Remembering Spirit in an Age of Loss (Part II)
1. Introduction
It’s hard to picture a Beginning in the context of Eternal Be-ing. This difficulty is compounded by an opposition drawn in Western philosophy between Being and Becoming, which presents Being as the Constant, Becoming as Change and both as binary alternatives. Vedic philosophy improves on this via its discovery that our changing world of appearances arises from an Eternal Constant of Sat Chit Ananda (Be-ing Consciousness Bliss) and discloses it in some way. The challenge remains of clarifying this relationship and how it is that our world arises at a particular point, having not existed before. Having offered a response in Part I, I will focus here on stories from Vedic mythos before responding further. Kaleshwar associates these with real events that actually happened, even in a context of recurring time cycles. There are many overlapping views on this issue, all beyond the scope of rational adjudication. Mine holds that Eternal Be-ing contains the seed of its own disclosure. This happens via a process that unfolds and then manifests Creation, affording the Divine a previously lacking capacity for self-reflection and then self-steering that Mother implements through awakened Consciousness forms in existence: us.
This suggests that a seed of time must always have been present in Eternal Be-ing, as time provides the medium for Becoming to happen in. Lots of it is evidently needed. As pure unmediated, un-reflected Be-ing is eternal, banks of infinite time are potentially available, this isn’t a problem: endlessly recurring cycles can in principle fill up infinite time. These recurring cycles repeat in the manner of trans-cosmic seasons, manifesting the same macro-patterns over and over, including series of Big Bangs that lead to Big Crunches. Existence here arises out of Eternal Be-ing to be resorbed by it over and over, perhaps until Consciousness in form remembers Truth beyond illusions of separateness to which it has adjusted. Indian tradition offers a bewildering variety of perspectives on such matters. I am not concerned with any apart from what Kaleshwar as a ‘shortcut master’ has highlighted to ease our way through end times of our own Kali Yuga. I am also not moved to pursue the issue of recurring time cycles in detail because it makes little practical difference. Jesus says My Father’s House has many mansions (contexts, worlds, dimensions). There is no reason this can’t be true across infinite time as well as space, illuminating how the Divine can occupy itself forever with ecstatic awakenings amidst a World Illusion that presents as glorious or dismal according to our making.
This idea shouldn’t be dismissed. Reflections can be more or less Good, True and/or Beautiful despite objections based on accounts of maya as mere appearances that don’t matter because they’re not Eternal. Baba, Jesus and Kaleshwar disagree. Bur for this they would have no reason to guide us Home to Mother nor She, through us, to Herself. And insofar as Consciousness can reflect that Creation is good, there is no reason why the process can’t go on forever, even as our G-O-D is sometimes moved to recalibrate at the behest of Mother’s relentless love for birthing.* That said, our focus must also be on pragmatic issues that currently threaten to degrade organised human life to such an extent that our children may have to start over under severely traumatic conditions, not just regarding spiritual awareness but also physical survival. Kaleshwar incarnated to avoid this by consolidating and renewing the impact of Jesus’ only life. Unique across time, it planted a seed of radical renewal. Both men acted out of Love, building on a memory of Sat Yuga, when Truth was fully known and can be again by following palm leaf teachings back to Awareness. Our challenge in entering the great stories below is whether we can imagine and sustain a divine human culture capable of saving us from our alienated, world-adapted egos.
[Note: The principal male deities of Vedic tradition are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Brahma is known as the Generator, through whom Mother acts to bring Creation into Be-ing; Vishnu is the Operator, charged to preserve balance and coherence once Creation has been set in motion. Shiva is the transcendent Father deity but, in his descended role within the male trinity, he is known as the Destroyer: one who brings lives, cycles and processes to an end whenever renewal is needed. The three together make up G-O-D although it is important to note that their roles are separate so that no one of them can know or do what the others can. Shiva’s consort is Durga-Parvati, named for as a generic form of the fierce Mother Goddess and Her human maniestation as his earthly wife. Lakshmi is Vishnu’s wife and associated with spiritual-material abundance. Brahma, being Otherworldly, is initially found at the Nadu Bindu but ideally also rises to the thousand-petal Lotus of an open Crown. His consort, Saraswati, balances his aloofness and is known as the goddess of arts, wisdom, music, healing, creativity and expression. We will learn more about these characters later in this work.]
2. The Great Churning
Little can be said about the ‘Archaic’ structure of Sat Yuga precisely because it steeped in Truth. It thus eases us into pain-free spiritual access where all creatures live their divine nature un-self-consciously, without need for rationalisation or account-giving. That comes only with the onset of Treta Yuga. We do well to mark transitional patterns here because they have an archetypal status, indicating tendencies that seem fated to recur over and over. These affect even devas (gods) whose spiritual existence had seemed effortless until then. In the Treta Yuga Truth rests on only three legs, bringing 25% negativity that spreads doubt and uncertainty where before there had been none. It seems the gods are so disturbed by this that they doubt their immortality and are thus motivated to churn the Ocean of Milk (which is unspecified but assumed to evoke Mother’s bounty). The purpose is to raise Her amrutha, a golden liquid known to bestow immortality on all who consume it. There is a problem in that they lack necessary muscle power. For this they need assistance from the Asuras or Rakshasas, demonic characters whom Kaleshwar presents as a distinct race marked by pronounced selfishness. The parties negotiate and a bargain is struck. The work and its spoils are to be shared equally. The rakshasas are suspicious from the outset however, and contest every detail for fear of being cheated.
The Sacred Mountain of the World will be used as a central axis and the body of the Primal Serpent as a rope with which to initiate the churning (slide 27). The rakshasas insist on working with the serpent’s head, lest this confer advantage. Vishnu oversees the event and also manifests as a giant turtle to provide a solid base for the axis. Although Shiva has already entered Creation, he hangs contemplatively back. Brahma declines active involvement. The churning begins and many wonders are thrown up without any sign of Mother’s amrutha. Then a toxic substance (alahala) spews forth, threatening to burn up the world. No one is able to contain it until Shiva, pledged to take care, swoops in and drinks the poison, holding it in his throat so that it is neither digested nor released. Then, danger past, Lakshmi rises from the depths, bringing the amrutha. The rakshasas immediately suspect that the devas will renege on their promise to share the boon of immortality. The devas likewise suspect the rakshasas of plotting to commandeer the amrutha and question the wisdom of conferring such a gift on these unscrupulous adversaries.
Vishnu is alerted. As the Preserver of Cosmic Balance, he inclines to agree. Thus, as the amrutha is about to be shared, he morphs into Mohini, a beautiful dancing girl who launches a seductive routine. The rakshasas are smitten. So engrossed are they that they fail to notice when Vishnu-Mohini substitutes mere soma for the precious elixir. The rakshasa, temporarily sated, don’t realise that they’ve been deceived until later, which consolidates their animosity towards the gods. Already we can draw three key lessons for our time: i) poison must always surface before true Gold comes into view, ii) we need supernatural help to process this, and iii) even gods, engaging with rakshasas, become like them. It is also noteworthy that Vishnu’s ethical standards are remarkably fluid compared to conventional standards. It may even be that a karmic sting was initiated by his conduct for it transpire that Shiva himself becomes enthralled by Mohini’s voluptuous dance and approaches her so ardently that the two make love, Vishnu apparently so consumed by his role that he lacks the awareness to question Shiva’s advance. A child is promptly born of this godly union. Ayappa is an embodiment of Brahma, who had previously disdained incarnation.
What kind of lila (sacred play) is this? It is clearly Mother’s, and intentional because when She asked Shiva to enter Creation his main concern had been that he didn’t want to fall prey to Her Illusion as everyone else did. To allay his concern Mother gave him Her Third Eye and with it an ability to burn through illusion: Her Illusion per their agreement but evidently not Vishnu’s. It thus seems that She availed of Mohini’s rakshasa performance to awaken kama (desire) in otherwise dispassionate Shiva. The reasons for this will be clarified later. For now, we must note that both gods are dismayed on awakening from their enchantment, especially when presented with the fruit of their union. Vishnu rebukes Shiva for taking advantage of his role while Shiva is aghast at having succumbed to its allure. What was to be done with the child? Both agree that their wives would not take kindly to either of them bringing Ayappa home. Thus they entrust the infant to pious forest sages for early upbringing, perhaps anticipating that he will later be given into the care of a virtuous king.
3. Shiva as Unworldly
It is said of Ayappa that he never matures beyond age 14, although Brahma is generally depicted as a four-faced greybeard. The suggestion, I daresay, is that he never succumbs to sexual kama or inclines to worldly desire. This makes it possible for him to maintain an uncomplicated relationship with Mother’s Shakti, being neither fearful of nor amenable to fascination by it. It is also worth pondering the implications of what it means that Shiva the Destroyer and Vishnu the Preserver should together produce Brahma the Generator as simultaneously a perennial child and eternal sage. I will return to this, regarding Jesus as Logos or ‘the Word made flesh’. In any case, despite their supposed misadventure, Shiva and Vishnu continue to interact regularly for Shiva, despite his loftiness and illusion-burning brow, never becomes street-smart. Rakshasas quickly learn to take advantage of his detachment. Thus, finding that he is satisfied by a technically perfect execution of meditative practices that warrant the bestowal of certain boons, they turn increasingly to him for selfish purposes that he never thinks to question, thereby causing disturbances that Vishnu is called on to put right.
One example arises when a characteristically power-hungry rakshasa completes his austerities and duly approaches to claim Shiva’s favour. The request seems bizarre, even for a rakshasa, as he claims the power to dissolve people by placing his hand on their heads. Distracted from his meditation Shiva obliges, then looks askance as the rakshasa draws nearer, his hand raised. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Testing my new power.’ Shiva rises quickly and starts running. As always under such circumstances he makes his way to Vishnu, the rakshasa in hot pursuit. ‘What is it today?’ asks Vishnu. Shiva explains breathlessly. ‘Just hide behind that tree and I’ll deal with it.’ Shiva obeys as Vishnu turns into Mohini, just before the rakshasa arrives. ‘Wow, I like you!’ ‘You want me?’ ‘Yeah!’ ‘Can we dance first?’ ‘Okay.’ Mohini’s hip wiggling is crudely imitated, then her waving hands and finally a palm laid flat upon her own head. The rakshasa duly dissolves, the first victim of his new power. ‘God that was great,’ Shiva says, stepping out from behind the tree. ‘You’re welcome God. I’ll see you next time,’ comes Vishnu’s reply. ‘There won’t be a next time.’ ‘Fair enough. I’ll see you anyway.’
4. Maha Kali Meets Mahishasura
It transpires that there are many next times, none graver than the occasion when Shiva is approached by Mahishasura, a buffalo demon who – having performed the necessary austerities – arrives to claim his boon, namely that he can’t be defeated by any man. Boon secured, he breaks out from Underworld confinement to wreak havoc on Earth and throughout the Celestial Realm. Not even gods can stand against him and his demon hordes. As usual under crisis Vishnu is petitioned. ‘What has He done now?’ They explain and Vishnu summons an assembly of all the gods and rishis on Penukonda plain, the area where Kaleshwar’s ashram now stands. There, pooling their meditation powers, they call forth Maha Kali as a fierce embodiment of Shakti power whose first nature is Fire. She comes with many arms, all weapon-bearing, but on the surface manifests as a beautiful maid of 16-17 years. On Her first encounter with one of Mahishasura’s armies, his generals think She would make a pleasing gift for the Boss. They advance confidently. Assuming Her fierce nature, She destroys them with indefatigable power. Escapees carry back reports of a stunning female warrior who can’t be defeated. The pattern repeats. Eventually Mahishasura is persuaded that direct attention is required.
He arrives at the head of a formidable army and is captivated by the fierce beauty of his quarry. He makes his case with presumptuous eloquence. ‘We should hook up. With your strength and mine we could do great things…’ Advances scorned, he sends in troops. Seeing them obliterated, he takes the field himself, still bragging and cajoling as they fight. Finally, losing patience, Kali looses a whirling discus (sudarshana) that flies through the air and cuts off his head. On some accounts, his headless soul is grateful for this removal of dead weight. Kali scoops up the severed head and, brandishing weapons, looks ominously towards cowering remnants of the demon army, still in a surge of battle frenzy (29). Fearing that She may cause untold damage, the gods ask Shiva to intervene. He comes before Her and She knocks him on his back, unable to identify him in Her mist of unspent rage. Then, placing Her foot triumphantly on his chest, She registers the vibration of his Heart chakra and is calmed (30). Perceiving that the greatest negativity is now vanquished, a smile begins to form. She assumes the softer guise of Kaneka Durgamba (which Kalshwar chose for a 9 feet tall living statue positioned beside his Samadhi (resting place) in the Penukonda ashram, where it is also ringed by Baba images of Shiva power to help balance and contain Her Shakti).
[This may relate to an aspect of Jesus’ negotiation with Mother (below), whereby She would go gently on humanity until our year 2,000, not letting us destroy ourselves before a ‘second coming’ of Christ consciousness could be orchestrated within Sai tradition, spearheaded in our time by incarnate Kaleshwar acting under discarnate Baba’s orders. Here Baba is both the spiritual regent of a coming Sai Yuga and the primary vehicle (Parampara) for cumulative Shiva energy in our time. That is to say, he represents the still growing accomplishment of human-divine yoga culture, whereby Consciousness in form slowly realises how better and more fully to remember the Truth of Oneness in the multi-form midst of Mother’s great illusion (mahamaya). The very name Sai Shakti is indicative of the dynamic marrying that this constantly entails. At the same time, Kaleshwar was evidently apprehensive as the year 2,000 approached and the agreement brokered by Jesus came to an end, it being his responsibility to make good any possible shortfall.]
5. The Story of Ganesh
After the Mahishasura crisis is averted, Maha Kali’s rampaging power is no longer needed as a constant presence. Things go smoothly between Shiva and Parvati-Durga for a while until, with Shiva again absent and preoccupied by his meditations, Parvati decides to bring forth a child by Herself, one whose primary loyalty will be foresworn to Her. Thus She takes some sandalwood paste and, having moulded it into the figure of a boy, breathes life into it. Ganesh is then born as a devoted son, wrapped in the physical form of an 8-9 year old. Parvati arms him with a dagger and instructs him to stand guard at the door, denying entry to all until She has finished taking Her bath. Shiva returns while She is so engaged and is denied entry by this strange boy at the door. ‘Who are you?’ he asks. ‘I am my Mother’s son,’ comes the reply, ‘charged to safeguard her privacy.’ ‘Then you must be my son also. Step aside and let your Father enter his home.’ ‘Permission denied.’ This goes on until tempers flare. Then, across various accounts of how intense the conflict becomes, the scene closes with Shiva severing the defiant boy’s head. Ganesh’s falling dagger makes a clanging noise on the ground and Parvati, alerted, instantly fears the worst. Rising from her bath She rushes out to behold the calamity.
‘What have you done to my beautiful son?’ She is furious with Shiva, who promises swift recompense. He summons his retainers and bids them spread out and return with the head of the first creature they find asleep with its head towards the North. They come first upon a baby elephant sleeping in this way. They ask the mother’s permission to take its head, promising that great honour will be done to mark her sacrifice. She consents and they return with the yielded elephant head. As the head is fitted on Ganesh’s vacant shoulders, an assembled company of rishis and gods once more pool their meditation power to vest him with all the knowledge and spiritual wisdom at their command. It also transpires that this baby elephant is perfectly connected to the angelic realms. The scene further evokes an integration of animal and spiritual powers, enlightened beyond narrow ego-self preoccupations. Parvati nonetheless acts enraged on finding that Her son now has an elephant head, even if it does lift him into enlightened consciousness. Shiva assures Her that Ganesh (32) will always be given pride of place in sacred rituals and honoured especially as an opener of new ways. Henceforth Ganesh, originally an obstacle, will become a remover of obstacles, universally revered for his clearing and empowering energies.
Parvati is appeased and Ganesh integrated as the first named member of Shiva-Shakti’s budding Holy Family. His tale of sacrifice, like that of Biblical Isaac, divides Western opinion. Some foreground an element of tragedy, un/consciously construing it in terms of absent or even abusive father themes. It may be necessary for such people to register the story in this way but there are also other options to which Kaleshwar draws attention. It highlights Mother’s power of independent generation, which also presupposes a role for Paramashiva as the spiritual Father who contributes the seed(s) of Silence to Her Creation of a material world that makes even sandalwood available as a vessel for her birthing intent. Moreover, the story illustrates a generic role of spiritual-cultural fathering that descended Shiva is now called upon to play, precisely because amnesiac humans identify prematurely with head-centred ego-mind identities that are pre-emptively small and yet defensively inclined, impeding our access to greater life. Metaphoric decapitation is a necessary response to such tenacity, as literal enactment was in bringing even arch demon Mahishasura to some inkling of potentials available beyond the burden of his cloying selfishness.
Ganesh may be wholly innocent in this regard but he still needs opening to the world of angels and cosmic energies. Some versions also emphasise Shiva’s foresight in directing the search for a new head, identifying the baby elephant as the embodiment of a divine soul. Physically fatherless Ganesh is also capable of realising this high potential once attachment to his ego-mind (head-centred) identity has been overcome. Again he stands as a representative of all of our potentials as human beings in this regard. (The Vedic gods’ assumption of human form is not mere accident or a result of anthropomorphic projection; rather it is seen to indicate the high spiritual calling of our Vilakshana type, as I understand it.) Hence Shiva’s role in orchestrating the company of gods and saints to oversee the investiture of Ganesh’s new ‘head’ can’t be overlooked. Viewed generically, it offers a condensed prototype example of how Father-sponsored yogic tradition works to support our development from spiritual infancy towards remembrance of our intrinsically divine fully human nature. Yes, Shakti births diverse forms prolifically but She also calls in Shiva as Destroyer to shift us beyond preclusive fixations, knowing well that he must attend to his austerities in order to take care of Her Creation.
6. Love amidst the Ashes
Shiva’s summoning of gods and saints above evokes a focused application of yogic accomplishments to date with the intention of maximising Ganesh’s raw potential as a product of Mother’s burgeoning Shakti power, again marrying Energy and Awareness in existence. Despite this, and the relative harmony achieved after Ganesh’s elevation has been achieved, Shiva continues to be preoccupied by the question of how it was that Parvati was able to bring forth an embodied soul of Her own accord. He contemplates and meditates on this incessantly. Eventually, still stymied, he dances his frustration out so violently that his movements threaten to disintegrate the universe. Alarmed, the gods petition his wife to go and calm him down, balancing him as he did Her after the defeat of Mahishasura.
She comes upon him in a cemetery, with which he is associated as the one who receives souls newly liberated after death. He is not best pleased on being disturbed, especially by this Source of his frustration. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I need to talk to you. Can I approach?’ ‘Why? What do you really want?’ ‘I want to make love.’ ‘Here!?’ He points to burning bodies and ash clouds swirling around the cremation fires. ‘Why not? You know it’s all Illusion.’ This disarms him and he bids Her draw near. They embrace then and make physical love for the first time in Creation, satisfying his curiosity regarding the nature of Her generative power. This is a matter of experiential discovery, not inference or declaration. Crucially it is said that Shiva must grow male genitals in order that their union can be realised. This reminds us of his essentially feminine nature as a manifest form in Mother’s Creation, countering our tendency to assume his male agency as proactive in the matter of ‘giving’ his seed to enable Mother’s birthing prowess. Even reviewing Kaleshwar’s ‘which came first’ enquiries with senior students, I am struck by how our sensibility in this regard is tacitly conditioned by unconscious images of penetrative sex, including how it has been construed within the frames of patriarchal sexual history.
Beginning with Paramashiva before Cosmos ever came into Be-ing, we have seen how it may be truer to say that She coaxes the seed of Silence from him rather than him ‘giving it to Her’ in any coarser sense. Likewise in the graveyard his phallus must be called into existence and then, we may imagine, further induced towards physical release. This is more consistent with pre-Cosmic precedent than any kind of forceful engendering being visited on the body of the Goddess. The ‘flowery combat’ of Taoist love-making is a recognisable evolution of this first option, not a smoothed out rehabilitation of the second. In any case, experiencing his own orgasmic yielding in this way awakens his awareness and reconciles him to continued involvement in the spiritual fathering of en-souled human beings. He now sees that we finally come, like Him, from Silence, but necessarily through Her. That said, Mother also comes to recognise an avoidable limitation in having Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva so specialised that none of them can truly fathom Her totality. For this reason, it would appear, She contrives yet another superbly orchestrated Sacred Play.
7. Dattatreya
There was once a famous yogini named Anasuya whose accomplishment was so great, it is said, that she aroused jealousy in Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Accordingly, it is also said, they prevailed on their god consorts to visit Anasuya while her husband was away with the aim of mortifying her. Despite this being wildly out of character for all three goddesses, the gods agree to do their bidding. Thus they arrive at a time when Anasuya is known to be alone, understanding that she will be bound to receive them deferentially, given their status and her obligation of hospitality towards them. They are gruff and over-bearing from the moment they enter, finally demanding that she feed them and go bare-breasted as she does. This would count as a crushing humiliation in traditional Indian culture. Ever the gracious hostess, Anasuya agrees and proceeds to breastfeed all three but not without first changing them into babies. Later she sets them crawling and mewling on the floor. Eventually, the goddesses arrive to reclaim their gods. ‘Have you seen our husbands?’ ‘Sure. There they are. You’re welcome to them if you can tell which is which.’ The goddesses exchange what may be knowing looks.
‘Would you mind restoring them for us, please?’ ‘Certainly, on one condition.’ ‘Name it.’ ‘I’m going to have a child soon and will restore your husbands if each of them agrees to contribute their essence at his conception.’ ‘Leave it with us.’ And so it came to pass that Dattatreya was born of human parents as a human being, vested with the divine attributes of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva combined, embodying their respective attributes in his uniqueness as the highest representative of our ideal (Vilakshana) type. He is depicted as having three heads due to this triple aspect but that is just visual metaphor (33). The primary expression of his power comes in an ability to handle the vagaries of Mother while drawing on Shiva’s ability to see past Her Illusion, Vishnu’s to balance it while also charming Her and Brahma’s knowledge/generative power. She is not dismayed by this but overjoyed as his appearance heralds a promise of Truth-full interaction between the deeply latent intentionality of Her Shakti and awakened human agents who are inwardly moved to facilitate its glorious realisation on Earth and Beyond.
I experienced intimations of this when I first heard the basic Dattatreya mantra (Om visha kara…) in its evocation of Shiva’s utter frustration around the creating of a soul (…dham dham dham) and then the wonderful flip that announces the Dattatreya ideal of universal beauty (Vishva sundara…). I also experienced its closing lines (Datta swarupa) as a compelling invitation for me to realise whatever integration of latent Dattatreya potential that I might be capable of according to my light. For months, the pursuit and attempted comprehension of this ideal became the focus of my meditations, eclipsing all other channels that I had been working to develop. Finally I came to see that as the current ‘bosses’ of Sai tradition (Jesus, Baba and Kaleshwar) were all Dattatreya masters, my expression of this ideal is best supported by participating in an ever-growing lineage that traces its origin back to this highest realisation of humanity’s Vilakshana ideal, especially now with Baba as Parampara. That said, few attain such high realisation. Thus, despite Dattatreya’s achievements and those of his exalted avatars, the majority of humans have always remained stuck in degenerative cycles of increasing negativity. This suggests that intervention by a different kind of avatar was also needed: whence Jesus’ supreme modelling of universal loving compassion as well as arcane yogic powers.
8. Jesus’ Once and Only Life
Jesus’ one life would never have been possible without the many that Mother Mary lived in preparation for it, building gradually towards levels of purification and empowerment required to bear his fully divine human soul into our world and guide it through snares of illusion that come with this. The essence of Jesus’ incarnation was its embodiment of pure Love, so deeply ingrained that it could withstand every challenge that earthly immersion would put in its way. We hear repeatedly how illusion strikes the moment a soul enters Creation. How could Jesus have avoided this? One answer involves resilience endowed by his soul calibre. Equally important and instructive is the great care taken in preparation for its coming. This includes the purity of his conception (in a spiritual rather than conventionally moral sense) and the absolute integrity with which Mother Mary safeguarded this process throughout her pregnancy and rearing of him from infancy to youth. She was, according to Kaleshwar, his first guru and primary soulmate, again in a non-conventional sense. There is a rich backstory to this that we must review in order to understand the unique profundity of Jesus’ mission, the depth of his relationship with Mother Mary and through Her with Mother Divine.
Our tale begins when Mary is 14 years old during the lifetime for which all her previous incarnations had been a preparation. The Annunciation that Christianity’s New Testament associates with the angel Gabriel being sent by God to declare her imminent pregnancy is inflected differently by Kaleshwar. On his telling she is actually visited by Mother Divine in a full physical darshan. Mary, well used to such intimate association, proclaims her grief at the suffering of the world and asks that she might be allowed to sweep it all away. Mother responds that this option isn’t available to her because, as a woman, she is so deeply embedded in nature and feels everything about it so deeply that she would be unable to act on it in ways that would be required. Men, by contrast, have a measure of detachment (that presumably harks back to Shiva’s prototypically masculine soul disposition). This allows us to stand back from nature and operate on it in a way that women’s depth immersion precludes. It is known that many men ‘operate’ in a controlling mode that aggravates rather than relieves distress. Mother therefore tells Mary that she will bear a son, a uniquely gifted man who will balance operational power with loving compassion in order to bring about the reorientation of human conduct and experience that Mary longs for. Her role will be to prepare him for this mission.
And so Jesus comes to be born, conceived according to Mother’s highest intent in the mode of Ganesh except that an even more enabling yogic culture is also now in place. Well versed in this, Mary recites empowering mantras throughout her pregnancy and during his birth. So clear is she that nothing of Earth’s woes disturbs her infant as she nurses and swaddles him. He is also fortified by gifts received from three Eastern (yogic) kings who come to welcome and anoint him. Kaleshwar notes that Mary had the strongest Womb Chakra and biggest Heart ever, excepting only this son who flourished under her tuition. Other yogis return for him at age 14, much as Baba came to Kaleshwar and Mother to Mary. They escort him to India, where he spends his ‘missing years’ until he returns to the Middle East around 30 years of age. While Christian gospels offer no account of this period, Kaleshwar notes that Jesus travelled extensively through India and Tibet, learning from the greatest teachers and mastering their highest yogas. Baba in his incarnation of that time was one of Jesus’ gurus and Kaleshwar a friend, later to become Mother Mary’s teacher. By this time, according to Kaleshwar, Jesus had become the greatest healer who ever lived.
Beyond specific miracles attributed by Christian sources, Jesus set himself a two-fold mission: to clear the karma of the world and make healing channels he had learned in India available to all. He had long since learned to commune directly with Mother and did so daily. Taking on so much karma, She explained, would require him to pay a terrible price, greater than he could bear. No matter, he replied, She could do with his body whatever was necessary. The likely outcome of this resolution was known to him in advance. Still there is uncertainty regarding details of his fate. It is said, for example, that he over-ruled his yogic mentors by returning to Jerusalem without major power objects he had collected in the course of his Eastern sojourn. (A power object carries the high spiritual energy of its source, serving to strengthen and protect those into whose possession it is entrusted.) It seems to me that he was resolved to uphold his bargain with Mother whatever the cost. As Kaleshwar states, Jesus could never have been crucified unless he allowed it. As a master of the elements – a walker on water, stiller of winds, multiplier of loaves etc. – he could have changed the Romans’ nails to flowers and their whips to garlands. Was the crucifixion therefore necessary? Could it have been avoided? Evidently not and by his choice, given lofty goals that had been set.
My sense is that Jesus was resolved to deliver the highest result that his incarnation could possibly achieve, far beyond the political resonances of his execution as an alleged insurrectionist. It is also relevant that, even before entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he had used a high yogic technique to deposit (let us say) 90% of his soul power in a time pocket from which it could later be retrieved. A psychological explanation for this might be that it would prevent that portion of his soul from being disfigured by torture. A complementary option is that it makes Jesus’ sacrificial gesture in going freely to the cross more authentically representative of the human potential that he was attempting to rescue from aeons of karma, trauma and related soul-destroying practices. (The Romans crucified millions of people over the duration of their empire; few have been remembered and none possessed anything like Jesus’ Shakti power.) It is also debated whether he suffered on the cross. Some say no owing to his divine nature and others yes as his sacrifice would otherwise have been merely cosmetic. Kaleshwar says that he suffered terribly and that Divine Father-Mother bore his pain.
I would have no idea what this means were it not for a pre-surgical process where I experienced bursts of excruciating pain that were inwardly linked in the moment to stages of Jesus’ crucifixion such that I found myself experiencing on two levels: mundane ego agony as described and at the same a spiritual ecstasy induced by my soul’s mystical participation in his Passion, which almost totally eclipsed my earthly pain. Thus I came to understand that Jesus both did and didn’t suffer, the latter due to his living Awareness of the great trans-cosmic Shiva-Shakti drama that he was serving to unlock. This experience also allowed me to grasp that Jesus’ challenge was forever to maintain an attitude of unconditional Love (as in Prema, the key to realising Truth: below) throughout his ordeal and during days and nights before when he might have faltered. Kaleshwar tells how Jesus’ wrists were nailed down by a soldier who had been blinded in one eye, to which sight was restored by spurting blood. Astounded, the soldier hesitated, reluctant to proceed. Jesus then advised him to do his duty, knowing that the bargain with Mother must be honoured.
Kaleshwar, who attended the crucifixion alongside Mother Mary, mentions yet another detail that I would suspect as superfluous embellishment if it came from any other source. This concerns a claim that Jesus was finally stabbed with elephant tusks. Although these were hardly standard issue to Roman centurions, there is no obstacle here that bribery couldn’t overcome as long as the victim’s ‘death’ was reliably confirmed. Jesus was certainly removing obstacles in the manner of Ganesh, albeit on a more refined level to which the symbolism presumably points. I also allow totally that Jesus recited the Maheshwari prayer as he died, emulating his Father’s wish to be one again with Mother, returning through Her Womb to find completion in Her Heart. Kaleshwar confirms that this re-union was duly achieved, with history’s most fully realised god-man passing graciously out through Mother’s Womb and back to Heart as his Dharma had ordained. On earth, meanwhile, an impending Sabbath required that the lifeless corpse be promptly taken down. Once this happened there was no time to be lost. Another bribe no doubt facilitated immediate release, whereon the body was carried swiftly to a waiting sepulchre. Here Kaleshwar exhorted a stricken Mother Mary to heal her son’s broken body.
Finding her deeply traumatised he had to push through layers of Heartbreak and grief. ‘Fix him! Fix him!’ he repeated, knowing that only Mother Love could repair the brutal damage that had been inflicted. Jolted out of despair, Mary took Jesus’ body into Her lap and, clasping it to Her Holy Womb, blasted him with divine Shakti, reciting mantras and calling back the portions of his soul that had been banked in the time pocket. Kaleshwar compares this episode to Michelangelo’s Pieta (slide 35), which he says offers an energetically exact image of the scene, especially in its depiction of Mary as a Great Mother who would be 9 feet tall were She to stand, the same height as the Kaneka Durga statue that he had installed beside his Samadhi in Penukonda. Indeed, throughout this healing episode, he notes that Mother Mary was equal in power to Maha Kali and an almost total embodiment of Mother Divine Herself. We may sense many profoundly complex threads weaving together in these lines.
That said, despite overwhelming love and admiration for Jesus, Kaleshwar refers to the outcome of his mission as successful failure: successful in that the patterns as evoked above were established, principally a model for clearing karmas of the world through voluntary self-sacrifice and concomitant dedication to miracle healing practices that utilise the same powers as Jesus won from Mother, unequivocally for the sake of all; a failure in that he was unable to prepare his students to the same sublime level as himself, although he predicted a future of greater attainment for them, perhaps to be realised in our present. The problem finally was, according to Kaleshwar, that he loved too much and was thus reluctant to press the students to depths of self-clarification that might have allowed them to overcome fears, jealousy and divisions that arose at the time of his arrest and after his crucifixion. As a result, they lacked unity and cohesion, something that is reflected in Christianity’s early history. For this reason, Kaleshwar was fiercely strict with his students, drilling them to levels of personal and group cohesion so that they could implement and relay his teachings without distorting them or disintegrating into factions.
In any case, once Mother Mary’s healing reanimated Jesus’ body, it was necessary to smuggle him out of Jerusalem as quickly as possible. Eventually, he was brought back to Penukonda, where he lived for more than another fifty years, making major contributions to the tradition. During this time, with a better understanding of difficulties involved in implementing the teachings, he asked Kaleshwar to return in due time and bring the mission to fulfilment. Kaleshwar agreed: whence his most recent (1973-2012) incarnation. Jesus’ physical remains are still in Penukonda, as are Kaleshwar’s. Both continue to work in Spirit, alongside Baba, to promote the inauguration of a Sai Yuga, working through established senior students and others who are even now incarnating for that purpose. Knowing of the hostility shown by Peter and other male disciples towards Mary Magdalene after Jesus’ departure, Kaleshwar was particularly emphatic in stressing the power of the Divine Feminine and the need for actual women to realise it in our time. Thus he specifically trained female masters, even appointing one to succeed him as leader of the lineage on Earth.
Like Jesus, he had to encounter unanticipated problems. Thus he had originally intended to leave a few years after connecting with his Western students. One reason for this was his sense that he could work a million times more effectively out of a body than he could while constrained by physical limitations. However, it took more than an extra decade for him to bring senior students to a level where he felt confident that they would be able to manage without his actual presence (as in full-body darshans with Mother and Jesus that he oversaw, for example). The crux was always that She must be able to recognise and respond to their/our efforts favourably so that Her reflections might actively help humanity move towards a platform of renewed co-creativity after centuries and millennia of spiritual amnesia had led to Her repression and neglect. It now seems that real progress is being made in this regard. Whereas before Mother was unable to see us clearly as Her children (because our soul vibrations had become so distorted by karma and hurt), there are now clear signs that She has begun again to acknowledge and empower those who turn consciously to Her. This transformed arrangement was declared by Mataji, the living head of Sai tradition on Earth, at the end of 2023 and I have been privy to it since.
9. Four Flames of Burning Truth
It is time to look again at Sri Chakra, with particular reference to the diamond structure left of its centre, which encompasses the Nadu Bindu (slide 34). This is said to be the centre, yet inspection reveals a clear asymmetry regarding both the structure’s vertical and horizontal axes, with the Nadu Bindu skewed slightly to its left (Shiva) side from our frontal perspective and well below what should be its geometric centre. Bear in mind that we are dealing with Kaleshwar’s ‘shortcut’ version of this energy diagram of Mother’s Womb, adapted for modern times. The implications of this will become pivotal later but for now I stress that we are viewing it from the outside, so to speak, from our vantage point in manifest, apparently material Creation, although this is in Truth a projection of Consciousness with the Nada Bindu at its centre. Viewing the yantra like this, we sense that there is also an interior dimension, a backdrop of un-manifest Be-ing on its far side, ‘behind’ how it appears to us. Mother Parashakti dwells here as the undisclosed generative Source of All Things. What Kaleshwar calls the Diamond Yantra (slide 35) offers a glimpse of this ‘other side.’ There are also mantras that carry us through to this ‘interior,’ even to the point of our souls’ origin within it. More work is required to make this accessible but it is important for present purposes that certain preliminary details be shared now.
Firstly, imagine stepping through the visible, out-facing Nada Bindu into a Diamond Yantra whose interior is composed entirely of straight lines, despite the impression it creates of being everywhere curved, like a church dome seen from above. All these straight lines come in pairs, signifying the underlying indivisibility of Shiva-Shakti, even as they tend towards differentiation. We see this in a six-pointed star at the structure’s centre. Perhaps anticipating the double trinity of the main god/desses, this is also made up of the union of an ascending (male, Shiva) and descending (female, Shakti) triangle. An inner Nada Bindu (Invisible Point of Creation) lies at the Heart of their intersection, focusing a creative tension that will manifest (apparently, given that all manifestation is finally Illusion) through the Nada Bindu’s ‘outer’ visible aspect, notwithstanding evident asymmetries and that corresponding ‘outer’ fe/male triangles don’t overlap fully, and in one crucial case not at all. Suspending such concerns for now, let us focus on the Diamond Yantra per se.
Evidently, it evokes a latent structure that was always implicit in the pure potentiality of Zero Silence or Be-ing as such. Note that it is emphatically compartmentalised, like a variable honeycomb structure. Within each compartment a Telegu inscription is found, a mantra that corresponds to a particular soul type/configuration. By using a particular mantra from Kaleshwar’s Kala Chakra system, it is possible to find our way back into this structure and so discover where we as souls come from. We can then come forward again with a renewed and reinforced sense of who we truly are and what for, beyond the specifics of our current incarnation while also bringing them into clarified focus. There is a message here for us that Baba underscored via certain details he incorporated into his Samadhi (resting place). Beneath this, invisible and underground, is a sealed chamber where he set four flames perpetually burning, despite the lack of an oxygen source. My intuition has always been that the flames correspond to four ‘corners’ marked in blue on the diamond yantra. These respectively evoke, from top right to bottom left, the ‘four knowledges’ of Satya, Dharma, Shanti and Prema: respectively Truth, (spiritual) Duty, Peace and (unconditional) Love.
The relations between these in our naïve experience can be visualised in terms of an energy wheel, spinning so fast that they seem to pass us by in a constant blur of maya, leaving us disorientated, without any sense of purpose or purchase in the world. To overcome this, we must find a way of stepping aboard that neutralises this surface whirl of constant motion. Our point of access from within existence (Creation) is always Dharma. This involves establishing a sense of what we were born to do and then doing it. How are we ever to learn what our spiritual duty is? What specifically we are meant to be doing in a postmodern world that constantly assails us with noisy claims about infinite possibilities? The answer is gradually, incrementally and usually by default. We must first slow down, attending only to the next right step and ignoring outer blandishments. We may not have any idea of what this step is but we do have a residual spiritual-emotional radar that tells us what it’s not: whence our default sense of being stuck with a wrong person, place, task etc. Moving gradually away from such mistaken options, we also gradually move closer to more fitting ones, without pushing.
Applying this principle consistently we come into a sense of being on a way, our way, steadily course-correcting as required. By observing this fundamental discipline we fall into a growing sense of becoming clearer, more deeply aligned and empowered, especially if blessed with spiritual guidance that our constancy may attract. We may even develop a sense of what Saint Teresa meant by saying that ‘The Way to Heaven is already Heaven,’ or the Way of Heaven as Lao Tse advised. Realising this, we also come to realise the experience of Shanti, a mystical Peace that surpasses cognitive understanding and doesn’t depend on contingencies like the satisfaction of desire x or the success of project y. Indeed, under this condition, Shakti flows easily through us, without forcing or resistance, always summoning the next right latency (step) into awareness towards a commissioning of right action in the world. This recaps on a micro scale the macro process whereby primordial Shakti stirs the infinite latencies of Shiva as abbreviated Silence towards existence. And without resistance, the power of Shakti becomes known again in its essence as Love, unconditional now as it was Unconditioned before (our Impossible Beginning). The absence of a hyphen (as in un-conditioned) evokes the latent presence of a primal, unbroken integrity; not the negation of some apparent deviation from it.
This brings a realisation of Love as such, in itself, known in conscious awareness without attachment to self, so that we experience It spontaneously reaching out and gathering in, just like primordial yin-yang, with no need for a doer. This Love is not kama/desire, not a yearning for this or that or something we do but rather a direct apprehension and expression of all that we are, which is finally All That Is. Beyond Illusion and the terms of our embroilment in it, this state is at once radiant, effortless, magnetic and unconditionally freeing in every sense. Such words only begin to evoke the ineffable experience of Prema, or Love brought to Awareness in and of itself. The realisation of this, its (self-) re-cognition is experienced as Satya, or Truth, again spontaneously. This experience is beyond facts, logic, analysis or propositions. It simply is, just so, known immediately in and for itself as Love brought to Awareness or, regarding the mythology of our Illusion, Shiva and Shakti made One again, despite never having been otherwise in Truth. Our undeclared ‘I Am’ thus comes Home knowingly to itself as the I AM THAT I AM eternally is (was and ever will Be).
10. A Fifth Knowledge
Satya, Dharma, Shanti and Prema are known as the Four Knowledges but, Kaleshwar insists, there is also a fifth. What could this be? His answer is the Nadu Bindu, the life and death point of entry/exit between inner and outer, Silence and Creation, Life and Death, Be-ing and Existence etc. This focal threshold is also a point of infinite contraction and expansion where the energy of Shakti (yin Love drawing in) precipitates Mat(t)er, Mother-stuff as a precondition of apparently material existence, which then explodes volumetrically (yang Love reaching out) to bestow apparent substance on Creation as an intrinsically urged Dream of the Divine. By means of this yin contraction and yang expansive complement, implicate Love – first stirred as kama/desire – reaches out in hope of becoming better known. Again, Kaleshwar’s Nadu Bindu is off centre, reflecting a late stage Kali Yuga where Truth rests only on one leg. This makes sense granted Sai’s revolutionary motivation.* Recall also that Sri Chakra can be raised to a level of pure Feeling (Heart) Awareness. This restores a primal sense of felt integrity but is not yet I AM THAT I AM as there is more to be revealed (Part III). We can say that raising Sri Chakra to the level of Heart Awareness allows us to change Nature via applications of miracle power (Shakti) won through yogic discipline and clarified imbalances in formerly unconscious, kama-driven, karma-ridden and trauma-afflicted Womb-based creativity. Perhaps from this we can build a spiritually responsive culture based on conscious co-creativity with Mother, aligned according to Sai’s Five Knowledges.
*Focused application of the first four on the Nada Bindu as a quintessential fifth has startling implications: it suggests that Satya, Dharma, Shanti and Prema are emergent qualities with respect to Creation. Despite being eternally latent in the Silence, they become known to Awareness by virtue of Illusion and our part in it. Looking forward, this also implies that the restoration of such Awareness to a broad human culture – to everybody per Jesus’ most cherished ambition – signals an interventionist programme. Its aim is not just to help us survive the perilous end of our Kali Yuga and stumble into Dwapara on an ascending arc towards eternal recurrence; rather it aims to wake us up, transforming our conduct as well as consciousness to establish a Golden Age out of its prescribed sequence. In this regard, Baba’s Knowledges offer dynamic new legs for Truth. Also, their convergence on the Nadu Bindu suggests a more complex relationship between Truth and Illusion than has customarily been allowed. It is important to acknowledge this at a time when the post-Truth machinations of a deranged genocidal state and flailing Western Empire heap shame on humanity as well as one of its great spiritual traditions. A lazy conclusion here, embraced by the self-serving, is that Illusion is paramount, reducing Truth to the loudest mouth’s most forceful bite. Knowing that even the most ungracious dramas so contrived are not Truth prepares us to endure and then transcend. I will write more about this elsewhere.
The difference between these perspectives becomes evident on contrasting the Greek Ages and Vedic Yugas. One posits an inexplicably dismal trajectory of decline that consigns us to more of the ignorant same, regardless of ‘improved’ weapons that dissociated rakshasa mentality produces. This scenario leads only to what has been called an ‘end times fascism’ that is currently playing out. A Sai Yuga can defeat the shame-ridden infamy of this charade because it knows that a Golden Age can’t be rhetorically proclaimed. Poison must be processed before Gold can be raised and this, crucially, requires Shiva’s help – i.e. the support of a transcendent awareness that is also moved to take care. This is where Kaleshwar’s palm leaf teachings come in, with four knowledges that converge upon a fifth, suggesting new possibilities of Truth that can be explored through remembered Shakti Love and Shiva Awareness. Sai tradition can support this trajectory because it retains continuous memory of all the consciousness structures through which we have passed in the course of our evolution and of methods we can employ to re-integrate their gifts in a sane harmonious manner consistent with Mother’s continuing adventure.
We have always sought greater clarity in the midst of this as the conditions of our lives allowed but mostly been frustrated due to ignorance and lack of opportunity. We now have an opportunity to plot our course more consciously, blending the power of Shakti Love with Shiva Awareness towards that end, knowing that these are forever actually One: complementary poles that were never really opposite or truly sundered. Allowing this, we see also that Mother’s adventure is a song with an end but no ending. Confirmation comes when we look again at slide 39, which images the tai chi diagram against a black ground, remembering Zero Silence before Light was made (apparent). As before, we can now sense a movement of dark energy from the limitless Ground of pure Be-ing (also No-thingness) pressing constantly onto the light of existence, pushing our universe to endless quantitative expansion. Qualitatively, we can also say, a parallel process unfolds as every emergent sub-unit of pure Dark potential (super-saturated light contained in the unknowingness of God) that gets born into Creation (40) and remembers its Source, contributes its own lightning flash (41) in an ongoing process of divine self-recollection that never ends but rather constantly renews by means of Creation the ecstatic self-awareness of pure Be-ing, now known in and for itself and still tending eternally to celebrate, illuminate and embellish its manifesting nature.
We find this urge beautifully expressed in a Vedic text called the Tripura Rahasya. Much of this concerns Dattatreya’s advice to a senior student regarding how best to access the highest forms of Mother, including Her formlessness. I end with a paraphrased summary of the text’s most eloquent declaration, speaking as if from Her point of view words I have waited all my life to utter: I incarnate and I incarnate and I incarnate, again and again and again, always looking for my Guru (a Master to awaken Her in given lives) the better to realise, again and again, who I AM (where from and what for). I leave this assertion undefended for now, qualified only by a renewal of promise regarding a lifelong quest that was long hidden from me: namely to evoke a Vedic Grail in ways that will not reduce it to common denominators of a universal mythos but rather lift wounded them towards appreciation of the depth, precision and actionable efficacy that Kaleshwar’s teachings have restored for the sake of all.
(1) Material Creation is a projection of Consciousness with the Nadu Bindu at its centre. This Nadu Bindu constitutes a Visible Point of Creation (in terms of scientifically observable Big Bang traces etc.). It is engendered along with Mother’s Holy Womb by a primary yin contraction that occurs when a formerly laten yang Shakti pulse first exceeds a pre-set yin (Shiva) containing power. This Invisible Point of Creation first registers in Mother’s all-encompassing Heart but is drawn down and slightly leftwards by the contraction, per my visualising, in a way that corresponds uncannily to the Nadu Bindu’s displacement from geometric centre in Kaleshwar’s revised Sri Chakra. It is suggested that this reflects the distorting influence of Sai Yuga relative to a classic ideal whose intrinsic harmony was evidently deemed sufficient to elevate souls towards right order. An asymmetrical Sri chakra can’t serve this purpose and so must be directed towards what we need to accomplish by means of it in order to rise above and re-centre beyond multiply compounded layers of reactive chaos by which our materialistic global culture is now affected. I hope to show how this works in a later Part.
