The equinox is almost upon us. A time of equal light and dark, day and night; a dialing in of our awareness of polarity. In our world today the polarity of good and evil, peace and war, harmony and chaos, is so in-your-face that we cannot ignore it. What is this sickening amping up of pure evil we are seeing 24/7 on our endless screens? And where and when is the good? The balance between civilization and barbarism feels oh-so precarious. Many structures and systems long relied upon to provide some semblance of safety, of goodness even, are crumbling. To anyone paying attention to the external world right now – life here is feeling more than a bit fucked up.
According to the hidden philosophy of truth (originating in India eons ago) the ‘fall of man’ was the fall into separation, multiplicity and limitation. The One – Consciousness, Shiva, the Overself, God, refracted out of itself a succession of finite incarnate lives. Suffering was a consequence of this division – from our point of origin. Limitation in outlook arose because of the diversity of incarnation. The ego was born from this. Struggle exists in the world, because of diversity. Contention arose because of diversity. The nature of embodiment means we have demands, we have needs and desires. We would not survive if we had no desire to fight for our survival – to seek out nourishment, shelter, all the other basic needs and on to our uniquely chosen flavours of desire. Life is about acquiring, grasping. This is the price we pay for our birth. From the moment of our first breath, when we entered terrestrial life as a separate being we stepped onto the path of distinguishing ourselves and of seeking to have our needs met. Our power of free choice was part of the deal.
“A universe of innumerable creatures who were not merely automatons but entities free to develop had inevitably to become a universe of contending creatures. The cosmic evolution could not be so fixed and fore-ordained that there would be no room in it for individual initiative.” (P. Brunton)
It is difficult for our ego, at this point in the evolution of consciousness, at this node in the time construct to look beyond its own selfish interests. Call it old habit. Conflict arises when our ego, in seeking its own happiness, clashes with other egos seeking theirs. Karmic retribution ensures our every action will be balanced in some future incarnation and thus suffering was threaded into the tapestry of human life from the very beginning……….. Competition for resources lead to war, grasping and hoarding resources lead to poverty; always oppression of the weaker by the stronger; always a victim and a perpetrator.
I’m wondering about all of this at this time of ‘equilibrium’ – the equinox. Suffering and freedom; suffering versus freedom is the theme de jour, everywhere I look. Religions arose from a primal awareness of our origin beyond embodiment. Early man knew he was a part of the natural world as certainly as the earth, the plants, the stars and all other sentient beings. Indigenous people, pagans, worshiped nature and the spirit of consciousness they sensed within every form in the natural world. These became their gods. Monotheism, religion, hijacked this innate spirituality and channeled it into systems with laws, promises of rewards and threats of punishment – life in heaven or eternal damnation. Our innocence, our instinctive bond with our mother planet was forcibly and traumatically severed. We are still flailing about in this cruel state of severance. Those whose desire for power and control over others, whose own ignorance and trauma – born of the victims of previous generations’ oppression and trauma continue on relentlessly from the days of barbarism to civilization and back to barbarism. The suffering of our species dances an evil dance, with spasmodic freedom – only to return, to be swallowed up in never-ending black holes of pain and despair. Don’t call this civilization! We are witnesses to a genocide happening right now that is every bit as harrowing, as evil as any in our history. So technologically sophisticated we are that most of us, those of us fortunate enough to be in a part of the world deemed ‘peaceful and civilized’ are content to sit it out, automatons, while our brothers and sisters are slaughtered. So civilized we are mute to the suffering.
Good and evil. Freedom and suffering. Peace and war. Existence and annihilation. Satiation and starvation. Life and death. The dance of duality is as frenzied as it ever could have been.
Why? What is this incomprehensibly chaotic, feverish moment in time about for gods’ sake?
God? Goddess? I’m asking you……..
And you’ve lead me to this: “….When the ego comes to self-knowledge and feels its pristine peaceful oneness with others, the strife ends. It is certain that so far as suffering arises out of the evil deeds of men, the cosmic evolution will through continuous rebirth and karmic tuition purify and ennoble all mankind eventually, even if the process requires millions of years. For the ego wrongs both others and itself only because its self-knowledge is grossly limited and its world-understanding lamentably incomplete.” (P.B. “The Wisdom of the Overself”)
Our understanding is incomplete and it is our dissociation from our father-mother, our real parent, the ground of being (Shiva) and the power of consciousness manifesting (Shakti) - which is the real reason for our suffering. The acceleration we are witnessing, hearing, feeling, the madness of polarity magnified to the point of complete and utter incomprehension is like the jet engine powering up to lift off; to take us above and beyond the suffering, the trauma, the despair; to transcend the agony so many on our planet are going through. Either that or it is taking us to annihilation. All of us. Not just the Palestinians. Not just the Ukrainians, the migrants, the victims in every corner of our world. All of us. Know it or not, like it or not, we are all in this together.
“….When the ego comes to self-knowledge and feels its pristine peaceful oneness with others, the strife ends.”
Pisces seeks this Oneness. Unity with our fellow planet dwellers. We are about to leave Pisces season and we stand straddling night and day, Summer and Winter, the old year and the new, the past and future. What will we do? Will we carry on in semi-zombie mode, registering information as it comes in, or not, either way remaining numb to the suffering, consumed only with our own selfish egoic concerns? Will we take a stand and speak out, get political, try to wake up others, help others, volunteer our service ? Or will we use this time to deepen our self-knowledge, to relinquish the grip of our egos and open ourselves to Oneness? The choice is ours, as it always has been. Change begins with us and suffering ends, freedom begins, when we know who we really are.
The equinox will occur on March 20 when the Sun crosses into Aries. The new year of 2024 begins now. On March 25 there is a full Moon in Libra – sign of relationship. This is a lunar eclipse, suggesting an ending of some significance. Could it be a letting go of our relationship with our ego selves? We well know by now where ego has got us; where our self-ish wants and desires have taken our ‘civilization’. The same place it has countless times in our planet’s history and pre-history no doubt – to the brink. As the song goes – (maybe) we are on the eve of destruction. But remember, the strife can end. One day it will.
I apologise for ending on a bleak note. Blame the ‘energy’….. Truth is, we are all feeling it. It is discombobulating – to use a ridiculous word – I’m sure you know what I mean. But in an attempt to salvage said ending from total bleakness – the Kosmic medicine I think we need right now is immersion in nature and the now. Simple words. Powerful stuff. Be in the present, be with the trees, the rivers and the sea, and remember – ALL IS FLOW…….go with it and all will be well. It is only our resistance which causes our pain. Let go. And may your heart be light.
Happy Equilibrium Season
Beautiful writing thank you