Om & Bismillah

Hello, Greetings and Namaskars -
Since I have been reading a fair amount of Cass/SOTT material slowly over maybe 4-5 years, and more recently, and have gradually come to learn of and trust the seriousness of the group, I am feeling at a point of sufficient confidence to sort of formally introduce myself. (I am normally reticent to engage in this way - illusory web anonymity? - I live a somewhat 'under the radar' life, and no computer.)
At this point SOTT is where I now first go for crucial information on all levels. Almost every other site I've investigated over the years is too "mixed", and its freakin boring and useless to waste my limited time on computers. My criteria is resonance. The clear viewpoint and approach of the work that you all do is, from what I've read so far, in major resonance with my own experiencial knowledge and approach. How else to put it? Whew, it's such a relief! Don't know how to even begin to thank you.
So I have "joined" in this forum. Like everything else, an experiment. Believe me, my hesitancy and reticence has nothing to do with any reason not to have anything but the highest respect for the primary voices, Laura and Ark. Wow, people! I'm just not a 'joiner'. Lately I have been reading Wave material, Splitting Realities, To Be or Not, whatever grabs me as timely and relevant to my own current situations/involvements. It's probably impossible for me (or most folks) to actually go through all the immense material, and as questions/reflections arise one always wonders if a subject is covered more elsewhere. I am therefor anticipating the need for occasional direction in clarifying C's responses to similar questions. I'm not really looking for "answers" (if I'm in my right mind), but I sure like hearing C's responses, to all the right questions too. Yes, indeed. And equally amazing and disciplined is all the correspondence between individuals examining and focusing as a group to "see" the underlying truth of situations and what constitutes crucial knowledge needed currently - those being parts of the articles.
A couple things that I'm mulling over here. Hardly anything I read in any of the material triggers in me any uncomfortable feeling-response. But I have 59 years of experiencing, and I still don't see everything perfectly clear, and I was pretty impatient for a long time (less,now). My own sometimes-need for clarity are about choices made which determined how I now live personally and professionally. For 36 years I have developed mastery in an ancient musical art form from India. Over time it has become more of a full-time "gig". I perform, teach, record, play for 'religious' occasions, and still study from other young and old lineage masters many styles. I'm an "american", but have lived mostly (after work) deep in a rarified 'world' of a big part of the spectrum of old-style to modern South Asian musicians and dancers. Not really involved with "western" culture, except to collaborate with jazz/celtic/flamenco/rennaisance traditional artists. (Friends say I'm barely American, mostly Indian/Hindu/Sufi/Iconoclast, but I'm ALWAYS observing my culture.) Never been trapped in a cult. Never been interested in "institutions of higher 'learning'" once I started learning things the apprenticeship way. I HEAR music with Indian ears, and much western music sounds foreign to me, to say the least! The science of music and relationship to body-mind-spirit is a deep subject I've long explored/researched as an independent "ethnomusicologist", and special focus on rhythm/time theory-and-practice. Also lived in (American) Indian Country for some years.
So the matter here is: involvement with RITUAL, which blurs into an unavoidable involvement with SHAMANISM. - C's said "_Ritual drains directly to Lizzard beings_ (Truth Is Out There). Hmmm. All these traditional art forms, passed down for generations, surviving innumerable calamities, were originally ritual forms (and still are) and the artists (channels?) participated in some shamanistic procedures in conjunction with "priests" "road-men/women" whatever. I know these artists to be of all levels of consciousness from contemporary personal experience. Our job is to be as clean in mind and awake as possible generally in our lives and particularly at the times of executing our form of creating beauty to give back to Creation. That is what we are (hopefully) taught in apprenticeship. The performance is a prayer in the form of focus, concentration, emptiness, trusting in the Creative wave, watching the beauty and energy flux so to respond accordingly, etc., and many other elements are involved from initiations. The "effects" of the performance/ritual are not our business. (It also feeds us like nothing else!)
So I spend a lot of time 'there'. I don't think many people today have a clue what kind of 'world' traditional artists, performers, and craftsmen live in even today - mostly in 'poverty' and marginalization; they have been primary targets for all STS control/elimination-groups throughout modern history. The catholics and nazis slaughtered thousands of gypsies, and not because they were dirty and homeless, but they are part of the streams emerged from ancient Indian/Vedic/Lemurian civilization, I believe. Conquistadors always sought out musicians and shamans for 'special' treatment in this hemisphere and in Africa.
I think I might have a lot of lifetimes in these oppressed cultures. I don't know.
Has anyone looked at the writings of Martin Prechtel, especially "Toe Bone and The Tooth"? Most moving book on Mayan reality in decades. Its a resonance thing for me. Modern-day shamanic reality-check, I think. Crucial. A Completely altogether different use of language. All prayer/praising. -Just wondering.
Never know if "choosing" this role ('sacred' music practitioner) is a trap or not. Was hardly a _choice_, as we 'coincidentally' arrived somewhere and the masters just gifted us with their timeless beauty and said, "it's yours if you do the work to make it your own, and you remain a clean empty vessel for the lineage to keep filling, and you take to heart our lessons on banishing the false-self-mind which interferes with all of our natural creative flow and you will confidently improvise in music and in life - at least it's worked that way for Indians..." (or something to that effect). An offer we can't refuse. It's all just being in class every day, showing up. I REALLY don't want to think that we're all just "feeding the Lizzies"! or something, you know?
Didn't know whether to post this on The Work, Music, or Rant, or what...I'm new, and not from around here.
-DJ Bholanath
 
welcome. It's a nice space isn't it?As an also eclectic artist in the visual arena I know that art in it's truest form takes you to the depths and heights and "other places" .Why we always get peripheralised and persecuted I guess...unable to fit in with the Real World of The Dead Machine.
I make a differentiation between Ritual and Ceremony, the first i think is merely the recipient mechanical and would undestandably feed the Lizzies as it cramps,distorts and codifies reality into cliches and sends you to Sleep/sleep in the arms of Morpheus, perfect example: muzak or Disney.It's boring! The other is the collected voice and story of the culture-men and women and the natural world ( and Other Worlds)-mediated by the artists in an ongoing song passed down through the generations forever changing.One kills, one gives form to life.I always thought God/dess was an artist rather than a mathematician. Possibly a surrealist!
 
Godot said:
I make a differentiation between Ritual and Ceremony...
At least far as the English language is concerned, the terms ritual and ceremony seem to be very tied together:

Free Online Dictionary said:
ritual
1.
a. The prescribed order of a religious ceremony.
b. The body of ceremonies or rites used in a place of worship.
2.
a. The prescribed form of conducting a formal secular ceremony: the ritual of an inauguration.
b. The body of ceremonies used by a fraternal organization.
3. A book of rites or ceremonial forms.
4. rituals
a. A ceremonial act or a series of such acts.
b. The performance of such acts.
5.
a. A detailed method of procedure faithfully or regularly followed: My household chores have become a morning ritual.
b. A state or condition characterized by the presence of established procedure or routine: "Prison was a ritualreenacted daily, year in, year out. Prisoners came and went; generations came and went; and yet the ritual endured" William H. Hallahan.
adj.
1. Associated with or performed according to a rite or ritual: a priest's ritual garments; a ritual sacrifice.
2. Being part of an established routine: a ritual glass of milk before bed.

ceremony

1. A formal act or set of acts performed as prescribed by ritual or custom: a wedding ceremony; the Japanese tea ceremony.
2. A conventional social gesture or act of courtesy: the ceremony of shaking hands when introduced.
3. A formal act without intrinsic purpose; an empty form: ignored the ceremony of asking for comments from other committee members.
4. Strict observance of formalities or etiquette: The head of state was welcomed with full ceremony.
Of course if you read Mathiew Kirstin Kiel's editorial "Word Control Part 2", these definitions probably need to be taken with a grain of salt.

I guess, however, what the C's were trying to say is that rigid forms where creative change is not permitted connect to parts of reality that feed on emptiness. The form is like an empty vessel that must be filled with the artist's soul and spontaneous creativity, the artist's own contribution and passion to give the form its life. And if that passion promts the artist to change the form, then so be it, because form over soul results in entropy.

Tradition is not a stamp generated by some bygone age but a record of continuity between past and present, and in this the present has a major contribution. When one participates creatively and with soul in this continuity and is not a slave to the past end of it, it truly becomes...

[T]he collected voice and story of the culture-men and women and the natural world ( and Other Worlds)-mediated by the artists in an ongoing song passed down through the generations forever changing.
 
I find myself feeling very leery about any ritual or ceremony, because of the warnings about such things issued by the C's. However, it seems that the mechanicalness of ritual is the real danger; the going about certain sounds/movements/intentions without really actively thinking about them - much like a Catholic mass, really.

Any activity devoid of active mentation seems dangerous, and empty rituals, engaged in at the direction of others, or at the direction of a 'tradition' raise enormous red flags for me.
 
anart said:
I find myself feeling very leery about any ritual or ceremony, because of the warnings about such things issued by the C's
I do feel the same way for the same reasons.
Anything too rigid and ritualized makes me uneasy.

But I am wondering if we aren't always performing some kind of mini-ritual(s) as we are creatures of habits ?

It is sometimes so difficult to not being set in our ways and act like a machine.
How many times do I not realize that I wasn't really 'there' while performing some simple action.

On another side, are all rituals made to block the spontaneity of life ? (I don't know how to say it otherwise)
Isn' it because our own machine like attitude directs it this way ?
Maybe some rituals where just stepping stones to understand some deeper meaning and had to be left behind when understood completely.



And thanks to Esoquest for his post. That truly inspired me.
 
Tigersoap said:
But I am wondering if we aren't always performing some kind of mini-ritual(s) as we are creatures of habits ?

It is sometimes so difficult to not being set in our ways and act like a machine.
How many times do I not realize that I wasn't really 'there' while performing some simple action.
Absolutely, that is why self-observation is so important, as well as working on building self-knowledge. It seems that all these things are going on within us and around us all the time, so it is very important to pay attention and try to get as objective a view on it as possible - to try to see it for what it really is.
 
I use Ceremony and Ritual as similar but opposite concepts in the same sense I use Sentimentality vs Emotion.My own private vocabulary i guess but as I'm a poet, too, I like to boss language around rather than the other other way. Especially english which is my second language.I was subjected to the exCruCiatingly boringness of the Catholic Mass(mind) as a kid and it took a long time for my knees to recover.The sense i use the two words in is that Ritual is a machine like action designed to hypnotise,shut down and putatively drain our energy off to those durn Lizzies.On t'other hand apart from the big spook,who is formless i think, all realities have structure, so I, at least, have to deal with those structures without lapsing into Sleep. For me these are Ceremonies which act as focii for my attention away from concensus reality.Art is one such act: when I draw or paint or make jewellery I quite often go into an altered state of heightened awareness.When I'm "there" I can do unusual things-such as feel the flow of heat through silver and so do very delicate brazings. One of my regular Ceremonies is the Friday Night Jaunt to The Fillums with Pauline.We partake of the Sacrement of Coffee and Cigar and then watch mindless drivel (or not-it has to be either very good-rare-or very bad) at the local multiplex and afterwards dissect the faults or virtues of the film , sharpening our minds.In this there is the interplay of the cosmic yin and yang-Pauline is female so we tend to oscillate in choices, I'm a male. Every week it's a different but simliar experience, at the same 'time" and I'm not too sure what any watching lizzies would make of it. Unlike the Ritual of Mass, methinks.
 
Godot, EsoQuest, anart, and Tigersoap - a much belated sincere thanks for your responses. Inspiring for me too.
You all hit on the essence of the issue of 'what is the relevance of Ritual/Ceremony/Tradition?' (all closely related), and how these are basically 'containers' for creativity.
This is key in all my experiences with very-much-alive traditions of indigenous music, dance, storytellling, and puja ('dualistic' ritual invocation and pleasing of some visualised aspect of our individual wholeness - Self).
I see the practitioners of lineage arts working in the following ways:
1) As children they are taught and practice the rudiments of the various forms that have come down and been more-or-less agreed upon as 'getting the job done'. This alone may take many years.
2) As the form is understood and solidly established, the young artist is made aware that ONLY the form is knowable and agreed on, and that all the other details are always changing from generation to generation and from moment to moment.
3) The form is established and revealed/self-defined by the practice of infinite variations of ways to respond to what the group/individuals/audience's energetic interplay with the artist is at a particular moment. One has to be always expecting the unexpected, since the whole point is Creative Improvisation, NOT just going through the motions; and adding something to the lineage-garland for the next generation to play off of. (This is certainly NOT blocking "the spontaneity of life") When a whole community knows the 'forms' and are involved observers/participants, and are watching for the artists' creativity, they won't hang out for long if its not happening.
4) The practise of self-observation and continuous attention to the present moment is something that seems to require working-on for most of one's life. If one can't live daily life with disciplined focus, then it's not gonna happen when it's show time. And there's either: doing your best to honor each and every element of the agreed-on form, or violating the trust between artists. You aim for the former.
5) Even the forms change, and new forms come into being. The given forms, once intimately known, themselves suggest the next evolutionary step.
6) They don't dream of giving up the forms. The forms are home. Your boat on the river that can take you anywhere and can be refurbished as needed. Why reinvent the wheel?
7) When the forms are used in a positive, ego-less manner they 'do the job'. Whether its processing and "composting" the complete spectrum of built-up emotions, demonstrating the infinite variety of perspectives on the struggle for light to prevail over dark in this world, focusing the community on manifesting beneficial cooperation with the environment (saw a Hopi snake "dance" - before they closed 'em to outsiders - and experienced the combination of community focus, intimate and reverent contact with the snake-world, an adhered-to annual cycle which keeps them in continuous connection to the environment, and powerful mind-altering singing - saw manifested the requested rain-cloud out of a completely clear burning blue sky as the last of 100+ snakes was sung to)...any of these results are positive cultural contributions.

About 6 years back there was an article in Library of Congress Magazine by some neo-con academic shill arguing for the acceptance of mass cultural extinction of indigenous groups (since, hey, lots of stuff has gone extinct!). His value basis was "what's so important to save, anyway?"
The foregoing is just some of what I've observed, experienced and discussed with people still vitally involved in ceremonies, ritual, and the arts. They take pride in knowing the story/source of every article/instrument worn or used. I've found a few worlds of pretty sane, reality-based creative traditions. Most people there are open minded about others' personal 'styles', and can recognize from an individual's creativity how he's doin' on his 'Work/path', and it's none of their business.
So, will we facilitate the PTB's agenda and be throwin' the baby out with the bathwater?
 
You may also want to check out the discussion on ritual here -- http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1897&p=4

With the apparent propensity for ritual energy to drain directly to 4D STS, it is probaly wise to be very educated and vigilant in the matter in general.
 
I think an important part of the issue is reflected in the statement from the above posts:
"If one can't live daily life with disciplined focus, then it's not gonna happen when it's show time."

Now there are a few things to think about here...for example, when is it "show time"? Is not all of our life here, every moment "show time"? Are we not engaged in the pursuit of continual consciousness, where our every thought and action should be consciously directed towards self observation and evolution?

Now regarding ritual - to me ritual looks like a crystallization of behaviour - a pattern repeated mechanically again and again. Is this conscious activity? Does such repetition breed hightened awareness?

Personally I find that repetitious acts tend to dull the mind and the senses and remove conscious intent from the current moment. Remeber what Mr. G. said about "always try to do things differently"? To me that indicates the same advice that the Cs gave when they said to avoid ritual.

Phil
 
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