Whenever I use the word primordial, I inevitably get the question what do I mean by that word? And it's a fair question. Because primordial often appears as a very abstract and conceptual word that is quite remote from our everyday reality and existence.
Read MorePrimordiality can be a very abstract and conceptual word, that it can seem like something that's quite remote from our everyday lives and our consciousness. And yet, the archetypal tradition exists in the realm of the primordial and archetypes are expressions of the primordial.
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The Deity Krishna once said that the Divine is a poet. And He also said that when we want to perceive the Divine, we can't do that with our usual vision, that we need a transformed vision or transformed sensibility, in order to experience the Divine who is the poet. This poetic aspect of consciousness or reality or nature is central to many ancient wisdom traditions across the world. The poet is the seer, the poet/seer/healer/dancer, you find these constellations in traditions across the world. And of course, many of the ritual traditions are in essence, they are poetic, and they are creative expressions, poetic dance or poetic chanting or poetic art, visual art, that is ritual and ceremonial and poetry.
Read MoreIt's very important for all of us to find a meaning and purpose in our lives. We all hold a yearning, to be able to be purposeful, usually towards something that is a meaningful cause to support something that can bring me that can bring happiness or being a level of productivity. It's very important for all of us to find meaning and purpose in life. And usually, we do this by finding causes, or supporting the things or movements that are meaningful that we resonate with that can be in service to other people. And of course, this is a very valuable thing. And it's an important way in which we participate in the community, and in the group and be a part of the movement of humanity itself towards something that brings us beauty and happiness in these lives.
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Generally, we think of life as a linear movement, we start somewhere, and we gather and collect and accumulate skills, money, experience, happiness, and we land up somewhere, which is more than where we started. If we don't have more than where we started, we consider that as, as a failure. And we want to rectify it. We want to figure out what happened, why didn't we? Why aren't we when we say better? Why aren't we better than where we started and better is always almost always about something that is more Are we more happy? Do we have more money? Do we have more skills, do we have more experience? And yet when we consider the archetypal movement of life, the suggestion is that life is an ebb and flow.
Read MoreAs a teacher of a practice that is spiritual, I contend with what I call a recreational attitude to philosophical or spiritual inquiry. It is something that must accommodate itself around all the other activities of life. Work, family, holidays, birthdays, shopping, visitors- all other “obligations” must be met before a spiritual activity. Or, which in my view is far worse, spirituality is a “rest” from the other obligations of life. It is a respite so that one can return to the more important business of living refreshed and reinvigorated.
Read MoreThe earliest invocations of water in Indian archetypal wisdom call her Amba or mother. As the maternal dimensions of consciousness, water invites us to attend to the particular nature of the maternal as an archetype and not as we have narrated this in our technocratic reality.
Read MoreI call the nature of the body in an archetypal embodied archetypal tradition, the poetic body, because we approach the body itself in a poetic way. We want the body to be inspired by something poetic, we want the body to be infused by something poetic, we want to experience it and we want to express it all in this poetic way. In fact, the poetic vision or the poetic intelligence was the essence of divine intelligence.
Read MoreLightning in archetypal traditions is often associated with very fearsome deities who have the power to create cataclysmic events that can affect the whole cosmos. In Indian tradition, there is a deity called Indra whose weapon is the thunderbolt, and he is feared for his powers to create huge weather events and bring about great change.
Read MoreI adored my teachers in dance, philosophy, Yoga, martial arts, and literature. Finding inspiring teachers is a blessing I have been honoured to have in my life and almost makes up for all the turbulence in other quarters! Each time I studied under a teacher, I aspired to be like them—a dancer, philosopher, Yoga guru, or a writer. For a while I would be thoroughly distracted, pursuing the next aspiration as my “calling”.
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