Worldwide Ashram Blog

Thank you so much for these powerful insights, Michael. It does truly appear that we are in an Aquarian ‘break-out phase.’

We are so privileged to be living during this magnificent process of awakening. It is widespread, it is largely intuitive and each of us reading these pages is likely seeing it and experiencing it daily.

‘Scientism’ in all of its brittle material disguises is being exposed! The examples are outpouring. In medicine and psychotherapy, while we can still appreciate the contribution of ‘materia medica’ (a.k.a. pharmacology), we understand that it does not, and cannot, answer the breadth of health and wellness challenges we face. Millions upon millions now turn to ‘unscientific’ and ‘unproven’ (more often, unsanctioned) ‘alternative therapies,’ with enormous success.

The abject failure of formal public school education, at least for large segments of the population, is now in common discourse. And the jack is not going back in the box! Private school enrollment is rapidly expanding. And millions of children are now homeschooled. All indications are these latter options are serving our children far better than the public indoctrination factories.

The news media is also in the exposure cue, it’s rank materialistic worldview and overarching spewing forth of propaganda is increasingly observed and ridiculed. This is becoming so well documented and appreciated that it hardly needs specific defense, which means the news media will either transform into an organ of truth, or be eclipsed and disappear as alternative exponents of truth come forward.

Institutional, dogmatically-based religion is in for reform as well. Yes, many continue to follow the strident voices of the profane who have successfully infiltrated positions of authority. But many others are not longer tolerating the debasement of their traditions, and are finding kinship in the global community of believers who know that their shared spirituality is not determined by specific beliefs so much as by the loving compassion felt and experienced in one another’s Presence.

Humanity is receiving at present and with increasing intensity onrushing photon showers from the galactic center, and this phenomenon is causing us to accelerate in consciousness. Remarkably, this process appears to be encoded in the Mayan calendar; and almost as remarkably, the actual science behind this is now being confirmed by astronomers and nuclear physicists.

Like other utterly stunning information such as the admittedly far more mundane, but fully documented 25 TRILLION dollar 2007 to 2010 secret expenditure of our Federal Reserve mandarins, the major media is very nearly completely silent on these matters. We of course remind ourselves of how grateful we must be for the global internet.

All of this awakening is really an element of Gautama Buddha’s Bo Tree experience, his entry into nirvana, the state of the Presence, the Eternal Present. It is at least partly the realization that many practitioners now encounter: “I am waking up into a state of conscious awareness which, more and more, I am not ‘falling out of,’ as I have tended to do earlier on my Path.”

All genuine spiritual practice plays into the Awakening, and people in every faith are experiencing this like never before. The photons of light and enlightenment are onrushing….

I do not presume to understand the fullness of this process. I only know it is observable, verifiable and wonderful to behold in its varied manifestations. For me the whole blessed phenomenon takes a prominent place on the shelf of Holy Mystery.

May our Eternal Father Mother bless, guide and keep us on this upward flight of Being.

T Connor

Ever since Francis Bacon, progress in science has resulted in an accompanying change in philosophy to explain the world and our place in it.  The unfortunate result of relying strictly on science to interpret life has led to the creation of a mechanistic view of the universe and humanity itself.  Today’s materialistic philosophy permeates our culture and is unquestionably reflected throughout society and its institutions.  This philosophy does not mirror life. The materialistic world view is based on a conception of life that has outlived its time but never ceases to burden the upward evolution of humanity.

Here is my brief explanation of the philosophy of materialism. Nothing exists apart from matter. Having pointed its telescope to the heavens, it saw no God; having examined the body, it found no soul. Ipso facto, there is no soul; there is no God. Science defines reality and knowledge; nothing exists beyond its boundaries. The materialistic view dispensed with the mystery and sacredness of life and with it, man’s connectedness with the living cosmos of which he is an integral part. It segregated belief from knowledge.  In this view, traditional religious concepts are the irrelevant myths of civilization’s childhood.  Ultimate meaning is nonexistent. God is a subconscious projection. A new creation story was born, “In the beginning, there was a big bang” …and the supramundane echoes of eternity faded away into the empty nothingness of endless space.

Richard Tarnas points out the extraordinary irony and soullessness of the materialistic world view, “…just when the modern mind believes it has most fully purified itself from any anthropomorphic projections, when it actively construes the world as unconscious, mechanistic, and impersonal, it is just then that the world is most completely a selective construct of the human mind.  The human mind has abstracted from the whole (Cosmos) all conscious intelligence and purpose and meaning, and claimed these exclusively for itself, and then projected onto the world a machine.  As Rupert Sheldrake has pointed out, this is the ultimate anthropomorphic projection: a man made machine, something not in fact ever found in nature.”

The philosophy of materialism traces its origins as far back as Greece, to Democritus in particular.  However, it was the extraordinary successes of the natural sciences during the modern period, the belief in unlimited progress fashioned by the rational mind that led to its preeminence. Its sphere of influence came to encompass the whole of world affairs.

Its tragic legacy is found in the rubble of the Twentieth Century.  In the midst of war Winston Churchill expressed the fear in the minds of many, the possibility that humanity could “…sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

The materialistic worldview was the common denominator of social Darwinism, eugenics, social engineering, and the rise of the totalitarian state, all under the promise of a brighter future and always and ever projected from the top downward. The faith expressed in the flawed theories and assumptions of such icons as Darwin, Marx and Freud have been misplaced but the idolatry of science remains. The past is prologue but the past also cries out its own prophecies and warnings.

The pervasiveness of materialism is so ubiquitous that we don’t see its darkening, gray hues as the backdrop of our unconscious assumptions and attitudes about what we believe to be the nature of things.  We don’t notice the noxious vapors simply because we have become accustomed to them and remain mostly unaware of its effects in our organizations, institutions and communities.  Childhood education provides just one descriptive illustration.

John Dewey, whose philosophy informs present day educational practice, wrote in the spirit of scientific socialism. “Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.” (Think about that for a minute. Think of the life-denying arrogance of that statement.) Besides mounting concern for the well documented psychological and social indoctrination that takes place within our schools, (which is at variance with our traditional values) is the nature the public school’s archaic organizational structure which reinforces it.  Peter Senge observes the following:

“Students sit passively in separate classrooms. Everything is coordinated by a predetermined plan, with bells and whistles marking time, and tests and grades to keep things moving like one giant assembly line. Indeed, it was the assembly line that inspired the industrial-age school design, with the aim of producing a uniform, standardized product as efficiently as possible. Though the need to encourage thoughtful, knowledgeable, compassionate citizens in the twenty-first century differs profoundly from the need to train factory workers in the nineteenth century, the industrial-age school continues to expand, largely unaffected by new realities. As long as our thinking is governed by habit – notably by industrial, “machine age” concepts such as control, predictability, standardization, and “faster is better” – we will continue to re-create institutions as they have been, despite their increasing disharmony with the larger world.”

The final coup de gras is the medication of the “maladapted child.”  Rather than change the system, we will drug the child. (Statistically, it is the boys that suffer most.) The free spirit of the every-child is entombed in the sarcophagus of our system of compulsory miseducation. Whose death mask should adorn the coffin lid?  The adventurous, happy-go-lucky Huckleberry Finn?  The young and brilliant Albert Einstein?

Underlying the dogma and fundamentalism of the materialistic perspective lays an unseen specter. “Nihilism stands at the door,” wrote Nietzsche.  “Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?”  I will answer: from the ideological preserve of materialism and the custodians of the soulless society, self-appointed engineers whose unconscionable arrogance, nonaccountability and irresistible will for power and control has inevitably, historically, led to the decline of culture, the loss of individual freedom and the suffocation of the human spirit. (More on this in future articles)

I am not just speaking here of the all too familiar line up that would include Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, et al. I am speaking of the long forgotten intellectuals of the 19^th century whose vision for society created the milieu that gave birth to and provided the philosophical justification for the totalitarian state. More to the point, I am talking about intellectuals and power brokers today whose vision is shaping our world and our future. We need to beware of our own role and complicity in its creation and acquiescing to the next tyranny of “good intentions” imposed from above.

Where do we stand today?  All talk of social progress is belied by the loss of grace, beauty and light in our culture, in our arts and in everyday discourse. This need not be.

——————————————–

 Life will not be denied– a revolution is afoot.  New discoveries in science such as theories of the holonomic universe, quantum theory, morphogenetic fields, dissipative structures, the participatory universe, systems theory, chaos theory etc. are challenging the materialistic perspective and inspiring new ways of thinking. Every field of human endeavor at the beginning of the 21^st Century seems to be freeing itself from the strictures of materialism. It now appears that physics describes the world, in Sir James Jean’s words, not so much a great machine as a great thought.

What is doubly extraordinary is that today, leading thinkers in the field of organizational and social change are not only taking into account the implications of the new discoveries of science but are also moving into the area of Eastern teachings to form a deeper understanding of communities and consciousness.  For instance, one may find titles such as Leadership and the New Science side by side with The Diamond Cutter.

As an example of Eastern thought merging with science to help us better understand the nature of community, I would cite Peter Senge, Joeseph Jaworski, Otto Scharmer and Betty Sue Flowers who wrote a book which I highly recommend, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future.  They write that to understand community, it is important to understand the nature of the whole and how parts and wholes are interrelated, that each contains the other within itself; to effect one is to effect both.  Community is not like a machine but a living system, a higher form of sentient life.  They write:

“One of the most important books in Mahayana Buddhist tradition is The Awakening of Faith.  Written in or about 500 AD, it provided a crucial bridge in bringing Buddhist philosophy and practice from India to China and hence, throughout the Asian cultures.  The faith of which the book speaks is a deep conviction that enlightenment is possible, that we each carry within ourselves immense possibilities for connecting to the universe and participating in its generative process.  In more religious terms, you could say the book’s aim is to show that the infinite or absolute and the phenomenal, God and man are inseparable and that we have the potential to co-create our realities.  But to do so we must first transcend the myth of separation that modern culture has taught us—separation from one another, from our higher selves, and the regenerative processes of nature.  Awakening our faith that the future can be different from the past will take nothing less than rediscovering our place and that of our [communities] in life’s continual unfolding.”

It has taken about five hundred years for mankind to arrive at the place of autonomy and isolation to finally admit and yield to the possibility of the oneness of all life and heals humanity’s debilitating sense of insignificance and cosmological estrangement.  Science has been the dominant thread in the weaving of our cultural fabric but it has created its own myth and worldview and it has required science itself to break many of the dogmatic cultural assertions made on its behalf by materialism.  We are indebted to those whose work has begun to collapse the foundational basis of the old order and its confining worldview. Yet, I don’t think we need science to validate the higher evolution of society. Einstein was leery of “the present fashions of applying the axioms of physical science to human life.” and I am too.

Ken Wilber put it succinctly.  “Physics deals with the world of form, and mysticism deals with the formless.  Both are important, but they cannot be equated.  Physics can be learned by the study of facts and mathematics, but mysticism can only be learned by a profound change in consciousness.  To confuse these two is to misunderstand and distort both science and spirituality.”

For too long spirituality has been segregated and marginalized in any discussion of societal change and evolution, notwithstanding the fact that every civilization that has come into existence rose on a religious theme. Huston Smith wrote, “We have dropped Transcendence not because we have discovered something that proves it nonexistent.  We have merely lowered our gaze.”  Perhaps we should look at science and religion in a new light. Properly positioned in relationship with one another, they are as twin pillars of progressive revelation; divested of all dogmatism they will provide light on the path.  But science is objective; it is neutral; it does not have consciousness and cannot provide moral judgments. I believe our founding faith traditions, guided by an awakened and genuine spirituality, will provide the best guide in creating a better world.

World change will not come from the top down but from the bottom up or rather from the within to the without.  It is entrusted to us. Our communities will be where change must begin. Community is the gateway to the future. Perhaps the question we need to ask ourselves is not so much what we do or how we do it but as Otto Sharmer says, “…who we are and the inner place or source from which we operate, both individually and collectively.” When that inner source is the heart, when we allow our higher Self to act, when we seek to be in harmony with the eternal, immutable laws of the Spirit that both govern Cosmos and guide our soul, we will then be able to make the jump into the quantum future with grace.

Michael McCann

There is a wonderful article to be found at http//www.urbandharma.org entitled Friendship in the Spiritual Community.  Here the author shares an account of a conversation between Ananda and the Buddha. “Lord”, Ananda declares, “this spiritual friendship, spiritual companionship and spiritual intimacy is no less than half of the spiritual life.” The Buddha replies, “Say not so Ananda.  It is the whole, not the half of the spiritual life.”

The idea about the essential nature and importance of friendship really made me pause and reflect.  Certainly our spirituality does not exist in a vacuum.  Words like love, compassion and forgiveness are not empty ideations but exist in relationship to another, to “I and Thou”. Here is the ‘word’ made manifest.  Relationships are the proving ground  of our evolving consciousness. I would like to highlight the following points made by the author.

• Many of those Buddhists who are familiar with the concept of spiritual friendship or kalyana mitrata think of it in terms of a ‘teacher-disciple’ relationship (or a ‘vertical’ relationship). As a result they pay little attention to a vital dimension of spiritual friendship that could be called horizontal friendship: that is, friendship with one’s peers. 

• Notwithstanding the common image of the Buddha as solitary and withdrawn, in the East many images depict the Buddha accompanied by his chief disciples Sariputta and Moggallana, with hands raised in respect before them.  Such images are, in effect, representations of the Buddha and the Sangha, (spiritual community) incorporating the vertical and horizontal axis of spiritual friendship in a single image.

• Far from being an incidental pleasure in the essentially solitary business of spiritual life, there are passages in the Buddhist scriptures which suggest that friendship between peers belongs not only to the Path but also to the Goal. (Italics mine.)

Christ imparted the concept of the vertical and horizontal axis of friendship, as well.  “Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  Walking the spiritual path together secures the blessings of the Teacher and the Teaching. In friendship our shortcomings and flaws are only passing shadows, a source of humor and pathos.  We are reinforced on our journey by the true bonds of friendship– those formed by our aspirations for transcendence.  Here in the living world, we are blest to find friendship and to discover in it a deep well– a profound source and activator of psychological insight and spiritual growth.

Are the Mahatama’s who founded the Theosophical Society the same Masters, now ascended, who have taught through the I AM Movement and the Summit Lighthouse? We say yes.

There is a discernible difference between the messages from most channelers and the in depth, principled, and rich teaching given by the Messengers of the Brotherhood to true seekers on the spiritual path.

Here is an interesting update on this question:

In its latest issue (winter 2012) the editor of the magazine Quest, the journal of the Theosophical Society of America, was so kind to place my response to Pablo Sender’s article “Mahatmas versus Ascended Masters” (http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/sender-mahatma-ascended-master.html) in the summer 2011 issue of Quest. Find below the somewhat longer, but essentially the same, version of the response.

Dear editor,

I read with interest Pablo Sender’s article “Mahatmas versus Ascended Masters” in the summer 2011 issue of Quest. He seems to make a strong case for Theosophists not to take the Ascended Master teachings coming from the Ballards and Prophets serious. The discrepancy between on one side the writings of Blavatsky and the Mahatma Letters and on the other side the channeled material from Ascended Master groups is just too big for the latter to have any footing. But on closer reading there are numerous methodological, factual and metaphysical problems confronting the more attentive student. Please allow me therefore an amicus brief on behalf of the defendants in this case.

First, the almost thirty notes within the text coming from a selection of eleven publications are practically all primary Theosophical sources. These precise sources are then pitted against generalized, un-sourced depictions of what the writer perceives to be accurate presentations of Ascended Master teachings, with all channelers lumped together without any other differentiation. Sometimes he is right, sometimes he is wrong. How can a reader of this magazine, absent adequate and fair references, find out for him or herself? And even if references were given, one would not find any works by Ballard or Prophet at the Olcott Library at The Theosophical Society of America. I was assured that some works were present at the library but were purged by orders from a leading Theosophist. The situation in the Netherlands is more fortunate with the main library of the Dutch Section of The Theosophical Society carrying more than sixty titles by the Ballards and Prophets in both English and Dutch.

Secondly, many of the depictions of Ascended Master teachings are not accurate. I have been a member of The Summit Lighthouse founded by Mark Prophet and I am very familiar with its teachings. Contrary to what Mr. Sender posits, those teachings on the dangers of the human ego, the illusory nature of reality, the value of compassion and altruism and the essence of a Master are in spirit similar, if not, at least highly compatible with Theosophy. Admittedly, there are serious discrepancies also, but those can have multiple reasons and are not, in my opinion, necessarily to be decided in favor of Blavatsky or the Mahatma Letters. That would boil down to a dogmatism Blavatsky herself would abhor. Nor should these discrepancies be construed as sufficient evidence to dismiss the Ascended Master teachings. So far students of Theosophy and Theosophical libraries have been quite tolerant, even appreciative, of many metaphysical authors deviating from the Blavatskyan oeuvre, like C.W. Leadbeater, Rudolf Steiner, Alice Bailey and J. Krishnamurti. Even the New Age channelers J.Z. Knight, Shirley MacLaine and Helen Shucman are not left in the cold. Why this, and here I speak also from personal experience, cold shoulder to a body of influential and serious teachings?

Lastly, to put the whole problematic in a historical perspective, I like to present the following overarching hypothetical narrative, within which the problematic of discrepancies takes on a quite different color. The Theosophical Society was founded, not only to re-introduce to the west the idea of an Ancient Wisdom, but also to prepare the world for the coming of a great teacher. This World Teacher Project was started with J. Krishnamurti as the possible vehicle for this teacher. Unfortunately Krishnamurti decided to go his own way, denounced Theosophy, and gave the world a terse and exoteric version of Advaita Vedanta. Meanwhile the Masters implemented Plan B to give the world the new teachings promised and to compensate for the failed World Teacher Project. This was done, starting in the early 1930s, with Guy and Edna Ballard. They released what is now known as the Ascended Master teachings, which were a continuation, with here and there some corrections, of Theosophy. Their torch was carried on later by Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet with the latter being a good candidate of principal messenger for the Masters in the Theosophically significant last quarter of the 20th century. (For a footnoted version of this narrative see my “The Masters and Their Emissaries: From HPB to Guru Ma and Beyond” at http://www.alpheus.org/html/articles/esoteric_history/story.html)
Given the above considerations I do not think the case Mahatmas vs Ascended Masters can be decided in favor of the plaintiffs.

Govert Schuller
Naperville, October 3, 2011.

Part Two:

Another mystic, the well-known Saint and Catholic priest, Saint Padre Pio prophesied Medjugorje in 1968, telling pilgrims from Bosnia and Herzegovina that “soon, the Madonna will visit your country.” The Capuchin priest had apparitions himself and further had the gift of bilocation and the ability to read people’s souls.

He told people who had come to him for healing that they could expect the coming of Mother Mary to Eastern Europe soon.The appearances of Mother Mary in Medjugorje began in 1981 and have been ongoing for thirty years. All the visionaries are faithful to their calling.

Heaven seems to communicate with the good shepherds on earth.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

The Lord is with Thee.

Pray the Rosary for World Peace and the Transmutation of World Karma. Heaven has a plan for the salvation of the world.

Have a Blessed New Year 2012 all year long.

At Winter Solstice and Christmas the story of Christ’s birth to Mary and Joseph and to a darkened world rings out anew to the hearts of people everywhere. This Christmas we want to share the story of two mystics: the famed Catholic friar Padre Pio and a Sufi Muslim who both told their listeners what they knew from their own connection to Heaven- that Mary would soon appear again on behalf of mankind, and appear in Yugoslavia.

These prophecies were made before her famous appearances began in Medjugorje. By now, she has been appearing for decades bringing the message of God’s love to all of His children and the call to redemption and transformation.

Are we listening? Will we become more of this message of love, hope and mercy? Will we turn from hatred, malice, idolatry of self, and bring more of heaven to earth?

Here is Part One of our story of the two mystics of different faiths who predicted the coming of Mary to our generation.

Sufi mystic Hasan Shushud predicted Medjugorje for me in detail one year before the apparitions began, an experienced pilgrims leader reveals. This will be a long and decisive apparition, and Rome has been entrusted with the great responsibility of accepting or rejecting Mary on behalf of all humanity, Hasan Shushud said.

“Soon a unique Marian apparition will begin. A place for this was chosen long ago, and we Sufis have been praying that all will go well. The place is being prepared, without anyone being aware of it, for an apparition which will be different from all previous apparitions. Mary will come closer to the earth than ever before. Many will see her, hear her, touch her.”

According to Inger Jensen, an experienced Danish pilgrims leader who has visited Medjugorje more than 100 times, these were some of the words she heard when she visited the muslim Sufi mystic Hasan Shushud in the Summer of 1980, one year before the apparitions began in Medjugorje.

Shushud also hit home when Inger Jensen heard him estimate where the apparition would take place:

“This place is situated west of Istanbul at a shorter distance from Istanbul than that between Istanbul and the eastern-most border of Turkey. It is in a geographical area with a nature and climate much like what we have in Turkey. But it is not in Turkey”, Shushud told Inger Jensen and her group.

The distance between Istanbul and Dogubeyazit, the eastern-most point in Turkey, is 1289 kilometers (801 miles). There are 955 kilometers (593 miles) from Istanbul to Mostar, the major city closest to Medjugorje from which it is 25 kilometers (15 miles) apart.

A long and decisive apparition predicted

With Medjugorje celebrating the 30th anniversary of the apparitions this year, Hasan Shushud’s prediction of a long apparition has also come true. So has his prediction that peace would be a main topic of the apparition:

“You will see that Mary will suffer, wait, hope and continue to call for a long time, as she is inviting to the way of peace. During this period Satan will get the opportunity for his plans of godlessness, chaos, suffering, death”, Hasan Shushud told Inger Jensen.

In recent years, the Virgin Mary’s suffering and waiting have been particularly expressed in messages passed on by visionary Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo.

“Mary needs a firm, truthful “yes!” to her plan, and this will not be given at the beginning. Therefore, Mary will be forced to take up a stand-by position. During the period when Mary suffers rejection, earthquakes the like of which have never been seen before will occur. Storms more violent than ever. Thunderstorms. Flooding. Fatal, contagious diseases. And egoism, materialism and violence will pervert societies”, Hasan Shushud continued.

“If Mary and her plans are accepted quickly, the suffering will be short-lived. If, however, Rome does not meet Mary with the needed firm, truthful acceptance when God grants to Rome the time and freedom to choose, then God once more will have offered peace, joy and love in vain, and mankind will feel the consequences of Satan’s plans”, Inger Jensen recounts Hasan Shushud’s words from 1980.

Shushud’s words are matching Mary’s messages

As to the reason for the Virgin Mary’s coming, the words of Hasan Shushud closely match the Virgin Mary’s messages as they have been presented by the Medjugorje visionaries. Like the Virgin did to visionary Mirjana Dragicevic in 1982, two years earlier Shushud had stated that Satan had extended power in the 20th century:

“Satan stood in front of God’s throne and asked for permission to make use of all his power, in order to try to tear humanity away from God. (…) God granted Satan one hundred years for his new plan. Thus, the 20th century is under Satan’s power”, Hasan Shushud said in an echo of the message to Mirjana – and of a similar vision given to Pope Leo XIII in 1887.

“At the beginning of this century Satan, first of all, worked on “teaching” people through psychologists and psychiatrists that he, Satan, does not exist, and that all that men previously considered to be evil was not evil, but just the result of a lack of development. As man grows more clever, as his intellect becomes more mature, during the ongoing development, he will automatically choose that which is good.”

“After a period Satan could work on his plan in a more free way because he could hide himself behind the lie that he does not exist, as though he stood behind a shield. Then he began to destroy the family and all inherited moral codes”, Hasan Shushud added.

“Satan wants to destroy the family. The family is in crisis. Pray!”, the Virgin Mary told Medjugorje visionary Ivanka Ivankovic-Elez on June 25th 1995. In the early days of the apparitions the Virgin also entrusted Ivanka with the special call to pray for the world’s families.

In 1980 Hasan Shushud continued:

“Now Satan has already been working for a long time to have humanity believe that God does not exist. He has been highly succesful in this. Observe the Jews: for so many centuries they have kept together around their religious practice, but now even they have become secularized. All over the planet people are losing faith in God.”

“Soon Satan will be seen out in the open. Children and youngsters will begin to play his games. Pictures of him will be visible in the streets. Also, during the next two decades, egoism, materialism and violence will increase more rapidly than you will be able to imagine”, the Sufi mystic said in words later echoed by the Virgin Mary in her message of September 25th 1991:

“Dear children! Today in a special way I invite you all to prayer and renunciation. For now as never before Satan wants to show the world his shameful face by which he wants to seduce as many people as possible onto the way of death and sin. Therefore, dear children, help my Immaculate Heart to triumph in the sinful world. I beseech all of you to offer prayers and sacrifices for my intentions so I can present them to God for what is most necessary. Forget your desires, dear children, and pray for what God desires and not for what you desire. Thank you for having responded to my call”.

Many individual calls and roles predicted

Hasan Shushud affirmed the Virgin Mary’s leading role in bringing mankind back to God. And in predicting the Virgin Mary’s great numbers of individual calls with the purpose of combining millions of people into a heavenly mosaic or pattern, more of Hasan Shushud’s words from 1980 went on to appear in the Virgin Mary’s messages from Medjugorje.

“Mary will lead the battle against Satan and, co-operating with Archangel Michael, will lead mankind back to God. Mary needs many soldiers for the battle. Each of them will be attracted to the place just in time. Each one is chosen for one little task. A detail which, when all the details are combined, will form a beautiful pattern. These soldiers, most of them women, will be drawn from all over the world. From their earliest childhood they will have been prepared for “their” special little task, without them having been aware of it”, Hasan Shushud said in 1980.

How the Virgin Mary’s messages, to themselves, constitute a heavenly mosaic that can be more fully perceived and understood only through prayer has been a recurring theme in interviews given by visionary Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti.

Seers echo call to fearlessness

In 1980 Hasan Shushud was as sure of God’s final victory through the Virgin Mary as the Medjugorje visionaries have been from the earliest days. And like the seers were later to do, Shushud also called to trust and fearlessness:

“Whatever happens, do not fear! In the end, God wins. The Bible says it, the Koran also. Those who keep close to God and to Mary will be given all the help they need. It does not matter which hardships they must go through: they have nothing to fear”, Hasan Shushud said according to Inger Jense

Norman Rockwell’s works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. He is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for over 4 decades.

He considered “Freedom of Speech” the best of the four. Rockwell was a prolific artist, producing over 4,000 original works.  He went on to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America’s highest civilian honor in 1977.

A message from the Ascended Master Paul the Venetian who served the culture of the world as the artist Paolo Veronese:

I remember when Norman Rockwell came to me at inner levels to study in my etheric retreat. And I remember as I counseled him to show the Christ in the American people, in everyday scenes of humor, humility, wonder, togetherness, heroism. And all these have been treasured, remembered, and valued highly because something of the spirit of the Christ image that is become an image of America came through his work.

A unique artist, one devoted to the inherent qualities and identity of the individual. As his perception of the Christ was, so was his painting the capturing of unique moments. You might examine that work to find in each painting what is the glimmer, however great or faint, of some aspect of the individual reaching for the Higher Self.”

© CUT  Vol. 27 No. 3   Jan. 15, 1984

This Master is the Chohan or great teacher of the third ray of God’s consciousness. Each of the Seven Rays has a great teacher who is the tutor of souls evolving along that line or discipline. As souls step into the accelerated spiritual path, each one is seen, guided and taught by a spiritual teacher on the “inner” planes of consciousness. Treasure the path and the Teacher.

Some friends have asked me about ‘where I am at’ these days. By way of answering, I’d like to do some sharing here on the Worldwide Ashram site, where a number of us have found a spiritual meeting place, a place that really feels like home! Well, as ‘homelike’ anyway as this temporal earthly way station can get…

The Ashram is a wonderful gift from the heart of a Great Soul named El Morya. Way back in the early 1950s, he gave out a series of letters, including a set of meditations and contemplative practices, designed to bring genuine spiritual seekers together without interfering ideologies, ‘organizational baggage,’ ‘struggling egos,’ etc., getting in the way. By exploring the website you can see for yourself how well he succeeded and if this might be something for you. Read More »

A friend of mine recently discovered a beautiful  restaurant, spa and bookstore in Old Prague called The Alchemist. People flock to the place to experience its atmosphere of ancient mystery, old books and magic. We are still seeking out the answers to the mysteries of life. One of the greatest spiritual gifts mankind has received is the miracle of transmutation through the Violet Flame. It was the alchemists that first discovered this energy.

Many spiritual seekers are drawn to these  Alchemists of old who locked their secrets in coded manuscripts, cyphers, endless experiments and oblique references to mixtures, compounds and attempts to create gold.

These brave men and women documented their ordeal to  change base metals into gold. They were laughed at and sometimes persecuted by a dogmatic Church. Now, modern science gives these ones credit for helping to establish scientific principle and methods of discovery. The truth is, that these Alchemists were wiser than they are made out to be, and the transmutation of metals like lead into gold is symbolic of a higher and more noble alchemy — the alchemy of self-transformation. Read More »