Worldwide Ashram Blog

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• Notwithstanding the common image of the Buddha as solitary and withdrawn, in the East many images depict the Buddha accompanied by his chief disciples Sariputta and Moggallana, with hands raised in respect before them.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.

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.

Today is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, the spiritual reformer of the Catholic Church. Saint Francis created a revolution in spirituality and guided people to purity, the acceptance of poverty rather than the pursuit of power and authority, and the pursuit of a truly Christ like life for all Christians. Francis created a true community of brothers and sisters following Christ with all their hearts during a particularly corrupt period in Church history. He was not well loved by the Church in his own time.

Have you ever wondered what the soul of a Saint Francis would think and do in regards to the world of the last hundred years? How would spiritual revolution appear today?

It’s interesting that the esoteric spiritual  teachings that were revealed in the last century through Theosophy, the Agni Yoga of the Roerich’s, and the Summit Lighthouse teach that the soul of Saint Francis later embodied as  the Master Kuthumi, one of the founders of Theosophy. 

The spiritual revolution sparked by Theosophy beginning in 1875 brought a reawakening to the West about the existence of the Brotherhood of the Masters, or the Great White Brotherhood (white referring to the light of the aura), reincarnation and the spiritual path of initiation for seekers who are attempting world service and to accelerate their spiritual development.

The Wisdom Teachings bring a great gift to humanity of their priceless spiritual origin and the path way back to the heaven world as saints and masters. Read More »

Happy Independence Day Souls of Light!

The celebration of the American Independence Day on July 4th is truly a spark of freedom that is fanning into a world wide flame during this transition of the ages. Freedom is rising in many countries around the world. And with that freedom comes the reinforcement of the  freedom of spiritual pursuit and beliefs.

A teaching from Morya on the Universal Religion:

Blessed hearts, understand the meaning of the term Universal. The Universal Christ, the universal doctrine, the universal God Government, is a thing that exists in itself. It is that something, beloved, that is present and real as the etheric matrix, of the heart. Up to this hour, that universality cannot be out pictured; for by definition, the moment that etheric matrix hits time and space and begins to come into form, immediately it is boxed and there is the contriving and then there is the arguing and then the wars accelerating for who shall have the seat of power, who shall bear the sign of authority.

…For all as one and one for the allness of God in all should result- should it not, O father?- in a perception similar enough to create the brotherhood on earth that we have conceived and realized in heaven. It is a brotherhood of mystics and saints and pillars of eternity and good folk who stand for Light and are unabashed as they decree for its alchemy in themselves and their world.

Lightbearers of the World Unite!

transcribed from a Pearl of Wisdom, vol. 28 , no. 51