The Sacred Seven Prayers

O Great Spirit, who art before all else and who dwells in every object, in every person and in every place, we cry unto Thee. We summon Thee from the far places into our present awareness.

O Great Spirit of the North, who gives wings to the waters of the air and rolls the thick snowstorm before Thee, Who covers the Earth with a sparkling crystal carpet above whose deep tranquillity every sound is beautiful. Temper us with strength to withstand the biting blizzards, yet make us thankful for the beauty which follows and lies deep over the warm Earth in its wake.

O Great Spirit of the East, the land of the rising Sun, Who holds in Your right hand the years of our lives and in Your left the opportunities of each day. Brace us that we may not neglect our gifts nor lose in laziness the hopes of each day and the hopes of each year.

O Great Spirit of the South, whose warm breath of compassion melts the ice that gathers round our hearts, whose fragrance speaks of distant springs and summer days, dissolve our fears, melt our hatreds, kindle our love into flames of true and living realities. Teach us that he who is truly strong is also kind, he who is wise tempers justice with mercy, he who is truly brave matches courage with compassion.

O Great Spirit of the West, the land of the setting Sun, with Your soaring mountains and free, wide rolling prairies, bless us with knowledge of the peace which follows purity of striving and the freedom which follows like a flowing robe in the winds of a well-disciplined life. Teach us that the end is better than the beginning and that the setting sun glorifies not in vain.

O Great Spirit of the heavens, in the day's infinite blue and amid the countless stars of the night season, remind us that you are vast, that you are beautiful and majestic beyond all of our knowing or telling, but also that you are no further from us than the tilting upwards of our heads and the raising of our eyes.

O Great Spirit of Mother Earth beneath our feet, Master of metals, Germinator of seeds and the Storer of the Earth's unreckoned resources, help us to give thanks unceasingly for Your present bounty.

O Great Spirit of our souls, burning in our heart's yearning and in our innermost aspirations, speak to us now and always so that we may be aware of the greatness and goodness of Your gift of life and be worthy of this priceless privilege of living.

©1996 Noel Knockwood, B.A.
Elder

Stairway to Heaven

All of us seek happiness but few of us question why we universally do that. We want love, crave bliss, search for fulfillment. But seldom do we notice that we do or question why these circumstances would be so. We simply accept them.

They form part of what Werner Erhard called the “background of obviousness.” We take for granted some of the most profound circumstances of life.

In a similar vein, from time to time, we ask for proof that there’s a Divine Plan for life, but when we look upon the evidence all around us in our everyday lives, we seldom consider it to be evidence.

But in seeking happiness, love, bliss and fulfilment, are we not seeking Divine qualities? If we tirelessly seek the qualities of the Divine, does that not suggest that the Plan for life may also have something to do with seeking the Divine?

What is the Divine Plan? All life seeks God. That would seem to be its essence. There seems little difference between saying that all life seeks God or saying that all life seeks love, bliss, fulfilment and happiness because these qualities appear to be the same as God.

Has the Divine Plan been described by those who’ve known it? Let’s look first at Earth’s sages and then the galactic masters and see. Krishnamurti knew it and exclaimed:

“The really important thing is … the knowledge of God’s plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution. When once a man has seen that and really knows it, he cannot help working for it and making himself one with it, because it is so glorious, so beautiful.” (1)

Great Chain of Being

Have any other sages had a vision of the Divine Plan, the stairway of consciousness or Great Chain of Being, and described it in detail? The closest we can get are the visions of Edward Carpenter and Dante.

Edward Carpenter’s Vision: “[In the] inner illumination … we can ultimately see things as they are, beholding all creation — the animals, the angels, the plants, the figures of our friends, and all the ranks and races of human kind — in their true being and order.” (2)

Dante’s Vision: “When Dante awoke into the Cosmic Sense, into the new Cosmos, the first thing to strike him … was the vision of the ‘Eternal Wheels’ — the ‘Chain of Causation’ — the universal order — a vision infinitely beyond expression by human words. His new self … had its eyes fixed on this, the Cosmic unfolding. Gazing thereupon the Cosmic vision and the Cosmic rapture transhumanized him into a god.” (3)

What is being described is a word picture of God’s Plan for humans: Jacob’s Ladder, the stairway of consciousness, depicting the spiritual evolution of God’s children from a point of unconscious awareness of their identity as God to conscious awareness. The dawning of conscious awareness we call “enlightenment.”

Does God Himself (Herself, Itself) discuss the purpose behind the Plan? Speaking as God, the Sufi sage Ibn Arabi says: “I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, and I created the creation so that I be known.” (4) The White Brotherhood master Beinsa Douno says something somewhat similar: “Why did God desire to create the world? So that He might be made manifest.” (5)

The Divine Plan is like a circular spiral

The Upanishads say that God created the world “to enjoy his own exuberance and play, to know himself in manifestation.” (6) When one of us realizes God, it is really God that realizes Himself, as many sages attest.

Franklin Merrell-Woolf: “This space I produce that My Glory shall be revealed; yet I alone Realize that Revelation.” (7)

Ibn Arabi: “Only God sees God.” (8)

Bayazid of Bistun: “I went from God to God, until they cried from me in me, ‘O thou I!’” (9)

Paramahansa Ramakrishna: “Only grandeur appreciates grandeur: and God realizes God.” (10)

Swami Brahmananda: “Only God can know himself. Be a god, that you may know the infinite God.” (11)

The avatar Sri Ramakrishna playfully describes God’s reaction when, in the moment of enlightenment, God knows God: “When Siva realizes his own Self, He dances about in joy exclaiming, ‘What am I! What am I!’” (12)

So the Divine Plan is for God to realize God by making Himself manifest in the world as us, His Children, who rise by gradual steps from a place of unconscious awareness of our identity as Him to conscious awareness through enlightenment.

Do the galactics say something different? Can it be that this view of the Divine Plan is in fact something only terrestrials hold, or do the galactics say the same thing?

SaLuSa says: “All are on the same journey back to the Source from whence all life originated.” (13) That is the divine circle, the stairway of consciousness, is it not? He explains that “the purpose of living many lives is to follow an overall plan that leads to your spiritual evolution.” (14) And again: “Life is a continuous round of experiences that you have all set in place to further your spiritual evolution.” (15) There’s no difference between SaLuSa’s statement and Krishnamurti’s, is there?

All nature reflects the Divine circle of consciousness

Ela of Arcturus evokes the same stairway of consciousness: “All proceeds upwards in the cyclic nature of evolution.” (16) SaLuSa agrees: “Life everywhere in the Universe is continually evolving, and it is a natural condition that forever impels you forward.” (17) Forward, upward, progressing, evolving from God to God.

Do the galactics themselves mount the same evolutionary staircase of consciousness? SaLuSa answers that question:

‘You might ask where do we stand as far as evolution is concerned, and we would reply that we as member civilizations of the Galactic Federation have already ascended. We continue to evolve, and will do so until we find ourselves at One with the Source of All That Is.” (18)

“No matter where you choose to go in this Universe, the object of your experiences will be to increase your levels of consciousness. So when you meet with Beings from another civilization, know that they too are carrying out a life plan to move further ahead in their evolution.” (19)

Thus we can see the Divine Plan at work in our own everyday lives. We hear terrestrial and extraterrestrial sages refer to it and describe it. Do the galactics and celestials gathered around our planet at this time also serve it? SaLuSa says they do:

“There is a clearly-defined plan for your future. … There is a core plan which shall manifest and take you through to Ascension as intended. … The path to Ascension is to be cleared of any attempts to prevent it from manifesting, and be sure, Dear Ones, that when a divine edict is given it is the Law of the Creator.” (20)

This “grand plan for Man,” SaLuSa says, “is perfect in its concept.” (21) Our “glorious future is absolutely certain, and it is written into the plan decreed by the Creator,” he assures us. (22) Saul reminds us as well that nothing else is possible than what the Divine Plan lays out:

“The divine plan continues to unfold precisely as intended, and as it must; nothing else is possible. Your awareness of it will increase and intensify as your energy frequency rises in preparation for leaving your illusory reality of fear, suffering, pain, and death.” (23)

And what is that Plan? SaLuSa tells us that “the Divine Plan [is] to release you from the lower vibrations, and end the cycle whilst giving every soul the opportunity to rise up.” (24) “Ascension,” he tells us, “is in accordance with the Divine Plan.” (25)

So if we look at our own lives carefully enough, we can see the Divine Plan in action. If we study the words of the terrestrial and extraterrestrial sages, we can hear the Plan described and explained. Various visions that sages have had give us the flavor of it. And the galactics and masters who’ve gathered round the planet at this time of Ascension also tell us that they follow it. We have evidence from our own lives and from the experience of the masters, terrestrial and galactic, that the Divine Plan exists. And this very Plan holds within it the decree and provision that this planet will ascend and we will ascend with it.

Footnotes

(1) J. Krishnamurti, At the Feet of the Master. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974; c1910. , 17.

(2) Edward Carpenter in Maurice Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness. A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind. New York: Dutton, 1969; c1901, 85. [Hereafter CC.]

(3) Maurice Bucke, CC, 137.

(4) Muhyidden Ibn Arabi, Kernel of the Kernel. trans. Ismail Hakki Bursevi. Sherborne: Beshara, n.d., 3. [Hereafter KK.]

(5) Beinsa Douno, “Life is the Musical Manifestation of God,” The Wellspring of Good. Downloaded from http://www.beinsadouno.org/lib/sg.htm, accessed 2 Feb. 2005., n.p.

(6) Alan Jacobs, trans. The Principal Upanishads: A Poetic Transcreation. Winchester, UK and New York: O Books, 2003, 70.

(7) Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Pathways Through to Space. A Personal Record of Transformation in Consciousness. New York: Julian Press, 1973 18.

(8) Ibn Arabi, KK, 48.

(9) Bayazid of Bistun in Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy. New York, etc.: Harper and Row, 1970; c1944, 12.

(10) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Anon., Life of Sri Ramakrishna. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1977; c1924, 47.

(11) Swami Brahmananda in Swami Prabhavananda, The Eternal Companion.Brahmananda. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1970; c1944 , 205.

(12) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942., 393.

(13) SaLuSa, April 2, 2012, athttp://www.treeofthegoldenlight.com/First_Contact/Channeled_Messages_by_Mike_Quinsey.htm

(14) SaLuSa, Oct. 4, 2010.

(15) SaLuSa, Feb. 1, 2010.

(16) Ela of Arcturus, Mar. 9, 2009, athttp://www.treeofthegoldenlight.com/First_Contact/Channeled_Messages_by_Mike_Quinsey.htm

(17) SaLuSa, May 4, 2009.

(18) SaLuSa, July 14, 2010.

(19) SaLuSa, Jan. 13, 2010.

(20) SaLuSa, March 15, 2010.

(21) SaLuSa, Oct. 21, 2009.

(22) SaLuSa, Feb. 15, 2010.

(23) Saul, Sept. 6, 2009, at http://johnsmallman.wordpress.com

(24) SaLuSa, Feb. 20, 2009.

(25) SaLuSa, Feb. 8, 2012.

Earliest evidence of a Biblical cult Archaeologists uncover 3,000-year-old shrines that point to the time of King David.Some scientists still skeptical

For the first time, archaeologists have uncovered shrines from the time of the early Biblical kings in the Holy Land, providing the earliest evidence of a cult, they say.

Excavation within the remains of the roughly 3,000-year-old fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, located about 19 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Jerusalem, have revealed three large rooms used as shrines, along with artifacts, including tools, pottery and objects, such as alters associated with worship.

The three shrines were part of larger building complexes, and the artifacts included five standing stones, two basalt altars, two pottery libation vessels and twoportable shrines, one made of pottery, the other of stone. The portable shrines are boxes shaped like temples.

The shrines themselves reflect an architectural style dating back as early as the time of King David(of the biblical David and Goliath story), providing the first physical evidence of a cult in the time of King David, according to an announcement by Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. [Religious Worship: Top 10 Cults]

The research is presented in the book, "Footsteps of King David in the Valley of Elah" (Yedioth Ahronoth, 2012).

Radiocarbon dating on burnt olive pits found in the ancient city of Khirbet Qeiyafa indicate it existed between 1020 B.C. and 980 B.C., before being violently destroyed.

According to Biblical tradition, the ancient Isrealites' belief in one God and their ban on human and animal figures set them apart from their neighbors. However, it hasn't been clear when these distinct practices arose.

The discoveries offer a clue to the timing, since they contain none of the human or animal figurines common at other sites. No bones from pigs showed up here or elsewhere in the city.

"This suggests that the population of Khirbet Qeiyafa observed two Biblical bans — on pork and on graven images — and thus practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines," Garfinkel said in a press release issued by the university. The discoveries also offer support for the Biblical depiction of King David, he said.

Garfinkel suggests some of the features and styles of the structures appear analogous to those described in the Bible. For instance, one of the shrines, the clay one, is decorated with an elaborate façade that includes two guardian lions, two pillars, folded textile and three birds standing on the roof. The two pillars are suggestive, he said, of Yachin and Boaz described in the Bible as belonging to Solomon's Temple.

The announcement was met with some skepticism from scientists such as Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, who has studied the ruins of the nearby Philistine city of Gath. Maeir told the Times of Israel the new finds don't conclusively prove the site was inhabited by Israelites, and that the images of lions and birds also undercut that no animal or human figures were found.

"There's no question that this is a very important site, but what exactly it was — there is still disagreement about that," Maeir said in the Times of Israel, adding that the finding doesn't add dramatic new evidence to the broader debate over whether the Bible is an historical record of events, largely mythical or a mix between fact and fiction.