Who is "Doubting Thomas"?

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

One of the more famous episodes in the New Testament resurrection story is the account of "Doubting Thomas," also referred to as "The Incredulity of Thomas" ("incredulity" meaning literally "the not-believing" of Thomas, or the "not-giving-credit [i.e., trust]" by Thomas).

The account of this episode is found in the Gospel According to John (and only there, out of the texts that were included in what came to be the accepted texts of the "canon"), and is there described as follows (in the 20th chapter of the Gospel According to John): 

24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believed.

This passage is often interpreted as being about belief or faith, particularly by those who assert that the texts were intended to be understood literally and historically (that is to say, those who believe the texts were intended to be understood as describing an encounter that took place in literal history between two literal and historical figures).

But what if that is not what this episode is actually about at all?

If the text is describing a literal event that took place after a literal resurrection, then it would make sense to understand this encounter with Thomas as being about believing that the literal resurrection happened in the manner described. 

But we have already examined some evidence that the character of Thomas has a meaning that goes far beyond the common understanding of Thomas as a particular individual who lived a long time ago and had a particularly "incredulous" disposition and a particularly blunt way of expressing himself.

A major clue to the critical importance and true identity of this character "Doubting Thomas" is in fact found in the very passage cited above from the "canonical" text of the Gospel According to John: the information given in verse 24 of John 20 that Thomas (one of the twelve) was also called Didymus.

The word "didymus" is Greek in origin and means "twin" (the prefix di- is still found in many English words, many scientific in nature, which carry the meaning of "twin" or "two" or "twinned," such as a diode or a dipole or a diplodocus or a dichotomy or even a diploma -- diplomas apparently being so named because they were originally "folded in two" or "doubled" instead of being rolled up in a cardboard tube the way they are today).

The Gospel According to John is the only text among those admitted to the New Testament canon which uses the word Didymus (or didymos in the New Testament Greek) or reveals that Thomas was either an actual twin or was for some reason called "the twin" (even though Thomas is listed in the naming of the twelve apostles found in the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke, as well as in Acts of the Apostles). Neither John nor the others ever explain why Thomas is called that, or who his other twin might be.

But, as has already been discussed at some length in the previous post entitled "The Gospel of Thomas and the Divine Twin," there were other "New Testament era" texts which were specifically excluded from the New Testament canon but which were apparently preserved in a large sealed jar which in ancient times (in fact, during the same century that the current canon was being established and other texts not included in the canon were being marginalized or even outlawed) was buried beneath the sands at the base of a cliff near the modern-day village of Nag Hammadi in Egypt -- and one of these texts has Jesus addressing Thomas as "my twin and true companion."

This remarkable statement opens up an entirely different interpretation of the so-called "Incredulity of Thomas" episode -- and indeed of the identity and meaning of the character of Thomas altogether.

The statement simply cannot be understood literally, as in referring to a literal-historical twin of Jesus, since such an interpretation would then undermine a literal-historical interpretation of the descriptions of the birth of a single child (not a twin) found elsewhere in the New Testament scriptures.

But just because something is not literal does not mean that it is not true. 

If we are not meant to interpret these scriptural passages as literal-historical, then how else could we be intended to interpret them? If the passage is not intended to describe a literal individual named Thomas with an incredulous disposition and a gruff manner of speaking, then what are we supposed to learn from it?

Something of tremendous importance and applicability to our daily lives -- something which makes Thomas a character of immediate and ongoing relevance to each of our individual journeys through this world, every single day (in a way, I would argue, that a Thomas who lived a couple of thousand years ago might not be).

In fact, I would argue that even those who take the scriptures as literal and historical probably do not find themselves thinking about Thomas and his importance to their lives multiple times every day.

But I would submit that after reading the esoteric interpretation of Thomas offered below, you might (at least I do).

Because if Jesus and Thomas are twins, and if out of the two of them Jesus represents the "divine twin" in the pairing (and, as we explored in that previous post on Thomas, there are many such "twins" in ancient mythology, including Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology and Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the mythology of ancient Sumer and Babylon), then what does that imply about the identity of Thomas?

Why, it could imply that Thomas is "the human twin."

And which one would that make us? 

(This is a trick question).

The answer, of course, is: "both of them."

We are running around in this incarnate life with both of these "twinned" natures within us at all times (in fact, as has been explored at some length, the very symbol of the cross itself can be seen to represent the "crossing" of two natures in each and every human being -- a horizontal nature and a vertical nature, so to speak: see for example previous posts here, here and here).

To put it very plainly, I believe that the episode of "Doubting Thomas" is intended to teach us to get in touch with the divine Infinite. 

And our "Thomas nature" -- while serving a very necessary function -- can be an obstacle to that connection with the Infinite, at least when overcome by doubt.

Having offered that interpretation, let's now take another look at the text itself to see if it is possible to find any support for such an assertion.

In verse 25, the other disciples say to Thomas: "We have seen the Lord." 

Thomas replies in the same verse: "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe."

Let's just think about that for a second. 

As noted above, the episode of the "Incredulity of Thomas" is usually interpreted as instructing belief or faith, and not doubt -- and hence a "negative spin" is imputed to this "incredulity" of Thomas (this failing to "extend credit" or trust to the account of the other disciples, on the part of "Doubting Thomas").

But is this statement from Thomas really something that we are meant to see in a negative light? 

He did not say, "Even if I see the print of the nails, I will not believe."

He did not say, "Even if I thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe."

Thomas is actually displaying critical thinking, a desire to check things out and examine the evidence which supports one or another theory, or which might disprove one or another theory . . . even what we might call "the scientific method."

And this kind of thinking is actually indispensable in our daily life, from one moment to the next in this physical world (in fact, it is essential to our very survival from one moment to the next).  

If a traffic light turns green, telling you that it is safe to proceed into an intersection, or a railroad crossing signal tells you that it is safe to proceed across the railroad tracks, and you don't exercise at least a very little bit of what Thomas here displays when he receives the report of the other disciples, there may come a day when those signals are telling you an untruth that could be extremely dangerous to you. It is advisable to just swivel your head to glance quickly up and down a cross-street or a train-track as you approach it, to "see for yourself" in the same way that Thomas might advise you to do.

In other words, critical thinking is critically important to anyone living in the material world.

It is the same critical thinking that enables us to categorize things into one category or another ("this" and "not that"), to communicate using language (which is built upon definitions of "this" and "not that," the very word definition meaning "to put a boundary or a limit around something"), and to analyze our situation and come up with possible hypotheses to explain what we see, and then examine the evidence that could help us accept or reject the different possible explanations or hypotheses.

All that being said, the scriptural passage itself does indeed appear to be telling us that all of this critical thought, while essential, can have a negative side (like any other good thing, especially when there is "too much of a good thing").

The very same essential and indispensable faculty that enables us to categorize, to hypothesize, and even to criticize ("this is good" versus "that was not so good" or even "that was a disaster") is exactly the same faculty that makes possible self-doubt, self-criticism, and even what we might term "self-imposed isolation from the divine twin."

If you haven't watched it already or don't remember the details of this previous post discussing the excellent conversation with Dr. Darrah Westrup at the mindbodygreen "Revitalize 2015" conference (her talk can be seen in this video clip beginning at about the 1:03:00 mark), please check it out or give it a re-look. 

Because in her talk, after pointing out that animals do not typically walk around wracked with self-doubt, and that even if a cat makes a terrible failure of trying to leap somewhere, it doesn't seem to reduce its self-image or cause it to wonder if it is going to be a failure at it the next time, Dr. Westrup states that it is through language (and thus, I would argue, through the entire facility of defining into "this" and "not that") that we can let our minds "run away with us" with negative results.

In the same presentation, she explains that ancient practices such as meditation and ancient scriptures such as the Vedas seem to teach that what we call our mind is not the whole of who we are, but rather a very useful and indeed indispensable tool, one which we should view as occasionally detrimental: a sort of "over-eager office assistant" that will sometimes make absolutely terrible recommendations, from which we can learn to "stand aside" or "stand above" through disciplines  and methods which were known to the ancients and which can put us in touch with something altogether different. 

In the scripture passage from John chapter 20, the remedy or solution given to Thomas does not involve thinking or talking or reasoning at all: it involves feeling and seeing and experiencing and knowing. And it involves getting in touch with the divine twin.

Note that this does not mean "getting rid of the Thomas" -- as Dr. Westrup says in her talk about the "over-eager office assistant," we actually cannot get rid of that assistant, nor would we really want to. 

Once we have the faculty of defining and critically thinking (and hence of criticizing and also of doubting) then we cannot ever get rid of that, nor would it be good to do so: but we can get in touch with something which is beyond defining, which cannot be "de-fined": something which is in fact In-finite (non-boundaried, non-bounded, non-finite).

Something which other traditions (such as the Vedic texts and epics and commentaries) call variously the Higher Self, the Supreme Self, the Brahman -- which is just as much a part of who we are as is the  part we might call our Thomas-self. That's why they are described as twins. You can't separate them: they are both part of our identity.

In other words, the relationship between Thomas and Jesus implied by the word Didymus may be intended to convey the very same thing that the relationship between Arjuna and the Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita is intended to convey.

And note that at the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna (who corresponds to Thomas) is racked by doubt. 

Not doubt about the existence or divinity of his divine charioteer, Krishna, but doubt about himself, his worthiness, and whether it is right or not for him to engage in the upcoming battle of Kurukshetra.

And as we see in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna reveals himself to be unbounded and infinite (just as the goddess Durga revealed herself to be unbounded and infinite immediately prior to the Bhagavad Gita, and in fact was addressed as identical to the Brahman, in the hymn to Durga uttered by Arjuna).

In those Vedic texts, which I believe were designed to convey the very same message being conveyed by the episode of "Doubting Thomas," the metaphor of a chariot is used, in which the horses are the senses and the desires, and the mind is compared to the reins, but the driver is the "divine charioteer," who in the Bhagavad Gita is Lord Krishna himself.  Here, mind is shown to be an essential tool, but it must be guided by the divine charioteer, held in the hands of the divine charioteer.

In other words, I believe we need our critical-thinking "Thomas-faculty" nearly all the time during our waking hours, but there is a very real sense in which this aspect of our humanity gets in the way of our accessing something much deeper, something that is in fact infinite, and that can actually be properly described as divine (and that is described as divine in ancient sacred texts and traditions, including those of the New Testament, as discussed in previous posts such as "Namaste and Amen" and previous examinations of the teachings of the person called Paul).  

And we are actually designed to be in touch with the divine Infinite in this life.

Many of us have in fact experienced moments when we seem to suddenly touch something that is beyond or beneath all of the mental chatter, perhaps in a sports situation when (looking back later) we realize we were playing "out of our head." 

(Conversely, we can also probably recall situations in sports or other areas of endeavor in which we seemed to "self-sabotage" -- through a sudden onset of "doubting Thomas" self-talk -- a play or a catch that we normally would have been able to easily make).

Examples from daily life which we might put into the "uncontroversial" category could include parallel parking perfectly on the first try (even into a very difficult spot), or fetching the exact right amount of water to pour into a coffee-maker to come exactly up to the "max-fill" line without measuring (in an unmarked jug or pitcher that you use to fetch it), or even looking at the clock exactly at 3:33 on several different days, without even thinking about it (we might wonder what exactly was "ticking" in the back of your mind that seemed to be keeping track of the time, since it is clear in this example that it was not the conscious part of the mind that "reasoned out" the exact right moment to glance over at the clock on those different days).

But there are other examples that are far from "mundane" and which seem to evidence a sudden manifestation of the "hidden divine within" or the "unconscious connection with the Supreme Self," such as the incredible displays of timing caught on camera in popular videos such as the "Greatest 'Dad saves' ever" shown here (and there are many other collections along the same lines -- many showing situations that are clearly not staged, unless people are deliberately hazarding their infants to make these movies):

It should be pointed out that in nearly every one of these "Dad saves," the injury-saving action is completely unpremeditated and even apparently "unconscious" (without conscious thought). In some of them, the "save" even appears to be literally "unconscious," as in "he was half-asleep (or more than just half) and his arm reached out to save the baby."

It should also be pointed out that these kinds of difficult-to-explain displays of unconscious genius are not limited to "Dads," although saving a baby or a child does seem to be a common denominator. For instance, there was an incident in my own experience (known to me personally) in which a mother was in line at the grocery store, facing the clerk, and reached completely behind her back to grab the shopping cart and stop it from tipping over as her older son climbed onto the side of it while her younger son (an infant at the time) was inside of it. She was not looking in that direction at all when this took place: it was behind her and she was about to say "hi" to the clerk in anticipation of moving up to the check-out point.

As difficult to explain as such examples appear to be, there are some who would argue that even these displays of human response -- admittedly beyond our "day-to-day" way of behaving or reacting -- are still explainable within the realm of the "natural, material world" and do not require descriptions involving the words "divine" or "infinite" or connections to anything non-material or super-natural.

Perhaps they are just manifestations of highly-developed instinctual abilities on the same level as those which animals routinely display (untroubled as they are by anything resembling the "Thomas-mind" and the self-doubt that comes along with being able to think critically and maintain inner dialogues), and which we usually forget in our civilized setting, but which "pop up" from time-to-time when they are most necessary (a kind of "animal-like survival instinct" that is usually forgotten but occasionally awakens).

That is certainly a possible explanation, and one that our critical-thinking, scientific-method-following minds should consider.

But even if that is a valid explanation for some manifestations of behavior (like the "Dad saves" shown above) that fall completely outside of what we usually experience in what might be called "ordinary reality," there are other examples of human beings apparently accessing the fabric of non-ordinary reality for which even that explanation (already a stretch) seems to be completely inadequate.

For example, in this post from all the way back in January of 2012

, we examined an account of a daughter who was visited in dreams and who received information about the existence of a Buddhist monastery the existence of which she had previously been unaware, but which upon visiting she learned from the presiding abbott that her father had helped found that particular monastery, years before she had even been born.

It is difficult to explain that account as an example of "highly-developed human ability or instinct," because it involved information that came to a person (while unconscious, it should be noted) who could not be expected to know that information at all -- even subconsciously.

Or, see for another example the situation described in the account of Norman Ollestad in his book Crazy for the Storm, in which as a young eleven-year old boy, he had to make his way down a steep and icy mountain in what can only be described as a life-or-death situation.

In that book, we see an excellent real-life example of the "Doubting Thomas" phenomenon: young Ollestad must overcome his own fears, anxieties, self-criticisms and self-doubt -- both on the mountain and in the challenging situations he faced while growing up in the canyons and suburbs around Los Angeles and the California coast during the 1970s.

In order to overcome those doubts, he relies on the uplifting influence of his father, and on reserves of courage and resourcefulness inside himself that at first the boy might not even have known or realized were there.

However, that is not all that helps him survive, as those who have read the book (or who will read the book after this) see by the end. Indeed, in order to eventually make his way off the mountain, several events (including something that he is able to "see" which he later realizes he would not have been able to see based on actual terrain and line-of-sight) and "coincidences" took place which directly contributed to the author's survival on that awful day in 1979.

Although they might not be as dramatic, many of us can also think of "coincidences" or "synchronicities" in our own experience in which people who could not possibly have known that we were thinking about something or considering some course of action suddenly contacted us with information or suggestions that make it seem as though something from outside of ordinary reality is at work.

It is my belief that the episode involving the encounter of "Doubting Thomas" and "the risen Lord" is intended to describe this exact dynamic in our human experience: the fact that we ourselves are endowed with an important facility of critical thinking, which is well-suited for many aspects of day-to-day life (and which is in fact indispensable for our survival), but which can also be a hindrance to us, to the extent that it can lead to self-doubt, self-sabotage, self-destruction in extreme cases, and self-imposed separation from someone we are actually supposed to rely upon as absolutely vital to our experience in this life: our Higher Self, the "divine charioteer," the Christ within.

Indeed, while some readers may remain unconvinced by the analysis and examples offered so far (and especially those who are especially committed to a literal-historical interpretation of the sacred texts of the New Testament) -- even though I believe that the discussion so far should already be fairly convincing -- I believe there is actually a whole additional line of evidence which makes the above interpretation not only "likely" but nearly "indisputable."

The more I have studied the ancient mythology of humanity, the more evidence I have found that virtually all of it, from every single inhabited continent on our globe, and from millennia in the past right up to living traditions which have remained in practice into the present day, is built upon a common system of celestial metaphor, the purpose of which is to convey exactly the type of knowledge that we have been examining above regarding the human condition and the makeup of the natural world and the cosmos in which we find ourselves.

Knowledge regarding its dual material-spiritual composition: the existence of a Spirit World or an Infinite Realm which interpenetrates this material realm at all times and at all points, and with which we are actually in contact all the time ourselves, through our own inner divine spark, our own inner connection to the Infinite.

This inner connection may be often neglected, or even completely forgotten, but (as the embedded video and some of the other examples discussed above make clear) it is very real, and it is very powerful.

It absolutely transcends and blows away our limited understanding of what we ordinary think of as "reality."

But our normal facilities of thinking and understanding and analyzing (the "Thomas side" of our "twinned" existence) tend to doubt the very existence or reality of the divine nature, and when we listen to them enough we can miss out on something that is actually a huge part of who we really are.

A nice "contemporary film allegory" for this self-doubt and self-sabotage which keeps us from reaching our "non-ordinary potential" is the famous exchange between "doubting Skywalker" and Yoda in the famous "X-wing in the swamp" scenefrom The Empire Strikes Back (1980):

One way that we can help to confirm that the "Doubting Thomas" episode in the Gospel According to John was intended to be understood as an esoteric metaphor and not as a literal account of an event which took place in terrestrial earthly history is the fact that, like so many other events related in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible (see a partial list here), it incorporates clearly-identifiable celestial components.

In fact, I can find enough celestial components to this story and those which precede and follow it in John's gospel as to amply confirm to my own satisfaction that it is almost certainly a description of the heavenly cycles of the sun, moon, stars and planets (with which we ourselves are connected, and which serve throughout the world's mythology as an allegorical system which relies upon some of the most majestic and awe-inspiring aspects of our physical, material universe to discuss and explain aspects of the invisible, spiritual world) and not a description of anything that took place in terrestrial human history.

Very briefly, the Reverend Robert Taylor (1784 - 1844), who lived well before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, and who spent considerable time discussing the identity of Thomas in a collection of his public sermons or lectures published in 1854 (ten years after his death) and entitled The Devil's Pulpit, makes much of the fact that the traditional observance of St. Thomas' Day was held on December 21st, the point of winter solstice and the point on the zodiac wheel which during the Age of Aries marked the beginning of the sign of Capricorn.

Since at the points of solstice ("sun-station" or "sun-stand-still") the sun appears to "pause" and rise at roughly the same point on the horizon for about three days before turning back around and moving in the other direction again, which is why the "birth" of the solar child is celebrated three days later (at midnight on the 24th of December, rather than on the solstice-day of the 21st of December), Robert Taylor argued that the 21st is a sort of "day of maximum doubt," when the sun has been rising successively further and further south since summer solstice in June, and tracing an arc that is lower and lower across the sky, and the hours of daylight each day have been getting shorter and shorter relative to the hours of darkness -- and that "unbelieving Thomas" is thus the figure who doubts that the sun will ever turn around again (Devil's Pulpit, 42).

Zodiac wheel with positions of the signs of Capricorn (green) and Cancer (red) indicated, one beginning at the point of winter solstice (Capricorn) and the other beginning at the point of summer solstice (Cancer).

Interestingly enough, there are also traditions which associate the feast-day of Thomas with the 3rd of July, which is in the sign of Cancer the Crab, the sign which follows the sun's point of maximum arc and its northmost rising- and setting-points (as well as with other days of the year).

Robert Taylor incorporates all these details into his explanation, in which he argues that Thomas is associated both with the Goat of Capricorn (beginning at the sun's lowest point) and with the Crab of Cancer (beginning just after its highest) -- and also the related fact that he is called "the twin."

One look at the zodiac image above should be enough to perceive just how ingeniously the ancient myths (including those in the Bible) were crafted to impart their esoteric message, and how the majestic cycles of the celestial realms were employed in order to convey knowledge of spiritual truths -- in this case, the truth allegorized by the metaphor of Thomas and the Divine Twin, one enmeshed in the doubts and definitions of the "practical" struggles of the finite world, and the other completely free of the bounds of earth (passing easily through locked doors) and of the endless defining and analyzing of the "Thomas" side of our nature: the divine nature, at home in and representative of the realm of the Infinite.

Images of Thomas in this famous encounter with the Lord painted in previous centuries have in fact emphasized his Capricornian nature.

Now is a good time of year to observe the Goat of Capricorn in the sky (look to the west of the Great Square of Pegasus, or to the east of the distinctive "teapot" outline in the constellation of Sagittarius, which is currently still easily visible looking towards the south during the prime stargazing hours after sunset and before midnight, at the base of the rising column of the Milky Way).

Below is an image of the night sky as it looks to an observer in the northern hemisphere in the temperate latitudes, and looking towards the southern horizon (where the zodiac constellations make their nightly procession):

image: Stellarium.org

In the above image, you can see that the zodiac constellation of Capricorn the Goat (or the Sea-Goat) is actually reaching its highest point (its transit point) as it turns through the due-south celestial meridian-line (the highest point on its arc through the sky between rising in the east on the left and setting to the west on the right) right around 11pm.  The outline of Capricorn is almost directly above the letter "S" marking due south.

Below is the same image, adding color to the outline of Capricorn as well as to the landmarks of the  Great Square of Pegasus and the "teapot" in Sagittarius:

In the above image, the Great Square of Pegasus is outlined in yellow, the "teapot" formation in Sagittarius is outlined in blue, and the Goat of Capricorn is shown in green.

The general direction of the shining band of the Milky Way galaxy, which rises up from the southern horizon almost straight-up into the heavens at this time of year, is indicated with a label written in purple.

Please take special note of the outline of the stars of the Goat of Capricorn. In order to observe them more closely, a "zoomed-in" image of the Capricorn region and its constellation's stars is shown below:

Note that the constellation suggests the shape of two "point-downward" triangles: one for the head of the Goat, and the other formed by Capricorn's two feet, which come together in a near-point, as if he is a rock-hopping mountain goat instead of a Sea-Goat as he is often portrayed.

It is also notable that he has some fairly formidable "goat-horns" pointing almost straight forward from his head, which are distinctly two in number: there are two stars to mark the tips of the Goat's horns (one is labeled in the image above, Deneb Algedi, and the other is just a bit further to the right and on a line slightly below Deneb Algedi in the sky).

Below is the same "zoomed-in" image of Capricorn, this time with green outlines to help make perfectly clear the line of the horns and the "two triangles" shape of the constellation:

Having familiarized ourselves with the outline of Capricorn, let us now take a look at some of the images created by master artists over the centuries depicting the famous encounter between Thomas and the risen Lord in the episode of "The Incredulity of Thomas."

The first (and perhaps most revealing) is from Giovanni del Giglio, who lived from some time in the late 1400s through approximately 1557. It is entitled L'incredulita di San Tommaso:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Take a close look at the hands of Thomas and the divine twin (the risen Lord).

If you have studied the images of the constellation Capricorn presented above, you will find that the unmistakeable features of the heavenly symbol are reproduced in this drawing and are associated with the probing fingers of Thomas (the horns of the Goat), the downward-facing triangle of the hand of Jesus (the head of the Goat), the bend of the arm of Thomas below the elbow of the risen Lord (the feet of the Goat), and the distinctive hand-symbol being displayed by the woman in the image (the tail of the Goat).

If you are having trouble seeing the correspondence between the image and the constellation, it is outlined in the identical image below, with Capricorn added:

Below is another example, much more recent, from Tissot (1836 - 1902), which envisions the same scene but instead appears to use the bearded, downward-bowed head of Thomas himself to evoke the idea of the head of Capricorn, and the down-stretched arm and one leg of the apostle to suggest the front and back legs of the constellation which are nearly together in the outline of Capricorn in the actual night sky:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The examples could be multiplied on and on: the reader is invited to examine them for himself or herself to decide whether or not the identification of Thomas with the constellation Capricorn is valid in these examples, based on what we know of the outline of the stars themselves in the sky.

There is actually much more which could be added to the celestial metaphors at work in this particular scriptural event, and in the events which surround it in the John gospel, which act to confirm even more powerfully the fact that this story was originally intended to be understood esoterically rather than literally as an event taking place in earthly history.

One other important piece of evidence which Robert Taylor offers in his extensive analysis of the identity of Thomas is the fact that his name itself points to the connection between Capricorn and Cancer in this story (the signs marking the celestial low-point and the celestial high-point).

The name Thomas, he alleges (and others have made the same assertion) is related to the name Tammuz, which is both the name of an ancient deity and also of the fourth month of some ancient calendars (including the Hebrew calendar still in use today).

If you look again at the zodiac wheel reproduced above, and count to the fourth sign after the point of spring equinox (the beginning of the year in many ancient cultures), you will find that this count brings you to the sign of Cancer the Crab (1 - Aries; 2 - Taurus; 3 - Gemini; 4 - Cancer).

In other words, Thomas is associated with both Capricorn and Cancer: both the "doubting twin" and with the exalted Supreme Self (and some have even noted that his confession or exclamation "My Lord and my God" appears to refer to both human kingship and divinity, an expression of the dual nature of the Christ).

All of this appears to rather strongly confirm the powerful insight of Alvin Boyd Kuhn, quoted many times in previous posts (see here and here and here), that the ancient myths of the world (including those in the Bible) are not about ancient history but about our experience "here and now;" that they are not about "old kings, priests and warriors" but rather that in every scene they treat the experience of "the human soul."

"The Bible is about the mystery of human life," he says, "[ . . .] and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it!" (Note that the two halves of the foregoing quotation are from different sentences in the same lecture by Alvin Boyd Kuhn, but by quoting them in this way I have not altered the sense of what he is asserting).

Indeed, when it comes to the story of Thomas the Twin (Didymus), we might alter Alvin Boyd Kuhn's quotation a bit further and say that this particular story "is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself or herself to be a twin in exactly the same way!"

The metaphor of Thomas and the divine twin is a metaphor to teach us a profound truth. It could be taught a different way, using a different metaphor -- such as the metaphor of Arjuna and the divine charioteer, in the Bhagavad Gita. In fact, there are endless different ways of expressing the same concept, found throughout the myths of the world, which collectively are the precious inheritance of humanity, intended for our benefit and use in this life.

We are each a twin in exactly the same way that Thomas is a twin: permanently 'twinned' with the 'divine twin,' who can appear in an instant no matter where we are or in what circumstance we find ourselves. No locked door can prevent the appearance of the divine twin, for we ourselves have within us -- always and in every circumstance -- an inner connection to the Infinite; we ourselves contain both Capricorn and Cancer: both twins, simultaneously. We are prone to doubting and to forgetting -- to saying with Luke in the swamp, 'I'll give it a try' -- cutting ourselves off from unlimited potential, when in reality we have access to all of it, all the time.

The fact that the story is a metaphor in no way means that it is "not true" (it just is not, at least in my understanding of it based on the evidence that I have seen for myself, literal or historical).

In fact, I believe it is profoundly true, and that it has daily practical applications for us in virtually every field of our human experience.

There are ways to learn these truths other than through the exquisite metaphors found in the world's ancient myths -- but when we have this incredible treasure which has been imparted to us for our good, it would seem to be a terrible waste to ignore these ancient teachings, or to turn them into something which they quite plainly are not (especially if we know what they are).

Who is "Doubting Thomas"?

Well, obviously, we have him with us every day.

But if we recognize his good aspects (incredulity, after all, can be a good quality), while avoiding the negative side of incredulity (self-doubt, over-criticism, over-haste in labeling defeat or failure, self-sabotage, and disconnection with the divine nature which is as much a part of who we are as is the Thomas-nature), we can touch the Infinite. Every day.

Namaste.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Painted Rock, The Inner Connection to the Infinite, and Two Competing Visions of Human Existence

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The visionary Lakota holy man Black Elk once articulated a distinction between two competing visions: the first, a vision of harmony and connection between people and animals and also with the invisible world, and the second a vision of division and scarcity and an all-consuming, gnawing greed that ultimately dirties and destroys everything good before finally destroying itself.

In his own account, which he allowed to be published in the book Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk associates these two visions with two paths he saw bisecting the great sacred hoop of life during a very powerful vision he received which had a profound impact on his entire life: the good red road (running from north to south on the great circle) associated with the preservation and renewal of all creatures, and the black road (running from west to east on the great circle) upon which "everybody walked for himself."  

The great vision of Black Elk, and his description of the difference between the two roads, is discussed in this previous post, and of course in his account of the vision, which after great deliberation he decided to tell to the world through a published narrative. 

The deciding factor that led him to tell his vision to the outside world was his realization that the people were mistakenly pursuing the bad vision and running down the wrong road -- he admits that even he himself had during a certain time thought that the way of the Wasichus (the Europeans) seemed to be working and that he himself had decided for a time that it might have been the better way -- and he felt that by telling his vision he could persuade others not to make this mistake, before it was too late.

Perhaps few surviving sacred sites in the world display the conflict between those two visions, those two roads described by Black Elk in his vision, more viscerally than the ancient space known today as "Painted Rock," located in North America in a high grassland plain -- in fact, a salt-lake basin with no real outlet, containing a large dry gypsum flat known as "Soda Lake" -- about forty-five or fifty miles inland from the Pacific Ocean in modern-day California. 

This is the arid valley known today as the Carrizo Plain, a name thought to have been derived from the Spanish word carrizo, defined in the Follett Velasquez dictionary as a "common reed-grass, Arundo phragmites," although in previous generations the area was called the Carrisa Plain, possibly an attempt to pronounce the Spanish word.  

It is nearly 1,400 miles from the places that Black Elk and his people lived, but it contains an awe-inspiring natural rock temple which silently proclaims a very similar message and offers a clear view of both roads, both visions: one vision evincing profound connectedness to nature and to the invisible realm, and the other displaying either a conscious hatred for that first vision, or a wanton disregard for it, and arising from a culture that has been cut off from it.

This extensive description of the importance of Painted Rock (and the extensive ancient archaeological region of which Painted Rock is part), prepared and filed in 2011 in conjunction with a request to have the area declared a National Historic Landmark, points to newly-discovered evidence of human habitation stretching back 10,000 years before the present, describing (in addition to the well-known Painted Rock site) "recently discovered pictograph sites along with a remarkable concentration of villages, camps and other sites dating from about 10,000 to 200 BP (8050 BCE - 1750 CE)" (see top of page 4).

This anciently-inhabited region, that same paragraph notes, contains abundant pictographs of a very distinctive nature: for the most part, they are painted with bright colors, instead of carved or indented as is common in other pictographic sites in North America. These, the report notes, "are the impressive hallmark of this district." Some scholars have dated the creation of these particular painted pictographs to a period of about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. 

These painted markings and significant and impressive in their own right, for their historical and cultural significance, for whatever concepts the ancient artists intended with their work (almost certainly related to the sacred and to the invisible world), and for the unworldly impression conveyed by their subject matter, their often intricate and artistically-beautiful design, and their use of bold colors (particularly red, black and white, often used together, with light blue, ochre yellow, and other colors added at times as well). 

In the massif known as the Painted Rock, shown in the aerial image above, the ancient artists who created these paintings selected one of the most impressive natural spaces possible, one possessed of tremendous inherent spiritual symbolism and power.

The annual report of the State Mineralogist to the California State Mining Bureau for the year 1890 described the actual rock formation, and the pictographs, in these words:

In the southwestern part of the plain stands THE PAINTED ROCK, an isolated butte covering an area of about five acres and rising to a height of one hundred and forty feet -- a conical formation, and hollow like the crater of a volcano, but having a narrow opening towards the east on a level with the surrounding plain [the opening is actually more north than east]. This opening is twenty-four feet in width and leads to a vast oval cavity two hundred and twenty-five feet in its greatest, and one hundred and twenty feet in its least diameter, the walls rising to a height of one hundred and thirty-two feet in the highest point. The rock is coarse sandstone, the walls irregular, and overhanging in places, making the inner space like a cave. In these recesses, covering a space of twelve feet in height, and sixty feet in length, are a great number of paintings, representing strange figures in rude forms of men, suns, birds, and others indescribable -- probably hieroglyphics or writings of meaning to the prehistoric people who made them. When and by whom these were made is unknown, as the oldest inhabitant says that when discovered by the pioneer Spanish missionaries, they found them as they are at the present time; the aborigines knowing nothing of their origin, but regarding them with mysterious awe. The paintings are in three lines of red, white, and black, the colors still bright and distinct. This grand temple of the ancient pagan is now utilized as a corral. Upon many rocks bordering the great plain are similar paintings of the same unknown origin. "Painted rocks" are also found in Santa Barbara and Kern Counties, with figures of the same character as those of the San Luis Obispo rocks, and would be a proper subject of study for the ethnologist. 569.

This account, dated from the end of 1890 and thus written by one who visited the area that year or slightly earlier, provides some valuable historical information, particularly regarding the condition of the rock paintings, as well as the fact that their original artists were shrouded in the mists of the ancient past, at least according to whatever sources the surveyors contacted and whatever answers they saw fit to give to him. 

Based on current historical paradigms and analysis of the art itself, most modern scholars ascribe the rock art to the Chumash and Yokuts peoples, each of which has their own distinctive artistic and thematic characteristics but which apparently also have many characteristics and themes in common as well. According to sources cited in page 18 of the National Register of Historic Places form linked previously, many scholars generally believe that the majority of the art comes from the "Middle Period" stretching from 4,000 years to 800 years before the present day, or from about 2050 BC - AD 1150 (and at one point, based on arguments from lake levels of the Soda Lake basin, the report narrows that down to a range of about 2050 BC to 50 BC).

What is fairly certain is that the stunning art of the awe-inspiring Painted Rock sacred site, and that found along certain outcroppings and formations dotting the hills and the edges of the plain in the surrounding region, survived intact and in a remarkable state of preservation for the better part of 4,000 years. 

Some early black-and-white photographs taken of the pictographic murals within Painted Rock itself are claimed in books published not long afterwards to have been taken as early as 1876, which may mean that they are the very first pictographs to have been photographed anywhere in the world. Photographs of the Painted Rock pictographs from the early 1890s were published in a 1910 article in West Coast magazine and in a subsequent 1910 book written by regional historian Myron Angel (you can read the text of that book online here, and order a copy of the original through various bookstores and online used-book channels). 

Other fascinating photos from the 1890s were included in a 1981 book called Curse of the Feathered Snake by Angus MacLean, who uses a story related by Myron Angel as a basis for some of his own proclamations about the history and significance of the sites and their pictographs.

In all of those photographs from the end of the 1800s, and in the descriptions in Mr. Angel's 1910 account, the pictographs are almost completely intact, looking very much as they had looked for the previous 2,000 to 4,000 years -- twenty to forty centuries.

But some vandalism had already begun to take place during the 1800s, with visitors descended from the western European cultures carving their names or initials right through these beautiful ancient pictographs into the soft sandstone, and not long after the turn of the century the real desecration of this ancient site accelerated. It is thought that it was in the decades leading up to World War II, particularly in the 1930s, that some of the most dramatic and intricate of these ancient paintings were hideously disfigured: great sections of paint was sacrilegiously and deliberately flaked off, and apparently some of these sacred figures were even shot with firearms and irretrievably damaged.

Ancient pictographic texts which had thus survived up to four thousand years in beautiful condition, preserving their message for perhaps forty centuries could not survive through what we know as the "twentieth century."

Below are links to two sites containing excellent photographs from recent years, by visitors who have made their way to this special monument and who have been appalled by the wanton destruction of the rock art. Each provides comparisons to some of the black-and-white images from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, to show their disfigured condition in the present day.

The first is a site containing the photography and writing of David Stillman, and an entry entitled "Then and Now: Painted Rock, Carrizo Plain" and dated August 13, 2014.

The second is a two-part trip report published by "Death Valley Jim" (Jim Mattern), a desert guide, wilderness scout, and advocate of low-impact and Leave No Trace outdoorsmanship -- he was so dismayed and angered by the damage done to these pictographs that he vows never to return to Painted Rock again: "Carrizo Plain National Monument and Painted Rock, part 1" and "Carrizo Plain National Monument and Painted Rock, part 2" (both from a very recent first visit, during the beginning of August 2015).

Both are of course right to be outraged and to express their outrage: the deliberate destruction of these ancient sacred sites is a criminal act, one that steals from the heritage of the entire human race and from all future generations, and one that defiles, disrespects, and denigrates sites that are still actively used and held holy by the Native American people whose people and whose ancestors have lived in this land for thousands of years.

Nor is it going too far to state that the message that this site has embodied for so many millennia -- in its own natural power and symbolism, and in the message of the pictographs (which is examined a bit further in the following paragraphs) -- exemplifies the vision of connection with the natural universe, connection with the spirit realm which infuses and indwells every single aspect of this seemingly material realm, and the elevation of that spirit in all people and in all animals and plants and rocks and trees, for the purpose of blessing and renewal.  

Blasting away at that vision with a shotgun at close range, or otherwise deliberately destroying the pictographs which proclaim our connection to the invisible world (such as by flaking off parts of the stone in order to try to take the images away from the site, or just to ruin them forever) clearly exemplifies the very worst aspects of the "bad road" which Black Elk spoke of -- the very worst aspects of that "gnawing flood, dirty with lies and greed" which he described as washing over everything and everyone that once were connected but which have now become isolated and divided and debased.

For more on the way that the sacred enclosure of Painted Rock points to another vision, please first have a look at the previous post entitled "Two Visions," which describes the remarkable analysis presented by Dr. Peter Kingsley, a philosopher and scholar of ancient philosophy (especially pre-Socratic philosophy), in his book In the Dark Places of Wisdom.

Any attempt to "sum up" that ground-breaking book will be incomplete, but one of its central themes involves another way of expressing the very same "two conflicting visions" that Black Elk was also describing. 

Dr. Kingsley provides evidence from archaeology and from the surviving fragmentary texts of ancient philosophers -- and in particular the important pre-Socratic Parmenides or Parmeneides -- showing the existence of a line of ancient wisdom, passed down through one-on-one discipleship, that involved going into dark, cave-like places which connected to "the Underworld." The connection to the Underworld, however, was actually internal -- and the Underworld was a realm of non-ordinary experience to which we all can have access at any time, if we know how to turn ourselves "inside out and find the sun and the moon and the stars inside," as In the Dark Places of Wisdom puts it on page 67.  

This ancient knowledge, Dr. Kingsley asserts, this understanding of the inner connection to the Infinite, was actually at the heart of ancient "western" philosophy -- until it was deliberately stamped out.

And, once it was stamped out, the heirs of that culture all the way down through the centuries in western Europe since those centuries, turned to the other vision (the other "road"): trying desperately to pursue, to grasp, to appropriate something that will fill an emptiness inside -- without realizing that the thing they need (but cannot even recognize) is actually already to be found within.

He writes:

Western culture is a past master at the art of substitution. It offers and never delivers because it can't. It has lost the power even to know what needs to be delivered. [. . .]. 35.

[But, we actually] already have everything we need to know, in the darkness inside ourselves. 67.

There is no denying the fact that the Painted Rock formation fits the description of the dark places where the ancient pre-Socratic wisdom teachers would seek to convey the truth that we already have what we need, and to teach the method of going into the "Underworld" that is actually located in a non-ordinary location: in the darkness inside ourselves.

In fact, in the book, Dr. Kingsley points out that the surviving fragments from the poems of Parmeneides describing this internal Underworld journey explain the descent as being led by a goddess, and attended by female immortal attendants -- and it is undeniable that descent into caves is symbolically associated with the divine feminine.

It can also be pointed out that nearly all the deities and beings human and nonhuman with whom Odysseus has to interact during his epic voyage and return home described in the Odyssey -- from the goddess Calypso to the monsters Scylla and Charybdis to the powerful witch and goddess Circe to the princess Nausicaa of Phaecaia, and of course ultimately to his own wife, Penelope -- are also female figures. And through these interactions Odysseus is also guided to the Underworld in order to gain knowledge that he could not obtain otherwise (and Circe is the one who tells him how to go there, a fact with direct connections to the ancient texts Peter Kingsley discusses as well).

The physical location of Painted Rock quite clearly evokes this same spiritual imagery of the divine feminine.

And now, briefly, to the figures themselves, which some western writers including scholars have chosen to try to interpret literally at some level -- whether seeing them as depicting specific types of turtles or seeing them as trying to depict the shaman who is undergoing a vision-journey.

Writers in earlier centuries (such as the Mineralogist report linked above) often use condescending terms: "rude forms of men, suns, birds, and others indescribable."

And Erich Von Daniken (and others from the same theoretical approach, to which I do not myself subscribe) takes a different kind of literalist approach, declaring that these and other pictographs are literal depictions of spacecraft and beings in spacesuits (whether ancient human astronauts, or ancient aliens). 

Von Daniken specifically points out a drawing of one of the (now largely destroyed) panels from Painted Rock in a 1972 book originally entitled Gods From Outer Space (and available in an online format here under the title Return to the Stars) in the fifth chapter, where he implies that the "different globular figures" might be sphere-shaped spacecraft, and that the humanoid figures in the Painted Rock and other ancient petroglyphs may represent the attempts to render space travelers (and he uses patronizing and condescending descriptions of the level of sophistication and understanding of the artists and ancient cultures that produced this art, comparing them at one point to children given a box of crayons)(see pages 48 - 50).

All of these interpretations, however, could be classified as making the same error as that which is made when ancient sacred written scriptures or ancient myths and sacred traditions are analyzed from a literalistic perspective. I and other authors have shown extensive evidence that the ancient texts and myths are allegorical in nature, based upon celestial metaphor.  I have presented several dozen analyses of various myths and scriptures from around the world in previous blog posts -- lists of those previous posts can be found in links on this page. I could demonstrate this principle with literally hundreds more examples than those found in those previous examinations.

I believe that one of the central purposes of creating these celestial allegories was to convey through metaphor the profound truths that Dr. Peter Kingsley and the great Black Elk are trying to explain to us: that we are in fact already connected to the invisible realm, that the invisible realm in fact permeates every aspect of this seemingly material universe, and that this fact connects us all to one another, and to all other creatures (plants and animals) and to the natural world. 

Literalizing these sacred texts and myths, on the other hand, tends to divide us from one another, and to externalize their message . . . and leads directly to the problem that Dr. Kingsley articulates (in which we run around endlessly searching for substitutes to that which we already have access within) and to the "dirty flood of greed and destruction" that Black Elk describes, a vision of the world in which we are all divided from one another because we are all running after those substitutes, grabbing and grasping and devouring and ultimately destroying.

But, as Dr. Kingsley said in a brilliant metaphor, the ancients taught us that we have to go inside and actually "turn ourselves inside out" to find the sun, moon, planets and stars within.

As I have explained in various previous posts, I believe the celestial metaphors are employed in the sacred myths and texts of the world as a sort of "physical metaphor" to illustrate invisible truths about the spiritual world (the unseen world), and about our condition as physical-spiritual beings inhabiting a physical-spiritual universe.

And that is why I very strongly suspect that the incredible Painted Rock pictographs are also a "celestial text" (or celestial texts, perhaps executed over a span of hundreds or even thousands of years).

As those who followed the links provided earlier, to the high-quality photographic blogs of David Stillman and Death Valley Jim Mattern, may have noticed, each included on their discussion an image of the original artwork which was painted by the talented Campbell Grant (1909 - 1992), who was an artist who did early work for Disney studios (including work on Fantasia, Snow White, and Pinocchio, as well as the voice of Angus MacBadger in The Wind in the Willows) and who was fascinated with Chumash rock art from an early age and became a serious student of this art, and helped try to preserve it.

In the 1960s, using some of the older black-and-white photographs, as well as visits to the site, he painted this re-creation of the Painted Rock panels as they may have looked before they were destroyed in the 1930s.

I believe we can see very clear evidence that at least some portions of these pictographs are specifically celestial in nature, depicting zodiac constellations, major nearby stars, and the great band of the Milky Way galaxy.

I will focus on just three areas (those that are perhaps the "easiest" to decipher -- if indeed this analysis is correct). I believe there are abundant clues in each of these areas which help make their celestial identity pretty evident. I have my suspicion about some of the other pairings not in these three areas, but I'm less certain of those.

Below, note three areas of the pictographic re-creation by Grant, indicated by a green box, a blue box, and a purple box:

I believe the "green box" constellations and celestial features are perhaps the most obvious -- in part because of the rising columns which could be described as resembling caterpillars or segmented centipedes, or maybe spinal columns (mythologically and spiritually connected to the Djed column of Osiris in its meaning, perhaps -- the raising of the spiritual component in ourselves and in the cosmos around us, in part through connection with the spirit world, through the calling forth of the hidden divine, the Infinite).

These segmented caterpillars or centipedes I believe are actually the rising column of the Milky Way. Below is a "screen shot" of a scene from the excellent open-source planetarium app, stellarium.org. In it, the rising column of the Milky Way is clearly visible -- and the fact that it actually rises in "two sides" or "two pillars" (especially towards the bottom of the screen) is quite apparent: this is caused by the dark or empty area in between the sides of the Milky Way at this portion, which is known as the Great Rift (discussed here in conjunction with the Maya calendar).

If you are very familiar with the constellations of our night sky, you may be able to spot the zodiac constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpio) in the lower part of that rising Milky Way: the stinger-tail of the Scorpion reaches right into the center of the Milky Way at its base (just above the horizon in the planetarium image above, not far from the big red letter "S" that indicates the direction South on the horizon as we look at the sky).

I believe very strongly that the long reaching black "hand-and-arm-like" feature in the Painted Rock panel, which reaches right into the space between the two rising segmented centipede-like columns (which are the sides of the Milky Way, in my analysis) is in fact the stinger-tail of the Scorpion:

Let's just illustrate that on the star-map and then on the depiction of Painted Rock, so that everyone can see that (Scorpion outlined in green, below):

And below, just in case anyone was not sure what part I believe to be indicative of the part of the constellation we think of as the Scorpion's tail, it is shown on the Painted Rock illustration (and the Milky Way column is also labeled):

There are many other figures in the above section of the Painted Rock panel, which help to confirm this interpretation.

One of the most important of these, I think, is the "Turtle" figure that is shown just above the long "arm" that I identify as the "Tail of Scorpio" in the above image. 

Located right in the middle of the rising Milky Way, above the Scorpion's Tail, I believe this Turtle is in fact the same constellation that we usually refer to as Aquila, the Eagle. Note that the upper "head" of the Turtle can be interpreted as having three "stars" indicated (which Aquila has in its head as well), and then note the little white "tiny paddle-shaped" hands and feet of the Turtle: these are indicative of the locations of stars in the Aquila constellation as well. 

Aquila also has a bit of a dangling "tail," just as this Turtle does in the ancient rock art.

Just above the Aquila, and facing it, is the other great bird of the Milky Way galaxy: Cygnus the Swan. In the rock art above, we see a kind of insect-like "stick figure" which does not really look like a Swan, but which actually has a "double-triangle" shape at the end facing the Turtle. This shape is in fact most reminiscent of Cygnus, even though Cygnus in the sky is much larger than this stick-insect (the rock art depictions are not always exactly done to what we would call "scale"):

And below is the planetarium sky-image again, this time with Aquila the Eagle and Cygnus the Swan also drawn in:

This should be plenty of evidence to at least begin to strongly suspect the possibility that the Painted Rock imagery is celestial imagery. Don't forget that in addition to the three constellations just described, the Painted Rock art also depicts the Milky Way (complete with the Great Rift). In the image of the sky just below, the Milky Way is also indicated.

And, that's not all for this particular portion of the pictograph: there is also the "humanoid" figure just above the "reaching arm" identified as the Scorpion's Tail. 

This humanoid is located just above the head of the Scorpion, which means that it almost certainly represents Ophiucus, the Serpent-Handler -- an extremely important ancient constellation, and one with a very oblong body, just as the humanoid outline in the Painted Rock panel is decidedly oblong:

And then below the outline of Ophiucus in the Painted Rock panel is very much reminiscent of the actual constellation -- complete with the "upraised" portion that you can see on the right side of Ophiucus in the above illustration (the "head" of the serpent he is holding to the right of his body as we look at him):

This analysis should pretty much confirm to even the most skeptical observer that the ancient artists who created the Painted Rock pictographs may well have been depicting the awe-inspiring and spiritually-symbolic constellations of our night sky.

Note the "upraised hand" on the right side of the Ophiucus figure as we look at him (the arrow labeled "Ophiucus" is pointing to it). This corresponds to the "head of the snake" just described in the actual constellation as seen in the sky.

The other two sections of the "mural" that I've outlined with "boxes" are the "blue box" and the "purple box." 

We could do another detailed analysis of each of these similar to that done in the "green box" analysis just above. However, the reader is invited to try to see the connections in these for himself or herself. I believe they add powerful additional evidence which helps confirm that we are dealing with celestial imagery in these ancient "pictographic texts" from the plains of Carrizo.

Below is a detailed close-up of the imagery found in the "blue box":

This one should be fairly obvious. I have placed the correspondences (as I see them) in a "footnote" at the end of this post. Can you guess what the little "dog-bone" shaped item is on the left of the above image, as well as the two "bulls-eye" circles below the main portion of this painting? I believe the two large "bulls-eye" circles are large stars -- which ones might they be?  (My interpretations are below).

And here is the "purple box" section:

This one is a little trickier.

Look to the far lower-left portion of the selection above: you will see a figure who is kind of "tipped forward" as if running, and some "wavy lines" are kind of "spilling out" of its gut-region (this may in fact remind you of a certain New Testament incident concerning the demise of someone important). The wavy lines are emanating just behind an outstretched arm on this figure.

It is running "the opposite direction" as the direction I would have drawn it, based on the outline of the constellation in the night sky.  

If you want to know my interpretation, see the second footnote at the end of this post. (Hint: It's a zodiac constellation).

Further to the right of that "pitched forward" figure whose "guts" are coming out is a large "lizard-figure" with "crossed legs" and a kind of "painted-in" area inside his crossed lower legs.

Can you think of any constellations in the zodiac which feature two things (the "feet" of this Lizard) that are kind of "tied together" in the way that the "lower legs" of this rock-art Lizard are tied together (or at least crossed)?

If so, what is in between those two items that are tied together or connected in a "v-shape" in the same way that the Lizard's legs are connected in a "V"?

Could that celestial figure between two Lizard legs be a celestial figure whose name is a geometric shape?

I believe that it could. 

In fact, I believe that the figures in the two panels above can be shown to be constellations, just as the first panel we examined in detail contains constellation-art.

I would submit that the presence of a celestial "text" inside of a sacred space (associated with the divine feminine, and with contact with the Underworld realm of the spirit world) indicates that the artists who produced this incredible ancient monument were extremely sophisticated, and that they were possibly preserving and passing on important knowledge about contact with that unseen realm.

It is knowledge that is associated with the first of the two visions offered by Black Elk and by the analysis of Peter Kingsley: the positive vision, the vision of connectedness, the vision of elevating and bringing forth the spiritual aspect in ourselves and in others and in the cosmos around us. 

And this ancient sacred textual repository in this ancient sacred site was literally blasted by desecrators who were either so ignorant of that ancient wisdom that they disregarded it altogether and saw it as having no value at all, or so divisive in their thinking (dividing up humanity into "my group" and "everyone else") that they disrespected the culture that produced it as "primitive" or otherwise unworthy of respect, or else they were (and this is probably the worst possibility) sworn enemies of that vision and that ancient knowledge, and dedicated to suppressing it and keeping it from humanity (to whom it actually belongs as a treasured inheritance given to all people in ancient times, all around the world, in many different forms).

The fact that these descriptions took place in the 1930s is quite disturbing, given the other horrible events that were being unleashed elsewhere around the globe during those years and the following decades.

In a sense, the deliberate destruction of the ancient wisdom in the sacred site of Painted Rock is a visible echo of the deliberate obscuration of the celestial metaphors found in other ancient texts from around the world (including the texts known today as the Old and New Testaments of the Bible). All those ancient texts also employ celestial metaphors -- and I would argue that all of them also deal with the inner connection to the Infinite, and that they indeed can be viewed as "manuals" for connecting with the Invisible Realm.

The fact that Painted Rock is in the condition that it is in today, after surviving intact for perhaps as many as 4,000 years, shows just how relevant this struggle between the two competing "visions" still remains, right up to this very day.

-------------------------------------------------

Below is an image of the area where the panels of rock art depicted by Campbell Grant are located:

The section with the "reaching arm" (which I believe is the Tail of Scorpio) can be seen at the top left portion of the above image, just above the long horizontal crack-line.  The panels to the right of that, where the "blue box" is located for example, is now almost completely obliterated.

My interpretations of the images in the blue box and purple box:

1.  Blue box: The main figures, with the stars above their heads, are almost certainly the Twins of Gemini. The two stars are the stars we call Castor and Pollux. The "linked arms" of the Twins in the rock art is extremely reminiscent of the constellations in the sky.

To the left of the Twins in the sky (for viewers in the northern hemisphere) is the "Little Dog" or Canis Minor, with a bright star Procyon. This may be the little "Y-shaped" dog-bone figure to the left of the image in the blue box of the rock art.

The two big circles that I believe to be two bright stars below Gemini are probably Betelgeuse (on the left in the image) and Aldebaran (darker and not as big). The other possibility is Sirius (instead of Betelgeuse) and Aldebaran.

2.  The "running forward" and falling or tipping-forward figure, with wavy water-lines coming out of his gut-region, is almost certainly Aquarius.  You can even see something like his "Water Jug" in the image, not far from his outstretched arm.  In the night sky, he seems to be running the other direction, but the ancient artist obviously chose to have Aquarius running towards the right in this image.

The "crossed legs" at the lower part of the Lizard are probably the Fishes of Pisces (the feet themselves might be the two Fishes themselves, which in the sky are actually shaped like ovals and not really much like fish). The space between the knees of the Lizard, colored-in in white by the ancient artist (or at least by Campbell Grant in this painting, which he based upon old photographs), is almost certainly meant to indicate the Great Square of Pegasus.

These additional celestial identifications help confirm that what we are looking at in the Painted Rock is a sophisticated ancient site using celestial metaphor, probably as symbolic of the realm of spirit (as is common for celestial allegory literally around the globe, from ancient Egypt to other parts of Africa and China and Japan and Siberia and to ancient Greece and to the Norse people of Scandinavia and as far south as Australia).

Crazy for the Storm, and the inner connection to the Infinite

image (top): Wikimedia commons (link), with marker "flags" added to correspond to map below.
image (bottom): Google maps, mountains north of Rancho Cucamonga, California (link), with marker flags and line-of-sight outlines added (light blue), plus route in dotted red line.

In his critically-acclaimed memoir Crazy for the Storm (2009), Norman Ollestad shares a wide window onto his relationship with his amazing father, cut short by a terrible plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains in 1979, into his emotions and experiences during his harrowing journey down the mountain alone at the age of eleven but already having had the experience of facing danger and overcoming his fears in not one but many previous situations as a result of his remarkable upbringing, and into life as it was in his world growing during up the 1970s and early 1980s in the Topanga Canyon area, and does so with such a degree of literary composure and immediacy that we are actually pulled through that window and allowed to experience it with him.

Many others have already written about why Crazy for the Storm is such a remarkable and valuable book and the unique way it raises important subjects worthy of long and thoughtful consideration: how the experience of being forced beyond his comfort level so many times helped young Norman Ollestad make it to safety down an icy mountain face and through several situations in which one false move or one loss of resolve could have led to a very different outcome, how passing on lessons from fathers to sons involves a delicate balance between challenging or pushing too much and too little, how Norman's relationship with his father, tragically cut short too soon, nevertheless led directly to his ability to survive the remarkable journey off the mountain.

Another aspect of the book, juxtaposed with the vivid descriptions of the treacherous ice-chutes and snow-pits that young Norman must negotiate on his way down the mountain, and just as vividly depicted, is the treacherous landscape of growing up in the turbulent world of a 1970s childhood filled with its own ice-chutes and snow-traps that threaten to drag him down many different times, but which he ultimately negotiates as well -- in part through the relationship with his father that continues to sustain him even after the crash, in part through the different relationships with the other adults around him through those difficult times, and in part through his own determination and his own growth through all of what he saw and chose and learned and did as he grew up to be his own man and ultimately become a father himself.

It has been a few years since I myself first read this memorable book, but as I have thought more about it recently, it occurs to me that there is one other extremely important aspect of the narrative that has not really received very much discussion even though the book itself has been widely acclaimed and extensively commented upon.

Perhaps it is because, among many somewhat uncomfortable subjects that the book touches upon, this subject is even more taboo than any of them -- and that is the fact that there are some very clear aspects of what could be called "second sight" that turn out to play a very large role in the survival story, but which are not at all explainable by the conventional paradigm of consciousness or what we might call "the ideology of materialism" and which most critics therefore appear to have decided to simply leave out of their discussions (I could be wrong and there could be other reviews of the book which mention this important aspect of the narrative).

The implications of this aspect of the narrative are so important that I think they deserve a brief mention here, but I will try to do so without any "plot spoilers" for those who perhaps have not yet read the book (although those who are extremely sensitive to any plot spoiling may want to stop here and read the book first).

And of course, discussing this aspect of the story is in no way intended to take away from the importance of all the above-mentioned factors that also helped Norman Ollestad survive that harrowing ordeal.

The general description of this aspect of the story is that during his descent, young Norman Ollestad made his way towards something that he later went back and determined he could not have seen, due to the terrain, until he was much lower down the mountain.

Not only that, but it turns out that there were two other people whose actions on that tragic day of February of 1979 were critical to Norman's being found after he had made it down to a road (and thus whose actions proved to have been critical to his very survival), both of whom acted on something that could be called sudden intuition or an unexplainable "hunch," and one of whom felt she had heard the crash itself (and actually been awakened by it) even though when she told the sheriff's deputy about that, he told her that was not possible based on the location and distance that she had been from the actual site of the crash.

Each of these particular aspects of the story (in my opinion -- it should be stressed that what follows is some of my own perspective and commentary, and I am not suggesting that Mr. Ollestad would agree with any of the following discussion) point towards a very important aspect of something that has been discussed in many previous posts under the general heading of "The Inner Connection to the Infinite," which have presented evidence that the ancient texts and sacred traditions of the world were given to humanity in order to (among other things) point towards a connection to something that has been variously referred to as a supreme self, a higher consciousness, an inner divinity, our True Self, a divine twin (described not only in the Greek myths of Castor and Pollux but also in some New Testament era texts such as the Gospel of Thomas) -- depicted as the divine charioteer in the Bhagavad Gita -- and which actually stands behind or above or in some way separate from what we normally think of as our "mind" and our "senses" and which is yet accessible at all times internally, not separate from ourselves (this is why divinities in many allegorical texts are shown to appear instantly, or upon the act of meditating or upon reciting a mantra or upon speaking their name).

Some might look at the above assertion -- that the ancient myths are pointing towards an always-available inner connection with a higher self -- and respond: "Well, of course they are! Those ancient myths are talking about the subconscious! They are just using different terms than Freud used when he applied a more scientific approach to the same subject, starting in the late 1800s and especially in the first few decades of the 1900s, and that other analysts have expanded upon since!"

And certainly it must be admitted that aspects of what has been discovered about the role of the subconscious do play an important role in our lives and may indeed connect to some of the things that the ancient wisdom was trying to teach us about our inner connection with the infinite.

But our own individual subconscious, no matter how powerful the subconscious mind may actually be (and I'm willing to agree that it may be tremendously powerful) cannot be used to explain our ability to see and know things that we ourselves could not possibly have known, such as the fact that an airplane had hit a mountain somewhere too far away for any physical human senses to have detected, or such as "seeing" an area that we had never seen before or known about previously, and which could not be physically seen due to the folds of the terrain and the fact that a massive ridge-line of mountain blocked it from our view.

These things speak to an "inner connection to the Infinite" that goes beyond what we ourselves could have known without connection to something beyond even the power of our own individual subconscious mind.

The same can be said for the various programs which some authors have written about in which taxpayer-funded agencies and even the military used "remote viewing" to locate downed helicopters or discover other information which cannot be attributed to simply "tapping into the subconscious," because one cannot expect their "subconscious" to have had any way of knowing the location of a helicopter which crashed in another country, for example.

If these programs and incidents are real (and there is enough evidence presented by different authors to suggest that at least some of these remote viewing programs probably did in fact take place and achieve certain successful results in some cases), then they also provide evidence that the "inner connection to the Infinite" may be about more than connecting with one's subconscious mind.

Some of the previous posts on this subject have discussed the many ways in which human beings seem to be able to cultivate this connection to the higher self or the invisible world, and indeed it seems that we are actually constituted in such a way that there are numerous ways to do so -- and numerous disciplines which have been practiced throughout the centuries in different cultures around the world. They range from various techniques of meditation (one of the most important and widespread of the categories of techniques), to various forms of shamanic drumming and rhythmic rattles and bull roarers and other percussion-like instruments, to the use of various plant substances designed to induce trance conditions, to certain types of ecstatic dance or deliberate movement, to practices such as chi kung or qigong or Tai Chi Chuan or other "internal arts" from ancient China, to the practice of Yoga, the recitation of mantras, and many more.

And yet one might interject at this point that, even if there are countless ways of connecting with the Infinite, eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad did not seem to have practiced any of the above disciplines prior to suddenly finding himself in a situation in which his ability to "see" something which he could not actually see with his physical eyes would turn out to have been very important to his survival.

At least, he does not talk about any years of practicing qigong or Yoga or the recitation of mantras and the deliberate practice of meditation in his account of his life before the age of eleven.

It is possible -- in fact, it is probable, and a very reputable source has told me that this was a factor in her own life -- that traumatic experiences or life-and-death situations can indeed bring out our inner connection to the Infinite, even if we have never consciously experienced that connection before (and especially if we are still fairly young).

This certainly makes sense, since the ancient scriptures tell us that this inner connection is always accessible to us -- that we are, in fact, always connected to our higher self, even though we are not always aware of it.

And while that might certainly have been a factor in this particular situation in which the eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad found himself, I would also suggest at least the possibility that he had actually been practicing a discipline, and fairly consistently, which can lead some people to connect to the invisible "waves of the universe" and to knowledge which is from somewhere else -- and that discipline which he had been practicing was . . . surfing.

In fact, Norman Ollestad's father had introduced him to surfing before he was even old enough to ride a board himself, and rode on his father's back instead, and later took him on significantly challenging surf trips including one where he experienced a personal triumph of getting tubed on a wave in Mexico -- by the time he was eleven years old!

After that first tube ride, his father (who had witnessed it) let him know that he had been to someplace very special. The exact words that his father used, recounted in the book on the bottom of page 109: "Someplace beyond all the bullshit."

Interestingly enough, that could very well be a "technical description" of the Infinite, at least as conveyed by some of the world's ancient sacred texts.

The Tao Te Ching, for instance, informs us that the Tao itself cannot be named, cannot be defined, cannot be described. If it is named in words, then whatever it is that can be captured in words is not the eternal Tao. The Tao is beyond all our mental constructions, all our human constructions, all our "verbal virtual reality" in the insightful and helpful phrase used by Dr. Darrah Westrup in a talk that is discussed in this previous post.

Or, as the fourth of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (probably written down by the third century BC, and possibly containing wisdom far older than that) expresses it in the 31st verse, "Then all veils and uncertainty fall away."

This, in fact, is what I would propose the book Crazy for the Storm really gets in touch with.

Because the book is absolutely masterful in recounting the doubts, the vulnerabilities, the uncertainties, the self-questioning, the feelings of inadequacy, and all the other "veils" that we fight through in this life (certainly in adolescence, but really this struggle is never ending -- or else there would not have been any need for anyone to practice Yoga or study the Yoga Sutras, since human beings could just wait for adolescence to pass if this uncertainty was strictly an adolescent problem).

And it shows how Norman Ollestad had to conquer those in order to survive on the mountain. And to survive growing up in the 1970s in and around Topanga Canyon in California.

Which he did.

In large part because he was pushed by his Dad.

And in equal measure because he found what he needed to find inside himself (after all, his Dad could not make him get into that tube in Mexico -- young Norman had to get inside that big wave for himself).

We should all be grateful to him for sharing such a personal story with the world.

Namaste.

_/\_

--------------------

Above (at top) is an image which I believe conveys some of the steepness of the mountain face which young Norman Ollestad had to make his way down alone, in extreme weather, after an unbelievably traumatic experience.

Based on my reading of the Google Map with "terrain" selected, the map below the image corresponds to the line of mountains shown in the photograph; the black arrow shows the summit of Ontario Peak (elevation 8,696 feet or about 2,651 meters) and the red dotted line shows an approximation of the route down the mountain from the crash site, based on descriptions in the text and the map in the beginning of the book.

Below is a closer view with slightly better resolution of the section of the topo map showing Ontario Peak (from Google Maps) -- keep in mind that as the topo lines get closer together (closer to one another) the steepness of the terrain is increasing:

Below is another view of the same topo map, this time with approximate crash site and route down the mountain indicated:

And below are two more images of Ontario Peak and the face of the ridge-line, the first without markings and the second with markings (as with all of the above markings, these are based only on my own "map recon" and the descriptions and map in the book -- not on any personal knowledge of this location or any personal visit there, although I will admit that I do happen to have a lot of professional training and experience when it comes to topo maps):

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

I could be wrong about any of these estimated possible routes when matching them to the photographs, but in any case, the severity of the terrain and the sense of the challenge that the eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad faced in descending the mountain should be clear  enough from these photographs.

Here is a link to a contemporary newspaper account from February 21, 1979, describing his survival. 

Why do we greet the manifestation of the divine with palms together?

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Whenever a manifestation of divinity appears in the Mahabharata, the ancient Sanskrit epic that at over 200,000 lines is about 7.2 times longer than both the Iliad and the Odyssey combined and which contains the entirety of the Bhagavad Gita which itself is one of the clearest and most direct expositions of the ancient wisdom to have survived anywhere, the characters typically greet the divinity with palms pressed together.

The text itself in most cases will specifically describe this palms-together greeting.

For example, in the portion of the Bhagavad Gita in which Lord Krishna the divine charioteer reveals his cosmic form to Arjuna -- reveals his infinite, divine, and un-definable nature to Arjuna -- the text specifically states that Arjuna experiences "great ecstasy" and the hairs of his entire body stand on end as if under the influence of an electric current, and that Arjuna then offers obeisances to Krishna and performs the anjali mudra -- he places his hands together (see the text of Bhagavad Gita 11.14 here, which shows the Sanskrit characters as well as a word-by-word or phrase-by-phrase translation, and also provides an aural reading of the sloka).

The text itself says literally:

Thereafter being overwhelmed with amazement, with his bodily hairs standing on end due to great ecstasy, Arjuna with his body offered obeisances unto Lord Krishna, and began to speak with folded hands [krta-anjalih].

Again, when Krishna directs Arjuna to invoke the goddess Durga in the chapters immediately prior to the section of the Mahabharata containing the Bhagavad Gita, the text once again specifically describes Arjuna as performing the anjali mudra (placing palms together):

Beholding the Dhartarashtra army approach for fight, Krishna said these words for Arjuna's benefit. The holy one said, "Cleansing thyself, O mighty-armed one, utter on the eve of battle thy hymn to Durga for compassing the defeat of the foe." Sanjaya continued: Thus addressed on the eve of battle by Vasudeva endued with great intelligence, Pritha's son Arjuna, alighting from his car, said the following hymn with joined hands. Arjuna said: "I bow to thee, O leader of Yogins, O thou that art identical with Brahman, O thou that dwellest in the forest of Mandara, O thou that art freed from decrepitude and decay, O Kali, O wife of Kapala, O thou that art of a black and tawny hue, I bow to thee. O bringer of benefits to thy devotees, I bow to thee, O Mahakali, O wife of the universal destroyer, I bow to thee.

The same palms-together gesture is described many, many other times in the Mahabharata when divinities appear.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

What does it specifically mean, that the ancient sacred Sanskrit texts describe the performance of the anjali mudra at the appearance of a celestial? 

Please take a moment and re-read carefully the previous post entitled "Namaste and Amen" from July 10, 2014. There, the meaning of anjali mudra is discussed, along with references which explain that the gesture signifies something along the lines of "the divinity in me acknowledges the divinity in you" or "I recognize the one-ness of the divine presence which is in me and in all other beings and in all other things."

In other words, the ancient text is of course telling us that the person who encounters the divinity is recognizing and acknowledging that divinity by pressing together the hands in this gesture.

But the text is also showing us with this gesture that this divinity which they recognize is within them as well.

The characters in the epic, to put it most directly, are constantly greeting the gods and goddesses with the palms-together gesture which says: "Divinity in you -- divinity in me: all one." The divinity which appears, in a very important sense, is already there before he or she appears. Our connection with them is already within us.

This concept is discussed in previous posts discussing the sudden appearance of deities in the Mahabharata (often while meditating or at the recitation of a mantra), including "Why divinities can appear in an instant: the inner connection to the Infinite" and "The blindness of Dhritarastra, and Upamanyu at the bottom of the well."

The fact that the ancient texts are telling us that our connection to the Infinite, as represented by Lord Krishna or the goddess Durga, is actually internal is also discussed at length in the previous posts on the Bhagavad Gita and on the hymn to Durga which also contain videos on the subject.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

When the characters in the Mahabharata place their palms together, they are recognizing that this infinite deity with whom they are now in communication is in fact within them also.

The text is trying to tell us that this is not a "special power" of the characters depicted in the epic (such as the semi-divine sons of Pandu, including Arjuna). It is telling us that this is the condition of each and every human being who has come down to this incarnate life (another reason why violence against others or against oneself is so wrong). We are each "semi-divine" and in actual contact with the infinite (and this is why in India all persons are greeted with this palms-together gesture and the expression "Namaste," just as the previous post linked above discussing the similarity between Namaste and Amen shows that the ancient Egyptians, as recounted by Plutarch, greeted one another in the same way with the word "Amun").

And, it is most significant that this same hand gesture is associated with communication with the Infinite divinity in New Testament times -- because the New Testament texts also tell us quite specifically that the divine is within us. 

There were other texts written at the same time as the texts which were allowed to be included in the New Testament, but which were specifically banned from inclusion in it, which explain the divinity of the individual in even plainer language and metaphor. For example, the Gospel of Thomas speaks of Thomas as having a "divine twin" (see previous discussion here).

And, have a close look at the multiple paintings from previous centuries depicting the New Testament episode of the Baptism of Jesus at the Jordan which are shown and discussed in this previous post. Here again, the hands in each and every depiction are in the palms-together gesture -- and note that it is at this event, which in fact is known as "the Epiphany," that the divine nature was revealed (depicted in the episode by the manifestation of a divine voice and the visible descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove).

It is also significant to note that in the first passage from the Bhagavad Gita cited above (from chapter 11 and verse 14) Arjuna is described as having an "electrified" feeling in the presence of the supreme form of Krishna. This may well relate to the invisible power which is called chi in Chinese tradition, and prana in India, and which is discussed in this previous post among others. 

This discussion of the hands-together gesture of namaskaram specifically states that there are different energy points throughout the human body, and that the different hand gestures or mudras of Indic tradition make use of them. It says:

So namaskaram is not just a cultural aspect. There is a science behind it. If you are doing your sadhana, every time you bring your palms together, there is a crackle of energy -- a boom is happening.

I believe that the Mahabharata (along with other ancient sacred texts) is telling us that we all have access to the Infinite, and that when you feel the presence of the Infinite and you place your hands together, you are recognizing that the divinity is also inside you.

Namaste.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The Bhagavad Gita and the Bomb: sacred text, so often quoted on this anniversary, condemns murder by nuclear weapons

Above video (link): source here.

The use of nuclear weapons against civilians in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seventy years ago has immediate and ongoing importance to every single human being to this day.

If there is any justification for the use of force, for the development of martial prowess, the justification lies in the possibility that martial skill can be used to prevent the murder of innocents.

The development and use of weapons for the express purpose of murdering noncombatants is a hideous perversion of that. 

The principle of non-murder should be the most uncontroversial and straightforward principle in the world. There really is no argument that can justify murder, although there are those who will somehow try.

Robert Oppenheimer was a gifted physicist who was recruited by the US government to help develop atomic weapons, and whose abilities appear to have played a major role in the development of the atomic weapons that were used on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with such devastating and murderous effect. 

Many of the articles that have been published at this seventieth anniversary of the use of those bombs on Hiroshima (where a uranium-based bomb was dropped on August 06, 1945) and Nagasaki (where a plutonium-based bomb was dropped on August 09, 1945) cite Oppenheimer's statement that when his device was successfully tested in the desert of New Mexico in July of 1945, he and everyone present knew that this successful test of this weapon would change the world forever. 

He later said that he could not help but think of a line from the Bhagavad Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer made this statement in 1965 during a televised interview. The use of this line by a figure of Oppenheimer's stature, on national television, has indelibly linked it with the development -- and use -- of this weapon.

This is a line spoken by Lord Krishna in the eleventh section or chapter of the Gita, when Krishna reveals his infinite form to Arjuna. It is specifically found in the thirty-second sloka (shloka), which can be seen in a variety of locations on the web, in Sanskrit characters, in Sanskrit rendered in the modern English alphabet, and in various translations in to English.

Here is one such site, which includes the Sanskrit characters as well as a transliteration with literal phrase-by-phrase translation (and a vocal recording of the spoken Sanskrit), and here is another which includes only the transliteration of Sanskrit into English alphabetical letters along with a slightly different translation into English.

In the first translation, the words of this important verse are rendered this way:

Lord Krishna, the possessor of all opulences, said: I am terrible time, the destroyer of all beings in all worlds; of those heroic soldiers presently situated in the opposing army, even without you none will be spared.

In the second, the passage is translated thusly:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people. With the exception of you [the Pandavas], all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain.

Here is a different translation from another site:

Said the Lord Supreme, "I am Time, verily the great destroyer of the Worlds engaged now in the destruction of people. Even without you, all the warriors on either side are going to be destroyed."

Clearly, many translators see the original word as indicating a personification of all-devouring Time, rather than "Death" as Oppenheimer apparently did. Perhaps Oppenheimer was quoting from a different translation (unless Oppenheimer, or someone who gave him the quotation, deliberately altered the translation of the sloka in order to make it convey a certain impression to the listener that demanded the use of "death" rather than "time").

Whatever Robert Oppenheimer intended to convey with his use of this particular line of the Bhagavad Gita in this instance, I believe the entire message of the Bhagavad Gita -- as well as the very specific message of this particular sloka -- can be seen as urging every single one of us to stand up for what is right, against the murder of innocents. 

It is a message that is absolutely opposed to passive resignation in the face of deliberate, scheming evil: in fact, the second half of the verse (which Oppenheimer did not quote in the televised interview) contains a promise from Lord Krishna that, whether or not Arjuna decides to stand up against the evil forces personified in the ancient epic in the form of the Karauva army, the outcome is already determined and Krishna has promised victory. The only question is whether or not Arjuna will participate as an instrument of the divine will, or whether Arjuna will decide to "sit this one out."

Note that in saying this, I am absolutely not trying to literalize the Bhagavad Gita: I am not saying that it is about a war that took place in ancient times, or that it is (by extension) directly applicable to any modern war, in which one country or combatant army can be identified as one side or the other. I have already written extensively on the evidence I find for concluding that the Bhagavad Gita is a celestial allegory that has to do with the struggle of the soul (that is to say, each and every human soul) in this incarnate existence: see this previous post and the video embedded in that post.

The mighty battle into which Arjuna is preparing to descend is the spiritual battlefield of this incarnate existence -- and the foes which he is facing include lust, anger and greed, which Krishna identifies elsewhere in the Gita (such as in the twenty-first sloka of section 16) as the three gates to Naraka, the underworld. Krishna's message to Arjuna prior to descending into this allegorical "battlefield" (which, as I have shown based upon celestial evidence and based upon the invocation of the goddess Durga immediately prior to the Bhagavad Gita is almost certainly the "battlefield" of this incarnate life) is that Arjuna should devote himself to right action -- action which is specifically described as not harming others -- that he should do this right action without concern for or attachment to the outcome, and that he should do what is right because it is right, and not out of any hope for either material or spiritual reward.

I have also argued that the Bhagavad Gita (and other ancient texts) are trying to teach us that in order to achieve the goal of right action without attachment to results that Krishna is counseling Arjuna to pursue, we must find the inner connection to the infinite which we all already have. When Krishna reveals his infinite form to Arjuna in the eleventh section (where the quotation in question is found), he is, I believe, imparting this very teaching. For more on that subject, see this previous post.

If the Gita is not literal but rather metaphorical, then it cannot be woodenly applied in a literalistic fashion as if the "good guys" in the ancient myth correspond to "my country" and the "bad guys" in the ancient myth correspond to "the other guys" (although this is in fact the way that literalists sometimes try to apply ancient scriptures, in order to condone a war they are promoting). Instead, I believe that Krishna's message is that we are to stand up against violent and destructive and callous forces within ourselves, as well as against violent actions by others, such as the violent and invasive behavior which is exhibited by the Karauvas who oppose Arjuna and his brothers in the metaphorical Battle of Kurukshetra in the ancient text.

Krishna here promises that these destructive forces will in fact be defeated and that victory is already assured (as the goddess Durga also promised when she appeared to Arjuna, in the chapters immediately preceding the Bhagavad Gita). He says that this ultimate victory will happen "with or without" Arjuna's participation -- but that Arjuna is actually designed for that struggle against evil and that it is actually his duty to participate in the metaphysical battle.

Again, I believe it can be conclusively demonstrated that this scripture is not directed to some ancient semi-divine warrior named Arjuna who is about to participate in an ancient battle on the plain of Kurukshetra: everything Krishna is saying is directed to each and every human soul, which comes down into this incarnation to participate in the struggle. The eventual victory is already assured, as both Durga and Krishna assure Arjuna: the question is whether or not we are going to participate, and the degree to which we will do so.

The Bhagavad Gita specifically states, in its eighteenth and final section or chapter, that taking no action at all is not really possible for any incarnate being. The only question is whether or not that action will be right action. Here is the relevant passage from the eighteenth chapter beginning at the eleventh sloka as found on this website (and you can also compare this website, which gives the original Sanskrit characters as well as a literal phrase-by-phrase translation, and this website which contains the 1885 translation by Edwin Arnold which, although poetic and somewhat flowery, actually has much to commend it, if examined carefully):

11 It is indeed impossible for an embodied being to give up all activities. But he who renounces the fruits of action is called one who has truly renounced [literally "Tyaga"].

12 For one who is not renounced, the threefold fruits of action -- desirable, undesirable and mixed -- accrue after death. But those who are in the renounced order of life have no such result to suffer or enjoy.

13 O mighty-armed Arjuna, according to the Vedanta there are five causes for the accomplishment of all action. Now learn of these from me.

14 The place of action, the performer, the various senses, the many kinds of endeavor, and ultimately the Supersoul -- these are the five factors of action. [Another version, from the second website linked above, reads: "The body, also the ego, the different separate perceptual senses, the various yet separated vital forces, and the fifth being the Ultimate Consciousness as the indwelling monitor."]

[. . .]

20 That knowledge by which one undivided spiritual nature is seen in all living entities, though they are divided into innumerable forms, you should understand to be in the mode of goodness.

[. . .]

23 That action which is regulated and which is performed without attachment, without love or hatred, and without desire for fruitive results is said to be in the mode of goodness.

24 But action performed with great effort by one seeking to gratify his desires, and enacted from a sense of false ego, is called action in the mode of passion.

25 That action performed in illusion, in disregard of scriptural injunctions, and without concern for future bondage or for violence or distress caused to others is said to be in the mode of ignorance.

26 One who performs his duty without association with the modes of material nature, without false ego, with great determination and enthusiasm, and without wavering in success or failure is said to be a worker in the mode of goodness.

Note that action performed without concern for violence or distress caused to others is condemned: it is not right action. Krishna tells Arjuna to do what is right without attachment to results -- he condemns doing what is causes violence or distress to others (and specifically condemns causing violence or distress to others without concern for those results).

The Bhagavad Gita elsewhere (most strongly perhaps in the sixteenth chapter) reiterates its condemnation for those who declare that there is no law in this life, no divine rule, and who give themselves up to evil deeds, and the ruination of others. Krishna vividly describes those following such a path:

Slaves to their passion and their wrath, they buy

Wealth with base deeds, to glut hot appetites;

"Thus much today," they say, "we gained! Thereby

Such and such wish of heart shall have its fill;

And this is ours! And the other shall be ours!

Today we slew a foe, and we will slay

Our other enemy tomorrow! Look!

Are we not lords? Make we not goodly cheer?

Is not our fortune famous, brave and great?

Rich we are, proudly born! What other men

Live like to us? Kill, then, for sacrifice!

Cast largesse, and be merry!" So they speak

Darkened by ignorance; and so they fall --

To bring this discussion from the Bhagavad Gita back to the horrendous act of creating atomic weapons to be used against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to kill hundreds of thousands of noncombatants including women, children, teenagers, and elderly people (and the building of other, even more powerful nuclear weapons for the express purpose of threatening their use against other cities full of noncombatants also including women, children, teenaged and elderly people), it should be plain from Krishna's words that such actions are murderous and would be specifically condemned. The passage above from the Gita, in fact, should sound eerily disturbing in light of the way that the Bhagavad Gita was specifically evoked by Robert Oppenheimer in that 1965 televised interview about the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States.

In fact, contrary to what has generally been taught as inviolable dogma in the United States since 1945, the act of dropping those bombs was widely condemned as barbaric and completely unnecessary by military leaders in many top positions in the US armed forces at the time!

This website, linked in a previous post last year at this same time, contains quotation after quotation from military leaders including General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admiral William D. Leahy, Admiral William F. Halsey, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph Bard, and many others who objected to its use and who went on record saying that the decision to drop the bomb had nothing to do with hastening the surrender of Japan but rather had something to do with other motives.

However Robert Oppenheimer meant that famous Bhagavad Gita quotation, which now links (in many people's minds) the widely-beloved scriptures of the Bhagavad Gita to the decision to develop and ultimately use atomic weapons against noncombatant civilians, it should be quite clear that the Bhagavad Gita itself actually enjoins us to stand up against such violence -- that in fact it argues that our very purpose here in this incarnate life, this Battle of Kurukshetra, is to stand up for the right regardless of the outcome and without attachment to the outcome, and without concern for whether or not we seem to be prevailing at the moment in our stand against such violence.

In fact, the wider context of the ancient Sanskrit epic of the Mahabharata, which contains the Bhagavad Gita, reveals the cause of the disastrous Battle of Kurukshetra to be the passivity of the blind king Dhritarastra to stand up against the greedy, violent, and fraudulent schemes of his son Dhuryodhana (assisted by Dhritarastra's wily brother-in-law, Dhuryodhana's uncle, Sakuni, who is a great dice-player and one who by his own admission uses deceit to win at dice-gambling, and who arranges a scheme to defraud the Pandauvas of all their possessions in a great dice match, because of Dhuryodhana's overwhelming greed and because of Sakuni and Dhuryodhana's violent hatred of the Pandauvas). 

For more on Dhritarastra's blindness, see this previous post, and for more on his disastrous accommodation of the evil schemes of the members of his own household, read this chapter from Book II of the Mahabharata (section 48).

The lessons for us should be quite plain. It is now seventy years since the team of scientists led by Oppenheimer used their talents to create a weapon that was then used to murder hundreds of thousands of noncombatants. 

Some military leaders stood up against the use of this weapon at the time, to one degree or another, although none to the degree that would actually stop the use of this weapon in 1945 to incinerate and poison hundreds of thousands of noncombatants (most of them women, children, teenagers, and the elderly) in two cities in Japan (which was already sending out signals that it wanted to sue for peace), and none to the degree that would lead the public to demand an end to a policy of building such weapons with the express purpose of pointing them at other cities full of noncombatants for the next seventy years (right up to the present day).

All of that generation of scientists and leaders have now left that incarnation, but we who are currently living still face the same questions that they faced. Do we condemn the violent schemes of the Sakunis and Dhuyodhanas in our own household? Or do we accommodate and enable it, as Dhritarastra did? 

Are we using our talents to create tools and technologies that can be used by those who have no concern for violence or distress caused to others, and who sound like the "slaves to passion and wrath" described by Krishna in the sixteenth section of the Gita, saying to themselves "Are we not lords?" 

And if we create technologies that we see could have disastrous or even apocalyptic consequences, do we stand up clearly against their misuse, even if we don't know if anyone else agrees with us, even if we don't know what the outcome will eventually be?

These were obviously important questions for those living seventy years ago, but they are just as important for those living today.

Ultimately, standing up against murder should be completely uncontroversial. It is really impossible to argue for it.

The use of the quotation from the Bhagavad Gita in conjunction with the creation of the first atomic weapons, and with the use of those atomic weapons to murder hundreds of thousands of men and women and children, should cause everyone who hears that quotation to examine what the Gita says about doing what is right in this life, standing up against violence, struggling against the "forces of Dhuryodhana" (so to speak).

And, when we hear that particular quotation from the eleventh chapter of the Gita -- the chapter in which Lord Krishna reveals his Supreme Infinite form, which is beyond all definition and boundary -- we should consider carefully what this teaches us. It teaches us that we each come down into this struggle, this battlefield of incarnation, with a connection to the infinite (as Krishna states quite plainly many times, including some of the passages quoted above). And it also teaches us that the outcome of the battle is in a sense already determined, and that the "forces of Dhuryodhana" are already defeated (as Krishna tells Arjuna) and that Arjuna ultimately cannot lose (as Durga tells Arjuna just prior to the Bhagavad Gita).

I believe that the policy of using nuclear weapons (or any weapons for that matter) to murder noncombatants as an express policy of war or "peace" is absolutely criminal. The historical record shows that many of the military leaders of the US from previous generations (those who were born and received their education prior to World War I, such as those cited above and in this catalog) would agree. 

I believe it is also safe to say that the Bhagavad Gita, which is often cited on the anniversaries of the dropping of these hideous weapons on the noncombatant civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as if perhaps Krishna would somehow condone such wanton murder), would also condemn such killing of women and children and teenagers and aged people.

Perhaps this closer examination of the Bhagavad Gita will motivate us to read through its ancient wisdom more frequently, and with an eye towards its application in our daily lives, even in this most modern era in which we find ourselves living.

And perhaps the admonishments and encouragement offered by Krishna to Arjuna will spur us to stand up for what is right, against murder and other forms of violence to others, even if we are not sure of the eventual outcome (though Krishna himself apparently is!)

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

"Split a piece of wood; I am there" -- the Force is all around us

Gospel of Thomas translation: Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer (link).

David-Dorian Ross has devoted much of his life to the practice of Tai Chi Chuan and Chi Gung (or Qigong). He has won eight gold medals in US competition and a World Silver and two World Bronze medals in worldwide Tai Chi competition performances. Together with martial arts film superstar Jet Li, he has made it his mission to try to spread the message of the beneficial aspects of Tai Chi and Chi Gung to at least a hundred million people who have not previously known about them!

Here is how he has described the force which is called chi (or hei) in Chinese culture and in writings going back hundreds and even thousands of years (and which can also be spelled qi in the Roman alphabet, under the convention that the letter q is generally used to represent a sound that is pronounced like a "ch"-sound in Mandarin):

Qi is not only a human, or even animal characteristic: everything in the world has energy -- plants, animals, even rocks. Qi is all around us, circulating in the air, vibrating in the colors we see, and literally raining down on us from above. The Chinese word for weather is tianqi: heavenly energy. Essentials of Tai Chi and Qigong, 121.

In other words, chi sounds very much akin to what was described as "The Force" in the very first Star Wars movie from 1977 -- a movie that resonated so well with so many millions of people that it became  an enormous box office sensation that year and remains the number-six-grossing film in North America of all time (I certainly remember the impression it made on me the first time seeing it that year, at my best friend's birthday party in the theater that is now a Planet Granite in Belmont). Below is the famous initial description of the Force by Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness in an Oscar-nominated performance:

In that brief video clip, Alec Guinness / Obi-Wan explains: "The Force is what gives a Jedi his power: It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us -- it binds the Galaxy together."

In other words, the description is nearly identical to that given by Tai Chi and Qigong master David-Dorian Ross when trying to convey the concept of chi or qi. But, although his description of chi was written well after the initial box office release of Star Wars, we can see that the concept of chi has been known and described for literally thousands of years, such as in the inscription from a jade artifact from China dated to around 380 BC that was described in the preceding post examining one of the mysterious texts that are known as the Tai Chi Classics.

Star Wars is thus popularizing an extremely ancient concept in a very accessible manner and one which has captured the imagination of hundreds of millions (billions?) and continues to do so to this day. It is a concept that has been written about in China for at least 2,400 years, and has undoubtedly been understood and practiced for much longer than that.

In fact, the descriptions of chi given by David-Dorian Ross and in texts such as the Tai Chi Classics, the Tao Te Ching, and the jade inscription from 380 BC have clear and direct parallels to concepts which I believe can be found at the heart of virtually all the ancient myths, scriptures and sacred traditions from virtually every continent on planet Earth -- which can all be shown to use the awesome motion of the celestial spheres as a way of conveying truths about the invisible realm to our understanding, the invisible realm or spirit world or realm of the infinite which is in fact present in all living things and indeed in every single molecule of the universe.

The invisible realm surrounds and interpenetrates the visible or material world, and according to the ancient wisdom preserved in many sources around the world, it is the true source and fountain from which the visible world emanates or is projected (see for instance the discussion here, especially the extended quotation from Lakota holy man Black Elk, as well as the discussions in many, many other previous posts).

I believe that it is not an exaggeration to assert that the ancient myths and sacred texts and traditions of the world were in fact originally intended as powerful teachers to guide us towards regaining our awareness of and connection with the life-giving infinite source. As some of the Tai Chi Classics (including the Song of the Thirteen Postures examined in the preceding post) tell us, the invisible force of chi is already in us from the moment of birth or even before: we don't have to "gain more" of it but rather become attuned to it, within us and all around us.

The ancient myths are teachers for connecting with the infinite on many levels, which we are all designed to do.

Below is a short video clip of David-Dorian Ross showing a way of experiencing this force for yourself:

As the Thirteen Postures Song tells us, entering through the door on the journey traditionally requires a personal teacher -- but then there must also be a lifetime of continual cultivation and practice and study on one's own, for which each will ultimately "hear it" or "know it" from within himself or herself.

Although it has been obscured by nearly seventeen hundred years of teaching its stories from a literalistic perspective, I believe that it can be conclusively shown that the collection of ancient scriptures commonly known as the Bible (both the Old and New Testaments) was intended to teach this very same awareness of and connection with the infinite (within oneself and the rest of the universe, even the rocks and trees) that all the other myths and scriptures of the world were intended to convey.

Indeed, some of the texts in the same family or genre as those which became the canonical New Testament scriptures (but which were rejected and even outlawed by those advocating a literalistic or externalized approach to the stories and allegories) make statements and declarations that sound nearly identical to the descriptions of chi from the ancient texts of China, or of the Force as described by Obi-Wan!

For instance, in the Gospel of Thomas, one of the most important of the so-called "Gnostic Gospels" or texts that were left out of the canonical New Testament and thus forbidden by the end of the fourth century AD (and which has been discussed in some detail in previous posts such as "The Gospel of Thomas and the Divine Twin" and "The Gospel of Thomas and the Everlasting Spring"), there is this very interesting teaching:

Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." [Gospel of Thomas 77; translation by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer].

In this very concise but extremely direct little vignette, we have Jesus telling us that he is the infinite, and the source of all that has ever come forth. Where do we find the infinite? The infinite is everywhere, in all things, in every single atom or molecule of the visible (projected) material universe.

Even if we split a piece of wood: there is the infinite.

This is a very powerful image, and very much in keeping with David-Dorian's teaching that qi is found in all things, even plants and rocks, and with Obi-Wan's teaching that the Force "binds the Galaxy together."

Elsewhere in the gospels (both those that were rejected by the early literalist leaders and those that were included in the canonical New Testament) and also even more directly in some of the letters attributed to the one who calls himself Paul, we are told that this infinite is within us as well. This can also be shown to be the message in other sacred myth-systems, such as that found in the Bhagavad Gita and in the Mahabharata which contains the Gita (discussions and videos here and here).

And yet, for at least seventeen hundred years, this understanding of the ancient scriptures as powerful teachers to help us become aware of and attuned to the force of the infinite within us and all around us has been suppressed (the Gospel of Thomas, quoted above, was literally buried in a sealed jar beneath some lonely cliffs along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt since the fourth century, because these teachings were forced to "go underground").

In fact, the very same Gospel of Thomas tells us that the ones it labels as "the Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so" (39).

It's as if our planet had a host of stories and written guides for cultivating and using the Force, and a group deliberately set out to destroy all knowledge of them.

Why would anyone want to do that?

The good news is that the teachings have not been totally obscured. They are preserved quite powerfully in the world's myths, which are like a precious inheritance to humanity. And they are preserved in ancient systems such as Tai Chi and other martial arts, as well as in Yoga, all of which are deliberately designed to help us become attuned to the cycles of the universe and to the flow of this infinite divine energy which is both within us and also in every single other person and creature we meet and every other thing that we see (even within a piece of split wood!).

And, the popularity of films such as Star Wars  show us just how powerfully this concept resonates with us.

For this reason, we should be grateful to teachers like David-Dorian Ross (and Jet Li) who are preserving and passing on aspects of this ancient knowledge to millions who have not known about it before.

Namaste.

A meditation upon the Thirteen Postures Song 十三勢歌

image: Wikimedia commons (link), cropped and with added text of the Song of the Thirteen Dynamics (or Song of the Thirteen Postures).

The Wudang Mountains of China are associated with the ancient internal arts: practices and disciplines designed to facilitate one's cultivation of and connection with chi.

Whether or not they actually originated there, the association between the internal arts and the Wudang region is justifiable, because the area has been a center for both ascetic and monastic pursuit of the Way of the Tao for at least 1200 years and possibly even longer than that. There are direct parallels between concepts conveyed in the Tao Te Ching and teachings associated with the specific "internal" martial arts and disciplines associated with Wudang.

According to legend, it was to the Wudang Mountains that the mysterious Zhang Sanfeng retired to live an ascetic life, leaving a promising career in the government ministries and giving away all his possessions. The traditions say that Zhang was already an accomplished martial artist who became more and more attracted to the development of internal kung fu, and whose prowess became greater and greater even as he became less and less interested in external displays of power, until he eventually made his way to the mountains . . .

There, he would in time master the internal arts, develop one (or more) of the most famous systems for cultivating internal power, and ultimately become a Taoist immortal or 仙 -- a word that is pronounced Xian in Mandarin and Sin in Cantonese, and which when used as a verb means "to ascend" or "to transcend," and which thus when used as a noun means by extension "a transcendent one" or "an ascended one" (the character itself is composed of the symbol on the left for person and the three-pronged symbol on the right which means "mountain").

Among the many texts sometimes attributed to this legendary personage or associated with the internal arts he imparted, one intriguing representative of their style and content is the Song of the Thirteen Postures, a short poem whose actual origin and date and author(s) are all unknown, but which is counted among the Tai Chi Classics: texts belonging to the art of Tai Chi Chuan, one of the three main Chinese martial arts associated most closely with Wudang and with the practice of attuning oneself to the flow of chi. The other two are Xing-Yi Chuan ( 形意拳 -- pronounced Jing Ji Kyun in Cantonese, and translating to something like "Form and Conscience Fighting Style [literally "fist"]") and Bagua Chuan ( 八卦掌 -- pronounced Baat Gwaa Jeung in Cantonese, and translating to something like "The Eight Divination-Trigrams Palm").

Zhang Sanfeng is traditionally credited with creating the original system of Tai Chi Chuan itself. An earlier name for Tai Chi Chuan was in fact "The Thirteen Postures" or 十三勢  -- the first two characters and syllables of which literally mean "Ten - Three" (which is the standard way of saying "thirteen") and the final character and word translating more literally as "powers" or "energies" or "forces" or "dynamics." Thus, "The Thirteen Dynamics" or "The Thirteen Forces" might be a more accurate translation of the sense of the original, although it is so commonly referred to in English as "The Thirteen Postures" that this is probably what we should use to refer to the poem in question.

It is also worth noting that the reason for the "Thirteen" in the title comes from the connection of the different "forces" or projections of energy used in the motions of Tai Chi were traditionally eight in number and connected to the eight angles or Eight Divinatory Trigrams of the BaGua, and to these were added five directions or ways of stepping or directing the body (going forward, going backwards, going left, going right, and holding at the center), to bring the total to thirteen.

The Thirteen Postures Song is reproduced in the Wudang Mountains image above, and is available in various English translations (some more literal than others) in a variety of places on the web, including here and here and here. Borrowing from these sources as well as from the literal meanings of the characters themselves (with apologies for any misinterpretations which I myself introduce in the process), a fairly literal translation might be:

-------------

Thirteen Collected Dynamics: Do Not Lightly Esteem ["do not take them lightly"].

[Their] Life-Heart and Head: [It] Issues from the Waist / Kidney Region.

The Transformations and Turnings of Empty and Solid: [You] Must Keep in Heart-Soul-Mind.

Chi Everywhere in the Body, the Human Body: Not Steered into an Obstacle [usually translated to mean "not hindered or obstructed"].

Stillness [in the] Center of Initiating-Action: Action Like Stillness.

Because of it, the way that you Adapt to the Opponent's Moves: Indeed Mysterious and Uncanny.  

Each Posture [each "dynamic" or "force"] Learn by Heart: Come to Know its Usefulness and its Deepest Essence.

Acquire / Will Come all-Unconscious: Effortless Mastery or Advanced Skill [literally "kung fu"].

Deeply Engrave and Hold the Heart-Mind in the Place of the Waist / Kidney Region.

In the Abdomen area [be] Relaxed and Still: Chi Gallops, Flying-up -- Yes!

Tailbone Centered and Straight: Divine Energy [from there up through] The Top of the Head (like a string through a thousand coins).

The Benefit of a Body Filled with Lightness and Agility: [it is achieved by] Hoisting or Suspending the Top of the Head (as if hanging from above).

Follow the Slender Thread [perhaps meaning "to the deepest, thinnest ends of the roots"]: Push Towards what you Seek.

Flexing and Opening and Closing: You will Hear it or Know it from Within Yourself.

The One who Begins this Path: Must necessarily have this teaching Transmitted from the Mouth [of a teacher].

Practice your Skill [literally "kung fu"] Without Stopping, Without Resting: the Way is by Your Own Study -- your own Cultivation.

Regarding the Usefulness of this System: What Guideline or Standard shall we Make or Observe?

The Heart-soul and the Chi Arrive as the Sovereign: the Bones and the Flesh are the Monarch's Ministers and Officials.

Towards What Goal does all of this Push or Impel us?

The Benefit of Desired Long Life and Delay of Aging: a Never-Aging Springtime.

A Song -- Ah! A Song -- Oh! A Hundred and Forty.

These Written Characters -- Genuine, Clear-cut: Right in Conduct, Without any Suspicion.

If one does Not Toward this Direction Push, Seek, and Go . . .

In Vain all that is Spent on Achieving Skill [literally "kung fu"]: Sighing, Loss, and Regret.  

-------------

This is a remarkable poem, filled with important teachings with far-reaching implications.

Foremost among them, perhaps: the connection of the cultivation of chi and the concept of stillness in the midst of action.

The poem imparts specific images to aid in attuning oneself to the invisible force of chi. Chi itself is written 氣 and it is pronounced hei in Cantonese: both chi and hei mean "breath" and "spirit," which just as in English can refer to either literal breathing and also to the entire realm of spirit, the life-force, that which animates all beings (the in-spir-ation) and which also permeates all things in the cosmos.

While the actual date and authorship of this specific poem is unknown (and some scholars place its origin to within only the past few hundred years or so), texts which explicitly refer to the raising of chi exist from as early as 380 BC, as Professor Victor H. Mair (an accomplished scholar of Chinese culture, language and history who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania since 1979) notes in his valuable translation of the Ma Wang Deui "silk texts" containing an early arrangement of the Tao Te Ching (discovered in 1972). Describing an inscription on ten pieces of jade which once formed a small knob, he gives this translation:

In moving the vital breath (hsing ch'i) [through the body, hold it deep and] thereby accumulate it. Having accumulated it, let it extend (shen). When it extends, it goes downward. After it goes downward, it settles. Once it is settled, it becomes firm. Having become firm, it sprouts [compare Yogic bija ("seed" or "germ")]. After it sprouts, it grows. Once grown, then it withdraws. Having withdrawn, it becomes celestial [that is, yang]. The celestial potency presses upward, the terrestrial potency presses downward. [He who] follows along [with this natural propensity of the vital breath] lives; [he who] goes against it dies. [cited on page 159 of the paperback edition of 1990 of Victor H. Mair's translation of Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way]. 

The harmonies in this jade inscription from 380 BC and the teachings contained in The Song of the Thirteen Postures should be self-evident.

Additionally, as Professor Mair references in a bracketed parenthetical comment upon one specific part of the above-quoted jade inscription, some clear connections can be perceived between the teachings in these ancient Chinese texts and the teachings preserved in the Yogic traditions and texts. Professor Mair addresses in some detail these conceptual connections in the Afterword and the Appendix of his translation of the Tao Te Ching -- not referring specifically to the Thirteen Postures Song but rather to the Tao Te Ching itself, which also contains numerous admonitions to have stillness or inaction even in the midst of action.

Professor Mair points out some of the passages in the Tao Te Ching concerning action-inaction, and connects their teachings directly to the direction given by the Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. For example, in the section of the Tao Te Ching traditionally numbered 38 (but in fact arranged as the very first section in the Ma Wang Deui texts), we read -- in part -- that:

The person of superior integrity takes no action, nor has he a purpose for acting.

The person of superior humaneness takes action, but has no purpose for acting.

The person of superior righteousness takes action, but has a purpose for acting. [From the passage found on page 3 of Professor Mair's 1990 translation].

All this taking action and taking no action, without a purpose for acting, may seem confusing, but when we examine (as Professor Mair does) the words of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, we may begin to understand what is being advised.

And again, a few sections later in that part of the Tao Te Ching traditionally numbered 43 but arranged as section 6 in the older Ma Wang Deui texts, we read:

The softest thing under heaven

gallops triumphantly over

The hardest thing under heaven.

Nonbeing penetrates nonspace.

Hence,

I know the advantages of non action.

The doctrine without words,

The advantage of nonaction --

few under heaven can realize these! [page 11].

It is interesting to wonder, given the explicit description in the tenth line of the Thirteen Postures Song of chi as "galloping," whether the Tao Te Ching in this passage is not referring to the invisible spirit-force of chi when it describes the triumphant nature of "the softest thing under heaven."

For a fairly detailed examination of the importance of the teachings given to Arjuna by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, see this previous post

(which also contains a video).

That post examines the fact that Krishna's direction to Arjuna, given in a variety of different ways using a variety of powerful metaphors, can be summarized as "do what is right, without attachment to the results" and thus, without ulterior motive -- without concern for reward or even without concern for the outcome whatsoever. This can clearly be seen as throwing some light upon the Tao Te Ching's admonitions regarding "taking action" or "taking no action" but having "no reason" (no ulterior motive, no concern for or connection to the results) for it.

Professor Mair explains in his Afterword that the concept of wu-wei or nonaction is one of the most important concepts in the Tao Te Ching, which tells us that "through nonaction, no action is left undone" (see discussion on page 142). He explains that an understanding of the Bhagavad Gita helps us to realize that this teaching about nonaction may in fact mean action --  but action  as though not acting (because totally nonattached to the action) [this is at least my interpretation of what Professor Mair is expounding on pages 142 and surrounding].

My earlier post and video discussing the Bhagavad Gita, which on a literal level is portrayed as Krishna's advice to Arjuna prior to entry into the great Battle of Kurukshetra, may in fact be seen as guidance given to the human soul prior to descending into incarnation itself, which is by its very nature a great battle or struggle or interplay between the "forces" of matter and spirit. If so, then the Bhagavad Gita teaches us that one of the most important principles in this life is to do what is right, but without attachment. And, the Bhagavad Gita shows that in order to do this, one must be connected to the divine charioteer -- portrayed in the Gita as the divine Lord Krishna, who in the text of the Gita itself reveals himself to be the Infinite, the Supreme, the Undefinable (beyond words or categorization).

In other words, in order to be able to act without acting (without attachment), we must cultivate connection with the Infinite: with the invisible force which pervades everything.

And this is exactly what the Tao Te Ching teaches as well (note that it describes the Tao as beyond categorization, beyond labeling with words, beyond definition).

And it is exactly what the Song of the Thirteen Postures appears to be telling us also! In order to achieve action without action, we must attune ourselves to the invisible force which is inside us and which permeates the universe around us as well (which it explicitly calls 氣  or chi ).

The line which most clearly deals with the concept of action while centered in complete stillness or lack of action (lack of attachment, lack of motion) is the fifth line of the Song of the Thirteen Postures (the line which is highlighted in red in the text shown above, superimposed on the photograph from Wudang), and which translated rather literally reads:

Stillness [in the] Center of Initiating-Action: Action Like Stillness.

The poem could hardly be more clear and direct on this point.

Note also the important third line of the poem, which emphasizes guarding deep in our heart-soul-mind the endless interplay of empty and solid: this, I would argue, could well be the very same interplay or struggle allegorized in the Battle of Kurukshetra -- the endless interplay between the realm of Spirit and the realm of Matter (between "empty" and "solid").

Finally (although there is much more to discuss), we cannot end this brief examination of The Song of the Thirteen Postures without pointing out that fascinating fourth line from the end, which says:

A Song -- Ah! A Song -- Oh! One Hundred Forty.

What is this supposed to be teaching us? Well, the very next line tells us the meaning of the "one hundred forty": it refers to the characters in the poem itself. So, the first half of that line which says "A Song -- Ah! A Song -- Oh!" must be talking about the Song of the Thirteen Postures itself.

It is advising, it would seem, a regular repetition of this song to oneself, as a way of calling to mind this important guidance for our struggle in this life. It is telling us that this song is something we should sing to ourselves, perhaps daily -- in much the same way that the sections of the Mahabharata which take place immediately prior to the Bhagavad Gita present us with a hymn to sing in order to summon the goddess Durga, and then tell us that this is a song we should sing to summon the goddess every single morning!

Thus we see that the ancient texts were given as powerful helps for us in this life -- powerful tools to guide us towards the cultivation of our contact with the infinite (which is, in fact, already inside us and already all around us) and our cultivation of an effortless and unattached principle of action: doing what is right, without attachment to the outcome.

And, along with these ancient texts, there were given very specialized disciplines, including the practice of Yoga but also in China of martial arts which have a clear focus upon the cultivation of the internal power of chi.

These practices are for our daily use -- and both the Song of the Thirteen Postures and the jade inscription from 380 BC advise us to pursue them diligently, because the benefits of practicing them are very great, but the penalty for neglecting them include sighing and loss and regret.

We are indeed fortunate that this ancient wisdom has survived and that we can avail ourselves of it, and that doing so does not necessarily entail a life of asceticism in the Wudang Mountains -- although for some it might!

image: Wikimedia commons (link).