatican bank.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, who worked as a senior accountant in the Vatican’s financial administration, is involved in another investigation by magistrates in southern Italy.

He was arrested in a parish in the outskirts of Rome and taken to the city’s Queen of Heaven jail, his lawyer, Silverio Sica, said. Also arrested in the investigation were a member of Italy’s secret services and a financial broker.

Sica said Scarano was accused of being involved in an attempt to help friends bring €20m (£17m) into Italy from Switzerland by plane, in league with the secret service agent and a financial intermediary.

The lawyer, who had access to the charge sheet, said the money never left Switzerland. Detectives identified the secret service agent as Giovanni Zitto and the broker as Giovanni Carenzio. It was not clear what role the bank had, if any, in the latest developments.

A Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said Vatican authorities were willing to co-operate with the investigation, but had so far received no official request. He said the AIF, the Vatican’s financial authority, was monitoring the case and would take action if necessary.

The Institute for Religious Works, the Vatican’s bank. Photograph: AFP/Getty

The arrests came two days after the Vatican announced Pope Francis had set up a commission of inquiry into the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion, which has been hit by a numerous scandals over the years.

Scarano worked for years as a senior accountant for a Vatican department known as the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. He was suspended from his duties several weeks ago when he was placed under investigation by magistrates in the southern city of Salerno, his home town.

In that inquiry, Sica said wealthy friends had donated money to Scarano to help him build a home for the terminally ill. According to the lawyer, his client wanted to use that money to pay off his mortgage so he could sell a property in Salerno and use the proceeds to construct the facility.

Saan and the Arcturian Councils: A Short Introductory Message

Judge bars Obamacare contraceptive requirement for a Christian-owned business

Warren Richey 10 hours agoReligionSocietyHobby LobbyAppellate court

A federal judge in Oklahoma issued a preliminary injunction Friday blocking the Obama administration from enforcing its contraceptive mandate against the craft chain store Hobby Lobby.

The action by US District Judge Joe Heaton came after the full Tenth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that forcing Hobby Lobby and its Christian owners to pay for certain kinds of contraceptive methods would substantially burden their religious rights.

The appeals court overturned an earlier ruling by Judge Heaton denying an injunction. The appeals court then sent the issue back to the judge.

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Judge Heaton reviewed pleadings and heard oral argument via a telephone conference on Friday before issuing a two-page order.

“The court concludes plaintiffs have made a sufficient showing to warrant the issuance of a temporary restraining order in the circumstances existing here,” the judge wrote.

The health-care law with its contraceptives mandate is set to take effect on Monday, July 1, and would trigger potential multi-million dollar penalties if the company failed to comply.

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Hobby Lobby has more than 500 stores and employs 13,000 workers nationwide. The injunction also applies to Mardel, Inc., which runs 35 Christian bookstores and employs 400 workers. Both companies are owned and run by the Green family, who are devout Christians.

The family believes that life begins at conception and that any interference with the implantation of a fertilized egg is intentionally causing the death of a human being.

Of 20 contraceptive methods required under Obamacare, the family objects to four, involving two versions of an IUD and two kinds of the so-called morning after pill.

Government lawyers have argued that the contraceptive mandate is no burden to the corporation’s religious rights or those of the owners because the choice to use a particular contraception method belongs to the employee, not the employer.

Lawyers for Hobby Lobby counter that the employer is being asked to subsidize an activity that violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs. They charge it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The judge scheduled a full hearing on the injunction issue for July 19 in Oklahoma City.

“Hobby Lobby and the Green family faced a terrible choice of violating their faith or paying massive fines starting this Monday morning,” said Kyle Duncan of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing Hobby Lobby in the case.

“We are delighted that both the Tenth Circuit and the district court have spared them from this unjust burden on their religious freedom,” Mr. Duncan said.

The case is one of 60 lawsuits filed by individuals, companies, and organizations across the country challenging the portion of the president’s health care initiative that requires employers to provide a full range of contraceptive services to their employees.

The judge’s order came hours after the Department of Health and Human Services issued its final rules for contraception coverage, including by certain religious organizations.

In a statement, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the health-care law would guarantee millions of women access to preventative health services at no cost.

“Today’s announcement [of final rules] reinforces our commitment to respect the concerns of houses of worship and other nonprofit religious organizations that object to contraceptive coverage, while helping ensure that women get the care they need, regardless of where they work,” Secretary Sebelius said.

Under the administration’s rule, religious employers – primarily houses of worship – are exempt from providing contraception coverage in health plans for their employees.

The final rules also include an accommodation for other nonprofit religious organizations, such as church-affiliated hospitals and religious schools. Under the arrangement, such organizations that object to contraception coverage are to provide notice of their objection to their health insurance company. The insurer will then provide that portion of the coverage to the employee directly.

The final rules do not include an accommodation for for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby.

“Unfortunately the final rule announced today is the same old, same old,” said Eric Rassbach, also of the Becket Fund. “This doesn’t solve the religious conscience problem because it still makes our nonprofit clients the gatekeepers to abortion and provides no protection to religious businesses.”

He added: “The easy way to resolve this would have been to exempt sincere religious employers completely, as the Constitution requires. Instead this issue will have to be decided in court.”

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Pope warns church leaders against seeking power

FRANCES D'EMILIO 1 hour agoSocietyReligion

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis told prelates Saturday to shun the "logic of human power," pressing his campaign to root out corruption and other wrongdoing from the Vatican's scandal-tainted power structures.

The admonition came a day after the latest embarrassment for the Vatican hierarchy -- the arrest by Italian authorities of a Vatican accountant, in a probe of an alleged attempt by the prelate to secure the smuggling of 20 million euros ($26 million) in banknotes from Switzerland into Italy. The Italian monsignor, who was suspended a few weeks earlier from his job in the Vatican's finance office, is also under investigation in a separate money-laundering probe by prosecutors in southern Italy.

Francis is making reforms aimed at ensuring his papacy's priorities, which include paying more attention to the world's poor and concentrating on cultivating spiritual, not material, wealth. He delivered a kind of moral pep talk to church leaders, including Vatican cardinals, gathered in St. Peter's Basilica for an annual ceremony to welcome newly made archbishops.

"Whenever we let our thoughts, our feelings or the logic of human power prevail, and we do not let ourselves be taught and guided by faith, by God, we become stumbling blocks," the pope said. "Faith in Christ is the light of our life as Christians and as ministers in the church."

Francis also put church leaders on guard against "the peril of thinking in worldly terms."

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Monsignor Dieudonne Nzapalainga, of the Central African Republic, is greeted by Pope Francis after r …

Earlier in the week, the pope established a commission to look into the Vatican bank, which has long had a reputation as a largely unregulated financial center ripe for exploitation as a tax haven or even for money laundering. The arrest of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, along with an Italian financial broker and a former member of an Italian paramilitary police's security agency, highlighted the urgency to ensure that Vatican's financial apparatus is above board.

The Vatican's curia, or bureaucratic administration, is notorious for rivalries among power-seeking factions. Francis received an authoritative show of support Saturday from an Italian cardinal, Velasio de Paolis, a retired chief of the Vatican's finance department.

The Vatican "must clean house," the cardinal told Rome daily Il Messaggero in an interview. "Pope Francis is right to insist on this," he was quoted as saying. The pope's reform drive is "valid for all believers, clergy or non-clergy, with a red skullcap or without a red skullcap," de Paolis said, referring to the crimson headgear that cardinals wear.

De Paolis added that "churchmen ought to be saints, but sometimes they are not." Referring to the pope's determination to clean up the Vatican bank, de Paolis said of Francis: "He's not ingenuous, he knows that the church must have wealth to help those who don't have it. "

Since cardinals elected Francis as pope in March, the pontiff, a Jesuit from Argentina, has eschewed showy symbols of Vatican wealth, refusing, among other decisions, to reside in the Apostolic Palace. He lives in a hotel on the Vatican grounds, and except for religious ceremonies, wears a simple white cassock instead of fancy robes.