Fractal Enlightenment

Solar eclipse is a celestial show where the moon decides to step between the sun and the earth, its not rare that the moon decides to do that. It seems there are at least two to up to five solar eclipses that occur every year on earth. We do not tend to see them as they occur mostly around uninhabited places.

Although today the spectacle is offered free of cost by the creator, it may cost you some time but does that really exist? Perhaps not if you a time traveler, here’s something of interest, Solar eclipses illustrate the happy coincidence that while the Sun is 400 times the diameter of the Moon, it is also 400 times farther away giving the Sun and Moon exactly the same angular size.

Superstitions Related to Solar Eclipses:

There are superstitions around the world that are related to Solar Eclipses, well wind up at India but lets look too the west first.

A pregnant women should not go outside during an eclipse, and should fasten a safety pin under their shirt above their belly, so that their child would not be born with a cleft lip. During eclipses, expectant mothers from Mexico and some other parts of Latin America frequently wear bright red panties with a safety pin tucked through them, the result of a tradition dating back to Aztec and Mayan days.

It seems those tribes believed that the eclipse released energy that could cause birth defects and to ward off its power, pregnant women would step outside only if they tied a red string around their waists with an arrowhead attached to it. As superstition gave way to comfort, the string and arrowhead evolved into a pair of red panties with a safety pin attached.

The ancient Chinese believed that a dragon trying to swallow the Sun, to this day, a solar eclipse is “resh” or “Sun-eat” for them. The Chinese would shoot fireworks and bang gongs to scare the dragon away if they know a solar eclipse is coming it seems.

In India that all cooked food left uneaten during an eclipse becomes impure as without the sun light the number of germs increase, well this is not as funny as an astrologer called Anita Nigam, says that the consequences of this Solar Eclipse will not be good.

There may be heavy rain falls, landslides and thunderstorms. Coastal region will be highly affected. The film industry, music world, highly reputed capitalist, top level of Government officials and Sensex may also be affected. She also states that the solar eclipse will affect even the common people. I do hope you had a good laugh with that one.

(The funny part is since its the monsoon season its pretty easy to predict heavy rains, landslides and thunderstorms. The coastal region is always effected during the monsoon. I had a good laugh reading that)

Don’t forget that looking directly at the sun is not recommended so you know what to do, put on your shades to hide your glazed eyes!

Can humans bend the barriers between space and time to enter the realms of the spirit world? Do we have the ability to control the weather, divination, the interpretation of dreams, astral projection, and traveling to upper and lower worlds?

Shamans have been noted to do much more than that. They have the ability to diagnose and cure human suffering and, in some societies, the ability to cause suffering, like the tantrics in India who are known to curse people and perform black magic in return for money.

All this is believed to be accomplished by traversing the axis mundi and forming a special relationship with, or gaining control over, spirits. What exactly is the Axis Mundi?

The Axis Mundi

The Axis Mundi or the World Tree has its roots reaching down into the lower domains of ghosts and spirits, and branches stretching up towards god. It is an ubiquitous symbol that crosses human cultures, it expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet.

At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms, communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all.

About Shamans and Shamanism!

Shamanism refers to a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. Practitioners of shamanism are known as Shamans, they engage in various processes and techniques to incite a state of trance, such as singing, dancing, taking entheogens, meditating and drumming.

Once this state of consciousness is reached it allows a person to traverse different realms and dimensions. Shamanism has been prevalent since ancient times, although Christianity has been one of the main reasons that Shamanism went on a decline, with the Shamans accused as Devil worshipers and witchdoctors. Most of them were killed, religious practices were outlawed and temples were destroyed.

I have picked up an excerpt from Daniel Pinchbeck’s Breaking Open the Head, which speaks about his Shamanic experiences.

“While researching, I visited shamans in West Africa, Mexico, and the Ecuadorean Amazon – not to mention the fabulous neo-shamanic Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.

In Gabon, a small country on the Equator, I went through a Bwiti initiation, eating Iboga, a psychedelic root bark inducing a trance that lasts for thirty hours.

The bark powder temporarily releases the soul from the body, allowing the initiate entry into the African spiritual cosmos, where he is shown the outline of his fate.

Through direct experience, Pinchbeck learned that Shamanism was a real phenomenon, that direct access to the spiritual world is available to anybody who is willing to explore for themselves and escape the prevailing orthodoxies, the “irrational rationality” of the current system.

He supports the perspective of Christ in the Gnostic “Gospel of Thomas,” who said: “Open the door for yourself, so you will know what is.”

I was introduced to the concept of the Noosphere, a concept that I had realized but did not know the name of. The Noosphere represents a major evolutionary alteration of human consciousness.

Most of us would have heard of 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar, the end of Terrence Mckenna’s Timewave, the ascension by Michael Sharp, the end of the world for some and last but not the least is the Noosphere.

The elaboration of mystical contemplation of every kind, the definitions and explorations of cosmic consciousness, and the techniques of yoga and meditation are all considered as providing clues as to the nature of the forthcoming evolutionary shift, the noosphere.

“The coming of a spiritual age must be preceded by appearance of an increasing number of individuals who are no longer satisfied with the normal intellectual, vital, and psychical existence of man, but perceive that a greater evolution is the real goal of humanity and attempt to effect it in themselves, to lead others to it, and to make it the recognized goal of the race.”

“In proportion as they succeed and the degree to which they carry this evolution, the yet unrealized potentiality which they represent will become the actual possibility of the future.”
p. xii

“The ordinary man lives in his own personal consciousness knowing things through his mind and senses as they are touched by a word which is outside him, outside his consciousness. When the consciousness subtilizes, it begins to come into contact with things in a much more direct way, not only with their forms and outer impacts but with what is inside them, but still the range may be small. But the consciousness can also widen and begin to be first in direct contact with a universe of range of things in the world, then to contain them as it were – as it is said to see the world in oneself – and to be in a way identified with it. To see all things in the self and the self in all things – to be aware of one being everywhere, aware directly of the different planes, their forces, their beings – that is universalization.”
XXII p.317, quoted in Essential Aurobindo.

According to these thoughts and words, all of us have our individual minds and conscious. But some people have managed to tap into a collective consciousness, each one of us have the power to attain higher levels of consciousness, by different methods and means to reach this goal in human evolution.

So when you understand that the universe itself is conscious and each one of us are the same, you tend to look for answers and when this search begins, you set yourself on a wonderful journey where you can bend the space time continuum, experience telepathy just like how you connect to Google to do a search you would need to tune in to this consciousness and use it for the benefit of yourself and everyone around you.

If you remember I had spoken about being spiritual in societies filled with chaos with Nisargadatta Maharaj’s “I Am” theory, its one of the easiest ways to begin this journey into oneself. You can also read more about the I Am theory and how it applies across all religions. So bon voyage people lets begin making the world a better place by starting with ourselves!