Damodara Das

As we read about Lord Krishna displaying his pastimes in the village of Vrindaban, we often learn that they are being conducted under the auspices of a goddess named Yoga Maya. She is making it possible for him to accomplish his purposes. Yoga Maya appears first at the time of Krishna’s birth. Later she appears in the form of an elderly lady, Paurnamasi, assisted by Vrinda Devi, the chthonic forest spirit of Vrindaban. In scripture we also read that Krishna’s sister Subhadra is an appearance of Yoga Maya. Narayan Maharaj, in a lecture, stated that Yoga Maya is “a manifestation of Srimati Radhika.” Therefore Radharani, the pleasure potency, the internal spiritual energy and emblem of devotion, manifests herself variously as Yoga Maya, Paurnamasi, and Subhadra – as well as in many other personal forms. She is the feminine aspect of the Godhead. It is said that at the ultimate issue Radha and Krishna are one. In the language of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, they are simultaneously different and not different (bheda-abheda). This is of course a contradiction or a paradox, that is, incomprehensible (acintya). It’s fitting that the nature (tattva) of the ultimate would be beyond our understanding. However it is not beyond our devotion. Love of God is the essence of the philosophy (vada) of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Krishna Consciousness, as presented to the world by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

But if I were forced to choose who comes first, she’d win the prize. Because she is devotion. The outpouring energy of devotion is the primal generative power, the subject that always moves toward an object. Krishna is the Shaktiman, the possessor of energy, but she is the Shakti energy itself. I would then be forced to say that she manifests him out of herself so he can possess her and she can serve him, thus confirming the essential place of surrender in spiritual life. Indeed, the old traditional greeting among devotees in Vrindaban is “Jai Radhe!” – all glory to her.

In the autumn of 1965, a year before I met Srila Prabhupad and started chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, I attended two concerts by the drone-music pioneer La Monte Young. His powerful offerings reinforced my desire to live a spiritual life. Decades later I composed these pieces. They’re influenced by his use of sustained harmonics, plus Asian overtone singing. Not all employ those methods directly, but all do proceed from what Young has called a “drone state of mind.” Much of their intended interest lies in subtle variations of tone. So small speakers, headphones or earbuds may not deliver a satisfying result.

A Blanket of Doves

Approaching

B Flat and F

Dances of the Secret Voices

Eternal Body

Flutes of Om

Gaza

Intergalactic Meditation

My You

Night of the Lion

Rama

Soul Call

Under the Moon of Love

Wire Mountain

Thank you.

For many years L’Avventura was my favorite film. This analysis of it I wrote after the glow had worn off somewhat. But I tried to capture my mood of that earlier time, before the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and my involvement in “consciousness raising” of various kinds – psychedelics, pacifism, Buddhism, and ultimately my dedication to the Krishna Consciousness movement. Back in 1961 I was struggling to find in Existentialism a path to spirituality. In Michelangelo Antonioni I’d found a kindred soul.

Backgrounds and Balconies

A Study of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura

Commentary © 2009 Daniel Cooper Clark

Images covered by the Fair Use Doctrine of the US Copyright Act

In the summer of 1961, on a year’s leave of absence from college, I was experimenting with places to live in. After a few months in Boston, I decided my fantasy island of Puerto Rico was next. On arriving in New York some hours before the departure of the flight to San Juan, I noticed that a new Italian film, L’Avventura, had just opened at the Sutton Theater on the East Side.

I’d read about it. The showing time fit into my schedule perfectly.

The film stunned me and frustrated me. It haunted me and gave me a headache. Then, off to Puerto Rico, which never got beyond the fantasy stage for me. So I returned to New York, where I stayed during the rest of my year off, sitting in the Sutton Theater time after time, obsessed with Antonioni’s cinema poem on alienation. But was it really about alienation? If it was, why was it so beautiful? Why were the natural environments so evocative, so conscious? Why were the bored, purposeless characters so interesting to me? Back at school, I wrote a review of it for the college newspaper. My first sentence was, “Going to see L’Avventura has replaced the act of going to church for me.”

In this study I hope to show you why.

As the credits begin, after the studio and distributor logos, Antonioni gets top billing. He’s already had a moderately successful career in Italy, with some international acclaim for his previous film, Il Grido.

The title means “the adventure,” but the Italian also implies a “one night stand” or a “fling.” Immediately there’s a sense of something reckless or improper.

This is the film’s first image. Sorry, no “establishing shot.” In the best neorealist tradition, Antonioni plunges us right into the middle of the action. We are forced to put the movie together for ourselves as it progresses. A young woman, Anna, walks toward the camera. We concentrate on her, and on her annoyed expression. We have no idea that she’s walking out of her family’s villa – it could be any place – any expensive, well-kept, place with traditional architecture, that is. The tone of the film is set. The characters will be in transit within settings of opulence both architectural and natural.

In the film’s second shot, we see Anna’s father, a retired diplomat, standing just outside the villa’s wall. He’s talking with a worker. The class distinction couldn’t be more stark. The diplomat is taller, standing nobly. The worker is shorter, with a more humble posture. However, they’re of one mind regarding the new buildings going up nearby. Anna’s father remarks that the villa used to be surrounded by woods. Now the old order is passing. The modern world is invading. In the distance, in the “vanishing point” of the shot’s Renaissance perspective lines, is the dome of St. Peter’s basilica, designed by that other Michelangelo. The old order, the old morality, is vanishing. Yet it still stands in the background, as if commenting on the foreground. In L’Avventura, the environment is one of the actors – or perhaps the environment is all there is, and the human actors are simply aspects of it. Marx’s economic determinism takes on a cosmic aspect. (Did Antonioni go to a lot of trouble to find this location? Or did it just fall into his lap?)

Scowling, Anna meets her father. She tells him she’s going on a cruise from Rome down to Sicily with some friends, including her fiance, Sandro. Her father voices his displeasure with Sandro, questioning the man’s ability to commit himself to the relationship. Anna doesn’t want him to speak his mind, but he counters that after spending years as a diplomat telling lies, he wants to tell the truth as he sees it. He also complains to Anna that she doesn’t spend enough time with him, leaving him alone. We assume her mother has died, or her parents are divorced. As the title implies, the story line’s major theme is impermanence in human relationships – a lack of commitment in friendship, in love, and in family life.

The next five frame captures are from a single shot, and last just a few seconds. Anna and her father are uncomfortably saying goodbye. The camera position reveals another new building going up, even closer than the ones seen before. A woman is walking by, almost unnoticeably, in the near background.

Anna leans over to kiss her father on his cheek, obscuring our view of the woman behind them. A chauffeur is seen, but the frame capture makes him more prominent than the moving image does.

The woman we can’t see is Claudia, a close friend of Anna’s. She’ll be going with Anna on the cruise.

This oblique introduction of Claudia, who will become the film’s main character, happens so quickly that it’s easy to miss her if we’re concentrating on the father and daughter’s drama. For Antonioni, she starts off in the background and never really inhabits the foreground, the jaded world of her companions. Later in the story, Claudia explains that she grew up “sensible – without money.” She retains much of the simple certitude and yet playfulness of her youth. But it would be a mistake to think that L’Avventura is a condemnation of a certain class. The middle class and the poor don’t get off any easier, though they take up less screen time.

As if to underline Claudia’s position as a figure in the background, Antonioni has another woman, also carrying something, emerge in the somewhat more distant background, occupying the same place in the shot that Claudia formerly occupied. Claudia’s identity is already tentative, and will become even more so later.

Bright, playful Claudia and dark, gloomy Anna are driven through “the glory that was Rome” in this film set amidst the magnificent but crumbling architecture and ethics of the past. Claudia’s hand will appear throughout as a lietmotif with varying significations.

They arrive at Sandro’s place, an apartment in an old building whose first floor is an art gallery. Sculptured saints and busy nuns dominate the plaza. The location is steeped in tradition. Dimly perceived, two people look out of two windows. For Antonioni, this placement of extras serves two purposes. First, it casts an air of loneliness over the scene. Second, it makes the windows into eyes, as if the building from the past is watching, and passing judgment, on the present. Sandro, an architect, is conflicted about himself as an artist who loves the exuberant architecture of the past and as a businessman making construction cost estimates in the here and now. Although wealthy, he keeps this romantic bohemian flat as a second home. As with all of Antonioni’s best shots, we are here peering beyond the physical world into a psychological whirlpool.

Before entering Sandro’s apartment, Anna confided to Claudia her uncertainty about her feelings toward Sandro. She was about to give up going on the cruise when Sandro greeted her through his window. He said he’d be right down. Anna then goes up the stairs to his flat, walks in and goes straight to the balcony overlooking the plaza. This is the first of many times the characters take refuge on a balcony – a place neither indoors not outdoors, an equivocal place where one may rest without having to make a final decision.

Sandro’s decor – a contrast of minimalist walls and flamboyant ironwork – reflect his inner duality. Antonioni adopts this contrast of the stark and the ornate as the “look” of his film. (All-white walls were all the rage in Europe during the late 1950s and early 1960s, if the evidence of other films of the period is any indication.)

One good balcony shot deserves another. This one’s on the back of the art gallery. Claudia waits patiently and good-naturedly for Anna and Sandro.

“Perche, perche, perche, perche, eh?” Indeed, that is the question, and Sandro’s inquiry about Anna’s foul mood gets no further reply. Sandro has been trying to lighten her up, which only irritates her all the more. Sandro’s superficial nonchalance about life will carry him through the next couple of days, but will finally give way to a deeper self-disgust.

One floor below the betrothed couple, Claudia muses on their delay.

Cut to this head shot of Anna, also looking upward, but in an almost catatonic boredom, her head listlessly rolling around. Unquestionably one of the cinema’s most loveless love-making scenes.

The perspective lines converge on Claudia, still waiting. She shuts the door. End of the introductory scenes. Two transitional shots follow, as Sandro drives uncomfortably fast to the boat. Combined, the three shots are typical neorealism. Nobody says, “OK guys, let’s drive to the dock where the yacht is waiting for us.” Antonioni cares less about the plotline and more about the poetry – the visual (and aural) dynamics within each shot, and the dialectic between the shots, to use Eisenstein’s term.

The loud car engine is replaced by the distant purring of the boat. We’re off the north coast of Sicily, among the Aeolian islands. In the background is Stromboli, locale of Rossellini’s film of that name, a film distinguished as much for its artistic values as for the controversial extra-marital affair between the director and his star, Ingrid Bergman. Antonioni wrote a script for the neorealist Rossellini in 1942. Stromboli (1950) anticipated L’Avventura‘s theme of alienation and infidelity played out on a stark Aeolian landscape.

The boat wanders around through the Aeolians. In the background is Lisca Bianca, where the film’s story will take a sudden turn. In the foreground is Patrizia, or Lady Patrizia. The yacht is hers. Though her husband is Ettore, a businessman, she’s accompanied on the cruise by Raimundo, her lover. Patrizia’s commment about the loneliness and separation of the islands serves as a transparent reference to the empty spaces separating the film’s characters. Most commentators criticize the characters – other than Claudia – as lacking depth, but they are in fact occasionally capable of sensitivity.

Sandro lets newspaper pages loose into the boat’s wake. Their aimless, disconnected fluttering upsets Claudia.

Stopping for a swim.

Aimless, disconnected fluttering…

Anna has brought the swimming to an abrupt halt by pretending to see a shark. She confesses to Claudia. Antonioni’s female characters have deep connections, and wisdom, not shared by his men. Most of his earlier feature films – Cronaca di un amore, La signora senza camelie, Le amiche – were considered to be “women’s films.”

The party disembarks for an interlude on the island. Anna and Sandro quarrel. Here we see a dissolve from the last shot we’ll see of Anna to a shot of the rocks and the sea. She’s dissolving into the background, never to be seen again. We are only 26 minutes into a 143 minute movie, and the woman who has been the main character vanishes.

Meanwhile, Claudia enjoys the simple pleasures.

A storm is coming up. They must return to the boat and continue down to port in Sicily. But where’s Anna?

As they search for Anna, the grand, ancient power of the island asserts itself, sometimes ominous, sometimes beautiful.

The island’s rugged, timeless dignity, with its insistent presence, supports the absence that occupies the thoughts of the wandering searchers, and the absence of any meaningful connections between them.

With her hand, Claudia tries to right a broken stem, but it can’t be fixed.

Claudia pushes herself up after lying down on the rocks searching a crevasse below.

“Anna!” Even the rocks cry out her name. The entire creation calls out in despair, feeling the absence. This is not a “pathetic fallacy,” where an artist makes the outer world express human feelings. It’s the other way around. What we have here is closer to what Sartre called the “nausea,” the vertiginous descent into a cosmic meaninglessness, wherein Claudia and the others would be particular expressions of a general, universal miasma. Or it may be that Antonioni, no matter how darkly, is beginning to reach out to an ecological consciousness that understands the interdependence of all entities. He certainly never makes the jump from existentialism to more recent movements such as eco-ethics, neopaganism, or multicultural Goddess worship. A few hints (unintended, no doubt) find their way in, however.

Claudia, Sandro and Corraldo stay the night, sheltering from the rain in a little stone hut. Claudia wakes at sunrise.

The shirt she’d been wearing is wet. She looks in her bag for another, and finds a shirt of Anna’s that Anna had put there the day before. It’s dry. She puts it on, thus beginning her gradual transition into the place, into the identity, once occupied by Anna…and beyond.

The Goddess worshipped at dawn by Sandro.

She slips. He grabs her hand. Their eyes meet. Anna has been gone for less than a day. Or is she here now, in the shifting persona of Claudia? Sandro is drifting, as usual, attaching no importance to anything but what the world puts in front of him at any moment. But is not Claudia also affected by a similar aimlessness?

The boating party prepares to leave Lisca Bianca. Sandro will continue the search on Lipari, the main Aeolian island, and on the Sicilian mainland. Claudia will conduct her own search. The others will go on to the Sicilian villa where the Montaldos, friends of Patrizia and Ettore, reside. Sandro confronts Claudia on the yacht. She nervously submits to his embrace. Her hand clutches his, then pushes his hand away. They both are plunged into confusion.

A police contingent has arrived by boat and helicopter. As they get ready to leave, the officer in charge turns to see the old fisherman who lives in the stone hut on the island, sitting as if he’s part of the cliffs. The officer looks at him with curiosity, then turns away nervously. Another judgment passed on by the ancient background.

A carefully posed group shot of the yachting party, minus Claudia, looking gloomy after their junket has been ruined by the strange disappearance of Anna. From the left, Sandro, Raimundo, Patrizia, Giulia and Corrado. The Lisca Bianca section of the film has lasted 37 minutes, during which “nothing happens” except a transition of emotional states, and a smooth flow of images of primeval beauty. This is an abstract, almost purely pictorial cinema (and aural cinema, where the music, the natural sounds, the voices combine to create an added layer of depth).

In Lipari, Sandro leaves the police station, once an aristocrat’s villa.

Claudia and Sandro meet at the train station in Milazzo, on the mainland. She implores him to stop trying to forge a relationship with her.

Yet she admits to Sandro she does have strong feelings of affection for him – lamenting the ease with which she can betray her friendship with Anna, who after all has only been gone for a day, and could turn up any time soon. Antonioni’s vivid pictorial style makes the viewer also lose a sense of time and place, creating images that stand on their own in a present-time of their own. Somehow it seems that time doesn’t matter. We’re in an art gallery, away from the real world of mores and social responsibilty. The shifting locations, from Rome to Lisca Bianca, to Lipari, to Milazzo, and now on to several places in Sicily, slide smoothly one to another without any map provided. We’re content to simply observe each image in its own right, to enjoy the artful compositions and transitions, with no more concern about plot than we would have while listening to a symphony. Perhaps for this apparently amoral aestheticism, when the film premiered at Cannes on May 15, 1960, many in the audience violently reacted to it.

The waves also despair. The world despairs. “Existence is suffering,” said the Buddha.

On the other hand, here is the woman who calls herself Gloria Perkins. Sandro watches with amusement as she dishes out a plate of tripe to the reporters in Messina, where she’s caused a street riot of sex-mad Sicilians who’ve been crowding around her roaring their lust. Her giddy eroticism (a rip in her sheath exposes her undergarments) punctuates the film’s somber passages.

At the Montaldo’s villa – the woman on the right is “The Princess” – Claudia is furious at herself for loving Sandro, and furious at Sandro for possibly being the cause of Anna’s disappearance.

When the conversation turns to light-hearted cynicism about Anna and Sandro, Giulia invokes the Deity with prayerful palms. But immediately afterward, she hits on the Princess’ grandson and they grapple frenetically upstairs in his art studio, much to the displeasure of Claudia. That’s Ettore, to the right of Patrizia. Raimundo is off making inquiries about Anna. Most critics refer to these people as the “idle rich,” but Ettore and Corrado are busily involved in a commercial venture that also involves Sandro. So it seems that the cruise is not at all an aimless time-waster, but in fact a means to an end, if rather an elegant way of going about it. The actual situation is that the men are interested in money, and the women are interested in people. Antonioni prefers the feminine approach to life.

Moods do change – anger fades away as contentment and simple pleasures take center stage – those lovely hands. Then Claudia hears a car arriving.

She runs out onto a large balcony. In the shadows, a monk and some peasants are frozen in a scene from the past. Below, there is no news of Anna. This shot is a masterful use of deep focus and balanced lighting. An observant critic has noted that Claudia looks like a figurine herself.

Back inside, Claudia tries on a wig. “You look like someone else,” says Patrizia. Claudia’s transformation into Anna continues. Though the new concept of the impermanence of personal identity is troubling to us, we must attempt to find within it the source of a new ethics.

She goes downstairs. The others are going to Taormina. The building witnesses the wanderings of the wealthy through the eyes of a maid on a balcony. The maid’s elevated position reverses the standard hierarchy of the classes.

Claudia and Sandro drive around Sicily, following leads that lead nowhere. Love overtakes them. Claudia is rapturous. Suddenly, it’s Hollywood!

For the moment, Anna is forgotten.

But again, remembered. Claudia is ashamed of what she’s doing. “E assurdo,” she days. “It’s absurd.” Sandro responds, “It’s good that it’s absurd. It means we can’t do anything about it.” Typically, he settles into his lack of direction, his accomodation with insignificance. The word “absurd” – a signpost of postwar existentialism – is used here by Antonioni in full recognition of its import. The world is fundamentally irrational, disordered, and meaningless. There are two responses. Kierkegaard offers hope, in a leap of transcendence to the spiritual. Camus offers no hope, finding meaning in a purely individual ethic within a cosmic absurdity. Claudia’s remorse will take her to a Kierkegaardian leap of faith, at least a faith in goodness if not quite God. Sandro’s resignation is a corruption of the Camusian hero’s stance. His acceptance of the absurd fails to engender a personal ethic, and he is ruined.

Are the men going to break out in an operatic chorus of condemnation? In Noto, that explosion of baroque architecture, the plaza of the Church of Saints Salvatore and Monastero becomes a stage for a morality play. Claudia’s sin attracts them, like the smell of a bitch in heat. No realism here!

The men silently accuse her. But is this a Catholic allegory, or a Communist one? Do the men represent the proletariat, and Claudia the owner class? Look at the background. To the left of Claudia, a sign for a socialist political party. To the right, a capitalist advertisement. She’s at the center of the conflict. Or maybe Antonioni is reprising the scenes in Stromboli where the interloper Ingrid Bergman is surrounded by glaring islanders. As with so many of the film’s images, we are observing here not a physical event, but a psychological state. Sandro arrives and the men disperse.

Against a backdrop of the Cathedral of Noto (the Duomo), Sandro, the very picture of the modern urban man, waxes nostalgic about his early enthusiasm for the extravagance of architecture gone by. But now, his youthful idealism shunned, he’s grown rich off giving estimates for others’ projects. What is the use of trying to build the way they used to, for hundreds of years, he says. Today, things don’t last.

On the Cathedral’s bell tower, Sandro tells Claudia she’s different from any woman he’s ever known, because she wants to see everything clearly. Impulsively, he asks her to marry him. She reacts confusedly, and implores the divine powers to give her insight. She tugs on the rope – the bell rings out.

They delight in the ringing, and in hearing answering rings from another campanile. Claudia is positioned so that a television antenna – a contemporary communication device – springs up out of her head. That is her world, not the world of the church bells of the past. Antonioni is struggling to find a language appropriate for the fast-moving era of electronics – a language, an aesthetics, an ethics.

Atop the cathedral, a moment of worship. The divine feminine gives her blessing.

In their hotel room in Noto, Claudia is rapturously in love. She sings along with a popular song heard from outside, trying to convince Sandro not to leave for a walk around town.

But he leaves.

On the Cathedral steps, looking at a drawing started by a young artist, Sandro swings his key chain closer and closer to the ink bottle, finally knocking it over and ruining the artwork. Envy, often considered the worst of the seven deadly sins, drags him down. Sandro has reached rock bottom.

Angry and frustrated, he returns to the hotel room, proceeding immediately to the balcony, where he can hover in his dark mood.

He attempts to force himself on Claudia, who resists his aggressive manipulation. Denying his anger, he pretends it’s all OK, making the mistake of calling their relationship “una avventura nuova” (thus supplying the movie with a title). Claudia is unnerved by his flippancy.

They drive to Taormina and check into the San Domenico Palace Hotel. Patrizia and Ettore have arrived before them. Giulia and Corrado are absent without explanation. The hotel is a converted monastery – yet another evocation of Catholicism, this time with Saint Dominic in the background, invisibly observing. As Claudia talks with Patrizia, Sandro strolls around. The woman who calls herself Gloria Perkins is there. Their eyes meet. They look at each other for too long a time.

Claudia and Sandro get settled in their hotel room. Claudia wants to rest. Sandro wants to walk around. For hours through the night, she waits for him to return. She makes faces in a mirror. She reads a magazine. The article is about a woman, pictured in multiple mirror images of herself, who is playing the role of the actress Jean Harlow. Claudia is playing the role of Anna in Sandro’s life, and it disturbs her.

In the grey light of dawn, Claudia takes refuge on a balcony, in the pose of a supplicant.

Nowhere to go but the room’s other balcony. But she gets dressed and searches for Sandro through the hotel.

To her horror, she discovers him sunk into an even deeper chaos of absurdity among the disordered chairs.

She runs out of the hotel, through the streets, to a tilted balcony-like terrace before a ruined church.

The wind rustles the weeping branches and blows her hair.

The building and Claudia weep in despair at the impermanence.

Sandro follows her. He slowly walks by her and slumps down on a bench, utterly defeated, also weeping. Is there any hope for him?

She doesn’t leave him. She moves toward him. But what is her intention? Will she shake him – hit him – choke him?

Her hand makes its ultimate gesture. She pities him – she forgives him. She gently caresses him. She sees herself in him. She also has been unfaithful, to her friend. We are all the same. None of us is perfect. Our hope lies in forgiveness, when there is no reason to hope. This is the image of the saint, of the Madonna, who sees only the sacred within. But it is a Madonna without a church, without a tradition, a tentative step toward a new ethic.

In the film’s last shot, she looks out across the landscape to Mount Etna, the Sicilian volcano that always gives birth to new fire and echoes the shape of Lisca Bianca. She and Sandro are in the clear, beyond the blank dead wall, even beyond the balconies, though still on their own raised railinged terrace. We are left suspended with them in this moment of shared grief.

There is no question that no one, no matter how jaded, would be able to stop asking, “Where’s Anna?” right up through to the end, and I would expect Claudia and Sandro to keep asking it. The enigma of absence hangs over the film. It, more than the “lives of the idle rich” that some viewers cluck at, is responsible for L’Avventura‘s emptiness. Yes, it is empty. There is a hole, and it never gets filled. But the hole is simply there, and cannot be explained. It’s mechanical, impartially built into the construction of the script. It stands on its own, not as a function of any character’s psychology. It’s part of the world. The world is not perfect. It’s flawed. It has holes, and people sometimes fall through them and are never seen again. We try to blame each other, but no one of us caused it or can fix it. Our only intelligent course of action is to forgive each other and learn to live well in the presence of the holes, the voids, the emptiness, the absurd. For Kierkegaard, Camus, and Antonioni, it is the absurd which gives life its meaning. The absurd, the chaos, what I call the Infinite Potentiality, is the ultimate background against which we live out our lives, here on the balcony between birth and death.

I made these handheld paper & cardboard visual aids for a talk at the Yoga Shakti Ashram in Palm Bay, Florida sometime in the last century. Some may say the message is too idealistic. But wouldn’t it be wonderful!

The sacred teachings of India were first a spoken tradition, the Veda (Knowledge). Then they were edited into written form, the Vedas. The Vedic texts have two divisions, Sruti, (Heard), and Smriti, (Remembered). Among the Smriti are two Itihasas (Histories), the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

The Mahabharata consists of 18 Parvas. The sixth Parva, Bhishma Parva, contains four Upaparvas, of which the third is the Bhagavad Gita Parva. It has 30 Adhyaya sections, of which Adhyayas 25-42 make up the 18 chapters of the famous Bhagavad Gita proper.

The Bhagavad Gita’s 18 chapters run to a total of 700 Shlokas (Verses). Of those 700 the 687th, Chapter 18 Verse 66, condenses for me the essence of Vedic wisdom. Krishna says:

sarva dharman parityaja
mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva papebhyo
moksa yisyami ma sucah

Give up all dharmas.
For sanctuary, go only to Me.
I’ll free you from all sins.
Don’t be afraid.

In this verse the Sanskrit word for “go” is vraja. Another meaning for vraja is “the place of cows”, specifically referring to Vraj, that is Vrindavan, the place of Lord Krishna’s rustic pastimes.

With this in mind, I propose that the one word that sums up the whole Veda is vraja. Veda means Knowledge. And all you have to Know is how to Go to Vraj and be with Krishna.

Planetics

A Psycho-Ecology of the Solar System

Daniel Cooper Clark

© 1994

Foreword

    I don’t practice astrology. But some years ago I did study it. As a result, I developed an astrological system I called Planetics.
    Planetics is one of many astrological systems. Like the others, it’s an experimental activity subject to change. Astrology becomes a problem when its advocates claim certainty and completeness for it, which many have done, and may always do. But I claim nothing more for it than a better than average look at a certain number of things. Still, astrology can help us.
    Like the other astrologies, Planetics is a study of the interplanetary forces active at a certain time at a certain place on the Earth’s surface. The Planetics researcher determines numerical energy levels for the forces, and determines the qualities associated with the forces, in order to learn about an event occurring at that time and place.
    Astrology cannot tell us about the essence of a person. Nor can astrology tell us about all the factors that make up an event. What astrology can do is tell us about the interplanetary components of an event. By studying those forces, the researcher can discover a certain amount of information about the person who is the subject of the event.
    When charting human births, the Planetics researcher does not investigate people. People are mysteries. The researcher investigates the place of birth and the time of birth.     The birth chart isn’t a chart of the client. It’s a diagram of the forces present when the client was born.
    All of us existed before our latest birth and we’ve gone on existing after it. We’ve traveled to places other than our birthplace. The essence of a person stretches beyond the situation of the most recent birth. And, the client may have been psychologically or spiritually “reborn” since then. People are souls.
    Still, the physical birth event exercises its influence. Few of us escape the context of our physical birth event. The soul chooses the circumstances of birth.
    Among those circumstances, Planetics investigates the interplanetary factors.
    I don’t present myself as a psychic or an authority of any kind. My purpose is not to prestidigitate, but just to demonstrate, to make the point that our lives are part of a larger life — in this case, part of the life of the Solar System.
    If I can show people that their lives are part of the life of the Solar System, they might go on to conclude that their lives are part of the life of God. This understanding is liberating. It’s the best therapy. My purpose is to open up the mind and heart so we can feel we are part of the life of God. The other information — about jobs, marriages, temperaments — makes sense to me only within that context.

Introduction

    Ages ago, people believed that when something wonderful happened on Earth, good spirits and goddesses and gods would be present at the event. Bad spirits and demons would be on the scene during inauspicious occurences. Some people said they could estimate the nature of an incident by seeing what spirits accompanied it.
    As time went by, humans learned how to increase their control of their surroundings. To do that, they had to change their mental state. One apparent result was the loss of the ability to directly perceive the presence of spirits. In its place arose the craft of Augury. The condition of plants, animals, weather, and astronomical phenomena associated with an event were omens of its character and its consequences.
    Finally, humans developed mathematics. In doing so, they lost their skill at reading the good and the bad omens. A complex science, Horoscopics, replaced the old craft.
    The location on the surface of the Earth where an event took place became the center of a wheel of twelve Earth points or zones, each signifying a practical aspect of the incident. The Sun, Moon, Lunar Nodes, and Planets indicated the general nature of the event in question.
    A vast horoscopic literature has proliferated over the past two or three thousand years. Analysts learn how to interpret events by following the directions in the old texts and adapting them when necessary to contemporary situations. I devised Planetics in an attitude of faithfulness to the ancients but also with an awareness of today’s — and tomorrow’s — needs.

Part One: Analysis

      Nature and God — I neither knew
      Yet Both so well knew me
      They startled, like Executors
      of my identity.
            –Emily Dickinson

    I operate under the assumption that planets are people: demigods.
    They’re also magnetic rings, wheels of energy. Their force fields intersect and influence each other. The Earth vibrates within this matrix.
    Her north and south poles attract extra-terrestrial magnetic signals. The intergalactic waves then flow through her crystalline veins. From there, the cosmic messages radiate out to the planet’s biosphere. They bond with the oxygen in the air. We inhale them.
    In our lungs, the iron atoms in the blood’s red corpuscles pick up the magnetic data. The impulses then circulate with the blood to every cell, regulating our lives.
    That’s the way we receive influences from beyond the Earth. Not directly. But through the medium of our home planet. And our body’s lungs and blood.
    The iron in the blood’s hemoglobin carries not only oxygen and universal magnetic patterns, but also consciousness from the soul to every part of the body. (The soul is normally located in the region of the physical heart, and consciousness is the soul’s energy extending outward.)
    Those agents sustain and shape the body and its activities. Thus, to live a full life our primary needs are proper breathing, right thinking, and action in harmony with the cosmos.
    Harmonious interaction can be achieved with the help of Planetics.
    Planetics is an Earth-based horoscopic study. It is a distinctly American practice. Of course, American culture has always been a tossed salad of many paths. So I did go abroad in order to draw from the most ancient points of view. I drew from Australia, China, Chaldea, and from the principles of South Asian Horoscopics as set down in the world’s oldest literature, the Sanskrit literature.
    The sages who wrote in Sanskrit called their horoscopic study Jyotish (the science of radiant energy). One of the many charts constructed in the Jyotish tradition is the Bhava (House) chart. I chose the Bhava chart as the focus of analysis in Planetics.
    Apart from that, Planetics is like Horoscopics everywhere. First you chart the lines of influence between a place on the Earth, the Earth itself, and the other planets. Then you use the diagram as a tool to analyze an event occurring at that place at a specific time.
    As in ecology, so in horoscopy: the whole and the parts are an interdependent system. Any change takes place in the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously.
    You can comprehend the universe by studying a grain of sand. And, you can learn about that particle by studying the bodies of outer space. Things occupying space occupy each other.
    Time operates within the cosmic ecology too. An event is a seed that contains its own consequences. Planetics tells us about an event, and what will happen as a result of the event. For instance, the horoscopic analysis of a human birth tells us much about the future life history of the native.
    I developed Planetics because I believe the universe — Nature — constantly worships God. Each material atom and material form takes part in that praise. All we need to do to make our lives complete is to join the all-pervading reality of worship.
    Planetics points the way to completeness by helping us to harmonize our particular lives with the entire cosmic pattern. It shows how we fit into the universe.
    Human bodies are magnets. Our fields vibrate as part of Nature’s dance of love for God. The most effective way to live that love is to join the music of the spheres.
    Planetics notates for you the choreography of your dance, and the melody of your music.

Sun Wheels

    The positions of the planets at the time of an event can be analyzed in terms of their location on the Wheel of Houses and the Wheel of Signs. The two wheel systems are studied separately, and then the results are combined. Many versions of the two wheels exist. In Planetics, the fundamental organizing principle of both systems is the relationship between the Earth and the Sun.

Houses

    When wave-particles of magnetic energy from other planets intersect with the Earth’s magnetic field, they do so at certain angles with reference to any given location on the Earth. The angle determines the House the planet occupies.
    Numerical calculation of House angles begins from the position of the Midheaven (the Zenith), which is the highest point of the Sun’s apparent path in the sky. The Midheaven is the middle of the Tenth House. There are twelve Houses. Each takes up 30 degrees of the Wheel of Houses. The center of each House (the Midhouse) is a multiple of 30 degrees from the Midheaven. The Midhouse point is the origin of the power of the House — the position of greatest House influence. Away from the Midhouse, the characteristics of a House become less distinct, diminishing symmetrically on either side of the midpoint. On the cusp between two houses, each Midhouse exerts an equal amount of (feeble) energy.
    Ninety degrees east of the Zenith is the middle of the First House, a position called the Eastpoint. It does not necessarily coincide with the physical horizon. It is a horizontal position, not a horizonal position. Nor does it necessarily fall along the event location’s latitude line. It falls on a line perpendicular to a line passing from the Zenith to the Nadir (the middle of the Fourth House). The line cutting across the wheel from the Eastpoint to the Westpoint (the middle of the Seventh House) is the Locational Equator.

Signs

    What the Eastpoint is to the Wheel of Houses, the Vernal Equinox is to the Wheel of Signs.
    The Eastpoint marks the change of the Sun’s daily travel from underneath the Locational Equator to above it. Similarly, the Vernal Equinox point marks the change of the Sun’s annual travel from underneath the Terrestrial Equator to above it. The Vernal Equinox is the position of the Sun near the end of the third week of March. It indicates the beginning of the First Sign in the Wheel of Signs.
    In contrast to the House situation, the strongest points on the Wheel of Signs are not always 30 degrees apart. The place of greatest influence varies widely from Sign to Sign, and is not as important as an energy source. So whereas the Eastpoint sits at 15 degrees of the First House, the Vernal Equinox point is placed at zero degrees of the First Sign. There’s no “Midsign” to take into consideration.
    Why does the Vernal Equinox have this significance?     The Wheel of Signs (the Zodiac) is a multi-cycle standing wave of energy created by the interactions of planetary movements within the Solar System. It occupies the disc-shaped space of the collective orbits of the planets.
    The prime Zodiac is the Wheel of Signs as seen from the Sun. The Sun conducts the music of the spheres as it spins the planets around.
    That same wheel displays a different pattern when observed from the point of view of the Earth. But we can’t see it with our eyes. So how can we know what the pattern is? The Sun-Earth relationship is the key. The two points where the Sun’s apparent path intersects the plane of the Earth’s equator — the points called the Vernal Equinox and the Autumnal Equinox — are the key. Starting from an Equinox point, the Heliocentric Zodiac may be translated into the Terrestrial Zodiac. The Spring Equinox occurs at the time of Nature’s “rebirth,” so early astrologers chose it, rather than the Fall Equinox, as the marker for the zero point of Aries. That assignment of a starting point is the method for understanding the Zodiac from our Earth-based locations.
    Despite the custom of naming the Sign Wheel’s 12 divisions after constellations, the stars have nothing to do with the Zodiac in Planetics. The Sun, with its system of planets, is the standard.

The Sun

    Both the beginning of the Wheel of Houses and the beginning of the Wheel of Signs are points where the Earth “bows down” to the Sun. That is, the path of the Earth dips below the Solar path. Thus the Sun is the indicator planet for the First House, and the Sun is exalted in the First Sign. Hindu sages call the Sun “the king of the planets.”

Interpretation

    The qualities associated with each of the nine Planets, twelve Houses, and twelve Signs are fixed. That total of 33 unvarying blocks of information is brought into play in each incident and with each person. They are the sum total of the raw material in every horoscope.
    Individuality enters in from the way the 33 are combined. According to the laws of permutation, there are a trillion trillion possible arrangements.
    The trick is, then, how to interpret the effects of the combinations. After first logical principles are understood, the researcher’s time is spent in interpretation, much of which proceeds intuitively.

Part Two: Stories

    Planetics is an American Horoscopics. It is driven by a vision of the cosmos that is indigenous to our American continents, the land masses bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the East and the Pacific Ocean to the west, between longitudes 30 degrees west and 165 degrees west.
    Planetics makes use of approaches drawn from Asian, Australian, African, and European traditions. But the central impulse is American.
    To date there has been no indigenous American Horoscopics. Those who lived here before 1500 AD were, however, in close touch with cosmic forces. They were aware of the relations between earthly and universal events. They knew that individual psychology, social change, and other factors of our daily lives are part of a drama on a larger scale, and that the features of the parts could be understood better by consulting the features of the whole.
    When the European invaders arrived, they brought with them a European Horoscopics, which they called (in English) Astrology. In the centuries that followed, systems from India and China made some impact on American practitioners. But we have yet to see a really American approach. Part of the problem is that we have no pre-1500 mathematical astrological heritage to work with. So no doubt we will have to adopt our mathematics from another land, or many other lands. Our contribution will be to invest that body with a native American consciousness.

The American Earth

    The essence of the American attitude lies in the weight it gives to the Earth.
    Pardon me while I indulge in a personal reminiscence. As a child I possessed an unshakeable conviction that God came to humans not from the sky, but from the Earth. On the other hand, I also spent hours, at home and in the classroom, drawing pictures of planets, comets, stars, and lightning bolts. Once when I was sick at home for a long time, my young classmates sent me a gift they felt was appropriate for me: a book on astronomy.
    For me, in those early years of my life, things above were material and things below were spiritual. It was a reversal of the usual opinion. (Perhaps my breech birth had something to do with it! I’m willing, I’m even happy, to admit that Planetics is a personal way of working.)
    Today I still consider the Earth more important than the heavens, though as before the dwellers in the sky capture my imagination too.
    Out of this respect for both the underfoot and the overhead I generated the horoscopic method I called Planetics. Both Earth Houses and Sky Signs are given their due. But of the two, the Earth Houses take predominance.
    Another contrast, between Asia and Europe, also works itself out here. Planetics employs a House system and a Sign system thought to be part of European Horoscopics. But I placed those technics within a non-European context. When the subtleties of interpretation are infused into the process, the myths and methods of South Asian Horoscopics feel more natural to me. I think Vedic astrology is more fundamental than the European version.
    A so-called “orthodox” Hindu astrologer wouldn’t approve of my combining the two elements. Yet I’m sure what I did fits into the actual working methods of the ancient South Asian craft.

Part Three: The Basics

    Planetics is an American astrology of the four directions and the four seasons.
    The Earth’s four compass points organize the Wheel of Houses. The Sun’s four seasonal points organize the Wheel of Signs.

The Wheel of Houses

    Picture the Wheel of Houses as a circle with the Eastpoint on the right, the Westpoint on the left, the Zenith on the top, and the Nadir on the bottom. The Eastpoint is the middle of the First House, the Westpoint is the middle of the Seventh House, the Zenith is the middle of the Tenth House, and the Nadir is the middle of the Fourth House.
    The Earth is in the center of the circle. (The circle itself stands for the apparent path of the Sun “around” the Earth.)
    Draw a horizontal line from Eastpoint to Westpoint. Draw a vertical line from Zenith to Nadir, the two lines intersecting at the Earth. You now have a circle and a plus sign merged in the diagram.
    Use this as a graph and plot the places where the sunrise and the sunset occur at different times of the year. You’ll find that (for non-Equatorial locations) the only times when the sunrise and sunset take place at the Eastpoint and Westpoint are the two Equinox dates. At the Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice, the sunrise and sunset take place many degrees away from the right angle Equinox positions. In the winter, when the North Pole tilts away from the Sun, Northern Hemisphere sunrises and sunsets take place noticeably south of the Eastpoint and Westpoint. In the summer, when the North Pole tilts toward the Sun, Northern Hemisphere sunrises and sunsets take place a noticeable distance north of the Eastpoint and Westpoint.
    The annual travel of the sunrise and sunset along the horizon line has presented a major problem to designers of House systems over the millennia, because they tie the First House to the junction of the sunrise and the horizon. To accomodate for that, several House systems allow the assignation of unequal arcs to the Houses.
    Planetics adheres to a strict right angle system, with each of the dozen Houses taking up a 30-degree slice of the circle. The sunrise/horizon point (the Ascendant) is not considered.     This is not the way any other present-day astrologers that I know of do their work. But according to the theory and practice of South Asian Horoscopics, the House numbering system may begin at a position other than the Ascendant. The Moon’s position is often taken as the middle of the First House (Chandra Lagna), and the Sun’s position too (Surya Lagna). After making that assignment, one’s analysis proceeds using the same methods as with the usual Lagna.
    Therefore the Wheel of Houses is a sequential structure that theoretically can begin at any point of the circle.
    In Planetics, set the Eastpoint as the standard for the middle of the First House, and the analysis then proceeds according to the guidelines in the ancient literature. (I also made use of Chandra Lagna and Surya Lagna in certain circumstances.)

The Wheel of Signs

    As with the Houses, so with the Signs.
    Picture the Wheel of Signs as a circle with the Spring Equinox on the right, the Fall Equinox on the left, the Winter Solstice on the top, and the Summer Solstice on the bottom. The Spring Equinox is the beginning of the First Sign, the Fall Equinox is the beginning of the Seventh Sign, the Winter Solstice is the beginning of the Tenth Sign, and the Summer Solstice is the beginning of the Fourth Sign.
    The Sun is in the middle of the circle. (The circle itself stands for the elliptical orbit of the Earth around the Sun.)
    Draw a horizontal line from the Spring Equinox to the Fall Equinox. Draw a vertical line from the Winter Solstice to the Summer Solstice, the two lines intersecting at the Sun. You now have a circle and a plus sign merged in the diagram.
    Use this as a graph and plot the locations of the stars with reference to it over the past thousands of years. You’ll find that there’s been a constant shifting of the stellar positions. Right now the stars in the constellation Pisces are moving away from the Spring Equinox point, and the stars in Aquarius are moving towards it.
    The movement of the stars has given rise to a major dispute among astrologers. Those who do Sidereal astrology tie the beginning of the First Sign to a stellar location. Those who do Tropical astrology tie it to an equinoctal location. The present difference between the two methods, according to calculations used by many, is 23 degrees of the Wheel of Signs. They’re 3/4 of a Sign apart from each other.
    Most European and American astrologers use the Tropical system, and most Hindu astrologers use the Sidereal system.
    My acceptance of the Tropical might not seem to mesh with my general preference for South Asian Horoscopics. But according to Hindu theory and practice, the sign numbering system may begin at a position other than a star. For instance, the Wheel of Signs, usually divided into 12 arcs, may also be divided into 108 arcs of three degrees 20 minutes each. This results in nine First Signs around the circle, occurring every 40 degrees. Each of the nine charts is analyzed as if each were the entire wheel.
    Therefore the Wheel of Signs is a sequential structure that theoretically can begin at any point of the circle.
    In Planetics, set the Spring Equinox point as the standard for the beginning of the First Sign, and the analysis then proceeds according to the guidelines in the ancient literature. (I also made use of the 108-arc Zodiac.)

House Systems, Sign Systems, and Belief Systems

    Vedic astrologers have customarily claimed that they are simply following their predecessors. But in fact each of the influential writers contradicts one or more of the previous authorities on at least some, and often many, occasions. Although they all adhere to a shared body of laws, still no two of them analyze an event in exactly the same way.
    Indeed, even a single astrologer can be self-contradicting. The great 20th century analyst B. V. Raman employed a system whereby House arcs of equal size were defined by the 30 degree arcs of the Signs. The Signs took precedence, in this way: the Sign in which the eastern horizon lay at the event time was called the first “House,” and the other Signs were numbered sequentially. Yet in his book Graha and Bhava Balas Raman assumes that Houses (Bhavas) have their own regions of power independent of the Signs. He states that “the mid-point of the bhava is always the powerful point [p. 32] … the planet gives no effect at the sandhi (junction point) whereas at the Bhavamadhya [mid-point] it gives the full effect of the Bhava [p. 6].” That is, he understands that Houses have their own identities separate from the Signs. He then goes on to say, in A Catechism of Astrology, that “the lord of a Bhava is the planet which rules the Rasi [Sign] in which the mid-point of the Bhava falls.” And in answer to the question “How do you find out who is the lord of the Bhava when one Bhava is represented by two Rasis?” he answers, “Bhava Madhya represents the central point of a Bhava. The lord of the Rasi where the central point falls is the lord of that Bhava.”
    In these remarks Raman gives credence to a system in which Houses and Signs alike have their own separate arcs (though the arcs are linked by the planet managing the Sign intersected by the Midhouse point.)
    Moreover, Raman states in A Manual of Hindu Astrology that the House arcs are not defined as being equally 30 degrees wide. “According to the Hindus,” he writes, “a Bhava means one-third of the arc of the ecliptic intercepted between the adjacent angles, viz., the Udaya Lagna (Eastern Horizon), the Patala Lagna (Lower Meridian), the Asta Lagna (Western Horizon, and the Madhya Lagna (Upper Meridian).” So if the latitude of the event being studied is non-equatorial, in which case the relationship between the horizons and the meridians is not that of a right angle, then the Houses will vary in size, except at the Spring and Fall Equinoxes.
    Thus not only did Raman advocate separate boundaries for Houses and Signs, he also proposed that Houses have unequal arcs for most of the Earth during most of the year.
    Yet he did not follow those rules in his own work, at least as far as the examples in his books are concerned.
    The fact of the matter is that Hindu Horoscopics can allow, and in practice does allow, more than one House system and Sign system. To set the middle of the First House, or the zero point of the First Sign, here or there is up to the individual analyst. The method of analysis includes the analyst. It’s personal. You have to operate out of the story of the universe that you have faith in, if you’re going to be effective.
    To repeat: you have to operate out of the story of the universe that you have faith in. That story is the major premise, the foundation, of your work.
    I am an American. Therefore I am democratic and multiculturalist.
    I suggest that an indigenous American Horoscopics is
    1. Earthy
    2. Democratic
    3. Multicultural
    4. Divine.
    The strict division some people make between “Vedic” and “Western” Horoscopics is artificial. Indian and European and American and Chinese analysts use a great variety of methods of analysis and they all can learn from each other. Addey’s study of aspects applies in any region. Parashara’s technique of House-ownership Yogas works anywhere. There may be differences of emphasis between different traditions, but all that means is you can choose the one that suits you best.
    It’s important what method you use to determine the location of the First Midhouse and the beginning of the First Sign. That shows what your view of the universe is — and your view of life in the universe.
    What is a House, and what is a Sign? There are objective mathematical calculations involved, but up front there’s your personal a priori major premise controlling the numbers. So how you arrange the Wheel of Houses and the Wheel of Signs reveals how you will interpret people’s lives for them.
    You will place your clients within the kind of universe you have faith in.
    It’s the same as going to a healer of the body or mind. For your body, you can go to a surgeon or an herbalist. For your mind, you can go to a clinician or a Jungian. You choose the kind of analysis and cure that you’re going to get. The philosophy of the healer is important to the client. The same holds true for Horoscopics. There are a variety of philosophical approaches, and they are reflected in the House systems and Sign systems.

Wheels

    Quadrantal wheels play a significant part in the spiritual iconography of the cultures indigenous to our American continents. The plus sign represents the Earth. The circle represents the Cosmos. Merged together, the resulting symbol stands for the Earth in the Cosmos. As an indigenous American craft, Planetics makes use of this shape as the graphic organizer of its operations.
    Let’s not neglect other shapes, though. For instance, the Earth has several shapes. They’re all simultaneous and all true. Each shape corresponds to a certain level of consciousness and vibratory energy.
    Here’s a table of five Terrestrial shapes.

Shape         Category         Character

Sphere         Secular         Orbiting the Sun
Disc             Religious       Between Heaven and Hell
Hoop           Mystical         Halo — an energy ring
Animal         Mythical         Bovine, Turtle, others
Human         Divine           Goddess (Gaia, Bhumi, others)

    Which one of the levels to work on? Since my analyses proceeded mostly in terms of the South Asian tradition of Jyotish, I chose the hoop.
    The word Jyotish means “the science of radiant energy.” I posit that its original practitioners saw the Earth as a ring- like energy field. Perhaps that’s because, from the spherical- Earth point of view, they resided near the Equator, which is a ring. Whether that’s the reason, or whether energy-mysticism is the reason, they used the wheel — the hoop — as their Earth image.
    The hoop was also the primary world-image for the early indigenous Americans. They saw the universe as a hoop, and each nation as a hoop. The ceremonial Medicine Circle was a hoop, and the personal vision-shield was painted on a skin stretched on a hoop.
    If I were to say the Earth is flat, it would sound absurd to my contemporaries. Yet I go one step further. I say that not only is the Earth flat, it’s a wheel — a hoop — a ring.
    South Asian metaphysics bears me out. The Sanskrit word for planet is Graha, which means “energy source.” In Sanskrit, the energy sources in the human body are called Chakras, or “wheels.” Such is the shape of an energy source in the vision of the ancient South Asian sages. It is a spinning ring of power.
    We live our lives on one of the hoops, the Earth. Ages ago, when the ancients started devising the first stages of Horoscopics, they constructed a methodology that reflected the Wheel image.
    The Earth is a Wheel whose spokes divide it into Houses. The Sun is a Wheel whose spokes divide it into Signs. As the two Wheels rotate on a cosmic axis at unequal velocities, they indicate, as on a gambler’s Wheel of Fortune, the patterns of life of the dwellers on the Earth ring.

Latitudes and Longitudes

    Now that I’ve gotten myself into trouble by advocating this theory, I might as well disclose all its outrageous implications.
    Since the Earth is flat, it has no latitude lines. Every place on the planet is, so to speak, located on the Terrestrial Equator at zero degrees latitude. When calculating a Horoscope according to the Earthwheel approach, I assume zero degrees as the latitude value and go on from there.
    The longitude value becomes the only indicator of the location of an event. Longitude lines, or Meridians, are, in the Earthwheel way of thinking, not lines at all, but points on the perimeter of the Hoop that is our Earth. By using only a longitudinal figure, the analyst can pinpoint the location of an event.
    The craft of Horoscopics was first developed in regions near zero degrees latitude. In those areas, the east-west spoke of the Earthwheel (which is always ninety degrees from the north- south spoke) points to the places where the moving Sun-point intercepts the visible horizon at sunrise and sunset.
    But for most places on the planet — which in spherical- Earth terms are considered to be non-Equatorial latitudes — the Sun does not usually rise in the exact East or set in the exact West. It is the misfortune of the inhabitants of those regions that they have invented Horoscopic systems wherein the Ascendant position of the Sun (and the other planets) is considered as the determinant of the placement of the Houses.
    Of course, people are thrilled by the drama of the sunrise and the sunset. But as far as Planetics is concerned, a strict right angle must define the relationship between the four cardinal spokes of the Earthwheel and the four seasonal spokes of the Sunwheel.
    This implies that we are intended to live near the Equator as all humans did eons ago. Our travels have only brought us confusion — not the least of which is that Latitudinal Horoscopics, meant to work in non-Equatorial locations, falls apart both logically and practically the farther you get from the Equator, and becomes useless in Polar locales.
    To accomodate for this sorry state of affairs, I used a latitude-like concept I called the Locational Equator. It is the east-west spoke of the Earthwheel, but presented in spherical- Earth terms.

Part Four: Wheels Within Wheels

    In August, 1992, I heard two statements that ended my 15- year commitment to Sidereal sign measurement.
    1. A highly respected and nationally known Sidereal astrologer, whom I count as a dear friend, told me that as he understands it, Sign and Nakshatra divisions don’t refer to physical star locations. Instead, he said, they are regions of space. This shook me because I’d been thinking that Sidereal astrologers did begin their Sign calculations from physical star positions. Furthermore, Siderealists criticize Tropical astrologers for thinking of Signs as “imaginary” or “speculative” regions of space. Yet here was an authority on the Sidereal method agreeing with the Tropical viewpoint.
    2. Shortly afterwards, an astronomy teacher at the Florida Institute of Technology told me that astronomers fix the zero point of Aries at the Vernal Equinox point. I had been thinking, mistakenly, that they used a Sidereal point. I was shaken again! He went on to remind me about something I already knew but just hadn’t thought about: that the stars don’t have fixed positions. Although they move gradually, they do move, and thus are not reliable standards for Sign placement. (In the jargon of Sidereal astrology, the stars are often called “fixed.”)
    Those two conversations had the effect of tearing me loose from my Sidereal bearings. I began to look anew at the foundations of Horoscopics. This present essay, written during August, September, and October of 1992, is one result.
    I quickly came to five conclusions regarding the Signs.
    1. A Sun-based or Planet-based Sign system provides a reason for explaining why each Sign has traditionally been associated with a particular Planet. That is, the Signs starting with Leo and going around to Cancer are tied to a symmetrical sequence of Planetary orbits, starting with the Sun (Leo) and then extending through the physical orbits out to Saturn (Capricorn, Aquarius) and back toward the Sun, with the Moon (Cancer) replacing the Sun at the end.
    2. The obvious choice of a key Planet for structuring the Wheel of Signs is the Sun. It is the center of the Solar System. Its gravitational force binds the system into a whole. The Sun is second in importance only to the Earth for us Earthlings, as it provides the energy and light necessary for life here. Moreover, all the Planets were originally part of the Sun.
    3. If I’m going to advocate a method of analysis, it has to be one I can explain. I don’t trust a method clouded with contradictions and unexamined assumptions. Yes, I know, reality at its heart isn’t logically consistent. Even in the realm of logic, reasoning begins with a major premise that is accepted on faith. But after that point, the laws of inference apply. A mathematical discipline such as astrology does begin with an a priori assumption, but then it must proceed along rigorously considered rational pathways of thought. Therefore, the Wheel of Signs for me is Sun-based, not star-based. The zero point of the First Sign is the location of the Sun at the moment of the Vernal Equinox. This point is exact, directly calculable, and not subject to interpretation.
    4. The stars outside the Solar System may be potent indicators of the features of an event. And ancient analysts may have been able to divine their messages. But we have lost the art of discovering those truths. For instance, Hindu Siderealist analysts quarrel over the present location of the star Rohini, their usual referent for zero degrees Aries. Some say the star is Zeta Piscium. Some say the star has disappeared. I say that when the discourse has degraded to the extent of its present confusion, that whether or not the star is lost, it is definite that the art is lost.
    5. The Sign system, in theory, works with any beginning point. Why, then, choose the Vernal Equinox? Because at that moment the Sun’s path crosses from “below” the Terrestrial Equator to “above” it. At that moment, in other words, the Earth bows down to the Sun, and the Sun asserts its all-pervading power. It’s a display of the devotion and the grandeur that fuel the movements of the cosmic wheels.
    Coincidentally with my revision of my views on the Sign system, I was also questioning the basis of the House system. The seasonal variation of the extent of the Ecliptic arc visible above the horizon was bothering me. I tried a few different twists to correct the situation (including a diagramming method with a circular Ecliptic that could be moved up and down a rectangular House field). Finally I settled on the method I describe here.
    Again, B. V. Raman was a great help to me. In his book A Manual of Hindu Astrology he discusses the Zenith point (the Midheaven, the M. C., the Midpoint of the Tenth House, the Dasama Bhava):

    It is on the correct determination of this that the entire
    fabric of the horoscope rests. In fact, all the other Bhavas
    (houses) are very easily arrived at, after the longitude of

The Dasama Bhava has been definitely ascertained.

By placing emphasis on the Zenith as the starting point for House measurement, Raman opened up the possibility of discarding the Ascendant and adopting the Eastpoint as the middle of the First House. However, he rejected that approach. In his book Hindu Astrology and the West he writes:

    There are some who calculate the M. C. and take the ascendant as 90 degrees from the M. C. This means that the child is supposed to be born at the equator and not at the place of birth. Arguments are advanced in justification of this system also. This method was originally proposed by Zariel.

Raman’s objection to a firm right angle between the First and Tenth Midhouses is understandable, for the reason he states. But I feel the concept of the Locational Equator covers that objection.
    In Planetics, the First, Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth Midhouses form a strict right-angle cross. It is a rigid context within which can be described the angle at which Planetary energies intersect the event site. The Eastpoint-Westpoint line is perpendicular to the Zenith-Nadir line. The horizons are not considered.
    This implies that each place on the Earth is the center of the Earth.
    Each place has its own Equator, a Locational Equator, that divides the Earth in half. In that respect, the Locational Equator is like the Terrestrial Equator. It has its own authority as zero degrees latitude.
    In my system, I treated the spot where the event takes place as a point on the Locational Equator, which is not the same as the place’s conventional latitude line. The intersection of the Locational Equator with the Ecliptic defines the First and Seventh Midhouses.
    At any given moment all Locational Equators on the same Meridian intersect the Ecliptic at the same junction point. Since one of those Locational Equators is the Terrestrial Equator we’re all familiar with, and that Equator is at zero degrees latitude, then it is true that all Locational Equators are always at zero degrees latitude. As Raman put it, “the child is supposed to be born at the equator.” In Planetics, the Equator is the only latitude there is.
    Longitude lines (Meridians) remain as they are considered conventionally. So the event site is a point on the Locational Equator marked by the crossing of a certain Locational Meridian.     The Wheel of Houses and the Wheel of Signs, though measuring two different phenomena, are both founded on the relationship between the Locational Equator and the Ecliptic.
    Let the middle of the First House be the point on the Ecliptic intersected by the Locational Equator at the time of the event.
    Let zero degrees of the First Sign be the point on the Ecliptic intersected by the Locational Equator at the time of the Spring Equinox.
    In one sense, the Wheel of Houses and the Wheel of Signs are not concentric. The Houses center on the Earth and the Signs center on the Sun. But practically speaking the center of both is the event site. So the two wheels can share a common numbering scale defined from the perspective of the event site. It could be either House-based or Sign-based. Convention dictates using a Sign-based gradient. This is a gradient, starting with zero degrees of the First Sign, that moves with reference to the non-moving Wheel of Houses.
    When diagramming the Planets’ positions, I recommend making two separate charts — one for the Houses and one for the Signs. However, the two can be combined, if you’re willing to put up with a lot of confusing lines on one diagram. In India, the usual solution to this problem is to use only the Sign chart and neglect the House Chart. They assume that if a certain Midhouse point falls in a certain Sign, then the Sign arc defines the House designation. If the Midhouse of the Fifth House stands in Sagittarius, then all of Sagittarius is considered to be the Fifth House. But I prefer to maintain the integrity of the House divisions on their own terms, and to make two separate charts.
    This is a democratic, and thus an American, way of doing things. Hindus are hierarchical. Americans are egalitarian.
    The placement of the beginning point at a certain location on the wheel defines the character of the wheel — the kind of information it can give you. House wheels starting at the horizon, the Eastpoint, the Moon, the Sun, will yield different kinds of information. As will Sign wheels starting at the Vernal Equinox point, Zeta Piscium, or other positions.
    It’s your choice. That choice will reflect your state of consciousness.
    A House is an energy band in a sequence of energy bands that can start anywhere on the Wheel of Houses. A Sign is an energy band in a sequence of energy bands that can start anywhere on the Wheel of Signs. The sequence is the consistent factor in the structure of each wheel. It is a rhythm set into play by the consciousness of the analyst. When the analyst decides to place the beginning at a certain position on the wheel, that act of consciousness, which is part of the universal consciousness, initiates the House sequence or Sign sequence at that point.
    No starting point is correct or incorrect. The consciousness of the analyst is an ingredient of the wheel, as much as the Planets are.
    As students of the I Ching have discovered, external events and internal states of mind are synchronous. It’s impossible to say which one creates the other. They happen at the same time, that’s all. So it is with Horoscopics. The analyst’s mind is part of the event being analyzed and part of the system of analysis.
    It could all be psychic. If so, most analysts need a tool to help them to be psychic. The Horoscope is such a tool.
    A Horoscope is a device that an analyst uses to view the information contained in an event. The analyst uses the device that fits best. The validity of the device is confirmed by the accuracy of the results. Theory is interesting, but practice is the proof.
    The message of Planetics is that we are part of the Solar System and part of God. If we can see ourselves in the Planetary arrangements, then how can we persist in thinking that we are cut off, independent, alone, purposeless, temporary phenomena? We are not. We are on the map.
    None of us is alone. None of us is separate. We are all connected together as parts of a whole that is greater than the sum of us. Each of us is part of that magnificent whole. Each of us is marvelous. You are a wonder to behold. And even greater to behold is the whole, which is God. If we cannot see God directly, we can see God indirectly by the workings of the parts of God. We can understand that our lives are part of a greater life. We can understand that God is the primal identity, that the universe is a portion of that self, and that our activities and thoughts and feelings are a part of the cosmos, reflected in the cosmos, and that there is no clear borderline between the part and the whole, even though each of is an individual identity.
    A Horoscope cannot get us to love God. But it can give us evidence (not proof) of the existence of God. We can gain some knowledge of God by way of astrology. And the more we know about God, the closer we get to divine love. The final step over the line into the realm of love has to be taken with additional help (most importantly, with the grace of God), not just with knowledge. But knowledge of God puts us on the path.
    Planetics points the way — in an American way.
    During those three months, my basic question had been, in which system of Horoscopics should my loyalty be placed? In the European system, because that’s what I’ve seen in the newspapers all my life and heard people chatting about at parties? In the Hindu system, since I’m an initiated disciple of a Bengali Vaishanva guru? Or should I place my loyalty in this American Earth, where I was born and where I choose to live and die — in the mode of consciousness of those Americans who have lived and died here for thousands of years — in the indigenous thought patterns and religious feelings that spring out of the clay and the humus and the sand of America? I too have emerged from that soil. God, in whom my final loyalty rests, radiates out from that same American soil. That is my God. That is my being. That is my religion and my Horoscopics. The Earth, the Wheel of Houses, takes first place. The compass directions stand resolutely in charge of the Houses. The Sun and the seasons rule the heavens and the Signs. That is my world and the world of my God. To that American God I swear my allegiance and give my love. That is my duty. The Ultimate Power orders me to worship that way and I obey. No human opinion can convince me otherwise, because I am “Daniel,” which means “God is my judge.”

Afterword: Chart Interpretation

    I tried to keep it simple. Out of the dozens of possible parameters of analysis, I chose only a few.
    I relied heavily on the Hindu technique of Shad Bala (Six Strengths) to determine the energy levels of the Planets and the Houses.
    The only “subordinate” chart I used was the Navamsha, which divides the Wheel of Signs into 108 sections. The major focus of my attention was the activity within the House chart and the Sign chart, and the interactions between the two.
    Three areas of interest organized my analysis: Strength, Favor, and Sequence.
    1. Strength — described in terms of dominance and recession — is a feature of each individual agent (Planet, Sign, or House) in the chart. Depending on certain empirically perceived factors, each agent possesses a certain intensity of dominance or recession. Strength does not affect Favor in the chart. Strength is qualitative, not quantitative.
    How to do it:
        a. Determine the strength of each agent.
        b. Consider the qualities of each agent.
        c. Give weight to the qualities of each agent according

to the strength of each agent, and describe the

resulting portrait.
    2. Favor — described in terms of help and harm — is a feature of the relations among the agents (Planets, Signs, and Houses) in the chart. Depending on certain intuitively perceived factors, each interaction possesses certain conditions of help or harm. Favor does not affect Strength in the chart. Favor is qualitative, not quantitative.
    How to do it:
        a. Give management (ownership) relations full weight,
        occupancy relations 2/3 weight, and aspect relations

1/3 weight.
        b. Within that context, give weight to the relations
        according to the strengths of the agents involved.
        c. List the standard qualitative indications of the various
        relations among the agents.
        d. Describe the resulting portrait.
    3. Sequence — the prediction of the future consequences of the event — is determined according to the Hindu method called Vimshottari Dasha. Mathematical operations compute Planetary periods of time proceeding from the event time.
    How to do it:
        a. Assign the final indications for each Planet to the
        Planet’s corresponding period in the biographical
        sequence.
        b. Describe the resulting biography.

    That was Planetics. It exists now only in this essay and in some charts and diagrams on paper in my files. Will it ever be used by any astrologer? I tested it on a few friends and family members, and the results were accurate. But I didn’t want to pursue it professionally. So, Planetics remains a newborn infant, abandoned by its parent, waiting for someone to bring it up.

END

In the 1980s I read everything D. H. Lawrence wrote, scribbling long quotes. They ended up in a manuscript, “Lorenzo in Cosmos.” It would never be published – I lost interest. Copyright permission hunting was not to be. Today I read it again and have excavated the following nuggets. The manuscript – well, into the trash it goes!

From a letter to Lady Cynthia Asquith:

But for yourself, you must learn to believe in God. Believe me, in the end, we will unite in our knowledge of God.

From a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell:

We must centre in the knowledge of the Infinite, of God.

From Psychoanalysis of the Unconscious:

Religion was right and science is wrong. Every individual creature has a soul, a specific individual nature the origin of which cannot be found in any cause-and-effect process whatever. Cause and effect will not explain even the individuality of a single dandelion.

From Fantasia of the Unconscious:

Let us pronounce the mystic Om, from the pit of the stomach, and proceed.

From Kangaroo:

Any more love is a hopeless thing, till we have found again, each of us for himself, the great dark God who alone will sustain us in our loving one another.

From St. Mawr:

To go South! Always to go South, away from the arctic horror as far as possible!

From Phoenix, “Pan in America”:

    A conquered world is no good to man. He sits stupified with boredom upon his conquest.
    We need the universe to live again, so that we can live with it. A conquered universe, a dead Pan, leaves us nothing to live with.
    You have to abandon the conquest, before Pan will live again. You have to live to live, not to conquer. What’s the good of conquering even the North Pole, if after the conquest you’ve nothing left but an inert fact? Better leave it a mystery.
    It was better to be a hunter in the woods of Pan, than it is to be a clerk in a city store. The hunter hungered, laboured, suffered tortures of fatigue. But at least he lived in a ceaseless living relation to his surrounding universe.

Below what we think we are
we are something else,
we are almost anything.

From David:

On earth move men and beasts, they nourish themselves and know not how they are alive. But in all the places moves Unseen Almighty, like a breath among the stars, or the moon, like the sea turning herself over. I eat bread, but my soul faints, and wine will not heal my bones. Nothing is good for me but God. Like waters He moves through the world, like a fish I swim in the flood of God Himself.

From “There Are Too Many People”:

Now we have to return. Now again the old Adam must lift up his face and his breast, and un-tame himself. Not in viciousness nor in wantonness, but having God within the walls of himself. In the very darkest continent of the body there is God. And from Him issue the first dark rays of our feeling, worldless, and utterly previous to words: the innermost rays, the first messengers, the primeval, honourable beasts of our being, whose voice echoes wordless and for ever wordless down the dark avenues of the soul, but full of potent speech. Our own inner meaning.
    Now we have to educate ourselves, not by laying down laws and inscribing tables of stone, but by listening. Not listening-in to noises from Chicago or Timbuktu. But listening-in to the voices of the honourable beasts that call in the dark paths in the veins of our body, from the God in the heart. Listening inwards, inwards, not for words nor for inspiration, but to the lowing of the innermost beasts, the feelings, that roam in the forest of the blood, from the feet of God within the dark, red heart.

This we know, now, for good and all: that which is good, and moral, is that which brings into us a stronger, deeper flow of life and life-energy: evil is that which impairs the life-flow.

All goals become graves.

We live in a multiple universe. I am a chick that absolutely refuses to chirp inside the monistic egg. See me walk forth, with a bit of egg-shell sticking to my tail!

The Greeks, being sane, were pantheists and pluralists, and so am I.

Too much anthropos makes the world a dull hole.

From Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine, “Him With His Tail in His Mouth”:

There are too many people on earth
insipid, unsalted, rabbity, endlessly hopping.
They nibble the face of the earth to a desert.

From “All-Knowing”:

All that we know is nothing,
we are merely crammed waste-paper baskets
unless we are in touch with that
which laughs at all our knowing.

From The Plumed Serpent:

Gods should be iridescent, like the rainbow in the storm. Man creates a God in his own image, and the gods grow old along with the men that made them. But storms sway in heaven, and the god- stuff sways high and angry over our heads. Gods die with men who have conceived them. But the god-stuff roars eternally, like the sea, with too vast a sound to be heard. Like the sea in storm, that beats against the rocks of living, stiffened men, slowly to destroy them. Or like the sea of the glimmering, ethereal plasm of the world, that bathes the feet and the knees of men as earth-sap bathes the roots of trees. Ye must be born again. Even the gods must be born again. We must be born again.

The soul! If only the soul in man, in woman, would speak to her, not always this strange, perverse materialism, or a distorted animalism. If only people were souls, and their bodies were gestures from the soul! If one could but forget both bodies and facts, and be present with strong, living souls!

From Etruscan Places:

You cannot dance gaily to the double flute and at the same time conquer nations or rake in large sums of money.

But the soul itself, the conscious spark of every creature, is not dual; and being the immortal, it is also the altar on which our mortality and our duality is at last sacrificed.

Less a few extraneous passages, this is just as I wrote it in the 1980s and ’90s.

Pandevotional Invocation

© 2019 Daniel Cooper Clark
Some Rights Reserved

Introit

UWA OAAAAH

Pandevotionalism

Nature Worships God.
1
Nature is the Being who comprises all the material atoms.
2
Nature always worships God.

Humans Are Part of Nature.
3
The human body is part of Nature – and thus is always glorifying God. (However, we don’t usually see the religion of our actions.)
4
We are souls living in human bodies. We are not atoms. We are
not God. We are particles of God. (Souls inhabit all material
life forms.)
5
The technology of the human body allows a soul to be conscious of itself as a soul and to be conscious of God as a Supersoul. (In other species the self-concept and the God-concept are species-centered.)
6
Because we sense the difference between the self and the body, we often try to force our bodies to behave in opposition to Nature’s ways. We try to imitate God’s control of Nature. (The intentions of other species are in harmony with Nature and God.)
7
But our spiritual self-awareness also makes it possible for us to freely choose our natural behavior: loving God. (Other species don’t have this freedom of choice.)

Let Us Worship God As Nature Does.
8
Our first teacher in worship is Mother Nature.
9
Let us join Nature in her worship – let us glorify God her way.

God heals us through Nature. When we join Nature’s worship of God, we are healed.

The farther we get from Nature, the farther we get from our own nature.

Sex must not be repressed from outside, but rather transformed from within. If it is repressed from outside it breaks out of its bonds as war and other forms of self destruction. If it is transformed from within it grows into a flower of love for God.

Like a flow of force that revolves around a magnetic stone in loops of energy, God’s Glory radiates out from matter’s spiritual heart (which is also the transcendental world) and returns back to that source carrying with it, if we desire, our own rapturous voices added to the cosmic chorus of “Glory to God! Glory to God!” – the song of the atom, the planet, and the breathing universal mass.

First you exploit Nature – and she punishes you. Then you reject Nature – and she seduces you. Then you embrace Nature – and she instructs you. Then you respect Nature – and she takes you to God. Then you serve God according to the ways of Nature. Last, Nature and God welcome you back home.

I don’t want to change matter to spirit. Matter is already spirit. It’s already serving God. The universe vibrates with the sound of the celestial choir, giving Glory to God. Why try to change that? What needs to be changed is not matter, but me: consciousness, awareness. Matter, the Mater, is in harmony with God, the Pater. The only disharmony is sin. Matter doesn’t sin. I do. My attention and efforts are correctly directed toward myself. To change the person, not the atom. I now accept Nature as she is. I now merge my body into the flow of Glory that courses through the transparent atoms of the creation. I stop stamping an insignia of my own devising upon the ecstatic configurations of the Earth. I follow the route of Glory mapped upon the innocent face of a rock. My only work is to glorify God. Not to be an alchemist. I only sort, select, and indicate. Perhaps because of what I do others will merge with the Glory too. But that change is up to them. All I do is glorify.

Close to Nature, close to God.

Nature is defined by its praise of God. Humans join Nature when they glorify God. But their worship must be in consonance with Nature’s ways for it to be genuine. Humans, alone among creatures, can defy the ways of Nature, even while they’re supposedly loving God. Minerals, plants, and non-human animals are sinless. They have no choice but to act as part of God’s plan. So it’s good for humans to study them and the way they praise – for inspiration, not imitation. The purpose isn’t to reincarnate as a whale, but to go to the world beyond reincarnation.

Religion is particular, not universal. “Universal religion” is a journey taken only within one’s mind, leading to an idea of God, not God the person. One must submit to a particular path – to its limitations, its absurdities. The apparently ridiculous and arbitrary details of a sect are the vital twists and turns of a path that leads to God. You can’t speed through on a highway. You can’t fly over in an airplane. You must patiently follow the trail a step at a time. The path has a personality – just as God does – and learning to love person-ness makes up the greatest part of the work of spiritual life.

Human apes, in contrast to other apes, have a choice. They can use their “new” brains either to imitate or to meditate. They can imitate other animals and imitate God, or they can meditate to gain awareness of themselves. The imitators mimic the other animals and change from fueling their life with spirit to fueling it with matter. (That is, they start eating.) They impersonate God and strive for world dominance. The meditators stay true to their divine physiology. They remain non-eaters and develop self- knowledge, spiritual philosophy, and religion. The meditators praise the power of God. The imitators want to possess it. One way is peace, the other is war.

The agent of the disease is also the agent of the cure. And that agent, no matter how cleverly disguised, is the self. The true function of doctor and medicine is to awaken the self’s self- curative powers and thus initiate the self into the process of spiritual growth.

God is a person, souls are persons, and atoms are persons. The natural activity of souls and atoms is to glorify God.

Growth comes from attachment, as a tree grows when firmly rooted.

The Earth, of which my body is a part, meditates on God.

The Locality is the sacrament, the matter-that-is-spirit, with which my mind and body can merge so I can be liberated from my false consciousness into the world of reality. When matter harmonizes with matter, the soul returns to God.

Food is poison. Eating, an addiction. The ideal is non-eating. To develop toward the ideal, the standard is motion, not fullness. Eat for process, not stasis. Keep it moving. Don’t clog the system. The best foods are those that flow: fruit juices, and finally, air. Flow, not full. Body as pipe, not pouch.

There is no Void. Existence allows no exceptions to its rule. Existence is everything – and everything is a person. God is a person, souls are persons, and atoms are persons. In the material world, space is a person (a replica of God) and is occupied by persons. Some of those persons are temporal atoms (replicas of the Goddess) who combine together as the substance of material bodies. And some of them are souls who are identifying with material bodies. When the souls regain awareness of their real identities, they are freed to return to the spiritual world.

The person-ness of the soul is identical to that of God in quality, but not in quantity. God is the whole, and the soul is a part.

Nature (the integration of spatial mind and atomic bodies) is in love with God. All natural entities are glorifying God – each according to its own way. By joining this cosmic chorus, humans enter into the world of God. Life becomes itself at last.

The first stage of human society is the Edenic stage of Communion. Humans-in-Communion are busy with the culturing of consciousness, not material advancement. Except for the young they are largely independent materially. But spiritually they’re so interdependent that they act almost as one person, so intense is their concern for each other’s devotional life. These happy humans relate most strongly to those in close proximity and identify their small groups with the Locality they inhabit. However, since their subtle powers are so well developed, they are in communion with other devotees around the universe. They pay little attention to food, shelter, clothing, fire, tools, production, consumption, or possessions.

Before the first social stage of Communion, humans don’t eat at all. Their bodies are vitalized by their thoughts and by natural energies in unchanged states. That is, their skin touches the ground, they bathe in clean water, they breathe deeply fresh outdoor air, sunlight pours onto their unclothed bodies, and in meditation they contact etheric essences. They live ecstatically with a total absence of food, shelter, clothing, fire, tools, production, consumption, and possessions. They each have a Private Religion. There is no social grouping. Solitude is the norm.

A lot of people are talking about “healing the Earth.” That sounds good, but to tell you the truth I think we should allow the Earth to heal us. With us set right, the disease is over. Emerson said, “The happiest man is he who learns from Nature the lesson of worship.” Nature heals us souls by teaching us how to love God. The mind, the body, the locality, the earth, the universe all teach the souls. In learning from them how to revere God we also revere them. We accept Nature’s way of doing things. That way is one of devotion, part of which is devotion to Nature as a teacher, not exploitation of Nature as a slave. “Healing the Earth” might just be more meddling. Hands off! Then both the Earth and the souls are healed.

The most immediate “region” I “inhabit” (using Bioregionalist terms) is the mind. The material environment closest to the soul is the mind. Just as each ecosystem has a character all its own, so does each species’ kind of mind. The uniqueness of the human mind is its potential for being conscious of being conscious. It can be self-realized and ultimately God-realized. This defines the human relationship with the total environment, which is to involve it through consciousness in a religious life.

Study Nature. Not the kind of study you find in science, that analyzes Nature. Or in sex, that enjoys Nature. Or in art, that re-creates Nature. It’s a different kind of study – Pandevotionalism – that seeks to learn how to join Nature in its worship of God. Nature is the Glory of God, streaming out of God and yet rushing towards God. Emanating from God yet embracing God. By studying how Nature worships God I hope to learn the ways of Love and take part in that praise.

I need to feel that my mind and body are temperamentally the same as my immediate natural surroundings. When they are, then I easily join the locality’s worship of God. To me this is a Pandevotional imperative.

When my bare feet walk my local ground, the contact of skin and soil creates an energy flow like an electrical current. The current of my mind travels through dermis to dirt and out to the whole planet. Getting to know the Earth in my locality introduces me to the Earth as a planet. I can’t know the whole all at once abstractly or through a mental simulation. I can only know the whole by way of the part – because my body is a part of the part. This is my understanding of the slogan, “Act locally and think globally.”

One test for the suitability of an area as a place of residence is to ask what would the region be like if “deprived” of the agricultural – industrial – technological superstructure. Would I feel at home in such a place?

The soul must respect the material body and the rest of Nature as a principle higher than the soul, because Nature acts as an intermediary between the soul and the Godhead. The material body is a cooperation of two factors: a spatial form – which comes from God – and temporal atoms – which come from the Goddess. The relation of form to atoms may also be expressed as wave to particles, singular to plural, male to female, space to time, or reason to intuition. The integration of God and Goddess on an imminent level is Nature and on a transcendent level is the Godhead. The material body is an expression of the inherent love within the Godhead. For the soul who wishes to glorify the Godhead eternally, the temporary material body is a source of wisdom. Nature is a pathway to the Beyond.

Hands off Nature! Do not disturb. In Sanskrit this is called ahimsa, which is usually translated as “non-violence,” but which literally means “non-interference.” Don’t interfere – live in harmony with Nature’s ways.

Each kind of animal, plant, and mineral body has a special way to worship God, based on the unique character of that body. The unique character of the human body is the feature of its nervous system that allows the soul to be aware of its awareness – or to be aware of itself as awareness. Physiologically this has been called the “feedback loop” of the brain. No other kind of body has it. Only the human body. It gives us the ability to reflect on reflection itself, to develop self-knowledge, to understand that we are not material bodies but spiritual bodies (souls). A wolf has a self-concept, but a physical one: a wolf thinks of itself as a wolf. A human can think of itself as a soul. A soul in a human body can dis-identify itself away from the material body and find out what it really is.

Pandevotionalism encourages the soul to consider Nature as a bridge of worship over which the soul may cross to reach the ultimate eternal state. The soul is not to think of itself as Nature, or matter. Still, the soul takes part in Nature’s praise of God – as a training program, an introduction to an eternal life in love with God.

Picture yourself standing at the edge of a chasm cutting through a plateau. Spanning the chasm from your side to the other side is a bridge made of five sections proceeding in this order: Mind, Body, Locality, Planet, and Cosmos. This is the Bridge of Pandevotionalism. The atoms and patterns that make up the bridge always worship God. The Soul may use this bridge to go to God.

Pandevotionalism presents matter as a path to spirit. Its relation to Theism is divided. The two are similar in their emphasis on worshiping a transcendent and personal God, but dissimilar in their opinion of Nature. Theism offers a path to God which is made up of souls and their teachings (saints, gurus, scriptures). In Pandevotionalism though, the devotee approaches God by way of atoms, forms, and their teachings (“the music of the spheres”). Theists tend to reject Nature, often condemning it as Satanic. Pandevotionalists revere Nature and want to obey her. Theism is a suitable religious attitude for those who like to build religious institutions. Pandevotionalism is always a Private Religion – individualistic, poetic, and wild.

People who practice religion usually say that of the two, the soul and the body, the soul is greater. But I say that the body is greater than the soul. The body is part of Nature. But, they say, the soul is better than Nature. No, I say, Nature is better than the soul. Why? Because Nature worships God without interruption, whereas the soul’s worship turns on and off. The body loves God more than the soul does. Let us – we souls – learn from our bodies.

How We Live is the essence of ecology for us. How we set our own “house” (mind-body) in order. If the soul allows the mind and the body to go “back to Nature,” then Nature becomes a bridge over which the soul can journey to the divine destination.

On the third day of Spring
my head disappeared
and the Sun took its place.
My body didn’t walk but flew –
I wasn’t on the Earth
but on the surface of the Universe,
and the space around me
was the smiling face of God.

The Ethic of Worship

In their relationship with God, souls always have a choice between reality and illusion. Choosing to worship God allows souls to perceive reality and be good. Choosing to envy God allows souls to perceive illusion and be evil. The two paths are mutually exclusive. Good souls can’t see illusion, and evil souls can’t see reality.

Worship involves admiring God and taking pleasure in God’s control of everything. Envy involves being jealous of God and wanting to take pleasure in one’s own control of everything. “Everything” includes God’s attributes: power, beauty, ownership, knowledge, fame, and transcendence. Worshipers glorify those attributes as signs of God’s greatness. Enviers want those attributes for themselves. Worshipers desire to praise God. Enviers desire to be God.

Whether souls are worshiping or envying, they are always choosing. The path they take is up to them. Freedom, and thus responsibility, is an essential feature of the soul. Freedom of choice is not harmful. Even envy itself, which must reside within the soul in order to be chosen, is not harmful in its potential state.

Choosing one path or the other has its consequences. Worship leads to God (one reality) and envy leads to Not-God (many illusions). Worship and the goal of God form the poles of an axis along which coalesce a number of attributes. They may be analyzed sequentially as: being a part of God, having a strong sense of self, courage, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding, attachment, growth, and love of life. Envy and the goal of Not-God engender a sequence of attitudes contrary to the above: being apart from God, having a weak sense of self, fearfulness, hate, rejection, ignorance, detachment, atrophy, and a yearning for death.

Action based on worship gives rise to life and health. Action based on envy is cause for death and diseases. All physical and mental sickness comes from enviousness, which resides in the soul and is not derived from any external influence. The only medicine to cure any disease can be found within one’s self, in the choice of worship of God. Choosing worship is the essential therapy for all diseases.

Worship, to be genuine, must be chosen at every moment. The soul must be aware of the eternal responsibility that derives from the eternal presence of both good and evil within the soul. Evil is a necessity. There has to be a Not-God for the soul to not-choose in order for its choice of God to be free. Souls are defined by their liberty. In the Sanskrit terminology of the Bhagavata philosophy souls are categorized as tatastha-shakti, which means “the power that is on the dividing line between two greater powers.” We are never liberated from our responsibility to choose liberation. True religion is always ethical.

False religion, which pretends to be worship of God but demands that its followers hand over their power of choice to human authorities, is always unethical and never accomplishes any therapy of soul, mind, or body. False religion seduces souls into believing that they are either all good or all evil. In either circumstance the souls are robbed of responsibility. Determinism, fatalism, and blind obedience take over. The good slaves of Jehovah battle against the evil slaves of Satan, neither army ever winning. When will the slaves learn that the meaningful battle is between slavery and freedom? The officers of both Jehovah and Satan vigorously condemn free choice. Obedience is the military rule. Thus we are tricked into continuing the war, to the advantage of our captors.

The soul in a rare moment of metaphysical suspension can see itself as all potentiality: half potential-brightness, half potential-shadow. Through action the soul makes the potential into the actual. The choice must be made, for the soul must act. In action the soul becomes either all actual-light or all actual-darkness. Or, to be more correct, I should say that with each act the soul is either good or evil, and most of us jump back and forth between the two. So in action, which is our natural life, we do not straddle the fence. We choose sides. But to go over to the sunny side and stay there, we have to be ever-mindful of the potentiality of the murky side. The cleverest of evil’s tricks is the illusion that we have only one side. The conventional “minions of the Devil” consider themselves to be all-bad, and the false worshipers consider themselves to be all-good, which is even worse. As the speaker of the Isha Upanishad put it, “those who worship darkness go to hell, and those who worship light go to a worse hell.” The soul is always on the dividing line, and we must never forget that.

An ethical worship brings the shadow-self to God. Not just the radiant-self. God loves the whole soul, not just half. Our daily worship is ethical only when it embraces our baser urges, for in that embrace those tendencies stop warring against our peaceful, forgiving nature. It is as if evil wants nothing more than to be accepted by goodness. When it is, it turns benign. Of course it takes a powerful goodness to be able to get so close to evil and not be taken in by it. Most goodness that apparently achieves such a strength of purpose is still bent on destroying evil. Only the most courageous soul can stand face to face with its own evil, not be seduced by the Great Deceiver, know how sinister that darkness is, and yet forgive it, accept it, understand it wholly, indeed even become attached to it, and reach in evil’s night the source of the soul’s own growth to an eternal daytime of glorifying God. A seed germinates in darkness before it flowers in the sun’s light. And the roots stay buried as long as life goes on. The dirt remains dirt. It is not transformed, but rather provides the context within which the seed’s transformation takes place. Likewise, the potential-evil within the liberated soul is never anything else but evil. It is not changed when the soul worships God – it provides the context within which the soul can change by choosing to worship.

Worship and envy co-exist in the liberated soul. But most of us haven’t liberated ourselves yet. For us, it is still important to clarify the difference in the psychologies of the two.

The simplest difference is that one way leads to happiness, the other to misery. The sequence of attitudes issuing from envy is an undesirable one. Fear, hatred, rejection, ignorance, and so on make for an unhappy life. They are problems. When I choose envy, I choose problems. I perceive my world from the viewpoint of envy and see all situations as problems. I don’t see any solutions. But if I look at my life from the viewpoint of worship, all I see are solutions: courage, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding. When I choose worship, I choose joy. An envier has no joy. A worshipper has no problems. An envier tries to “solve problems,” which only results in more problems. To see all situations, even painful ones, as joys, is the worshiper’s choice. God is always a positive force and so is the worshiper. Situations help the worshiper grow. Situations are “material,” but matter can be a pathway to spirit.

Finally I want to emphasize that The Ethic of Worship calls its adherents to respect the power of choice in people who have other inclinations. Particularly, in trying to share The Ethic of Worship with others, the worshipers are best advised to see themselves as presenters and not persuaders. I cannot teach someone how to choose properly. We all learn the art of choosing through our own experience. It doesn’t do any good to force The Ethic of Worship down anyone’s throat, especially since the ethic states that it depends on free acceptance for its effectiveness. It must be chosen freely or it has no benefit. The illness doesn’t come from envy but from the choice of envy. Therefore the cure doesn’t come from worship but from the choice of worship. What I can do then is to help make available a form of worship that people can choose when they want to.

Pandevotionalism and Bhagavata

For eleven years, from 1967 through 1977, I studied, taught, and administered a religion from India. It has many names. Here I’ll use the term Bhagavata. My teacher in Bhagavata was His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

After the devotional life itself, my next major interest in Bhagavata was its analysis of the material world. My previous awareness of God had largely come to me by way of Nature. The Bhagavata cosmology, it seemed to me, would provide a philosophical basis for my experiences. This hunch proved to be accurate. The confirmation came in this way.

Atomism – the proposition that the cosmos in all its complexity is made of identical irreducible particles variously combined – makes one of its earliest appearances in Bhagavata literature. The Bhagavata Purana ( 3.11.1-4) states that the basic, indivisible material particle is the paramanu (supreme small). This particle is further defined by Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada as “the minute subtle form of eternal time.” Text 3 says that kala is the vibhuh of bhagavan, that is, Time is the all-penetrating Power of God. The atom is the minute form of a universal energy we call “time.”

Before I’d considered that, I’d had no trouble conceiving that as a particle, an atom is a form in space. But when I tried to understand how its substance – what it is a form of – is Time, my comprehension fell short. Is time a “thing?” Is time “stuff?”

Two other scriptural references helped me out of my bewilderment. First, Swami Bhaktivedanta elsewhere in his commentary of the Purana states flatly that in Bhagavata “everything is person.” I took this at face value – whatever we may conventionally think of as a “thing” is on its own terms a person. Bhaktivedanta has given the name Personalism to his philosophical approach.

Equipped with this tool of thought, I was able to combine the two concepts and posit that Time is a person, that an atom is a minute form of the person Time, and that to get to rock-bottom all I’d have to do would be to identify the particular person whose name is Time.

In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna in his Universal Form calls himself Time (“the destroyer of the worlds”). I didn’t reject that personification. But I had to go on and find the specific atomic Time energy related to Krishna.

My search ended in 1973 when I found her. She is Kala (“Time” in Sanskrit), or more completely Kala-Shakti (“Time-Energy”), the consort of Garbhodakashayi Vishnu. This Vishnu – there are many Vishnus – floats on the surface of the cosmic ocean. Clinging to the stem of a lotus that grows from his navel are the galaxies of the universe. Ever beside him is Kala-Shakti. As far as I know, the Purana says nothing about her role in cosmic affairs. But there she is, the vast form of eternal time. One might call her Mother Nature, since Vishnu is the father of the natural world. She replicates herself to become the stuff of the universe. The atom is a minute version of her form – an infinitesmal Kala-Shakti.

Each atom is a feminine person. Each atom is a Goddess.

This concrete personalization of matter helped me to cut through much of the abstract philosophizing the topic of Nature is subjected to – not only in current thought but also in the Bhagavata literature itself.

In the Gita especially the designation of matter as God’s “inferior nature” (contrasted with the soul as “superior”) gets a lot of emphasis. The psychology of the Gita stresses that the superior soul must conquer inferior matter. The higher self, the soul, must conquer the lower self, the body.

But if the atom is an aspect of a person who is the consort of God, a person who loves and serves God – as Kala-Shakti does – then how can matter, the body, Nature, be considered less worthy than the soul? Why should we be enjoined to conquer her? Isn’t she more powerful, and more pure, than we souls are?

Granted, by her play of illusions the fallen soul is kept trapped in its own foolish dreams of dominance. But she is blameless. Bhaktivedanta, in his purports, calls her job a “thankless task.” This points to devotion, not demonism.

Nature serves God and loves God eternally. How much better than we souls who usually manage at best a love-hate affair with the Deity. Rather than attempt to conquer her (a hopeless task) shouldn’t we take steps to respect her? To learn from Nature, the unwavering servant of God, how to praise, glorify, worship the Lord?

The great fear of the proponents of renunciation is that by honoring matter in any way, people will fall deeper into illusion. But as long as we keep in mind the realization that we are souls, not atoms, and not God – as long as we dis-identify the soul away from the body (a kind of “conquering,” perhaps) – there’s no reason to fear. In fact dis-identification becomes an opportunity for a reverence toward Nature as a higher principle than the soul. The principle is constancy of devotion to God. Is that illusion? No. It is the only reality. The soul can enter into it by understanding that the atom is a person.

Bhagavata Personalism, put in this way, forms the basis of my philosophy of Nature. I’ve given my approach the name Pandevotionalism.

Now we may proceed further into the mystery.

Siddhanta Saraswati, the guru of Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada, states in Shri Chaitanya’s Teachings: “The individual human souls are dissociable particles of the predominated moiety … Shri Radhika is the source of all individual souls … The individual souls serve Shri Krishna as constituents of Shri Radhika … The absolute nature of the personality of Shri Radhika is fully on a level with the absolute personality of Shri Krishna. Shri Krishna is the consort of Shri Radhika. The absolute is pair and singular person … Shri Radhika is at once identical with and distinct from Shri Krishna.”

Since Siddhanta Saraswati leaves it ambiguous whether She or He is the source of the other, why do I go ahead and claim She is the One? Because Radha is the embodiment of love and service.

Love, devotion, service, worship is the source of everything. It is why everything exists, the central core of being.

Service requires someone to serve, to honor and celebrate. So Radha manifests Krishna to be the dominant person. She is the servant, but She is the source. Her desire to worship is the engine that powers reality. Yin is the source of Yang. The feminine is the “default” mode of existence. She creates the masculine to get things going. She is the power, the shakti, behind the throne. He is the Lord, the ruler, the controller. She gives up those aspects of herself to him. She surrenders. That is love.

That love is the energy that powers reality.

She wants us to worship Him, too. She’s set it up that way. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada said that “Hare Krishna” means “Mother Hara, please help me achieve the grace of the supreme father, Hari.” It’s a prayer to the supreme feminine. The supreme masculine is God. It is necessary and natural for us to worship His greatness. But even greater is the supreme mother of worship – the Goddess.

The Goddess is the mother of God and the source of everything.

Pandevotional Voices

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Nature is what we know –
Yet have no art to say –
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.
(Emily Dickinson, #668)

All of creation is a song of praise to God.
(Hildegard of Bingen)

And Hemlocks – bow – to God.
(Emily Dickinson, #475)

The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.
(H. D. Thoreau, Walden)

Each atom, each molecule, each organism is a prayer.
(Donald St. John)

Creation is allowed, in intimate love, to speak to the Creator as if to a lover.
(Hildegard of Bingen)

Let the floods clap their hands…
(Psalm 98.8)

Creation not only exists, it also discharges truth.
(Gerhard von Rad)

As the creator loves his creation, so creation loves the creator.
(Hildegard of Bingen)

I invite you to join me in a month’s worship with Nature in the high temples of the great Sierra Crown beyond our holy Yosemite.
(John Muir, letter to R. W. Emerson)

Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord.
(Psalm 98:8-9)

The hills are alive with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years.
(Oscar Hammerstein II)

The simple News that Nature told –
With tender Majesty
Her message is committed
To Hands I cannot see –
(Emily Dickinson, #441)

I am convinced that all beings need to worship.
(Erazim Kohak, The Embers and the Stars)

The blowing wind, the mild, moist air, the exquisite greening of trees and grasses – in their beginning, in their ending, they give God their praise.
(Hildegard of Bingen)

Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
(Psalm 148:7-10)

Creation feels drawn to her creator as she responds to him in service. (Hildegard of Bingen)

But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
(Job 12:7-9)

When I prayed in my heart, everything about me appeared to be pleasing and lovely. It was as though the trees, the grass, the birds, the earth, the air and the light were saying that everything prayed, and praised God.
(The Candid Narrations of a Pilgrim to His Spiritual Father, 1884)

Let the field exult, and everything in it!
(Psalm 96:12)

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it…
(Psalm 98:7)

Heaven and earth, and all creation, laud and magnify his name.
(Hymn of the Foundling Hospital, 1796)

Every creature is a word of God and is a book about God.
(Meister Eckhart)

The aspect of Nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
(R. W. Emerson, Nature)

In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze – Amen!
(Emily Dickinson, #18)

There seemed to rise a Tune
From Miniature Creatures
Accompanying the Sun –
Far Psalteries of Summer –
Enamoring the Ear
They never yet did satisfy-
(Emily Dickinson, #606)

No wilderness in the world is so desolate as to be without divine ministers. God’s love covers all the earth as the sky covers it, and also fills it in every pore. And this love has voices heard by all who have ears to hear.
(John Muir, Journal, March 12, 1873)

Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord.
(Psalm 96:12-13)

O never harm the dreaming world,
the world of green, the world of leaves,
but let its million palms unfold
the adoration of the trees…
(Kathleen Raine)

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
(Psalm 19:1-4)

Have you not seen how all in the Heavens and on the Earth utter the praise of God? The very birds as they spread their wings? Every creature know its prayer and its praise! And God knows what they do.
(The Q’uran)

Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
(Psalm 148:3-4)

What a psalm the storm was singing … how sweet the still small voices of the storm!
(John Muir, Stickeen)

Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves therein.
(Psalm 69:34)

What praise songs pour forth from the white chambers of the falls!
(John Muir, Journal, December 16, 1869)

Every tree seemed religious and conscious of the presence of God.
(John Muir, Our National Parks)

All of creation resounds with song,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
Stars in the heavens, waters below,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
O wind and rain, fire and snow,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
Spring and Summer, Winter and Fall,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever

All of creation resounds with joy,
praising the Lord, praise Him forever
Praise Him who holds all life in His hands,
praise Him, praise Him forever

Let all the Earth, resound with joy,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
All ye green things, upon the Earth,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
Let all the creatures, raise up their songs
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
All ye children of Mother Earth,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
(Susan Osborne and Paul Winter,
adapted from the Book of Common Prayer)

This is my Father’s world
And to my listening ears
All nature sings and round me rings
The music of the spheres
(children’s hymn)

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
(Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows)

In God’s creation, even among inanimate things, their very shadows turn around right and left, prostrating themselves to God in the humblest manner. And all that is in heaven and on earth, whether moving creatures or angels, gives obeisance to God, for none are arrogant before their lord. They all revere their lord, high above them, and they do all that they are commanded.
(Qur’an 16.48-50)

The seven heavens and the earth, and all beings therein, declare his glory. There is not a thing but celebrates his praise.
(Qur’an 17.44)

Don’t you see that the birds with their outspread wings, and all beings in heaven and on earth, celebrate the praise of God? Each one knows its own mode of prayer and praise. And God knows well that they do.
(Qur’an 24.41)

What I know of the divine sciences and holy scriptures, I learned in the woods and the fields. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks. Listen to a man of experience: you will learn more in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you more than you can acquire from the mouth of a magister.
(St. Bernard of Clairvaux)

The book of scripture is the interpreter of the book of nature.
(Jonathan Edwards)

It may indeed be phantasy, when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be, and if the wise world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Nature’s intent is neither food, nor drink, nor clothing, nor comfort, nor anything else from which God is left out. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly Nature seeks and hunts and tries to ferret out the track in which God may be found.
(Meister Eckhart)

Spiritual Structures

God and Goddess are simultaneously one and different. The same is true of God and Souls, and of Goddess and Souls. Everything is singular yet plural. The whole is one independent entity but it is made up of parts which are also free entities. And while each part is a discrete unit, it also contains within itself the multiplicities. A part is a miniature whole. The whole is a magnitudinous part. Fusing it all together is the Love shared by God, Goddess, and Souls – Love, which is the core of existence. Both oneness and difference derive their power, meaning, and life from Love. Love is all there is. It would be tempting to say that “Love is One,” but Love is beyond analysis and beyond categories such as One or Many. Love is inscrutable, always mysterious. Love defeats the philosophers. Love finds its own way. Love conquers by secret strategies. Love conquers even God. Nobody knows what Love is but everybody wants it. There is no adequate definition for Love but every language has a word for it. Is Love a hoax? An illusion? Sometimes we feel that way when the world falls apart. But then Love puts it back together again – Love is triumphant – yet invisible – and we start once again our search for Love. Even God worships Love. God, Goddess, and Souls are always in Love.

Mind is form – Body is content. Mind needs something to think about – Body needs something to occupy. Mind is one – Body is many. Mind feels empty without Body – Body feels scattered without Mind. Mind is wave – Body is particles. Mind gives motion – Body gives in. Mind is husband – Body is wife. And the Soul is the priest who marries them.

Consciousness contemplates concepts’ content contacting Locality. Consciousness is the Soul, which contemplates the concepts of the Mind, whose content is the Body, which makes contact with the Locality, which is a mirror – reflecting back to the parts the whole of which they are parts – so that the Body sees itself in Love with the Earth, the Mind sees itself in Love with the Cosmos, and the Soul sees itself in Love with God. Like the quiet surface of a tidal pool, the Locality is a mirror for the soul wherein it contemplates itself and God in Love.

The individual mind is the localized form of the general cosmos. The general cosmos is the extended form of the individual mind. The general cosmos manifests itself severally as the individual minds, so all individuals in the cosmos are of one general mind.

One’s mind is a part of the universe, identical in substance to it. The universe is a replica of God as Form. Form is God, space, wave, mind, structure, cosmos. Occupying Form is Content. Content is Goddess, time, particles, body, atom, planet. The body is made of atoms – the mind is made of form. The mind structures the atoms into a bodily shape. The form of the body is the mind. Conversely, the form of the planets is the cosmos. The cosmos structures the planets into a universal shape. The planets are made of atoms – the cosmos is made of form. One’s body is a part of the planet, identical in substance to it.

The soul is motion, direction, purpose, urge, desire, life. The soul undulates. Undulating motion gives rise to sound. Sound is consciousness. Movement is primary – sound is secondary. As the sun radiates heat, so does the soul radiate sound. The sun is a person: so is the soul. A person is freedom, choice, movement. Moving gesture precedes speech as language. Dance precedes music. Moving bodies make the wave-sounds of breath. Undulation is life and lives at the source of religion. Glory-waves flow out from God and return, pulsing, vibrating, ecstatically praising God. Our worship is primal in organic undulation.

Worship gushes, erupts, radiates. Inside becomes outside continually. Worship is the secret central force that drives all creativity. Worship that is pure is always creative – never mere repetition. Worship rushes out from the unknown to the known and so is always new and freely invented. Rituals grow and change. God is always expanding and worship of God always expands too. God creates worshipers and worshipers create worship of God. It’s not art. Art makes objects. Worship has no object except God.

The least important things are the most important things.

Desire is the support of the world, not money or products or machines.

The mathematical concept of zero is the big illusion that allows us our little illusion of control.

To be humble, be close to the humus.

To be worth anything you must be in a place on the brink of the unknown, on the edge of outer space.

One fruitarian is worth a thousand lobbyists.

My Mantras

1946
There were thousands of them but there was only one!

1949
Whenever Billy Batson, famous boy newscaster, says the word “SHAZAM,” he is miraculously changed into powerful Captain Marvel, the world’s mightiest mortal, who combines in his magnificent physique the powers of six of the mightiest heros of all time!
Solomon…wisdom Hercules…strength Atlas…stamina Zeus…power Achilles…courage Mercury…speed
(copyright 1949 Fawcett Publications, Inc.)

1966
I have no idea.

1966
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

1978
Sun shine down on me.
Please burn up my misery.

1979
Waves come rolling up along the shore.
Waves go sliding down along the sand.
They don’t stop – they’re coming back
for more – guided by an invisible hand.

1979
Just keep on loving
Just keep on loving
Don’t get off the track
If they don’t love you back
Just keep on loving

1982
vishnu bokh tao jehovah ahuramazda manitou
dios butsu chaitanya allah wakantanka jesu

1983
All is life and light and love,
and love loves loving love.

1984
I am the glory of God,
and God’s glory glorifies God.

1987
We’re walking to God, we’re walking to God,
We’re walking to God today.
We’re walking to God, we’re walking to God,
We’re walking to God to stay.

1988
O glory to God

1990
I worship the Moon
and bow to the Sun.
I worship you too,
and everyone.

1990
Put your hands up,
put your feet down,
put your heart in God.

1991
Mahaprabhu Yugavatar
Gaura Hari Gaurasundar
Nimai Pandit Vishwambara
Sachinandan Radha Krishna

1991
Lost in contemplation on the body of God,
offer your desire to be God to God.

1992
Oh, have nothing of yourself.
Oh, just observe.
And trust and serve.

1992
Glory in the glory of God!

Shoon

Shoon, the old woman who told stories, smiled at the children.

“Night is the time to be close to Osari,” she whispered.

The shadows of the leaves moved away from her face. The children could see her black eyes shining in the moon’s light. It was their first time with her. Their first night away from the familiar trees that had sheltered them since birth.

“Osari, from whom we all come,” she continued.

Even those children, in their fourth year, had heard a lot about Osari. That name was the sound repeated by the midwife as they’d left their mother’s womb. It was the principle word of the songs intoned by the chorus in the wide-branching tree in the center of the communion. Osari, the hero. Osari, the lover. Osari, the god. But also two people: a woman and a man. In that case it was Osa the queen and Ri the king. And again a change: Osari was the source, and nothing that any human being could ever know.

At four years, the contradictions didn’t matter. They gladly accepted that Osari was all those things. But of course, questions would come. And doubts. They knew that. They’d heard some bigger children talking. Saying bad things about Osari.

Shoon understood their need for strong conviction. Every year at this time she became the most important member of the communion. During the days of the year when the sunrise was approaching its earliest hour, she’d been receiving a succession of mothers and fathers at her tree for talks about the four year olds. She and the parents had made an arrangement. Shoon would take care of the children from the next full moon to the one after. Each night there would be a different story.

Tonight was the first story.

“In the time of the Old Ones,” she began, “the communion was usually silent. Nobody talked. They made some sounds. Like singing. But no words. Can you imagine that? Some say each person knew what the others were thinking. So they had no need to talk. Or some say none of them cared about the others. Because they all stayed apart from one another. And would sit alone for years thinking about Osari.

“But we say that they did care about each other. They did tell each other things. Not with words, but by moving themselves around. Mostly their hands. They also moved their legs and eyes and their whole bodies. It was dancing. You’ve seen the chorus dance. Well, that was how the Old Ones talked.

“What did they talk about? Of course, it was long ago. We don’t know much about them. But the dances we have, the dances the chorus does, are all stories. Maybe the Old Ones danced stories and apart from that didn’t pay attention to one another. Maybe. We only know a few things about them.

“One thing we do know is, they didn’t eat. Most of them, anyway. After they nursed from their mothers, they had no interest in food. They drank water, that’s all.

“Eating is what one of the dances is about. Here’s the story.

“Once there were two sets of twins born from the same mother, a year apart. A girl and boy, and another girl and boy.

“The first twins were like all the rest of the people in the trees. Even when they were little infants – like you were, not long ago – they hardly ever cried. They felt the earth praising Osari. Nobody had to tell them it was happening. And with their little arms and legs they moved in the dance of the earth as best they could. To them, the humming sounds of the humans in the trees were the same as the whistles of the birds and the roars of the big, sleek cats and the boom-boom of the footfalls of the dragons. It was all one song for Osari.

“The second twins were different. Oh, they were smart. Very smart. Their eyes darted quickly, noticing everything. They tilted their heads to the side with little jerks, full of questions.

“Animals were most interesting to them. The second twins spent hours watching the big animals and following the little animals. They looked carefully. And what they saw, they imitated. After a while they could hang on a branch like a sloth. Or swing on a vine like a monkey. Or spring up with their legs like a cricket. Animal calls, too, they learned to imitate.

“As they grew older and stopped nursing, the second twins did something odd. When the buffalo grazed, the twins also bit at the blades of grass and chewed them. Tasting the juice, they became curious.

“No matter how many times the people in their communion would take grass and berries and seeds out of their mouths, the twins would do it again. There was no stopping them.

“To the first twins, that was upsetting. They were meditators, not imitators. To them the earth was a dancer to follow, not something to chew and swallow. Yes, other animals ate. That was part of the dance. But what humans did was to praise and worship and glorify it all. That was their part.

“The older twins moved their hands to their sister and brother. If they’d been using words they would have been saying:

“‘We are the children of Osa and Ri. The earth is part of our family. Our pleasure is to feel devotion and awe. We dance with nature. That is our law.’

“The younger twins answered them:

“‘We are all Osas, we are all Ris. The earth is ours to eat as we please. Grasses and seeds we grind up with our jaws. We dance with our food held tight in our paws.’

“The second twins were told they had to leave the communion. They wanted to leave anyway. And they found others like them fairly close by. So, the food eaters started a new kind of group among themselves.

“But without any law, they fought over their food. In their anger, they all went away and wandered back to their old communions.

“Their mothers and fathers took pity on them and let them stay. Nobody liked having them around. But the people accepted it as their fate.

“You children know that now we all eat. The law has changed. Osari lets us eat fruits. But nothing else. I tell you that your descendants will eat other things. Osari will make new laws for them. Osari is merciful.

“Be thankful that our communion is the way it is. Even though we have our troubles, we are happier and more peaceful than people are going to be.

“Go to sleep, children. And dream about Osari.”

Shoon helped them nestle into the leaves. It is good, she thought.

Tomorrow night she would tell them how talking started.

Reality 81

Among the world’s faiths, Bengali Vaishnavism has had the biggest influence on me. I’ve adopted its theological premises as my own. But I’m not a Bengali. I’m an American. Am I a Vaishnava? Yes, but also I’m a Unitarian, which is how I started out in this lifetime.

I base my religion on what I know. What I’m familiar with. What I perceive directly. The here and now. The events of my life. The place where I stand. That is where I am confident, and what I have faith in.

What I know initially is Pandevotionalism. I feel the spirit of the Earth rushing through me to glorify God. I want to join Nature in its praise.

Then, what I know finally is Vaishnavism. Through the grace of my guru, I know that God is Radha-Krishna.

From that knowledge has grown my Reality, briefly expressed in the following 81 entries.

1
The wheel of birth and death revolves around and around. The only answer to its riddle is to gain liberation from the prison of dualities by fixing my consciousness on the one solid spiritual existence beyond the many vaporous illusions of the material world. That is the meaning, purpose, and hope of life.

2
Meditate on God and worship God.

3
Devotion to the Central Person of God is the highest and deepest and broadest form of consciousness.

4
Reality is personal.

5
The most practical way for me to devote myself to God is by sounding names of God.

6
Service is the essence of religion.

7
The self is eternally individual.

8
A soul has the same quality as God, but a smaller quantity of it.

9
God never changes. God’s energies change.

10
Everything exists eternally simultaneously.

11
The absolute embraces contradictions.

12
God takes birth in the material world to stimulate our devotion.

13
The self is a spiritual body, not a body made of atoms.

14
The material world is a place where there are miseries such as birth, disease, old age, and death.

15
The spiritual world is a place where everyone is eternally omniscient and blissful.

16
God wants us to be happy.

17
All matter and all material forms always glorify God.

18
Cultivate forgiveness, humility, tolerance, kindness, generosity, honesty.

19
A soul is a part of the whole. God is the whole.

20
The spiritual world has variety.

21
God’s body is not material. God’s body is God.

22
The spirit is like the good. But it is a goodness that has no opposite because it is a function of God’s activity, not a soul’s activity.

23
God is the most powerful, wealthy, famous, beautiful, intelligent, and renounced person.

24
Demigods (angels) administrate cosmic affairs.

25
Jealousy of God and envy of God are the basic material psychologies.

26
People are what they want to be.

27
The Central Person of God is the source of the light of truth.

28
Devotion is greater than work or knowledge or visions.

29
God’s name is not material. God’s name is God.

30
God is everything, is inside everything, and is outside everything.

31
Human life is meant for self-realization.

32
The soul is indestructible.

33
Offer your actions and their results to God.

34
Pleasure consists in pleasing God’s senses, of which my senses are part.

35
Nudity, not nullity. The soul is naked, not nothing.

36
Offer your food to God.

37
Materialistic souls don’t act. Nature acts for them.

38
Act according to your own physical-psychological makeup. Don’t imitate others.

39
God controls everyone. Yet we all have freedom of choice.

40
Serve a spiritual teacher.

41
Happiness comes from within.

42
Attachment to God is the best detachment from materialism.

43
Live frugally.

44
No drugs, no sex, no gambling, no eating.

45
All beings are equal because God is within all of them.

46
God is the essence of everything: the strength of the strong, the heat of fire.

47
The determination with which we achieve our goals comes from God.

48
Those who see only matter can’t see God.

49
The universe is a form of God.

50
God is the biggest and the smallest.

51
The soul who attains devotion never returns to illusion.

52
The material world comes and goes. The spiritual world is constant.

53
God is active in the world, but is never conditioned by it.

54
Worshiping the Central Person of God is better than worshiping the all-pervading energy, the multifold supersoul, or the cosmic form.

55
All worshiping of anything other than God is indirect worship of God, but direct worship is better.

56
God has special consideration for those who love God directly.

57
Devotion is not dependent on social status or any material qualification.

58
Devotees enjoy conversing about God.

59
God gives the devotees full understanding of how to get to God.

60
Material splendor is only a small fraction of spiritual splendor.

61
Nothing is easier to see than God, but nothing is more difficult to understand.

62
Consciousness is the energy of the soul. It pervades the soul’s material body, and shapes it.

63
Negative thoughts and emotions bind a soul to matter.

64
Give up all ethical, metaphysical, and religious systems. Just surrender to God.

65
Nothing belongs to me. Everything belongs to God.

66
The center of spiritual life is the glorification of the activities and other attributes of the Central Person of God.

67
God’s attributes and energies are simultaneously one with God and different from God.

68
Devotees are friendly with everyone.

69
Be a fruitarian and in all aspects of life follow the cosmic laws for humanity.

70
Early to bed, early to rise.

71
Cosmic history goes from good to bad to good and back again, over and over in regular cycles endlessly.

72
Seek the company of devotees.

73
God has limitless forms, names, and activities.

74
Don’t give up action. Employ your skills in serving God. That which contaminates you can also purify you, when you engage it in serving God. Matter joined to service of God becomes spirit.

75
Even those who are liberated from matter take pleasure in serving God.

76
You can attain devotion to God only by the mercy of God.

77
God’s central personality has a specific form.

78
Spirit is the substance. Matter is a category of the substance.

79
Souls enter into the material world, or the material consciousness, in order to imitate God. But the larger purpose of material existence is the rehabilitation of the deluded souls back to the natural state of loving the central position of God.

80
God is one: the Central Person. But God is also two: She and He. Each of them is singular and many. When She is singular, She is a specific feminine individual. Among her many energies are the souls who worship God and the atoms of the material world. When He is singular, He is a specific masculine individual. Among His many energies are Deities and universal space. When God is one, God is a mystery.

81
Serving the devotees of God is the same as serving God.

Oremus

UWA OAAAAH

Pandevotional Invocation

Some mentioned here not world-famous but praiseworthy to me.

1940s
The Priests. Rodney Upham Clark. Helen Cooper Clark. Holly Clark. Clark Relatives. Cooper relatives. Friends of the family. Miss Kimball. The Gang. Stars. Buffalo Bob Smith. Captain Marvel Comics.

1950s
Douglas MacArthur. Clouds. Lee DeForest. John Nagy. Jerry Lewis. Don Herbert. Estes Kefauver. Dave Garroway. Birds. Jack Kent. Bunky Wood. Kenneth Grahame. Greek and Norse Gods. The Moonglows. Pinin Farina. Hugh Hefner. Richard Matheson. Jack Kerouac. Ray Bradbury. A. Merritt et al. Dave Brubeck. Charlie Parker. Miles Davis. Vance Packard. Anna DiVittorio. Judy Hentz. Carol Campanele. Rowe Camp Lecturer. Dom Manfredi. Beats. Nudists. Bertrand Russell. Stanley Kramer. Fred Cook.

1960s
Jackson Pollack. Jack Kennedy. Francois Truffaut. Alain Resnais. Jean-Luc Godard. Michelangelo Antonioni. Ingmar Bergman. Stan Brakhage. Stefan Sharf. Constance Fera. Thomas Wolfe. D. H. Lawrence. Henry Miller. Nikos Kazantzakis. Mark Rothko. Peter Serenyi. Bob Ross. Bela Bartok. Ron Rice. Ornette Coleman. Alan Watts. Paolo Soleri. Dov Lederberg. D. T. Suzuki. Carl Oglesby. Michele Clark. Dave McReynolds. Hashish. John Cage. Will Gamble. Victor Alonzo. Alan Siegel. La Monte Young. Timothy Leary. Allen Ginsberg. Swami Bhaktivedanta. Abbott Hill. Peter Schumann. Ken Jacobs. Raymond Marais.

1970s
Michelle Clark. Rose Clark. Bob Corens. Albert Einstein. The Sun. B. P. Bowne. Vincente Minnelli. Ed Senesi. Alfred Hitchcock. Thomas Gordon. Arthur Janov. Kratka Ridge. Abraham Maslow. Betty Friedan. Dan Maziarz. The Conch Club. Celtic Gods and Heros. C. S. Lewis. J. R. R. Tolkein. Leo Tolstoy. Emily Dickinson. John Lennon. Paul Schrader. Ralph Borsodi. Fritz Perls. Planetary Gods. Mark Satin. Michael Cassidy. Surf. Jack Canfield. Sondra Ray. Michael Sprague. Deborah Bronner. Shirley Ann Williams. Roberto Assogioli. Leonard Orr. Rolling Thunder. Brian Eno.

1980s
Sun Bear. Rocks. Gerald Jampolsky. Eleanor Singer Clark. Rebecca Jeanne Clark. Evelyn Haynes. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Huckleberry Mountain. Dunes. Steve Mansour. Oaks. The Light Center. Andrew Schmookler. W. H. Bates. Katuah Editors. Viktorous Kulvinskas. Eugene Gendlin. The Tasaday. Breathing. Richard Grossinger. Hilton Hotema. Alexander Lowen. Henry David Thoreau. Ann Wigmore. Earth First! Editors. Mikhail Aivanhov. Wabasso Beach. Martha Graham. George Sutherland. Tim Aldrich. Crickets. Raindrops. John Muir. Walking.

Reality 9

© 2019 Daniel Cooper Clark
Some Rights Reserved

A Personal View

Reality 9 –
reality mine.

The Hidden Potentiality

Potentiality, always reaching toward Actuality, is defined by Love, the yearning for another. Potentiality-Love doesn’t obliterate itself to become the other. It is a flow, a moving energy, an urge, directed beyond itself, that maintains the integrity of both itself and its object.

The general condition of Reality 9 is Potentiality. Actuality is a particular aspect of Potentiality.

Just as any material phenomenon exists both as a wave and a particle and can occupy two places at once in a state of quantum superposition, so each person is dual: a potential person and an actual person. I’m now conscious of my actual self, but not of my potential self. Both features of the self are eternal.

Actuality is within Potentiality. My actual self is always within my self of infinite possibilities.

The potential world is liberal, the actual is conservative.

Each existing item in the actual world (including every falsity) has its hidden counterpart in the potential world. And Potentiality – infinity – is the source of yet more items, which surprise the actual world when they arrive here.

Spirituality means an awareness of The Whole. Materiality means cutting out a portion of The Whole and giving that a preferred status. Thus, sectarian religions are materialistic. They limit themselves to a certain tradition, ritual, scripture, and so on.

Nevertheless, acts of devotion are carried out in an environment of specifics. I’m not advocating a “contentless mysticism,” as someone once called it. To love God in a specific way is spiritual if I know that like all actual forms, the God I worship has a counterpart in the potential world.

The actual world is graded into a vertical hierarchy. Sitting at the bottom are illusions and miseries. At the top we find the blissful truth, Goddess and God.

In the potential world the forms are not graded. They’re all equal, that is, horizontal. Furthermore, the potential world is One Person. Or, it is a singular “one” and an infinite plurality of “ones.”

All phenomena in the actual world are eternal, from dog to God. So you see, this is not that “material world” you’ve heard about. The “material world” is the actual world as seen by a materialist. It’s a mistake.

The other world, Potentiality, sustains Actuality – as a battery sustains a light bulb. Both the battery and the bulb are necessary for the light to shine.

Potentialism

Neither one, Potentiality or Actuality, is more real than the other. Reality 9 is made up of both of them together.

In relation to each other, it might be said that Potentiality is Yin and Actuality is Yang. In the potential world, the feminine rules. In the actual world, the masculine rules. But of course Actuality is part of Potentiality, so overall the feminine rules. This is what is meant by saying, “she is the power behind the throne.”

In the actual world, do things die, do people die, do I die? No. That’s a mistake. Nothing here disappears. Everything here exists eternally. Each atom is as eternal as God. Things and persons here are always alive. I don’t die. Or, my moment of “death” is already on the ledger. So, now that I know I’m already dead, I can really start to live!

In Actuality a clear continuum stretches unbroken from illusion to truth, from despair to divinity, from garbage to God. The entire range consists of one substance. No dividing wall separates “matter” from “spirit” as if they were two countries. It’s not that garbage is “matter” and God is “spirit,” and one must change one’s identity to get across the border. While traveling from ignorance to knowledge, we journey across a continuous landscape, a single country, made of Actuality.

Perhaps it could be called “matter” because it’s filled with forms. Or “spirit” because it’s eternal. In any case, it’s all one substance. Duality enters the picture with the difference between Potentiality and Actuality. But then you see, Potentiality being potential and not actual, it doesn’t exist – yet. So, is there really a duality?

Quantumism

“…the “physical vacuum” – as it is called in field theory – is not a state of mere nothingness, but contains the potentiality for all forms of the particle world.” – Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics

“If the universe came from “nothing,” then perhaps nothing was not perfectly empty but had a slight amount of symmetry breaking, which allows for the slight dominance of matter over antimatter today. The origin of this symmetry breaking is still not understood.” – Michio Kaku, Parallel Worlds

“When one knows that the Great Void is full of ch’i, one realizes that there is no such thing as nothingness.” – Chang Tsai, quoted by Capra

“That which seems to the intellect to be Nothing is the incomprehensible Maximum.” – Nicholas of Cusa

Every Little Thing

Every little thing in the actual world also might be found in the potential world, if we could peer into that world, which we can’t, because the things there don’t exist, they pre-exist. What’s more, there’s more in the potential world, since it’s infinite, unlimited. It’s beyond our understanding. However , we’re not inhabitants of only the actual world. We also inhabit the potential world, in our potential forms. But we achieve our completeness in the actual world. All things in the potential world reach toward Actuality. So you see, even though the actual is finite, it’s always being fed by the infinite. It’s always expanding. My guru said, “Krishna is always expanding.” Krishna, too, inhabits both worlds. What’s special about Krishna, about God, about Goddess, is that in Actuality they inhabit a region that touches the infinite. It is tangential to it. We become successful when we move to that region, which is known as the spiritual world.

Death

Death is a mistaken impression. Everything is real, nothing disappears.

Disruption

Love is the original “disruptive technology.” We try to organize things. But new things are always coming in from the Potentiality and mixing us up, pulling the rug out from under us, upsetting the apple cart, blowing our minds, forcing us to reconsider, giving us life. Scientists regularly discover new events that force them to adapt their theories.

Anarchy

Within the Potentiality, which is pure Love, there is no hierarchy. You might say that anarchy reigns there, except that Love’s infinite persons are all parts of one person, She. If there is only one person, how can there be anarchy?

Continuous Creation

In the infinite Potentiality there live an infinite number of souls. They yearn towards God. They know only God. In their potentiality, they have no awareness of themselves. As they gradually pass into the Actuality, they first stay with God. But as their self-awareness grows, they become jealous of God. So they descend to lower levels of Actuality – into the darkness, so to speak. This is painful, but through their suffering they gain complete self-realization, which finally matures into a freely chosen love of God. That’s the drama of the soul. It keeps going on and on, with more souls from the limitless well of the Potentiality continually passing into the Actuality. The Actuality is always expanding. In that sense, even the Actuality has no limit. Creation is continuous. It may appear that a universe will die, just as it may appear that you will die. But that’s a mistaken impression.

Marriage

Reality 9 marries science and religion in a personalist universe.

Worlds

Potentiality: the world of She
Actuality: the world of She and He
Spirituality: the world of She and He and Devotees
Materiality: the world of the Almighty God

Symmetry-Breaking

Potentiality would be hermaphroditic were it not for its slight dominance of the feminine over the masculine. That symmetry-breaking allows for form, motion, and purpose.

Forms

All forms are Her form.

She’s Flexible

Infinite potential power is greater then finite actual power. Potentiality 1 has the edge over Potentiality 5. Generation has more power than regulation. Art outlasts politics. Life beats death. Motion beats stasis. Flexibility beats rigidity.

The Purpose

When the unity of Potentiality 1 enters into Actuality, it arrives as two: the generator – She – and the generated – He.

When the multiplicity of Potentiality 5 enters into Materiality, it arrives as the regulator – Almighty God – and the regulated – the souls, the atoms, and the elemental spirits.

When the two currents of Potentiality converge in Spirituality, they arrive as Goddess, God, and the Devotees. The life of this joyful home is the purpose of Reality 9.

Dualities

Reality 9 is a double duality. It is a duality of the potential and the actual. Then the actual includes a duality of the spiritual and the material.

Raw Consciousness and Time

Potentiality is the world of raw consciousness, of the flux of pure motion and emotion. Entities never leave Potentiality. They get extended from there to Materiality. Then they live in both worlds. Materiality is made up of aleph-nought static states, each of which is a moment of time including everything in space. So it’s more correct to speak of the material worlds, plural, rather than one such world. The entities in those material worlds made of still moments experience flux, or time, because they are of the potential and bridge the gaps between the moment-worlds. They are conscious. Consciousness moves, and has direction. Consciousness leaps between the static “now” universes and allows for a sense of past, present, and future.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

In his Exposition and Defense of the New System of 1695, Leibniz explains his view of “the ultimate elements into which substantial things can be analyzed.” Later he would name the ultimate element a Monad. Here he calls it “an atom of substance.”

But it is hardly an atom as we usually consider one. Of these atoms, he says “their nature consists of force and … from this there follows something analogous to feeling and appetite … resembling our ordinary notion of souls .. there is about them something vital and a kind of perception …”

Having stated that “it is impossible to find the principles of unity in matter alone,” Leibniz remains true to his word. The Monad, his basic unit of reality, displays the characteristics of force (energy), feeling, appetite, vitality, and perception. It is indeed like the standard description of a soul. For Leibniz, reality is essentially spiritual, and personal.

Atoms are people? Well, like people and unlike the conventional material atom, each of Leibniz’s elements is unique – not standardized. He tells of a friend of his trying to find two identical leaves in a garden, and failing to do so. From unique causes, unique results, Leibniz commented, in so many words.

Of additional interest to me is his probing into Possibility. As one who places so much emphasis on Pre-Existence, I’m happy to find similar thoughts in passages such as the following, quoted at length from On the Ultimate Origination of Things (1697):

“First we must notice, from the very fact that something exists rather than nothing, that there is in things that are possible, or in possibility of essence itself, a certain need for existence, or (if I may so put it) a claim to exist; and, to put it bluntly, that essence in itself tends toward existence. From this it further follows that all things which are possible, or express essence or possible reality, tend by equal right towards existence in proportion to the quantity of essence or reality which they include, or in proportion to the stage of perfection which belongs to them; for perfection is nothing else than quantity of essence.

“Hence it is seen to be most evident that out of the infinite combination of possibles, and the infinite possible series, that one exists by whose means the greatest possible amount of essence or possibility is brought into existence.”

Leibniz calls Possibility the Essence. It is the source, the great storehouse. It’s tempting to consider it “the spiritual world,” except that existence is also made up of nothing but Monads, which are spiritual entities.

This “essence in itself tends toward existence.” A big question rises up. Why doesn’t all the essence become existence all at once? He states that the “things” in that world have different quantities of the essence. The greater the quantity, the more likely the passage into existence. I’m not sure I like that story. For me, the pre-existent entities are particles of She. (She is the Potentiality, the Pre-Existence.) She controls the rate of passage. To her, all entities are of equal quality. The flowing into existence is merely her game, her dance. On the other hand, the entities traverse into existence when they want to. They have free will. I know, that’s a contradiction.

Scientists have found most interesting Leibniz’s Correspondence with Samuel Clarke of 1715. Clarke was writing on behalf of Isaac Newton. Newton and Leibniz were at odds over at least two issues. First and most irritating was the quarrel over who had first developed the calculus. (That’s Leibniz’s name for it – Newton called it “fluxions.”)

But more significant was their dispute over the nature of space and time. Newton felt they were absolute, spreading as undifferentiated regulators independent of anything else in the universe, except God. Leibniz felt they were ideas only, and relative to the changing aspects of things. For him, space is defined by things existing together at one time. Time is defined by things succeeding each other in one space. The two can only be defined in terms of each other. Indeed, Leibniz preferred not to speak in terms of space and time. He said there is no such thing as space. But there are places. There is no such thing as time. But there are instants. “… space is that which results from places taken together … In the case of time, nothing exists but instants, and an instant is not even a part of time … time can only be an ideal thing … instants apart from things are nothing … they only consist in the successive order of things …” Things, or substances, are the only entities. Since space and time are not substances, they don’t exist in themselves, but only as concepts regarding the interactions of substances.

Like Parmenides, Leibniz considered existence to be a Plenum (fullness). Everything touches something. Newton was wrong to talk of “empty space.” Leibniz said, “I hold there is no void at all.” He thus eliminated Newton’s problem of “action at a distance.” Monads are contiguous. Forces travel along a network of “communication” between contiguous entities. Furthermore, there’s no such thing as distance.

Then, is there only one place, here? And one instant, now?

Julian Barbour

When Barbour says that each instant is a static and independent instance of the entire universe – that nothing moves from one instant to another, it’s really instant-universes (within which nothing moves) somehow succeeding each other, like frames of a movie creating the illusion of motion – I agree. When he says that the cat who leaps is not the same as the cat who lands – they are two different cats embedded into two different instants – I agree and disagree. When he says that our sense of motion and time is a function of records (“memories”) which are not really ours but are something like computer files loaded into the structure of the instant – I disagree. Finally, when he grants no continuity of self at all across the instants – I definitely disagree.

Reality 9, unlike Barber’s Platonia, allows for the presence of consciousness as a continuum that bridges the gap between the static instants. That was my perception in December of 1961 in my apartment at 437 West 22nd Street in New York City. I was looking down at the rug, pivoting around as I looked. The rug’s image jerked around the circle. It didn’t go smoothly. I wondered if my eye muscles weren’t able to make smooth movements. Then I moved my hand in front of me. Again I sensed that the hand wasn’t really making transitions. It was as if each fractional position was an independent fact, despite my desire to perceive a smooth movement. The metaphor of a succession of still frames on a strip of movie film came to mind. The more I tried to impose a sense of smooth motion on any moving thing, no matter how slowly it moved, the more I got a dizzy feeling that reminded me of what Sartre wrote about in Nausea. I was trying to force onto the world a property that wasn’t there. Motion wasn’t in the world, it was in me. The world was divided up into static instants. I, on the other hand, had some ability to join the instants together. There really were two different worlds operating together. One I called Time, the other Energy. It was similar to the traditional matter-spirit duality. I called it the Time-Energy System.

That Energy is not affected by time. Today, I would identify its home as the Potentiality, a “place” of constant movement. The Potentiality, the pre-existence, is always moving toward existence. Even when it becomes Actuality, it lives in a world that’s always expanding. Barbour has a similar notion of time capsules branching out from Alpha to infinity. But in his reality, which he calls Platonia, there are no souls, just numbers and angles and cards on spindles. Thank God we don’t really inhabit such a misty graveyard. However, unless we develop our consciousness, our self-awareness, our Energy, we might indeed be lost in a world of motionless and emotionless instants no better than his.

Kurt Godel

Godel said that formal logical systems and their proofs, though useful, are by their very nature limited by their methods, and cannot describe the truth of a totality. They are always incomplete. Totality can only be grasped through intuition. So my clever system with its divisons and terms is merely an attempt to see the whole “through a glass darkly.”

Time Is the Expansion of the Actual

“Time” is the word we have for the expansion of the actual. Entities from the Potentiality pass into the Actuality. Each passage is, so to speak, the ticking of a clock. The volume of Actuality has increased by one entity. And it keeps on increasing without cessation. Its volume never decreases. The movement goes in one direction only. Time doesn’t go backward. The “arrow of time” always goes forward. Increase – addition – succession – is real, and constant. Energy is unlimited.

In the infinite Potentiality, where change is an urge – a tendency not yet brought into existence – past, present, and future are simultaneous. The Potentiality is made of motion. But it’s motion itself in motion, and not things moving. No things there. No clocks, no time. It’s totality all at once. Since our consciousness as we live here in Actuality is of the potential essence, we have some possibility of perceiving the past and the future. They are swimming in the ocean of pre-existence along with our raw consciousness. To see the past and future directly, we must strip down and plunge in naked. Really, that’s also the only way to see the present. So few of us are ready for that !

Detachment

In the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna says:

3.27
“I’m the one who’s doing this,”
thinks the ego-bewildered atman,
all of whose activities
are done by the gunas of Prakriti.

3.28
But Mahabaho, someone who knows what’s real
can discriminate and see that guna-karma
is just the gunas relating with the gunas.
With that in mind, you’re never attached.

To paraphrase: Whatever’s happening in the material world is really material nature itself doing things, not us. We’re just along for the ride. We imagine we’re in charge. But really nature’s moving us around like puppets. With that in mind, you don’t feel attached to what’s going on around you.

In terms of Reality 9: In the particle-dominated world of Materiality, we tend to identify with the events embedded within the particles (the moments). Generally, our consciousness hasn’t developed to the point of seeing She and He behind it all. We don’t feel that every atom is glorifying God. We feel that matter is something we can manipulate for our own benefit. But really we’re just watching a movie that keeps on repeating itself endlessly. With that in mind, you’re never attached.

Devotion

The purpose of knowledge is to bring me to devotion. No matter how much I know, it’s useless if I have no love. As Clyde McPhatter sang, “Without love I have nothing at all.” Waves and particles, space and time, categories and sub-categories – they all fade away in Spirituality, where Goddess and God are loved. Krishna is there.

Nicholas of Cusa:

“In God we must not conceive of distinction and indistinction, for example, as two contradictories, but we must conceive of them as antecedently existing in their own most simple beginning, where distinction is not other than indistinction.”

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz:

“The least particle ought to be considered as a world full of an infinity of different creatures.”

Georg Cantor:

“The Absolute can only be acknowledged and admitted, never known, not even approximately.”

Teleology

Potentiality 1 acts as a single wave. Potentiality 5 acts as many particles. But Potentiality in general combines both.

Each of Potentiality 5’s many particles is an infinitesimal wave. And Potentiality 1’s single wave is an infinite particle. The two share the same quality, Potentiality.

Therefore all entities are energies directed outside themselves. As Aristotle said, every entity has an inner purpose, intrinsic to itself, not imposed on it by any external agent, that drives it toward a goal in another time or place that fulfills its own nature. The purpose of an acorn is to become an oak. The purpose of the Sun is to radiate heat and light. Each entity is moving toward a fulfillment of itself.

In Reality 9, the inner seed, and thus the outer goal, of each entity is its life in Spirituality with Goddess and God. That devotional life sits in the center of each thing, including the infinite wave. The infinite wave is She. She yearns to worship the Other, He. Her yearning culminates in Spirituality, where Goddess and God and their Devotees enjoy eternal loving pastimes.

Each soul, being an infinitesimal version of She, has the same inner purpose as She. Every entity is moving toward Spirituality. Spirituality, lodged firmly in the center of Reality 9, is the goal of Reality 9.

But if it is the goal it must also be the source. For teleology is a tautology, employing circular reasoning. (Since the Sun radiates heat and light, then its purpose is to radiate heat and light.) This circle of reasoning includes a long chain of causes and effects, each of which is an absolute and can therefore function as both the beginning and the end of the circle. (A case can even be made for Materiality as the source and the goal.) However, the circle floats, so to speak, on an ocean of She. She has the advantage of being infinite, thus being both inside and outside the circle. And She has her priority: He. Together, they reach their peak in Spirituality. In this sense, Spirituality is the essential origin of it all.

Georg Cantor

For the mathematician Georg Cantor (1845 – 1908), nothing was more important than God. When Cantor developed set theory, which every elementary school student now learns, he based it on a new concept of Infinity, the Absolute Infinity being God. Besides the Absolute, Cantor said, there are two other kinds of infinity. They are the actual infinite and the transfinite. This got him into trouble with other mathematicians. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and everyone else since had declared that there’s no such thing as an actual infinite – that is, an infinite realm that can be made subject to mathematical procedures. And the transfinite, nobody had even heard of before.

I’m not a mathematician. Symbolic logic utterly escapes me – along with the details of Cantor’s theorizing. I won’t try to explain what I don’t understand. But I do see a correspondence between Cantor’s three infinities and mine.

His actual infinite is my Potentiality 1. I don’t use the term “potential” the way mathematicians do. They posit a “potential infinite” as a hypothetical state necessary for the sake of performing certain operations within finitude. My infinite Potentiality is a real state in its own right, the source of all else. It is Cantor’s actual infinite, beyond the reach of our intellect.

His transfinite is similar to my Potentiality 5. Cantor describes the transfinite as a realm that can be enumerated. It can be added to. Its constituent elements have their specific identities. Likewise, Potentiality 5 is composed of an infinite quantity of identifiable particles.

All entities within Actuality have emigrated there from the infinite, and retain the infinite at their core. “We are spirits in the material world,” as The Police sang in the 1980s. Christians tend to be dualists, digging a deep trench between the infinite and the finite. Cantor had a rough time with their Thomist condemnations. But I am not a dualist. I am a monist-dualist, subscribing to the achintya bhedabheda tattva of Shri Chaitanya. Like Cantor, I feel the presence of the infinite within the finite to be a continual inspiration. He said:

“The grounding of the principles of mathematics and natural science is a matter for metaphysics.”

“What surpasses all that is finite and transfinite is … the single completely individual unity in which everything is included, which includes the ‘Absolute’ incomprehensible to the human understanding. This is the ‘Actus Durissimus’ which by many is called ‘God.'”

“All forms whether finite or infinite are definite, and with the exception of God, are capable of being intellectually determined.”

“… certain knowledge … can only be obtained through concepts and ideas, which are at best only stimulated by outer experience, but which are principally formed through inner induction and deduction, like something which, so to speak, already lay within us and is only awakened and brought to consciousness.”

“In my opinion, time is an idea … it is nothing other than a relational concept, by whose aid the relation between various motions we perceive in nature is determined.”

“All these particular modes of the transfinite have existed from eternity as ideas in the Divine intellect.”

” … the transfinite not only expresses the extensive domain of the possible in God’s knowledge, but also presents a rich and continually increasing field of ideal discovery. Moreover, I am convinced that it also achieves reality and existence in the world of the created, so as to express more strongly than could have been the case with a mere ‘finite world’ the majesty of the Creator following its own free decree.”

The Ultimate Is Inconceivable

Finitude has an infinite feature and infinity has a finite feature. For instance, even in conventional religious terminology, a body has a soul, and God has a body. Finitude is form or identity or stasis. Infinity is freedom or action or motion. So, since the finite is the limited, and the infinite is the unlimited, then finitude has limited freedom and infinity has unlimited forms.

But the finite and the infinite are of two different states. Finitude is actual and infinity is potential. They’re both real. But finitude exists and infinity pre-exists.

To what extent can we speak of a mathematics of pre-existence? Cantor may have found a way. Like Cantor, I propose that “everything is included” within the Absolute Infinite. That is, every separate thing is included. It is not only singular but also plural.

Indeed, it’s easier to conceive of its plurality – its containing an infinite number of forms – than it is to conceive of its singularity – its boundary. But in fact, it has no boundary. It is not a “set” in the manner of actual sets. Here is the paradox. Potentiality is a form, She, but a form without a boundary. That is the great mystery. That is why the ultimate is inconceivable.

Nicholas of Cusa:

from On Learned Ignorance 109:

“Who, I ask, could understand how it is that the plurality of things is from the Divine Mind? For God’s understanding is His being; for God is Infinite Oneness. If you proceed with the numerical comparison by considering that number is the multiplication, by the mind, of the common one: it seems as if God, who is Oneness, were multiplied in things, since His understanding is His being. And yet, you understand that this Oneness, which is infinite and maximal, cannot be multiplied. How, then, can you understand there to be a plurality whose being comes from the One without there occurring any multiplication of the One? That is, how can you understand there to be a multiplication of Oneness without there being a multiplication of Oneness? Surely, you can not understand it as you understand the multiplication of one species or of one genus in many species or many individuals; outside of these individuals a genus or a species does not exist except through an abstracting intellect. Therefore, no one understands how God (whose oneness of being does not exist through the understanding’s abstracting from things and does not exist as united to, or merged with things) is unfolded through the number of things.”

Krishna

from the Bhagavad-gita:

9.4
All this world is permeated by me,
in my form as the Unmanifest.
All creatures stand in me.
I do not stand in them.

9.5
And, the creatures don’t stand in me.
See how my yoga rules!
My atman creates the creatures,
sustains the creatures,
but doesn’t stand in the creatures.

9.6
Understand – just as the wind blows everywhere
while always situated within space,
so all the creatures are situated within me.

13.13
I’ll tell you what is to be known
knowing it, you’ll attain immortality
it’s the beginingless Supreme Brahman – — they say it neither is nor is not

13.14
everywhere its hands and feet
everywhere its eyes, heads, faces
everywhere it hears, and abides ——– embracing all the world

13.15
shining in the gunas of the senses
and without any senses at all
detached, and supporting everything —— without gunas and enjoying gunas

13.16
inside and outside all creatures
those that move and those that don’t
it’s too subtle to be understood —– close, and placed so far away

13.17
undivided, standing in all creatures
also divided, or so it seems
understood as the creatures’ maintainer — and devourer, and creator

13.18
it’s also the light in all lights
it’s beyond the darkness, they say
it’s knowing, the known, and known by knowing – it stands in the hearts of us all

Thank you.