Thursday, February 27, 2014

Prometheans

Thomas Cole - Prometheus Bound (1846)
In Yoga and Tantra, and in Mysticism East and West, there are many systems. But there are only a few great truths. And none of the great truths are dependent upon any of the systems. Nor are you. Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Prometheus didn't expose himself to the wrath of Olympus to bring you a system; he did it to bring you fire, i.e., to bring you the great truths. 

It is these great truths that transform you. The systems do not embody the great truths, it is you who will embody them. The best any system can do is support you in the process. 

What do I mean by great truths? Unconditional love is one. Clarity of mind is another. Fused together they erupt into liberation. And all systems are burned away in that forge. 

Jesus and Mary Magdalene were Prometheans. Padma Sambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal were Prometheans. And yet, many systems have been built up in their names. 

But you don't owe anything to anyone. 

You can arrive at the center of the universe without a system of any kind, but you cannot travel there without the great truths. Even the best of our systems, the most authentic, the most intact, the most robust, is little more than a faint reflection of that profoundly complex matrix of systems in which you already live and move and have your being. You simply have to come to an understanding of who and what you already are, and just what it is you came here to do. 

And as you do so, please avail yourself of any system that resonates with you, strip it down, take what you want from it, integrate it with parts from other systems that resonated with you in other ways. Build your own. That is what the Titans wanted you to do. And of course understand that as you are building your own, you are building nothing more than a pyre, and eventually you will have to light it up with the fire of the great truths, and watch it burn down into radiant nothingness. 

Quiet the mind, and the heart opens, open the heart and the mind quiets down. 
These are the great truths. There are many ways to quiet the mind, and open the heart. 

But in the end they are all just kindling. 
You are the spark that ignites. You are the blaze. 

And you are the space into which it is all extinguished.

-- Richard Power

My new (ninth) book User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality is available now from Amazon.com.