Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Moment Being

Jami, in the Law'ih, summarises the doctrine of the Moment (or "interior Time") according to Ibnu'l-'Arabi: "the universe consists of accidents pertaining to a single substance, which is the Reality underlying all existences. This universe is changed and renewed unceasingly at every moment and every breath. Every instant one universe is annihilated and another resembling it takes its place... In consequence of this rapid succession, the spectator is deceived into the belief that the universe is a permanent existence...

The being of the world's a wave, it lasts

One moment, and the next it has to go...

In the world, men of insight may discern

A stream whose currents swirl and surge and churn,

And from the force that works within the stream

The hidden working of the Truth may learn...

Thus, it never happens that the Very Being is revealed for two successive moments under the guise of the same phenomenon".

From:      Ananda K. Coomarasway, Time and Eternity, Artibus Asiae. Supplementum, Vol. 8, Time and Eternity, (1947), pp.98-100

Monday, December 8, 2008

New Births

It is only the full realization of our shared self-destructive behaviour, whether of Eastern or Western bloc, northern or southern hemisphere, which can adequately move us to change. I have called this change a time to bloom.

   Beyond the mainstream of global social and economic disintegration, this change appears to be already happening. A vibrant minority is engaged in birthing a new social order, one which will be sustainable into the foreseeable future and one which will more equitably distribute wealth, power, knowledge and services within the human community.

   This book deals with the death-throes of the constricting nation-state society and provides motivation for allowing the new and more fruitful human phase to unfold and come to birth. The present national constraints to life and growth in the developing world - hunger, poverty and repression - and those in the developed world - unemployment, cancer and nuclear threat – are clearly interrelated.

   The present dangers to the foetal stage of  the new social structure are extreme. Yet we find hope and joy in the growing global consensus among ordinary people that war is as anachronistic as cannibalism, slavery and colonialism. New international relationships based on justice and law must be forged. A new technology in harmony with life and earth, and a new social order which assures a secure future for the world's children must be developed.

   Although I can point the way and identify the promising directions, I cannot spell out the nature of this new social order. A mother cannot sketch a picture of her child-to-be-born. We do not plan a flower. It is our part to nourish the good growth and to provide a welcoming environment. We must neither give birth in fear nor abort through cowardice. It is necessary to trust the creativity and vitality of the life process itself.

Rosalie Bertell, from her book 'No Immediate Danger', The Women's Press, London, 1985, p.ix:

 

 

TAROT CARDS

CARDS Cards function in the religious context both as instruments for performing divination rituals and as repositories of esoteric sacred ...