EXTRACT FROM SUNDAY SERVICE

February 6, 2005

By Aeptha

 

GANESH AND LAKSHMI

 

The work that we are moving into today requires a point of focus that is associated with Ganesh, who in addition to being the Remover of Obstacles, is also known as the Lord of Categories. And you see on the altar a depiction of Ganesh as well as of Lakshmi and the colors of yellow and orange that are associated with manas, or higher mind. Now sometimes we can go into our Western way of thinking and we suppose that higher mind has to do with what we learned in school.  As we remember from our studies, higher mind is an attribute of the Goddess. Higher mind is the bridge between the worlds, and Lakshmi is the Goddess of the three worlds, the underworld, the middle world, and the higher world.  And the Lord of Categories brings forward the one-pointed focus of higher mind. Our thinking, lower mind is often that which stands in the way of our spiritual growth and our spiritual connection, which is why many people choose to operate from the heart.  Well, what do you think your heart is?  It is a combination of your heart and your thoughts.  I can see everybody is thinking, “Wait a second, thoughts – heart?”  Stay with me and you will see.

In our Western mind we separate feelings and thoughts.  They seem to be two different energies. The truth of the matter is that what we think and feel are like the staff of the caduceus, they intertwine and they cannot be separated.  You can try to fool yourself into saying that you are all about love, but then at the back of your mind you are thinking, “If that one would just act right!”  The reality of it is we have all struggled with that.  There’s not a person in this room, including me, who has not had that deep, heartfelt intention and aspiration to truly be the manifestation of love, and simultaneously have the lower mind and the personality step in over and over again and deceive and take us down the path of illusion and projection.  From my personal experience I know the power of what transference and projection can do to us, and how real and tangible this is. I know what our glamours, our illusions, our self-hatreds, and our sense of unworthiness can do to us.

For you see there is another aspect of Ganesh to be considered, and that is the five Shaktis, which are the five powers.  These Shaktis are like radiating circles.  The first Shakti is love of self and family.  Have you ever heard someone say, “I really love animals, but I don’t like people.”  I see somebody in the back row going, “Oh yeah, I got that one.” Or better yet, “I really love my family, but my aunt is a pain in the butt and I don’t think I like her.”  That is the energy of distortion and separation.  So the first Shakti is love of self and your immediate circle, and that means that pain-in-the-neck child, that mother who never understood you, and that father that did you wrong. And if you cannot encompass that first circle, that’s it, you don’t go any further. You cannot jump over the first to the fifth Shakti, and actually there is one beyond that where you have the love of the planet. So if we haven’t taken care of our own backyard, we’re not going to be traveling the earth, no matter how hard we try.

The second Shakti extends to the community. It is to truly love and have compassion and non-judgment for the community and those you have entered into relationships with, be it business relationships, or extended families.  The third Shakti extends into the culture in which you reside, and that's another big one for us, right?  We have a lot of conflict with what we experience in our culture.  We have a lot of judgment that says, “I like these people, but I don't like those. In this neck of the woods the people act right, but I don’t know about those people.” This includes philosophy, politics, law and order.  Now the thing about love and compassion is that you might ask how you can feel that way about something that you experience as destructive or negative.  How can we not?  Well, I know how we can not, but the bottom line is if anything is going to shift that energy, it is love and compassion.  The fourth Shakti extends into the world, and the fifth Shakti is where we have transcendence. Now with these five Shaktis there are also five abysses.  Needless to say, we won't go into a long description of them.  They have to do with separation, isolation, disharmony, worry, trouble, violence, hatred, and misuse of energy.

Now we understand that Ganesh expresses itself in many different forms.  The Lord of Categories is an aspect of the Savior God in the Hindu tradition, but he is more specific in that he is called the Keeper of the Gateway, and that means that you go through Ganesh in order to move into other realms. Ganesh can be Horus, or Jesus, but the essence of the teaching is that in order to move forward into those realms where we connect with Spirit, we have to have right thought, right action, and right deeds, which is the manifestation of the love of our heart.  So this is what I meant earlier when I made the statement that your heart and your mind are not separated, and that your heart is your thoughts. I know that is very disconcerting for many of us, because our thoughts seem to have a life of their own, and sometimes it seems we experience thoughts in a very compulsive, obsessive way. And yet what Ganesh would say to us is that it is through worship and devotion that we allow in the power of the Lord of Categories in whatever form you address him/her. It is through one-pointed focus that the Lord of Categories will come and open your heart and mind, because when we recognize that our fears, judgments, doubts, and insecurities are starting to form, we have at that very moment the opportunity to shift the energy. 

Oftentimes we feel that our thoughts are pulling us, but what we must do is literally stop them internally.  We can take that moment and say, “I am moving within myself.  I will use my words of power, I will use prayer, my devotion, my faith, my hope, my belief, because that which speaks to me in my head are my illusions and glamours, my false sense of self-importance, and my arrogance, and I will not listen to that, for I am not that, for that is separation, negativity, assumption, and that is not the path I walk, and it is not that which leads my heart and my mind.”  I promise you, if you do that every time your thoughts start to tumble in that direction, it will change.  There is the expression that if you don't feed it, it will die.  But we feed it with our intention and our attention.  We talk to people about it.  We obsess about it in our mind.  So we’re feeding it over and over, but if we withdraw our attention and put our attention into the right use of energy, right speech, right thought, right alignment, through our worship and our devotion, then I promise you, it will change.

Many of us associate Lakshmi with the bringer of abundance, the bringer of healing, but she is also the holder of occult knowledge, the mystery way, mystery simply meaning that which is hidden.  And why is it hidden from us?  It is hidden from us because we're not looking.  You thought it was going to be something bigger than that, didn’t you? Well let me tell you another story.  All of our candy we keep in our pantry, so if I’m looking for carrot sticks, but I’m standing in the pantry, then I guess I’ll just have to settle for the Milky Way.  Seek and ye shall find!  The bottom line is we may say we want to open the doors to the greater mysteries, but where do we look?  Where's our attention?  Where is our energy?  And I have to say that I know where your energy is, because you are sitting right here on a Sunday morning, and that tells me that you’re seekers of truth.  You are not standing in the pantry pretending that you’re looking for a carrot.   You have come to a mystery school.  It's our actions that count.

When we met last time we worked with the energies of the swan and its five alchemical expressions.  For those of you who have access to the internet, you will see an edited version of that teaching there[i].  We worked with alchemy in relationship to the need for healing, which is an ongoing need for ourselves and the planet.  And within that alchemy were nine herbs and nine oils.  These herbs and oils have been kept in the Inner Sanctum continuing in their process of being empowered with sacred alchemy.  And today you are invited to take some of these herbs home with you. You may find that you are called to place them on your altar or somewhere else in your home, or you may find that you are called to place them outside. But they are herbs of healing and of transformation.  They are the herbs that carry the power of the swan, of Cygnus, which is the capacity to hold the light within and radiate it out.

So as we move into our work this day with Ganesh and with Lakshmi, I would ask that we would begin with the chant to Lakshmi. (Om Lakshmi Om: The chant is repeated for several minutes.)

Aeptha: I would ask that you take some of the herbs in your hands and hold them as we move into the work with Ganesh, for these herbs will actually move through the chakras in your hands, through the portals, the five gateways, through the eight bones in each wrist, which are the eight Mothers, and this will assist you in that transformation for which Ganesh is coming forward, both as the Remover of the Obstacles and the Lord of Categories, to bring forward this healing with Lakshmi.

I would point out to you that Ganesh[ii] is astride the Phoenix, which represents the alchemy of transformation, and at his feet is a rat.  Oftentimes Ganesh is depicted riding a rat, but for today's work Ganesh is mounted on the Phoenix of Transformation.  It is often stated that as you make your prayers and your supplications to Ganesh that you are laying them at Ganesh’s feet.  The internal transformation of our request is held in one of his feet, and in the other foot is held the action or the manifestation of that request.  So as we move into this alchemy with Ganesh, which is based on the energies of transformation, I would invite you to be aware of your prayers and supplications, and that you are inviting the internal alchemy of change as you lay them at the feet of Ganesh, so that there will actually be a biochemical change in your body. Then your actions will proceed, not from outside, but from the core of your being.

I would also share with you that in the research that is being done on DNA, and what has been referred to as junk DNA - which is actually 90% of our DNA – it is beginning to be understood by linguists that DNA is actually language, and it responds to language, and this language comprises the thoughts in our head and the sound of our voice. The sounds that are now being emitted in this Sanctuary will move into that DNA and it will actually change consciousness down to the cells of your body.  And so in this understanding we stand before the mighty Ganesh, who is the Gateway, and we call to you, Lord of Categories.

All Chant:  Om Shree Ganesh (There is the sound of drumming, and the chant continues in the background as Aeptha continues talking.)

Aeptha: The Muladhara chakra is at the root of your spine.  Ganesh is associated with the uprising of the Kundalini enlightenment, but the Muladhara is what holds our experience of time, our memory, our perceptions, where we hold our fears and our doubts.  And Ganesh is coming forward, for there are those here who have memories that create deep fear, separation and anxiety; there are those here whose perceptions of time, what has been, what is now, and what is coming, hold them in bondage.  And Lakshmi, who is the great liberator, now joins the mighty Ganesh, so that the Muladhara, where your memories, your perceptions of what has been, what is now, and what may be coming, will be liberated from your fear and your pain.  And so now I will call, and we will deepen, and I invite you, if you feel called, to stand up and move.  Be with Ganesh, for she is here.  Lakshmi is here.

Chant changes to:  Om Shree Ganesh, Lakshmi, Om Shree Ganesh (drum stops and a bell sounds several times)

Aeptha: Love is above and below, love is from within and without, love is all around, and love is all sustaining. Hail to thee, Lakshmi, the great liberator, and we acknowledge the grace of thy touch, thy blessing, and thy sustenance in this action.  Hail to thee, Ganesha, hail Lord of Categories, Remover of Obstacles.  Thou hast burned the fog and taken us by the hand. 

I’m sure you are aware there is a great deal of movement, and they are asking us just to be present with this for a few minutes more.  If you need to sit, please do so, but please let us hold the silence and the space for the work to continue.  The work is deep and it is adjusting down in the DNA and your nerves and your blood cells.  (A couple minutes of silence follows)

And as you are ready, deepen your breath, and stay in this sacred space.  And I will share with you that I know your prayers are not only for yourself, but for the world, and they are vast and great and they have been heard.  We understand that all is interconnected, and that this planet is not isolated or separated.  So please know that your prayers for yourself, for the world, for the stars, and for the planets have been heard.  These herbs hold your prayers for the greater whole, and they will continue their work.  And we give great thanks.