Oscar Pistorius

Oscar Pistorius was the poster boy for the 2012 Paralympics and a star of that year's full Olympics in his own right. He was the first double amputee to compete in the Games, when he ran in the 400 meters and 4x400 meters relay. His use of prosthetic limbs was highly controversial, but even those who argued Pistorius had an unfair advantage admitted that he was an inspirational figure.

On 14th February 2013 - Valentine's Day - Pistorius's girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot to death at his home in Johannesburg, and Pistorius was charged the following day with her murder. Initial reports claimed that he was awoken early in the morning by Steenkamp, whom he mistook for an intruder. The story went that it was a Valentine's surprise gone horribly wrong.

At the bail hearing on 19th February, it emerged that Pistorius had fired four shots through a locked bathroom door, three of which hit Steenkamp. Lawyers argued the crucial point as to whether Pistorius had got up and put on his prosthetic limbs first before firing. According to the prosecution, the time required for this process was enough to make the shooting 'premeditated'. Pistorius made bail and the case continues.

Oscar Pistorius

Astrologically, even a brief look at Pistorius's chart shows a jealous, passionate, romantically obsessive nature. His Scorpio stellium includes Venus conjunct Pluto, a classic controlling signature, regardless of the sign. This is the mythological Rape of Persephone brought to life, where the individual's passions are intensified and he is sucked into an emotional Underworld. Ideally, such base emotions are expressed freely and transformed, but anyone with Venus-Pluto aspects, let alone a conjunction in Scorpio, will (over)react strongly to the slightest stimulus or provocation. 

Pistorius's intense energy was sublimated into running, to a degree, and we saw his competitive nature clearly at the 2012 Paralympics. He made a furious outburst after failing to win his expected gold in the 200m. The 'focus' routinely described by athletes would have been far greater in his case, simply in order to run at all, let alone at a world-class level. Pistorius's mother raised him to be self-reliant, no different to anyone else, and never to feel sorry for himself.

Venus-Pluto in Scorpio are squared by the Moon at 3 Leo in the Sixth house, adding emotional fire to an already volatile mixture. A man's Moon and Venus are archetypes of femininity, showing the kind of woman he is instinctively attracted to. With Moon and Venus in square, the picture is complex - he wants somebody dark and intense, but also sunny and generous, and the two qualities are at odds. He can have one side or the other, but seemingly never both together.

Then we see Reeva Steenkamp's natal Mars in Leo exactly conjunct Pistorius's Moon, acting as a trigger. This contact reveals a tetchy, passionate relationship, with a potential for 'needle', and ultimately violence if the physical energy is backed up. Her free-spirited retrograde Venus square Uranus may also run into difficulties with a possessive type of man. We do not have a birth-time for Reeva, but a noon chart puts her Moon at 10 Capricorn, where Pluto is currently transiting. 

Their - admittedly wide - composite Sun-Venus conjunction is the signature of love par excellence. This is a very common pattern in a close relationship, be it friends, family or lovers. Two people who are just extremely fond of each other, because they can't help it. Does this make a foolproof relationship? Far from it. Composite Sun-Venus often has a compulsive quality that means a couple cannot detach, even when they are not good for each other. 'Can't live together, can't live apart'. Composite Mars opposite Saturn also shows frustration and a potential physical mismatch.

Composite

Transiting Saturn having recently passed over Pistorius's Venus-Pluto, suggests a relationship going through a testing phase. There might have been a repeating pattern of behaviour between him and Reeva, and also a large element of fate. Saturn approaching his midheaven makes the infamous event very public, a kind of South African OJ Simpson case. Instead of being a famous athlete, he has become a famous criminal. Add further a hair-trigger mutual Moon-Uranus conjunction on the 14th February, and we see abundant potential for an event such as happened on the fatal day. 

Nobody disputes that Pistorius actually fired the shots that killed Reeva - the only argument concerns his intent. The added frustration he must have experienced as a double amputee would bring extra pressures in a domestic situation. He may have felt powerless, and in a moment of madness fired his gun in order to assert himself. Very likely. To say that his and Reeva's horoscopes, looked at together, show that they loved each other in no way blurs the astrological picture. Two passionate people with strong feelings, are the classic ingredients of a crime passionnel, or 'temporary insanity'. 

Fallen Yogis

The other day I came across a 1989 copy of Deepak Chopra's Quantum Healing that still carried its dedication to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, "with a full heart and deepest thanks".

Deepak was, let's remember, the TM movement's blue-eyed boy in the mid-80s, plucked from his role as a Western-trained doctor by Maharishi himself. The foreword to Quantum Healing relates how Maharishi encouraged DC to promote traditional Indian healing, Ayurveda, in the simplest, most straightforward terms. Meditators rushed out to buy his first book Creating Health, co-written with other TM-trained Ayurvedic experts, making it a best-seller and launching the Chopra brand. 

A good-looking Western-trained doctor and fluent communicator, Chopra soon found an influential position in the TM organization. Yet for his own reasons, he eventually decided to go his own way. Financial constraints may have been among these: after all, he had a family to support and could sense greater opportunities to be had operating for himself. Maharishi always worked his followers hard, too, needing practically no sleep, he was apparently running teams of assistants ragged well into his 70s and 80s.

Yet it is hard to fathom the reasons why a spiritual seeker like Deepak would abandon a bona-fide guru, especially for superficial gains. Chopra is clearly very smart and highly evolved, but seems to have found it hard to accept a student's role rather than the teacher's. The meditation methods he has subsequently promoted under his own name, (Primordial Sound, etc), are very close to the legal limit in their similarity to advanced TM techniques. Chopra would no doubt claim that there is no patent on Yoga, and coming himself from an Indian background, insist that he is simply an exponent of his country's own timeless tradition. 

Yet he has absorbed the way Maharishi and his line have re-cognized the Veda and taken it away from the previous emphasis on effort and renunciation. Chopra is steeped in Maharishi's teaching and his decision to separate himself from his guide and inspiration shows there are no guarantees on the path to realization. Let's hope he realigns himself one day.

I was also reminded this week of another former Maharishi devotee, John Lennon. His selected letters were anthologized last year, edited by Hunter Davies, the Beatles' official biographer. He wrote this letter from Rishikesh in 1968, on Spiritual Regeneration Movement (precursor to the Maharishi Foundation) headed notepaper. 


Dear Beth:

Thank you for your letter and your kind thoughts. When you read that we are in India searching for peace, etc, it is not that we need faith in God or Jesus ­ we have full faith in them; it is only as if you went to stay with Billy Graham for a short time ­ it just so happens that our guru (teacher) is Indian ­ and what is more natural for us to come to India ­ his home. He also holds courses in Europe and America ­ and we will probably go to some of these as well ­ to learn ­ and to be near him.

Transcendental meditation is not opposed to any religion ­ it is based on the basic truths of all religions ­ the common denominator. Jesus said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” ­ and he meant just that ­ “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” ­ not in some far distant time ­ or after death ­ but now.

Meditation takes the mind down to that level of consciousness which is Absolute Bliss (Heaven) and through constant contact with that state ­ “the peace that surpasses all understanding” ­ one gradually becomes established in that state even when one is not meditating. All this gives one actual experience of God ­ not by detachment or renunciation ­ when Jesus was fasting etc in the desert 40 days & nights he would have been doing some form of meditation ­ not just sitting in the sand and praying ­ although me it will be a true Christian which I try to be with all sincerity ­ it does not prevent me from acknowledging Buddha ­ Mohammed ­ and all the great men of God. God bless you ­ jai guru dev.

With love,
John Lennon


A few things strike me on reading this: a) how little MMY's message changed over the years. b) how cogently and enthusiastically John relates Maharishi's message, c) how wise John sounds. 

We all know how John's interest in TM came to an abrupt halt amid unsubstantiated allegations and innuendos, subsequently denied by all of the surviving Beatles*. The surprising thing is how long his meditation practice lasted and how enthusiastically he embraced it for a year or so at the height of his powers. In the late 1960s, the Beatles were the most famous and feted people on earth and John was their leader, The Man.

TM was then in its first flourishing of popularity, following Schopenhauer's 'three stages of truth': first ridicule, then violent opposition, then acceptance. After first immersing himself in meditation, to the extent of going on an extended retreat with 8-hour daily sessions, John then boomeranged the other direction. He abandoned the overt spiritual path and within a year was back in the hurricane of the outside world, reportedly battling with heroin addiction. 

This is the ebb and flow of life and purportedly it works the same way from lifetime to lifetime. In one incarnation we may be full of spiritual striving and the good karma we accrue propels us on the path of liberation in our next lifetime. But there are no guarantees: we can still stray and become in Paramahansa Yogananda's phrase a 'fallen yogi'.

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*"Maharishi only ever did good for us, and though I haven't been with him physically, I never left him". - George Harrison.

"[Maharishi] was a great man who worked tirelessly for the people of the world and the cause of unity". - Paul McCartney, 2008.

The Year After... 2013 in profile.

 Looking ahead to next year seems kind of weird after all the 2012 hoo-ha. 2013 is rather like talking about 1067 or 1493 - fine and eventful years, no doubt, but defined very much by what went before. 

The no-show of the '2012 Apocalypse' is a something of a red herring, as the Maya Prophecy so-called never claimed to herald the End of Time. Tempting as it is to write the whole thing off as a New Age PR stunt, events give me every reason for optimism. What we should all experience now is the raise in mind-level that comes with the new era*. 

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Astrologically, Saturn continues its path through Scorpio and, as anticipated, we have seen issues arising around sex and power. Operation Yewtree is the UK police's investigation into widespread claims of child abuse, including allegations against several past and present British household names. Perfect tabloid fodder, and the cue for much paranoia among celebrities of a certain age. Suspicion at times seems to point at every family entertainer from the 1970s onwards, which shows how much sexual attitudes have changed within one Saturn cycle. The allegations range from relatively mild 'inappropriate contact' to full-on paedophillia. Yuk.

Saturn and Pluto's mutual reception gives the issue wider significance, with government ministers being dragged in, and the forced resignation of the BBC's Director General. Some people are calling it a witch-hunt, an obsessive, paranoid Saturn-Pluto scenario in a taboo area. Saturn moves 10 degrees altogether in 2013, affecting particularly those with planets in the middle decanate of Scorpio. Always best to think big with Saturn transits: make that change and pre-empt life lessons before they arrive by fate.

Halfway through the Uranus-Pluto square cycle, what is the state of the game? This is a tense and grinding aspect pattern between pushy planets and signs whose only thing in common is a shared desire to win at all costs. Uranus and Pluto make their third and fourth exact squares this year, out of a total of seven by 2015. The squares are at 11 degrees in May 2013, and 9 degrees in October 2013, neatly encompassing the all-important '1st January' degree. So many countries and institutions' Suns are at this point, which forms the middle passage of this seven-square series.

This is the defining aspect of the current time, though it does not in itself account for claims of a New Epoch. We last basked in this delightful energy in the early 1930s, and there are clear parallels in the worldwide recession, which shows no sign of abating. The 1930s Depression Era was ended by rearmament for WWII, so hopefully the similarities end there.

It will be interesting to see the effect of Uranus-Pluto on gun control in the USA. Uranus in Aries is the gun, and Pluto in Capricorn is the control. Still, it will be a popular exercise of state power, after events at Sandy Hook school, the latest in a stream of senseless US civilian massacres. Nobody, surely, outside a war zone needs a sub-machinegun, but this discounts America's  emotional obsession with guns, which are both a phallic symbol and a hangover from the Wild Frontier. Interestingly, one argument is that ordinary Americans have become more dependent on firearms to the extent to which they feel economically disempowered. In any event, Barack Obama's 'meaningful change' will be an almighty tussle. Anachronistic laws will have to be repealed and powerful vested interests overthrown, and it would be fitting if this particular American president could make a difference. 

This is an American issue, but it acts as a barometer for the world's psychic state. Laws are there already, but crime continues: higher national consciousness, as always, holds the key. The present gun control debate represents a kind of arms race, with John Wayne-type proponents claiming the answer to mass shootings is yet more guns. The only answer to this jungle logic is to raise collective consciousness and eliminate national paranoia at source. Pluto opposing the USA's Jupiter at 7 Cancer may see a change in the prevailing culture, but it will be slow. The last time Saturn was in Scorpio, the Cold War arms race drew to a close, when Mikhail Gorbachev emerged to dissolve east-west tensions. So the omens, potentially are there. 

Uranus and Pluto don't come into trine until 2025, when both planets will be in air signs. This harmonious aspect may reconcile many of the issues that are causing such friction now, but for now, the pot is bubbling. We have a whole Jupiter cycle before then and likely the world will be a very different place.

The United Kingdom's two main charts, the 1066 and 1801 dates have the Sun at 9 and 10 degrees Capricorn respectively. Pluto-Uranus transiting these degrees will bring changes in Britain's class structure and natural sense of hierarchy. People are bemoaning the decline of social mobility, or the victimization of the poor at the expense of profligate bankers. I do not foresee riots such those of 2011, but in some respects the changes of 2013 may be more profound. We are not going to return to the last-millennium working model and gradually more emphasis will be placed on self-realization. Yes, really. 

UK 1801 chart: 1st January 1801, 00:00am, London.

Neptune in Pisces's influence on the Church of England is admittedly a familiar topic of mine, but the omens are stacking up further. Transiting Neptune will conjoin the Pluto of the United Kingdom's 1801 chart at 2 Pisces, showing a significant shift in the country's spiritual life (coinciding with Pluto hitting UK's Sun). The C of E's vote to exclude women bishops and the continuing controversy about gay marriage made bad PR, but only judged as if the Church were a business or political party, which it isn't.  Disestablishment will allow the traditionalists to keep their doctrinal integrity without falling foul of politicians. 

Neptune conjunct UK's Pluto, may also say something about the underdog's role, with public spending being slashed. Not to mention flooding, which ties in with New Age prophecies. Certainly, there is a correlation between consciousness and climate - the inner and outer weather, if you like - and heavy rains have a cleansing effect. Hopefully, our collective raised mind-level will make a coherent transition and the 'Isle of Avalon' will remain as mythical history.

Jupiter entering Cancer on 26th June, may bring relief as it approaches the UK's 1801 10th house Moon. This position is a symbol of the Welfare State (celebrated in the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony) and a good argument for using this particular chart. What happens in 2018 when Pluto opposes 19 Cancer is a subject for another day.

This is the major ingress of 2013, and fortunate Jupiter moving into its exaltation is surely good omen for the world. Surprisingly, the planet of travel loves being in the sign of the home, and there is an affinity between spirituality and healthy family values. Jupiter's Moons are like an extended family (or harem), with the big planet playing the great Provider in the middle. We all have Cancer in our chart somewhere and mid-2013 sees its stock getting a lift. This is good news also for the heavily Cancerian USA, which I predict will not drive off its so-called tax-versus-spending fiscal cliff. 

Jupiter in Cancer will not form an exact T-square with Uranus-Pluto, but its cardinal energy will emphasize the feeling of quick change in the world. Instant communication finds us bombarded with information 24/7, but the effect is a constant reminder of how much we don't know. Hopefully, the individual squares and oppositions from Jupiter to Uranus and Pluto won't see excess or arrogance from our national leaders. Still, a spectacular Grand Trine between Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune occuring on 16th July at 4 degrees of the water signs, is a date for the diary. Mars in Cancer almost gets in on the act, and hits 4 degrees by July 19th. 

Likewise, Jupiter trine Saturn in July and December 2013 sees good fortune and stability, in the harmonious and creative passage of these planets' synodic cycle. This is a good omen for economic recovery, if a slow one, which ties in with the 20 year Grand Conjunction cycle. Our present Jupiter-Saturn cycle started with the conjunction in Taurus in 1999, the last in Earth before the year 2020, after which the conjunctions occur in the Air element for the next 240 years. We are at an historic cusp, where material concerns, Industrial Revolution, Protestant work ethic, central banks, etc, will become gradually less important. 

MERCURY RETROGRADES 2013:
23rd February - 17th March
26th June - 20th July
21st October - 10th November

Of these, the June-July retrograde in Cancer is slowest and longest in duration, so is likely to prove the stickiest. Naturally, it depends where it hits your chart. Everyone has their own Mercury retro superstitions, but remember between its shadow and echo phases, the Trickster planet is in its retrograde arc for over half the year, and can't simply be put to one side. 

Easter Egg:
7th March sees Mercury retrograde conjunct Venus at 11 Pisces, trine Saturn and sextile Pluto. Talk to somebody a second time and charm your way into a lasting agreement.

ECLIPSES:
Lunar, 25th April, 4' Scorpio
Solar, 10th May, 19' Taurus
Lunar, 25th May, 4' Sagittarius
Lunar, 18th October, 25' Aries
Solar, 3rd November, 11' Scorpio

Eclipses in Taurus/ Scorpio enhance the changes brought by Saturn, which reaches 19 Scorpio by the end of December. The eclipse degrees remain potent for a period of time, to be triggered by transiting planets. Crazy ideas come up at eclipses and everything has a heightened sense of drama. Particularly with solar eclipses, the rule of thumb is to wait at least until the waxing crescent Moon has appeared (about 3 days), before acting on big plans. 

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*ENDWORD
We're all living longer, and large numbers of people taking up yoga is an excellent symptom. Meditation is becoming mainstream and a sign of a change in values. From our ego-driven world, where 'making it' comes by striving and hard work, cunning and ruthlessness, the emphasis will shift on to success through higher consciousness and a kind of grace. There is a particularly large take-up of yoga in central and South America, in precisely the areas where the Maya Prophecies came from. Once enough people are practicing at the same time, there will be an automatic positive effect on the group mind.

Happy New Year, everyone.

12/12/12

Well, here we are in the fabled December 2012, which those us in the 'futures market' have been looking forward to time for at least a decade.

12/12/12, 12:12pm. London.

Here's what I wrote at the start of the year:

'According to the reckoning of the Mayans (ancient Aztec/ Mesoamerican civilization), who were adept astrologers, 2012 is the date our present cycle of time finishes. The so-called Mayan Long Count, a period of 5125 years, began at a mythological point which most authorities agree was August 11, 3114 BC. The exact moment the new era arrives is December 21st, 2012 A.D, at precisely 11:11 am GMT! This comes at the close conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun with the crossing point of the Galactic Equator (equator of the Milky Way) and the Ecliptic (path of the Sun).

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So far, so familiar. This Galactic Alignment happens every year, it's just another name for the Winter Solstice. And for all the talk about the End of Time, it is far more interesting to speculate what happens in the next Long Count. As far as I know, the qualities of the future period are not revealed by the Maya Prophecies. There is not even a general quality set out, like the equivalent of a Piscean or Aquarian Age.

This is where the Vedic prophecies regarding a New Age are more interesting. Here again is what I wrote at the start of 2012.

And there is a further correspondence between the 2012 prophecy and the Vedic civilization’s concept of Kali Yuga. Yugas are vast ages of time, of which Kali Yuga is our present era of materialism and spiritual decadence. This is said to have begun in the year 3102BCE, making a difference of only 12 years between two wholly independent world traditions. Kali Yuga is hundreds of thousands of years long in entirety, but the Vedic scripture Brahma Vaivata Purana Sutra depicts a mini-Golden age – Sat Yuga– lasting 10,000 years, within the larger extent of Kali Yuga. So, we are heading for an oasis of spirituality in the wider context of a materialistic eon. The testimonies are stacking up in favour of a Major Change'.

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Krishna said to Ganga (Gangamata, the Ganges personified as a goddess). "Five thousand years from this date, within the span of Kali Yuga, there will be respite from this terrible age. There will be a golden age of 10,000 years."

The time in between ages is called Pralaya, and the Samavartaka Fire brings a solar cleansing of the earth. Certainly, the transition may be accompanied by natural cataclysms, rather like water bubbling before it turns into steam. We might expect to see this reflected in the astrology, but such vast periods of time exceed the scope of our usual planetary model. 

This period of transition could be accounted for by the series of Uranus-Pluto squares, which continue until 2015. Pluto in earthy Capricorn resisting the fiery energy of Uranus in Aries is pretty volcanic, and also describes the power struggle between old and new. The entrenched attitudes and vested interests; banks, church, press, politicians, won't let go easily and there will be a struggle before a more perfect world can arrive.

Yet while Uranus-Pluto squares are generational, they are not epoch-defining. The last such configuration was in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the rise of Hitler. What must people living in Eastern Europe at that time have thought? The end must surely have seemed nigh.

There is always a tendency to invest our own time period with historic significance. Whether all this is valid, or whether the verse in the Puranas is an interpolation, we can see and feel big changes in the world. The upsurge in the practice of yoga (who isn't training to be a yoga teacher these days?) is a sign of a colossal lifestyle shift. The emphasis is moving away from material resources and wealth creation to spiritual unfoldment. 

Jimi Hendrix and Martial Music

‘The martial music of every sideburned delinquent who ever walked the face of the earth’.  Frank Sinatra (on rock ’n’ roll)

In the mid 1960s, American guitar and amplifier manufacturers ruled the roost in popular music. In the UK, big brands like Gibson and Fender were expensive and not readily available to import. Jim Marshall, a British music-shop owner in Hanwell, West London, first had the idea of copying the circuits of American amplifiers to sell at his shop. In consultation with leading British musicians such as Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend, Marshall’s home-grown reproductions evolved a distinctive rough-textured sound that was ideal for the emerging ‘rock’ direction in popular music. Economic necessity brought a sonic revolution whose time had come.

Jimi Hendrix met Jim Marshall soon after arriving in London in late 1966. With his otherworldly manner and outlandish image, Jimi appeared to have arrived from another planet, but despite the difference in their ages and backgrounds, the two ‘James Marshalls’ struck a rapport. Jimi arranged to rent Marshall amplifiers wherever in the world he was performing, and for a team of technicians to look after them for him (with the Node and Fortuna in his Eighth House, Jimi always did well out of shared resources).

As iconic as his white Fender Stratocaster guitar, no onstage Hendrix picture would henceforth be complete without a background wall of Marshall stacks. It is facile to say that choice of amp was at the heart of Hendrix’s sound, but the aggressive, feral tone that he became famous for was Marshall Amplification’s stock in trade. Call it synchronicity, serendipity, or nominative determinism, James Marshall Hendrix became Marshall Amplification’s chief ambassador.

Mars stands out in like a beacon in Hendrix’s chart. Dignified, angular and elevated, it controls the life path unavoidably and martial imagery followed him through his short, spectacular career. That Jimi served time in the US Airborne Division is just one part of his great enigma – think of the unlikeliest profession for a future rock and roll star and the military surely tops the list. Like fellow singing soldier Elvis, Mars in the Tenth house makes one wonder whether they chose the army, or the army chose them.

Mars is also the only planet in Hendrix’s chart not finally disposited by the Moon in Cancer. His playing was very lunar and intuitive and seemed to come from a deep psychic channel. By all accounts, Jimi had many Cancerian traits: he was fond of his stomach, preferred women’s company over hanging out with the boys, and he always charmed people’s mothers. He had a maternal streak and the lyrics of ballads like Little Wing fantasize about a protective female saviour figure. Certainly he was moody, and his natal Saturn-Uranus conjunction opposite the Sun suggests the manic depression referenced in his wild waltz-time song.

This article first appeared in the Astrological Association Journal, 2009. 

'TRANSFORMING LIVES FROM WITHIN'

Last Saturday evening, I was lucky enough to attend the David Lynch Foundation UK's Gala Dinner in London, 'Transforming Lives From Within'. This was a fund-and-awareness raising event, promoting the provision of Transcendental Meditation to schools and combat veterans. The Foundation has already had enormous success worldwide, teaching tens of thousands of people in chronically-stressed areas: army veterans, street children, American Indians, prisoners. 

We heard from two British Army veterans, including Steve Bindon, an ex-commando who has suffered from post traumatic shock disorder (PTSD) since being wounded in the Falklands campaign in 1982. Steve gave a moving account of his experiences and subsequent recovery since learning Transcendental Meditation through the DLF. He described the macho culture of the army, speaking in terms that many other ex-military men have used. Admitting vulnerability, let alone seeking help here, is pure taboo, even in the most high-stress environments imaginable. It is a chilling statistic that more Vietnam and Gulf War veterans have committed suicide than were killed in the actual conflicts.

We also heard from David Lynch himself, via Skype connection from Poland. He spoke passionately about his work and gave in-depth answers to several questions from the audience, covering meditation practice and creativity. He is a great guy. Putting his name to the Foundation has been the catalyst for many other influential people to get involved, and unlike some other aspiring guru figures, perhaps, he seems to have no ulterior motive. He is already rich and famous, and his face lit up noticeably when speaking of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and hearing audience members relate their experiences of meditation.

The DLF's work confounds the stereotypical image of meditation from two directions. Transcendental Meditation is neither the passive, life-denying practise of the ascetic, nor is it the middle-class hippy's lifestyle accessory. The experience of transcendence makes an impact on absolute real-life situations, and is transforming and saving people's lives.

LONG MEDITATIONS

"I have so much to accomplish today, that I must meditate for two hours instead of one". ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi's quote nicely sums up the power of long meditations. The temptation is always to skip time in silence and jump out into the fray, especially when we have lots to do. Rather than idle escapism, meditation is in fact the subtlest and most sublime form of activity: it brings energy, focus, and in a more mystical way, an attunement with the tasks that need doing. Meaning, that a good meditation will cut down the amount of heavy lifting that is actually required. "Do less and achieve more", said Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, with the corollary of that being "Do nothing and achieve everything". 

Sometimes it's best to take it easy, however. Last Tuesday's Scorpio Solar eclipse was one I treated with caution, unnecessarily, as it turned out. Eclipses are intense energy and Scorpio is particularly emotional (associations here with Buddha's Enlightenment, but that was probably the Scorpio Full Moon). Whether because it was Diwali that day, I can't tell, but a three-hour evening meditation went by with no trouble at all. Smooth, easy, could have stayed down for longer. And I am still feeling the benefits days later.