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A really big meditation cave

I’m working on a meditation book now, something to go along with the classes I teach on the subject. I’ve got a stack of related books next to my desk, but none of them, as far as I’ve seen, include any jokes about meditation.

Granted there probably aren’t too many such jokes. But over the years I’ve gathered…well, only two. I thought about one of them recently as I was writing a chapter called Mantras & Chants, and decided to include it as a sidebar near the end of the chapter. It deals with the question of proper pronunciation of Sanskrit mantras. Yes, a strange topic for a joke. But here goes…

A scholar studied Sanskrit and meditation practices for years. He became an expert. He practiced meditation daily. He chanted for hours. He read every book available on the subject and memorized passages from ancient texts. He was highly regarded, and thought he knew almost everything there was to know about the subject.

Then one day he heard about a hermit who had lived in a cave on an island for decades. He was supposedly a highly advanced meditator, knowledgeable and wise. So the scholar journeyed to the lake and hired a boatman to ferry him to the island for a day trip. When he arrived, he hiked along a trail through the jungle until he found the hermit’s cave.

The hermit was meditating in the candlelit cave when the scholar interrupted him. To his relief, the hermit seemed pleased to have a visitor and invited the scholar to join him in chanting a sacred mantra. The scholar knew this mantra very well and was happy to chant with the hermit.

However, after less than a minute of chanting, the scholar stopped and waved his hands. Horrified, he explained to the hermit that he had wasted all of his years on the island. He was mispronouncing the Sanskrit so his chants were meaningless and without power.

The hermit listened closely to the proper way to pronounce the words and thanked the scholar for correcting him. The scholar left, disappointed, and as the boatman rowed away from the island, the scholar told him how sorry he felt for the poor hermit.  Suddenly, the boatman looked up, pointed, and gasped.

The hermit was running across the surface of the water toward the boat. As he reached the craft, he again thanked the scholar and asked if he would repeat the proper pronunciation again. The astonished scholar was dumbfounded. “If you can do that, then you are doing fine.”

“Oh, but I want to improve myself. Please say the chant again.” The baffled scholar did so, and the hermit raced back to the island, reciting the chant, his feet barely dipping into the water.

* * *

The meaning behind the joke, of course, is that proper pronunciation of Sanskrit mantras is not essential. In fact, no matter how hard you try, you probably won’t get it right. Except for a mere 14,000 people who consider Sanskrit their native tongue, it’s a classical language—a dead language, like ancient Greek—mainly existing in the realm of devoted scholars and yogis.

My book isn’t completed yet, but I’m calling it:  A Jewel Within a Lotus: Meditation for Busy Minds. It no doubt will be the only meditation book on the market containing two jokes about meditation, and now you’ve already heard half of them!

In the world of so-called mysteries of the unknown, crop circles tend to be a black-and-white matter. In fact, many people would not even call crop circles a mystery of the unknown, because they know that they are made by humans – crop circle artists. After all, it’s been well documented.

Then there are the believers, those who are convinced that some crop circles – the most majestic ones – are made by paranormal forces – whatever they might be. Those folks tend to call the man-made circles ‘crap circles.’

That has been the primary points of view for years. The non-believers say there is no reason to believe any other-worldly phenomena is taking place. Speculation about aliens or paranormal materializations is nonsensical. End of story.

Meanwhile, the believers point out that the most impressive crop circles – the larger ones with intricate details that literally appear out of nowhere, and often manifest in a small window of time – aren’t made by man. There aren’t any human tracks  left behind, and the designs are too complex to create in the middle of the night. Besides, balls of light have been seen moving over the fields where such circles have appeared. They’ve even been video-taped, ie. documented.

Now comes a confession of sorts by a  crop circle maker, one of a group of fellow artists who have been ‘working’ the fields in England for years. Mathew Williams is best known as the first crop circle artist convicted in the UK for violating a new law that criminalizes crop-circle making. He was fined the equivalent of $200. However, he now confesses to more than damaging crops with his artistic endeavors. There’s something else that’s he’s been talking about.

In an article in the Daily Express, Williams admits there are other forces – besides humans – at work in the fields creating the designs. He made the comment while being interviewed for the newspaper about the paucity of crop circles during the 2013 season. He was supposed to talk about the effect of the new law. But he drifted into uncharted territory – at least for circle makers. He says he has evidence that the more elaborate designs are the product of paranormal activity.

“I’ve seen small balls of light which have entered the field and chased us out on one occasion. I’ve seen them passing overhead,” Williams said. (His comments on the subject were recently re-published in Open Minds Magazine as part of a cover story on crop circles.)

Williams also noted that when he and his friends make large talismanic magical symbols, strange things happen. “On two occasions we’ve also seen black, shadowy figures. Not as clear as a person, a little more rounded but a human shape. There are so many things like that.” He added that somehow these symbols “actually have some effect on physical reality and strange things happen.”

Williams is not alone in his contentions that mysterious forces are at work in the fields of Wiltshire, the location of many of the UK’s crop circles. “All of us are very different but strangely enough, whatever angle you come into crop circles from, all the teams have had paranormal experiences while making them.”

So we wonder what the non-believers think now, when one of their own – an admitted and convicted crop circle artist – says the unthinkable, that non-human mechanisms are at play in the fields creating magic.

In the world of synchronicity, this feels like the Trickster at work. First of all, the human crop circle makers have served as tricksters with a small ‘t’,  attempting to fool us into thinking that something other than human is at play. But now that the human artists have been exposed – and even prosecuted – they are admitting that they are as puzzled by the phenomenon as anyone else. Maybe even more so.

And in the background, the Trickster is laughing. So you think you’ve got the answers about crop circles? Well, think again. It’s not all that black-and-white.

Astrology has some troubling landmarks in the years ahead and one of them is the Uranus/Pluto square that began in 2012 and continues into 2015. It  may account for why Obama is much grayer now than when he took office. It may also help explain some of the recent the news – the missing Malaysian flight, Russia’s invasion of the Crimea, the marked polarization in Congress, the strange weather this past winter.

Uranus rules the sign of Aquarius, sudden, unexpected change, inventions, innovations, individuality, genius, cutting edge trends, discoveries. It takes 7 years to move through a sign and is now transiting the cardinal sign Aries, and will continue to do so until March 2019. Pluto rules transformation, the underworld, everything that is hidden, dark, unseen, death and resurrection. Since 2008, it’s been transiting the cardinal sign of Capricorn, which it will continue to do until November 2024.

Between June 2012 and March 2015, there are seven times when these two planets are exactly square to each other, an aspect that spells conflict, tension, challenge:

• June 26th, 2012: 8 degrees
• September 19 2012: 6 degrees
• May 21 2013: 11 degrees
• November 1 2013: 9 degrees
• April 21 2014: 13 degrees
• December 15 2014: 12 degrees
• March 17 2015: 15 degrees

The lead-up to these squares and when they become exact tend to be the most stressful periods. Globally, we see its manifestations in all sorts of sudden, often violent events – uprisings, government takeovers, extreme weather, earthquakes and other disasters.

On a personal level, the Uranus/Pluto square is the itch you can’t scratch. It’s the weirdo uncle who shows up unexpectedly asking for a handout. It’s the discovery that your partner has a secret life in which he cooks meth (the TV show Breaking Bad), that he’s a power hungry conniving politician for whom power is everything (TV show House of Cards).

But this square also urges us to recognize how we are unique and how we can use this uniqueness to further our own goals and dreams. It shakes up our personal reality, urges us to let go of what no longer works in our lives – a relationship, job, habit, attitude, belief, lifestyle. It’s a perfect time to reinvent ourselves.  In fact, reinventing ourselves or some aspect of our lives is probably the best way to navigate this aspect.

The last time Uranus and Pluto were square to each other occurred between 1932 and 1934 and the global transformation was considerable – the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler, the invention of the atomic bomb.  Between 1966 and 1967, Uranus and Pluto also linked up, three times, but these aspects were conjunctions in the sign of Virgo. Conjunctions bring additional force and power to the planets involved. These conjunctions triggered global revolution and massive shifts in societal norms.

So even though we may be in for more challenging times, there are positive ways to navigate the tumult. Follow your instincts. Heed the synchros you experience.  Tap your dreaming self for information and insights on what may be headed into your life.  Embrace change. If you don’t, then change will be thrust upon you. And remember that ultimately, the Uranus/Pluto square is a conundrum, one of those riddles of the universe, a kind of trickster who laughingly whispers, Aw, c’mon, free yourself!

Synchronicities involving numbers are always interesting. Our friend Sansego sent us this one:

Today’s featured Wikipedia article is Mitt Romney. I didn’t know that it was his birthday today – March 12 – (the same day as Jack Kerouac) or that Romney was born in 1947.

The synchro on “47” hit me right away because political scientists consider his comments about the 47% who would never vote for him to be the thing that doomed / sank his presidential chances. Of course, he ended up with 47% of the vote anyway.

Even more interesting, 1847 was the year that the Mormon pioneers – Romney’s ancestors –  made the wagon train voyage from Independence MO to what is now Salt Lake City, UT.

And when Romney was 47 years old – in 1994 –  he first ran for political office in a race against Senator Ted Kennedy, giving the iconic Senator a real competitor for the first time in his long career.

And on that note, happy spring equinox!

You probably thought you’d heard all the possible theories about what happened to Malaysian Flight 730. Well, here’s a new one from pilot Bruce Gernon, who co-authored The Fog with me about his Bermuda Triangle experiences.

I sent Bruce a new list of the 10 most mysterious aircraft disappearances, which now includes Flight 730 as the top one. The Bermuda Triangle is included, which was probably why I sent him the list. Bruce has appeared on numerous cable network shows about the BT and his harrowing escape from mysterious forces is often the highlight of the shows.

He answered back that he had been following the disappearance of the 777 very closely, and so far thinks that ‘electronic fog’ could have been the cause.

Electronic fog is a term Bruce created to describe what happened to him on his flight from Andros Island to West Palm Beach when he was locked in a fog that seemingly was attached to the plane and moved with it. He came to that conclusion after puzzling over the fact that during the experience there was a continual hole in the fog below and above the plane. He could never move past it.

But at the time that was the least of his worries because all of his electronic instruments had shut down – similar to what happened on Flight 730. He had tried to escape the conditions by flying at a high altitude, also similar to the apparent actions of the pilots on the Malaysian aircraft. When Bruce realized he couldn’t fly above the cloud mass, he tried to fly under it. Again that was what the 777 did, dropping from 45,000 feet to 3,000 feet.

“If they were in the electronic fog, it disoriented the pilots and caused them to divert their course – similar to what happened to me and to Charles Lindbergh on his mysterious BT flight, and also to Flight 19.” That was the infamous case in which five Navy fighter planes vanished, setting off the Bermuda Triangle saga.

In Gernon’s case, he should’ve been near Bimini when he abruptly found himself flying over Miami Beach. It was as if he had instantly teleported 100 miles. When he finally landed in West Palm Beach, the plane had too much gas left in the tank and he’d arrived half an hour too soon, in spite of taking diversionary actions en route.

It’s all speculation of course. But at this point, it seems that Bruce Gernon’s theory is as good as any of them.

Even the Huffington Post has compared the missing commercial jet to the Bermuda Triangle saga.

There is no scientific proof that electronic fog exists, but as Gernon says to skeptics: “If you were on the flight with me, you wouldn’t dismiss the idea so quickly.”

++

A possible breakthrough on the missing plane mystery, from Australia.

I usually finish my meditation classes by reciting an Irish Sun blessing, called The Longtime Sun. It’s well known and has been recorded as a chant and song many times.

It goes like this:

May the longtime Sun shine upon you,

All love surround you,

And the pure light within you

Guide your way home.

Recently, I decided to download a copy of the song from iTunes. What prompted me to do so was a different version of the blessing that included a new second line about the ‘cool moon.’ I heard it recited at the end of a yoga class and afterwards asked the instructor about the line. The class had been taught on the day of the full moon, and she had led us through several variations of the moon salutation, instead of the usual sun salutation.

So I thought that she might’ve just added the line about the moon for the purpose of the class. She laughed at that idea and assured me that the line was part of the Irish Sun Blessing, and that no, she had not made it up.

So the next day, which happened to be St. Patrick’s Day, I looked it up on iTunes, and listened to seven or eight variations. But not one of them included a line about the moon. After all, it’s a sun blessing.  I particularly liked the rendition sung by a Kundalini yogina, Snatam Kaur, who has recorded several albums of sacred music.

However, no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t download the song. The tune was frozen, wouldn’t play, and wouldn’t download. I shrugged it off, but the next day I went back and found the same situation. The song would not download for me. So I started puzzling over the esoteric meaning of it all.

Then it hit me. Yesterday had been St. Patty’s Day, as I said. Not only had I tried to download the Irish blessing without any conscious recognition of the connection, but I had spent the entire day without wearing anything green. An inadvertent snub of the Irish, I suppose, and the freeze had been my payback.

So I’m wondering if the Trickster might have an Irish grandmother!

Fortunately, the Longtime Sun did play when I found it on YouTube after I wrote this post, as you can see above. But even then it would only appear as a URL, not an image, until Trish put it up.

We live in schizophrenic times, it seems, when people are so polarized by what they believe about anything that civil discussions aren’t an option. The politician who seems to exemplify this schizophrenia is Putin.

This dude appeared shirtless on horseback, hiking, showing off his biceps and triceps and abs – and we don’t know whether women swooned and fainted at the sight of him.  What we do know is that he and his wife are now divorced.  We know that Putin was a KGB agent for 16 years, was elected as president in 1999…and well, you can read the rest of his strange political career here.

We know that Putin dislikes gays, that there are many stringent laws in Russia against gays, and that it was an issue during the Olympics.  We know that Putin granted whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum. And Snowden is the only area where I agree with Putin. Even though Putin probably did it for political reasons – instead of for the right reasons – his decision bought Snowden time. There’s an ironic synchro in this that we wrote about previously.

The bottom line is Putin is on the wrong side of history with his invasion of the Crimea. Recently, there was a vote about whether the Crimea should leave the Ukraine and rejoin Russia and the vote is apparently overwhelming in favor of linking up with Russia. The U.S. refuses to recognize this vote.

“Under the stage direction of the Russian Federation, a circus performance is underway: the so-called referendum,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Sunday. “Also taking part in the performance are 21,000 Russian troops, who with their guns are trying to prove the legality of the referendum.”

As soon as the polls closed, the White House again denounced the vote: “The international community will not recognize the results of a poll administered under threats of violence,” it said in a statement. “Russia’s actions are dangerous and destabilizing.”

My question is this: Why should the U. S. be involved in this at all? The answer seems to be fairly straightforward: oil.

Why are we still an oil-based economy? Why was the electric car killed? What about solar power, wind power, ocean power? Back in 1973, when an oil embargo was in full force, I remember sitting in line at a gas station for three hours in order to fill my tank. And back then, gas was cheap. In fact, in June 1973, around the tine I used to wait in those lines, gas cost 42 cents a gallon. Yeah, you read that correctly. 42 CENTS. On a good day here in the U.S. gas is close to four bucks a gallon. In Europe, it’s much higher.

Yet, pundits who manipulate numbers would have you believe there’s no such thing as inflation. These are the same pundits who want you to believe that Snowden is a terrorist for revealing the extent of NSA spying on its own citizens.

Go figure.

We don’t just live in strange times. We ARE the strange times. Until our collective beliefs reach a tipping point, until we realize that corporate power spells political power, until we somehow extricate ourselves from the matrix of consensus thought and go rogue in our own lives, we are as trapped as Snowden. We may have a bit of breathing room, we may remain free for another day or month or year. But at some point, it will all catch up to us.

Oh, Putin. How macho you look without a shirt. What a man’s man you are on horseback.   We’re grateful that you grated Snowden asylum. But hey, dude, I mean, really. The Crimea? Why? What’s the point?

You would think that someone name Incognito would be a low-key character, one who avoided detection, literally slipped through the cracks of life. For years, Richie Incognito was relatively obscure…obscure for a starting National Football League player. He played guard for the Miami Dolphins, and offensive linemen are typically the grunts, blocking every play, never touching the football, unless they happen to recover a fumble by a teammate. Rarely making headlines.

But this past year, Incognito has shed his role that matched his name and become infamous, even outside of football, as the ringleader of a clique of players who taunted and bullied other players on his own team. His behavior came to light when one of his targets – lineman Jonathan Martin- abruptly left the team, because of Incognito’s excessive verbal assaults and demeaning stunts. The idea of a 300-pound player being the victim of bullying was surprising, spread across the media, and ignited an NFL investigation. Meanwhile, the Dolphins suspended Incognito and don’t plan to re-sign him this year when his contract runs out.

Now, months after the controversy began,  Incognito is again in the limelight for a couple of reasons. First, the report of the NFL investigation was released and Incognito was cited as the fall-guy. His reaction (since Martin wasn’t within his reach) was to pummel his $300,000 Ferrari with a baseball bat. His deed leaked out and once again he was making news. The next day he entered a treatment facility in Arizona where he lives. That too made headlines.

Incognito no more. If he ever plays for another team, the veteran player will be the most infamous lineman in the game.

And oh, by the way. See that green number? He’s right in synch for St. Patrick’s Day!

….it’s a bird. Or rather birds.

A Powerpoint presentation by the NSA, leaked by Edward Snowden, apparently includes three slides of UFOs. But it’s not what UFO buffs hoped for – revelation that the government knows UFOs are real. Quite the opposite. The slides are apparently part of a training session for spies on how to create and spread false information on the Internet. In other words, lying to the public. No wonder people don’t trust the government.

Disinformation aside, the images themselves seem to be of a questionable nature with one in particular being dismissed by UFO enthusiasts as an “out of focus picture of a seagull.”

“Government agencies are still aware of the power of the belief in UFOs, and that they are willing to use the Internet to exploit these beliefs,” said author Nigel Watson. “Such deception can be used as a means of covering-up more mundane terrestrial activities (like the testing of secret aircraft or military exercises) or to undermine the credibility of ufologists.”

We’ve noticed government agencies coming to our blog when we put up UFO-related post. It could be that this secretive interest in UFOs could have more to do with studying means to create disinformation than it in any attempt to comprehend the nature of the UFO/alien contact phenomena. More than likely it’s a combination with agencies pursuing the issue for varying reasons, including trying to figure out what other agencies know and what they’re pursuing.

Meanwhile, according to the Unexplained Mysteries website, a fake UFO invasion using drones is being planned for April. We’ll see. Apparently, the “Big UFO Project” was originally planned for April Fool’s Day, but was pushed back several days from the first of the month. We’ll see what we see, if anything.

We had quite a few comments from our post a couple of days ago on missing Flight 370. But here’s a couple you didn’t see that arrived via e-mail.

You may recall our post about former CIA remote viewer (psychic spy) Joe McMoneagle and how he targeted Mars 1 million B.C. for NASA back in the early ’80s. Since Joe is still working privately as a remote viewer, I was curious if he had targeted the missing flight from Malaysia.  When I e-mailed him, he responded promptly. Here is what he said:

“Did so days ago and filed it with appropriate authorities. Put them in the Andaman islands, or close to there. We’ll see what happens over time. Best, Joe”

The Andaman Islands are located in the Indian Ocean, and the recent revelation confirming that the plane continued flying for 4 hours after contact was lost extended the search out into the Indian Ocean. In fact, a report from the New York Daily News here cites the Andaman Islands as the possible destination and even suggested the plane landed safely there.

It’s starting to sound like an episode out of LOST. Somebody check the beach.

Meanwhile, the mysterious Peter Levenda sent us the following e-mail:

Andaman Islands