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Dear Friend and Reader,
Chariklo stations direct today, and 83 years ago, spiritual master Meher Baba began his oath of silence. These two events could not be better matched.
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Meher Baba used an alphabet board to communicate after taking his lifelong oath |
Looking over the details on Chariklo (you can read all about the minor planet on Planet Wiki), the basic sentiment is servitude: Chariklo was married to Centaur Chiron who, after giving up his immortality, was hit with a poisoned arrow and suffered a slow death. Chariklo was incredibly devoted to Chiron and nursed him through his long injury. She did this for him entirely out of love, and this level of commitment has given Chariklo the title of honorary Centaur, though she was actually a nymph.
Meher Baba, born in India on February 25, 1894, believed himself to be an Avatar: an incarnation of god. At the age of 19, he met a Muslim holy woman, Hazrat Babajan, and this experience triggered his spiritual quest in which he aided the poor, the insane and the lepers of India. On July 10, 1925, he began a lifelong oath of silence, communicating solely by using hand gestures and by pointing on an alphabet board. The oath was not a demonstration of his spirituality or the strength of his will: Meher Baba chose silence as a part of his work as an Avatar and to help others. He explains:
Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence.
He became silent so people would listen.
Just as Chariklo showed her unconditional love for Chiron, Meher Baba expressed his ultimate devotion to helping people through his selflessness. On a two-year pilgrimage he took, known as “The New Life,” Meher Baba and twenty others gave up all their possessions and their identities, and travelled around India begging for food and always maintaining a state of cheerfulness. This absolvement of circumstances, of helplessness, of hopes, of aims: of greed, of desire, of reward, was the central aim.
Meher Baba believed that, to completely accept all that life brings us, and to love simply for the sake of loving, is showing absolute reliance on god.
Now, personally, I have been questioning my own belief in god for many years, so, while I find Meher Baba’s way of life and complete trust in the world alluring; doing it in the name of god, or believing oneself to be an embodiment of god, puts me off a bit. But I do think there is something spiritual, and perhaps the definition of peaceful, in devoting oneself to something so wholeheartedly, so happily, and ridding oneself of the desire for reward, feelings of greed and hatred: feelings that, as Meher Baba explained, breed war.
Perhaps today, when we have the choice to confront someone with anger, or experience possessiveness instead of love, or greed and envy instead of living in the now, we can pause for a minute and try to take, instead, a bit of Chariklo’s pure love and devotion, a bit of Meher Baba’s god-like selflessness and peace.
We can try to live, to paraphase Dan Eldon, the journey instead of the destination.
Yours & truly,
Today’s Oracle takes us to July 12, 2004 – Taurus – Weekly
It may seem that you have had to push yourself through nearly impossible territory, and it’s all the less appealing considering how many times you’ve been through this same mental space and emotional material. In the end, the effort will pay off; for now, it’s like you’re running a 50 mile training course for what will turn out to be a five mile race. Yet in becoming free from the deepest patterns of one’s family, one can never be too strong. Eventually you will find your equilibrium, particularly when Venus changes signs on the 7th of August after what feels like endless months in Gemini. Then, you’ll be resting from a place of strength rather than retreat.
Thursday 10 July 2008
Chariklo stations direct (5+ Scorpio)
Amor (27+ Taurus) septile Varuna (19+ Cancer)
Venus (26+ Cancer) quincunx Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Mercury (29+ Gemini) opposite Pluto (29+ Sagittarius Rx)
Mercury (29+ Gemini) septile Asbolus (7+ Taurus)
Varuna (19+ Cancer) quintile M87 (1+ Libra)
Sisyphus (10+ Libra) sesquiquadrate Admetos (25+ Taurus)
Mars (5+ Virgo) conjunct Saturn (5+ Virgo)
Mars (5+ Virgo) sextile Chariklo (5+ Scorpio)
Mercury (0 Cancer) square Aries Point (0 Aries)
Mercury enters Cancer (direct)
Ceres (12+ Cancer) septile Sedna (21+ Taurus)
Saturn (5+ Virgo) sextile Chariklo (5+ Scorpio)
Sun (19+ Cancer) quintile M87 (1+ Libra)
Sun (19+ Cancer) conjunct Varuna (19+ Cancer)
Hi Eric,
As always, thanks for the food for thought. I, for one, cannot wait for tomorrow’s conjunction. I’ve already experienced the movement of some of my stuck energy and am grateful. I was beginning to get self-destructive. I think about resistance as the reflection of an internal struggle related to victimhood. We often find ourselves in resistance when someone challenges our self-identifying as a victim. In resistance, we’re kind of saying: I don’t want to change, but I don’t want to be here either.
My way out of resistance is usually through writing. It is through written expression that I begin to catch sight of the paradigm I’m stuck in, thereby making room for something new or altered (Yesterday I wrote a poem called “The Dark Side of Compromise.”) Through writing, I also express what I truly want (That same day, I also wrote a description of my ideal man, for the moment.)
Both of these things break down resistance — they are empowering, which is the opposite of victimizing and the other side of resistance. Resistance is like a bridge between victimization and empowerment, and we decide in which direction we want to walk.
And this leads me to wonder about Nin’s statement: “We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.” I’m not sure I fully agree. If this were true, I’m not sure any of us would find our way out of victimhood, or our way into resistance. There must be a moment of temptation to see something other — to see what we are not yet.
I think Einstein offered wisdom about this. When Saturn nudges us to let go of what is not working and Mars provides the energy/desire to pursue something else, then we have the support needed to see things as somebody else might see them, and to change ourselves in the process. Maybe it is more hopeful to believe something like: We see things not as they are and not as we are, but as we’re willing to become (or not.) Then again, what we are is always becoming; and so maybe it’s all the same thing…
Be well,
C.F.
