Feb. 22, 2006 - Truth

. . I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect....If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in his discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth....You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free. (Krishnamurti, The Years of Awakening)

Feb. 18, 2006 - God and religion

Experience and spiritual work thought me that religions often became a Devil’s tool, and a courtyard for practicing intolerance.  News about wars amongst Muslims, Christians, Jews, Lutherans, and amongst many other sects and religions, brought shivers of pain into my heart, and all through my life, I kept hearing about slaughters that are unimaginable to the ones that truly believe in God. 

I travelled through countries and saw hatred within the men that carried shields of their own religions and this experience opened my eyes to the truth: that to reach God we have to burn the masks of different Gods, stop giving Him a name, and exclusivity.  Or if we are not capable of doing that, we should at least stop accusing and hating all the ones that do not see Him as we do.

Feb. 1, 2006 - Age of Great Unity

All the ancient cultures talk about this race.

Confucians talk about this age.  They talk about the time when the Great Way was practiced, when people lived good faith and in affection. The race that did not regard as parents only their own parents, or as sons only their own sons but lived in harmony with all as brothers.  This was the age of Great Unity.

The knowledge of this Golden Age is hidden within us and our blood has traces of the blood of Sons of God and our struggles and dreams for better life take us back to their wisdom.  All throughout our lives, within the never-ending fight with our instincts and animal feelings, we get inspired, get guided, get touched by the spark of the Eternals, by the warmth and insight that sleeps deep within our hearts. 

The Persians took the custom, never to admit anyone as a king unless he was a Wise Man.  The king was to the country a king, a priest, a prophet, a magician, and a scholar of nature. The Egyptians too, had the knowledge of the secrets of Nature and they also asked from their kings to acquire the wisdom of priests and magicians.  Both kingdoms were very successful and rich and the neighbouring countries admired them.  Moses and Adam were also divine magicians whose wisdom was full of divine mysteries and they practiced magic to trace the way to God and to guide people how to act. 

They learnt from Nature to foretell the future and to understand the present.  They knew the inner virtues of sun, planets, vegetables, minerals, and animals, what is latent within them; what is their purpose, and their properties, and what are their occult possibilities.  Knowing the secrets of Nature they attempted to know God.

The Age of Great Unity is the age that we all aspire to live in, the age that is full of Harmony, Love and Understanding.  We dream of it and we try to find it within our own perfection and within a society that is based in Peace and Knowledge.

And whether Christians or Buddhist or Taoist, we all seek to find this place at the end of our journeys.

And each one of us works on this excellence, searching for the traces of Sons of God, trying to awaken the blood of Eternals, each one of us aspires to live his Higher Self.  And this urge, sometimes gets covered in dust of our day-to-day living, in the mud of our day-to-day struggle, but it emerges back every time we are in the contact with our Souls. 

Living our Higher Selves, we build our own excellence and we build the excellence of our country and the era we live in, and we put down the foundations for the generations that will follow. 

Weaving this amazing matrix, we connect to Sons of God, and to our future and to the life that breathes around us. 

All the movements start with our own excellence.

Jan. 23, 2006 - Ama’s story

The Legend has it that this place was ruled by Enlightened Kings guarding the highest Wisdom ever obtained. 

Sons of Gods had beautiful, long, strong bodies, faces with high foreheads, sharp noses and strong black eyebrows.  They were tall and learned, subtle, and mysterious.  They understood the Tao.  Their eyes carried amazing beauty coloured yellowish, brownish, green, reminding of a leaf during early Autumn days.  This colour changed with the circumstances, one day the eyes would look clear, completely defined, the next day their shade would transform, changing their expression and warmth and depth.  If you were an expert you would exactly know by the shade of one’s eyes what mood the one is in and what are the feelings the one was going through.

Jan. 18, 2006 - there are no winners

‘There are no winners’, I heard her saying, later. 

‘A winner will become a loser and a loser must experience a role of the winner – there are only different parts that we play in the theatre of Life.  We get ourselves into many different situations so that we get to know different energies.  The spectrum of experiences is vast and our beings long to incorporate all of them.  We strive to be a meeting place of all living forces of the Universe.  To understand ourselves we need to understand them all.  This is why one day we face happy thoughts and another we face sickness or sadness.  We are in a constant process of learning how to think, behave, or act and how to understand the manifestations of Universal Law, the manifestation of Tao.  So, when you are at the very top, when you smell the success and power, carefully look at the defeated, at the fellow being that is in trouble – he could be you tomorrow.  Detach from the role and observe the manifestation, learn the lesson through being through it only once.  And be aware of the power that is given to you when you are the winner, the energy will soon vanish but the act that you have committed in that state might haunt you the rest of your life.  And be merciful to your enemy while holding the knife under his throat because you might be the one who asks for the mercy tomorrow.’

Ama was among the few who stayed on the battlefield tending wounded - both the Dutch and the citizens of Macao. 

Dec. 19, 2005 - Ama

I knew of Ama from the numerous stories that were connected to her being.  I knew of her as of a preacher and a witch doctor. 

She was a mystery among Chinese - a beautiful black young woman who carried the name of the Goddess herself and who knew how to read stars, understood secrets of herbs, and they believed even knew how to talk to ghosts and animals.  People would go to her to discover their destiny, to get healed or just sit around the fire with her and listen to her stories.  The ones who admired her talked about her as of a guide and the ones who were scared of her were unnaturally polite to her, afraid of her curses, the ones who did not understand her accused her of the witchcraft.  She was loved and hated by many. 

Her unusual background, her figure, her voice, her manners, all of her, just couldn?t pass unnoticed.  If she was born in any other Christian country she would have been marked as a saint or a heretic or as a witch burnt on stake, but in Macao, she became what she was - A-Ma, a walking legend. 

Ama was a daughter of an African slave and her skin was dark.  She lived in the house of Ottavio de Nobili who has never denied to be her father and who has always treated her as one of his children.  The legends that have been created around his and her life, say that Ottavio de Nobili was in love with her mother and that he granted Ama freedom soon after her mother's death. 

Nov. 16, 2005 - Ruben

Ruben

Her skin was dark olive, tight and silky, her eyes - the shape of almonds, piercing and deep.  She was slim and tall, her body was supple and strong.  She had iron hands, long fingers, jet-black long hair and a beautiful long neck.  Even though I wouldn?t have admitted it to myself at the time I wanted her from the moment I saw her.

I got to know Ama during the Dutch attack on Macao, the 24^th of June 1622. 

Nov. 7, 2005 - Macao

For thousands of years people were crossing the mountains that lie between the Western worlds and China.  Precious stones and spices and silk were transported along the Silk Road from China to Europe from as early as 200 BC.  As maritime technology progressed, cheaper and faster sea routes replaced the land routes through the dangerous mountains and hostile deserts.

Immediately after the discovery of the sea route to India in 1498, Portuguese initiated trading relations with the distant kingdoms of the Far East.  They first came into contact with Chinese merchants at Malacca, and from here they sailed Chinese Sea and started their trade along the Pearl River Delta.

The Portuguese traders and priests landed first time in Macao's small harbour in mid 16^th Century.  Macao, otherwise known as a Bay of A-Ma, is a small island at the tip of southern cost of China, connected to the mainland China by a sand land bridge, creating a peninsula in the shape of a lotus flower.  

Ama, of our story, was born inside this temple at noon of 21^st of June 1595, by an African mother who was brought over to Macao as a slave.  Her father was a Portuguese Lord, Ottavio de Nobili.

Oct. 10, 2005 - Gold

Gold is the first and the most perfect of the elements. 

Gold comes from the centre of the earth, and while it passes through warm and pure places, it becomes the subtlest and purest element on Earth. 

It is the most beautiful of all metals, the best that Nature can produce and no other element can corrupt it, or change it. 

For what the eagle is among birds, the lion among beasts, the Sun among planets, such gold is among metals.  The legend says that the centre of the sun emanates gold, by its rays to all beings.  It is a life substance that penetrates all living things. 

And all the beings on Earth carry within a grain of gold, hidden deep within their inmost centre - a precious grain of gold.  Our core is golden, and when our body gets perfected and our mind gets purified, when we cleanse the uncleanness from it, we will reach within the centre of our beings, our own most precious gold.

Oct. 5, 2005 - Philosophy of China

Sep. 19, 2005 - The time of change

Ama lived on Earth on the crossroads between the 16^th and 17^th century.  She was born in Macao, a Portuguese settlement in China.  

The 16^th and 17^th Century events passed through the world shaking the roots of past beliefs and leaving a path for the generations to come to follow.  These centuries saw changes in knowledge, culture, religion concepts and built a basis for the new world, as we know it today. 

This was the time of discovery of new countries and continents.  The explorations gained momentum in the 15^th century and transformed the European map of the world.  Carving out a Christian kingdom, Portuguese went to Africa to continue its line of exploration with the final goal ? to reach the source of the spice trade ? India.  One of the Portuguese ships went off course and touched the shore of what is today known as Brazil.  Christopher Columbus gained patronage for his plans to reach India using westerly route and he travelled across Atlantic to reach America.  New continents, China, India and America became a part of Europe?s politics and life.  People were discovering new tastes, new sensations, new thoughts.  Spices and coffee entered the streets of London and Paris and first slab of chocolate was on sale in Spain.  Potato and tobacco were brought from America and the ritual of drinking tea was discovered.  This was the time when silk and colourful clothing and Chinese porcelain entered Europeans? courts.  Completely new colours and fashion brought from Asia influenced the minds of European artists and designers.

This was the time of reawakening of art, the time of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, the time of re-appearing of naked sculptures and paintings of nudes in churches, the time of Shakespeare and his theatre masterpieces.

The 16^th and 17^th century for Europe was the beginning of the new age - Age of Reason, the time of opening Universities all over England, Spain and France.  This was the time of the first press that flourished a new communication channel amongst the educated classes.  Thousands of articles were not any more just manuscripts, exclusively passed from one philosopher to the other, they were printed and published and for the first time distributed amongst many who were thirsty for knowledge.  The art of printing fairly quickly spread through Europe, ensuring that a whole range of texts were published. 

This was the time of discovery of the telescope and first precise stars movement observations, the time when astronomers were trying to challenge the precise formulas that proved that the Earth is the centre of the Universe as claimed in Bible. 

Sep. 15, 2005 - Lilith

All through the human existence you have faithfully worshiped me and my powers, worshiping your own weaknesses.  Stronger your limitations - stronger the manifestation of my powers. 

All through the human existence you carefully collected the dust of my feet and distributed it among yourselves, whispering stories of my victories and feeding on the grossest parts of my reality. 

All through the human existence you adored me and evoked my presence addicted to my being, my shrouds of secrets, and shadows. 

I leave Souls in awe, surrounding them with the wonder of despair, paralysing their movement, fascinating the hearts of man.  Only a few manage to turn away from my gaze and look at the light that lives around me. 

I am the gate-keeper of the worlds of darkness.  I exist within your minds and am worshiped more than any other God. 

I rain all, cover all, and spread through all, on this earthly plain. 

Where there is Death, and there is Consciousness, I exist.

My name is Lilith, and I am Adam's first wife and was thrown out of Paradise because I refused to surrender to him.  Refusing to live with Adam, I chose a life with demons, with whom I have innumerable children.  God sent his angels to find me and with them a punishment - one hundred of my children were killed each day.  This made me mad with grief and that is when I decided to retrieve into the shadows of your minds.

And, like my sister, Kali, the black Indian Goddess who drinks the blood of her victims and wears human heads around her neck, I also wear a terrible mask of suffering and Death.  I am otherwise known as Black Moon.

I am the one that creates and destroys Life, the raw, untamed, murky secret of your own nature, the suppressed, shadow-side of your personality, your deep desire to separate from God and live in my embrace, suffering.

Facing me is not easy, because I awaken within you all your fears, the dark becomes darker and your demons multiply, shaking the very essence of who you are, who you were and who you would like to be. 

If you feel doubt - withdraw, if you feel insecure - withdraw, facing me, understanding me to finally detach from my powers, is the road of the Warriors and only the Determined will have access to it. 

This is the road of the few.

Sep. 7, 2005 - Who is she?

She has many names.

Virgo Lucifera is one of Her names, Holder of stars.  When she glances by, as a beautiful young virgin smiling with her soft, warm and deep almond eyes, one can not but stop in wonder, breathlessly honouring Life within her.  She carries a lantern glowing with innocence and joy, her voice is a soothing melody and her touch is one of an angel.  If she finds us wondering in the middle of the tunnel of shadows, lost, fighting against our own and other people’s devils, living in our self-created nightmares, she will take us out through dark passages delivering us to the World of Colours.  She understands all the shades and brings brightness into their tone, introducing us from new to Life. 

Alchemy is one of Her names - a witch, a doctor, a magician, an artist of transformation, a principal force that leads the Soul’s journey to its merge with the Holy Spirit.  We are all within her game and when in her embrace we discover her secrets and surprises.  She is unpredictable, she experiments and is not afraid of Gods or Devils, she uses nature, people, animals and plants to perform her miracles, and she guides the union of body, mind and soul manipulating energies to accelerate the process of our transformation.

She is Maria, Virgin Mother, a protector that is always awake, that listens, that loves and through motherly care helps us in our journey.  She embodies strength and wisdom and is gracefully peaceful with the heart that is strong and capable of carrying pain of generations to come.  She can understand sin and hurt of no measure, and she knows how to forgive fully and how to always unconditionally and patiently turn back towards Love.

She is also Kali, a force of destruction, a carrier of storms, a fierce Goddess that brings fear to humanity, she incarnates terror and powers all destructions.  With skeletons around her neck she dances on the top of corpses demanding from her followers a complete renunciation and death.  She reminds us that the ultimate nature of Life is its annihilation.  She laughs at our pain and sends it back to us over and over again, until we learn our lesson.  She is dark and ugly and evil but she still is a perfect manifestation of Spirit.

We called her Ama, a female force that sleeps in every one of us, Yin of Creation, a wisdom guide that with her purity extinguishes thirst for spiritual longings, a cherisher that awakens us and treasures profound yearnings.  She is a creative force that brings a feeling of being in love, being inspired, being excited, being free.  She teaches us how to fly, or how to breathe under water or how to pass through walls – making the impossible possible.  She embodies all the principles of female energies in Life becoming.  A fragile essence rising from the foam of slightly rough sea, gentle and giving in her openness, powerful and overwhelming in her beauty.  She stands on a crescent moon with stars in her hair, pouring water from jars of her soul into lakes of emotions, awakening compassion for the humankind and its Chaos, supporting the Earth energy and its constant renewal. 

To many She appears as a dream during late hours of night leaving a stamp of never to be forgotten experience of contact with Source.  To others She comes as a sudden touch of Life that has managed to sneak through layers of habits and day-to-day routines and presents us with a gift of awe for the Creator and the wonder for World around us.  When She is present the entire Consciousness is awake, releasing us to the flow of Original Self. 

Many have met Her while floating in meditative and dream like states, in the states of VITRIOL, but only a fortunate few had an opportunity to meet Her in person.

Materialised in a female body, with a life of an ordinary person, through centuries, She ascends to meet the ones that are ready for Her, that call Her.  The wish to understand Life and its purpose drive us towards Her. 

In the ancient texts of the East, we are told of men and women called “Bodhisattvas”, who come to this world to live compassion, teaching people the science of Life.  She is one of those beings.  In the presence of others, She walks through the dream of Life changing people’s realities.  The clarity of Her vision guides the ones in need, the ones that have eyes to see and ears to hear, Her words, actions, thoughts, feelings and presence bring people closer to God.  She offers drink of Life to Souls that are thirsty and spiritual food to ones that need nourishment.  She transforms the hearts of Man, melting the pain, scraping a layer after layer of mud that covers the divine nature.  She is the Master of Spiritual Alchemy, the science of transforming metal to gold and the Soul to the Holy Spirit, to the Enlightened Being.

Most of us have to go through Hell, have to feel broken first, lonely and sad and in need to prove that life is worth living, most of us have to pass through the edge of despair, to die and be reborn again, to find ourselves within Her hands.  To finish the journey most of us need to go through the road of suffering.  When we are prepared to walk the path, She will follow us and help us cross the gates. 

She recognises us by a sign we carry on our foreheads, the sign of Light that awaits to be freed, the sign of longing to meet Her, the sign that we have already had an insight and that we are now willing to surrender.  She knows when the time is right and when to perform and when our minds are free to receive.   

Coming to Earth as an ordinary human being, She is easily recognisable, her face shines beauty of Wisdom and She is surrounded by an aureole of Light.  Her movements and touch are gentle and her eyes take us into the depths of silence and worlds bellow the surface.  She is the personification of the Universal Mother.  She has the ability to live without illness and to age without deterioration.  She knows the past and future and all spiritual beings and ancient methods surrender to her Purity.  She lives Love and Clarity and She dies at Will, when She decides that it is time to go. 

The Bodhisattva of my story is called Ama.