"Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds" (film)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; InnerWorldsMovie; AwakenTheWorldFilm 

(ATWF) Part 1: Akasha. See all four parts at innerworldsmovie.com. Music from spiritlegend.com. Sacred geometry posters and products at: zazzle.com/awakentheworld. Donations and purchases help support the "Awaken the World Initiative" to make future films free for the benefit of humanity. (Help translate and caption the film at amara.org).

 

"Form is full of potential."

This is Part 1 of the film "Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds" (REM Publishing Ltd.).

Akasha (space, Buddhist kalapas particle-wavelets, aether, etheric field, primordial stuff, primary substance, the yin to prana's yang) is the unmanifested, the nothing ("no thing") or emptiness which fills the vacuum of space.

Vedic deities (Clio7/flickr)

As Einstein realized, empty space is not really empty. Saints, sages, and yogis who have looked within themselves have also realized that within the emptiness is unfathomable power, a web of information or energy which connects all things. 

 

This matrix or web has been called the Logos (the "Word," "I say"), the Higgs Field, the primordial OM, and has been known by a thousand other names throughout history.

• Particle physics (kalapas), Caltech
• Buddhist Physics: Why the LHC Matters

Yogi meditating on Brahma(n)

The first part of "Inner Worlds" explores the one vibratory source that extends through all things, through the science of cymatics, the concept of the Logos, and the Vedic concept of Nada Brahma (the universe as sound or vibration). 

 

Once we realize that there is one vibratory source that is the root of all scientific and spiritual investigation, how can anyone say "my religion," "my God," "my discovery," or ["my film"]?

About the makers

The Buddha, Sakka (Indra), and Brahma

Several people have already tried to re-upload the film and monetize their channel and/or make a profit from selling the film without permission or to build subscribers. It is hard to know people's true motivation, which is sometimes something even they do not know.

The Awaken The World Film channel contains closed captions in many languages so that versions of the film do not spread in the absence of professional translations.

When users subscribe to the ATWF channel they can be provided with future films as they are released. This is just the first of many films to come; the second is already in the works.

  

Brahma the "supreme," Hindu art (sagarworld)

The channel also provides links to the Website and Facebook page and the opportunity for viewers to donate to the Awaken the World initiative. Support is needed to make these films. For while they may be made available for free, donations are really appreciated. Viewers may also offer their translation skills or other support.
 

Proof of contact? Massive Vedic "crop circle" Sri Yantra covering 13 miles uniformly carved into bed of dry lake that is too hard for us to etch in Oregon, USA (Bill Witherspoon)

• Workshops, meditation retreat, and more (facebook)
• Google community page discusses awakening

Indian Film Festival, L.A. (April 8-13, 2014)

Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; IndianFilmFestival.org, IFFLA on Facebook, IFFLA

India's Bollywood comes to Hollywood, Indian Film Festival of L.A., April 8-13 (IFFLA)

OM (aum) is the sound of the cosmos (EO)

FAITH CONNECTIONS: Every three years Hindus and yogis and others gather at one of four rotating sites for the Kumbh Mela, the world's largest religious celebrations of faith and devotion, marked by bathing in the sacred waters of the river Ganges. With 100 million participants in 2013, these pilgrimages are said to be the largest organized gatherings on the planet for any single purpose. While never losing site of the enormity and scope of the event, it brings viewers the individuals, sharing their unique stories: How did they come to be here to share in their belief in the divine?

(FC) Every three years 100 million Hindus and others gather at one of four
rotating sites for the Kumbh Mela, a devotional celebration at the Ganges.
  

Through stories of pilgrims searching for lost children, marijuana-smoking ascetics, adoptive father yogis, mind-bending physical acts, and a special lost boy who dreams of becoming a sadhu (Indian holyman), IFFLA alum Pan Nalin crafts a moving and unique view of the mass gathering. This vision of the ancient tradition  is rarely seen in the West, bringing the Kumbha Mela to human scale. More
  

Love.Love.Love

But kids?

SOLD: Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jeffrey D. Brown adapts Patricia McCormick’s novel Sold -- a National Book Award finalist about child sex trafficking -- into a vivid, harrowing, and inspiring story of a 13-year-old girl’s resilience in the face of unspeakable cruelty. Young Lakshmi travels to India with the promise of a job and money to send back to her family in Nepal. She quickly learns the terrible truth: she has been sold into prostitution and must work for years to pay back her parents’ debts. While Lakshmi contends with abuse from the brothel’s tyrannical madame and its lustful customers, a nearby activist organization struggles to work against corrupt officials to bring the brothel down. Ultimately, she must resolve not to lose hope and use her wits to escape. More

 

Kashmir(s) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India

SHEPHERDS OF PARADISE: Nomadic herder Gafoor has to lead his large flock of horses, cows, goats, and sheep across Jammu all the way to the natural wonderland valley of Kashmir (J&K) so they can graze. An already difficult journey of nearly 200 miles done by foot covered in 21 days, Gafoor faces the added challenges of military checkpoints and impenetrable terrain in blinding winter conditions. At 75, Gafoor also carries on a way of life for his family that the young seem less and less interested in following. More
 

Shorts Program 1 (IFFLA)

LIAR'S DICE: Geetu Mohandas steps behind the lens for a bracing and unforgettable directorial debut, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. The film follows the journey of Kamala (Geetanjali Thapi), a woman living and working in a remote Himalayan village with her young daughter Manya.

Kamala's husband -- gone off to work in Delhi -- has been out of contact for several months, and Kamala fears the worst. Determined to find what's happened to him, she gathers Manya (and the family's pet goat) to set off for the city. Hardships ensue, as Kamala struggles with directions, money, and the dangers of being a woman alone in a strange place. She hires a guide -- the unfriendly and possibly criminal wanderer Nawazuddin (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), whose interest may lie more in his own personal gain than in any help he can offer others. More


JADOO: Set in Leicester [Lester], England, Amit Gupta’s delicious and delightful comedy charts the chaos that ensues when young Shalini gets engaged to her longtime boyfriend Mark. The fact that Mark is not Indian is the least of Shalini’s concerns. Her father Raja and uncle Jagi have been at war for years. After a big falling out that caused them to close their family restaurant, each man opened his own establishment -- directly across the street from each other!



Shalini’s dream wedding would see both men put aside their differences and prepare the wedding feast together. But resentment runs deep, and neither man can so much as hear mention of the other’s name without a spike in blood pressure. The prospect of disappointing their beloved Shalini -- and the threat of a new, hip restaurant opening in the area -- forces Raja and Jagi to work together, but for how long? In this uproariously funny and heartfelt exploration of family bonds, shared history, and culinary perfection, Gupta’s cast is relentlessly charming. Plus, there’s enough mouth-watering Indian food... More

 

SKIN DEEP: Sanjay and Sushma plan to elope to escape a looming arranged marriage. They are in love, and their future together shines brightly and perfectly, filled with possibility -- that is, as long as an extra piece of skin that complicates their sex life gets fixed in what should be a routine medical procedure. But Bombay/Mumbai’s electricity gods have other plans in store for them. More 

SIDDHARTH: Barely able to support his family fixing chain zippers, Mahendra is hopeful their lives will improve now that his 12-year-old son, Siddharth [the Hindi form of the Sanskrit name Siddhartha], has found work 200 miles north of Delhi. When the boy fails to return for Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," a few months later, Mahendra and his wife Suman are simply told he ran away. The parents' nightmare is only made worse by indifferent authorities more interested in lecturing them than finding out what happened to their young child. As Mahendra and Suman find out more of the truth, it becomes clear that no one cares what happened to their son but them. More

BOMBAY TALKIES: A quartet of short films celebrates 100 years of Indian cinema in the charming omnibus film featuring work from Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, and Anurag Kashyap -- four of India’s most exciting contemporary directors.

Starlet Katrina Kaif, FHM cover

Each one crafts a tale of ordinary people, whose love of movies profoundly alters the course of their lives: secret lovers who bond over a little girl’s performance of their favorite Bollywood song, an out-of-work father plucked from a crowd to perform a brief role in a Ranbir Kapoor film, a little boy who dreams of being a dancer like the luminous Indian starlet Katrina Kaif, and a son whose ailing father sends him on a quest to receive a blessing from megastar Amitabh Bachchan.

Shorts Program 2 (indianfilmfestival.org)

The brightest stars of Bollywood invite us to share in the joy, heartbreak, and reverence we feel in a movie theater. Each story beautifully captures how lovers of cinema can’t help but carry that fascination into their day-to-day life. Haven’t we all wished, at one time or another, that our lives were more like a film? (For this selection, admission is restricted to guests 21+).

• 2014 FILM GUIDE

Buddhist Ash Wednesday: LENT begins

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Ashes to ashes, monk to monkey, we know Major Tom's a... (Irish Culture Customs)

Yogi "holymen" (sadhus) rub pyre-ashes over their bodies concentrating on forehead tilaks as a religious observance bringing them closer to Brahman (DavidEarlotti/flickr.com).

  

Buddha the Yogi Sage (vgonzalezortiz/flickr)

Ashes?

After the decadence, debauchery, and fattening up of Carnival (the "Goodbye to Meat") and Mardi Gras (Pancake Day) comes the guilt: Ash Wednesday (Ireland's National No Smoking Day) and LENT. It is time to repent of sensuality, excess, and "missing the mark" (Greek sin).

• 7 Greek words for "sin"

So cover the breasts and expose the forehead. Recollecting an ancient Hindu tradition, ashes will be rubbed on it. 

Hindu OM symbol (tizzyhyatt/flickr)

These sacred ashes or vibhuti signify mortality and death as well as the fierceness to play/work against negative forces, obstacles to rebirth in the heavens (sagga) and liberation by ending rebirth and ALL suffering (nirvana).

Vedic (or Vedantic, which refers to the "best of the Vedas") Hinduism has many practices of abstinence. The Buddha contributed various restraints and observations to Indian culture but enjoined them principally on monastics and intensive lay-practitioners.

Catholicism borrowed more from Hinduism -- particularly its tantric Vajrayana arm in Tibet with all its pomp, circumstance, and "pope" -- than any other of the many traditions it has borrowed from. Jesus may even have been a tulku among Tibetan Buddhist lamas who were the actual Three Wise Men from the East who came looking for him when he was reborn from the heavenly plane to Earth. Jesus remembered and later went to India.

 

Shiva's forehead: sacred ashes

Lent, like pilgrimages (yatra-yatra) and other Indian spiritual practices, spread far beyond the subcontinent. People adopted compassionate vegetarianism, ascetic fasting, periods of silence and reflection all to come closer to the Ultimate Reality (Brahman) behind the Illusion (Maya). No formal religion has taken more from other religions and spiritual traditions than Roman Catholicism -- itself an amalgamation of misappropriated beliefs, relics, and remnants. 

Sin on Wed. (blackshapes.com)

"Christ" is a composite character of many great teachers and their teachings all rolled into one bigger-than-life superhero. Religious scholar Prof. Reza Aslan was exactly right to distinguish Jesus of Nazareth, the person, from Jesus the Christ, the mythical figure. The Buddha was christus (xριστός) -- in that he was born an "anointed" kshatriya-caste royal, who spoke of the Maitreya (Messiah), the "spiritual friend," to come. A buddha is the best of all friends.

Catholicism became the biggest religion in the world, dwarfing the more than billion Buddhists (most of them uncounted in officially atheist/communist China), by appropriating all of these ideas and melding them into one Great Vehicle for all, one universal-congregation or super-religion. This all happened in ancient Buddhist Greece, but the ideas were taken from the wisdom of the East and applied to the nascent "West."

 

"Take that, [you Brahmin] temple priest!" (blackshapes.com)

 

"Buddhist Lent"

Vajrayana Buddhas (Buddhist Train Tour)

The period known as "Buddhist Lent" (Vas or Vassa) actually applies directly to monastics and only indirectly to lay Buddhists. It is the three-month "Rains Retreat." In ancient India, the monsoon season was such that it made travel difficult and dangerous to the life of insects, amphibians, fish (spawning in flooded farm fields), seedlings, and sprouts wriggling all over the wet earth. So the Buddha was asked to rein in his followers and have them not travel about. The Buddha agreed and declared a discipline of remaining in one location for a time of intensive practice, study, and teaching.

Buddha Maitreya in Diskit, Ladakh, Himalayan Buddhist India (PaPa_KiLo/flickr.com)

 

Agni chakra, third-eye on ashen yogi, India

Devout "hearers" (dayakas and sāvakas) of the Dharma, themselves lay Buddhists, took advantage of this situation accruing merit by bring food and other requisites for nuns and monks to utilize the remainder of the year then hanging around, hearing the Dharma, and practicing it intensively. For the day, people would adopt Eight Precepts over the normal five. And they might remain in the temple complexes (viharas) overnight memorizing, chanting, and undertaking walking and sitting meditation. 

Buddhist altar (Piyushkumar1/flickr)

It was a great time to access the wandering ascetics, have questions answered, doubts allayed, and great metaphysical matters discussed. Many people flocked to see the Buddha, few of them "Buddhists." But they would return again and again, and when he would travel on as the itinerant teacher he was, he would leave behind ascetics to help and comfort the people.

• CENSORED: the Breasts of Mardi Gras (video)
• Some churches offer "Ashes to Go" for busy New Yorkers
• "Ashes to Go" in Pittsburgh (San Francisco Gate)
• Why Ash Wednesday (Sara Miles, Huff Post)
• Future President Hillary Clinton (unless the Powers That Be want Jeb Bush) calls Russian President Putin a "Nazi" by comparing him to Hitler
• Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles to pick up award from UCLA
• Israeli PM (de facto Dictator) Bibi Netanyahu in L.A. making a mess of traffic

Mardi Gras has Pagan roots
International Business Times

Mardi Gras, New Orleans (Kosmic Frenchmen)

Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday") is a Christian holiday-cum-pop culture phenomenon that dates back thousands of years to pagan spring and fertility rites. Also known as Carnival, it’s celebrated in several nations across the globe -- predominantly those with large Roman Catholic populations -- on the day before the religious season of Lent [the 40 day run up to Pagan Easter]. When Christianity arrived in Rome, religious leaders decided to incorporate some pagan traditions like the raucous Roman festivals of Saturnalia [worshiping the God Saturn] and Lupercalia into the new faith -- a far easier task than abolishing them outright. As a result, the debauchery and excess of Carnival season became a prelude to the 40 days of penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. More

Remember, sinners, ye are dust and to dust ye shall return! lol (waynestiles.com)

Why the forehead chakra? (Buddhist tantra)

Ashley Wells and Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Wikipedia edit

The crown, brow (agni), and throat chakras, Rajasthan, India, 18th century (wiki)

 

Om or aum (Themeplus/flickr.com)

Chakras (subtle energy centers of the body) play an important role in the main surviving branch of Indian Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism.

They play a pivotal role in completion stage practices, where an attempt is made to bring the subtle airs or winds of the body into the central channel, to realize the clear light of bliss and emptiness, and to attain buddhahood (Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear Light of Bliss: A Tantric Meditation Manual).
  

The Vajrayana system states that the central channel (avadhūtī) begins at the point of the third eye like the of Lord Shiva, curves up to the crown of the head, and then goes straight down to the lower body. 

There are two side channels, the rasanā and lalanā, which start at their respective nostrils and then travel down to the lower body. The apāna vāyu (down-moving wind, where "wind" means the invisible power to move) governs the lower terminations of the three channels. The lower end of the central channel ends at the rectum. The lower end of the lalanā ends in the urinary tract. The lower end of the rasanā channel emits semen.

Chakra picture produced by AuraStar2000TM bio-energy sensor (William Vroman/wiki)

  

Buddha aum (BrookeMontes/flickr)

The side channels run parallel to the center channel, except at locations such as the navel, heart, throat, and crown (i.e., the chakras) where the two side channels twist around the central channel. At the navel, throat, and crown, there is a twofold knot caused by each side channel twisting once around the central channel. 

At the heart wheel there is a sixfold knot, where each side channel twists around three times. An important part of completion stage practice involves loosening and undoing these knots.

 

Within the chakras exist the "subtle drops." The white drop exists in the crown, the red drop exists in the navel, and at the heart exists the indestructible red and white drop, which leaves the body at the time of death.
 

Sanskrit characters (sriaurobindoashram.com)

In addition, each chakra has a number of "spokes" or "petals," which branch off into thousands of subtle channels running to every part of the body, and each contains a Sanskrit syllable.

By focusing on a specific chakra (while often holding the breath) the subtle winds enter the central channel. The chakra at which they enter is important in order to realize specific practices.

For example, focusing on the subnavel area is important for the practice of tummo, or inner-fire. Meditating on the heart chakra is important for realizing clear light. Meditating on the throat chakra is important for lucid dreaming and the practices of dream yoga. And meditating on the crown chakra is important for consciousness projection, either to another world or into another body.

 

A result of energetic imbalance among the chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. It leads to looking outside for fulfillment. When people live in their heads, feelings are secondary. They are interpreters of mental images in a feedback loop to the individual.

Bon protectors of Tibet (viewzone.com)

When awareness is focused on memories of past experiences and mentations, the energy flow to the head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without nurturing feelings of the heart, a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in the illusory-separate-self reaching out for experience. When the throat chakra settles and energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings (Tarthang Tulku, Tibetan Relaxation: The Illustrated Guide to Kum Nye Massage and Movement - A Yoga from the Tibetan Tradition, pp. 31, 33).

Bön

Chakras, according to the Himalayan pre-Buddhist shamanic Bönpo tradition, influence the quality of experience, because movement of vayu cannot be separated from experience. Each of the six major chakras is linked to experiential qualities of one of the six major realms of existence. More

Alan Watts: "Why Not Now" (video)

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich (KPFA.org); TragedyandHope (youtube.com) 

"Why Not Now" and "Dhyana: The Art of Meditation" by Alan Watts (redtelephone66.com)

 

Alan Watts in Buddhist robes, California

January, 2014 - There is a new documentary film (two DVD set) on the life and works of British-American Buddhist broadcaster Alan Watts. Each film comes with "The Animated Alan Watts" and "The Essential Alan Watts," a bonus disc of video materials that did not fit into the film.

• LISTEN: PLAY AUDIO NOW (download MP3, 10.28 MB)
• Letters and Politics, Feb. 19, 2014 - KPFA.org 10:00 am
• About the Show / Archives of Show / Playlists from Show

One 23-minute DVD includes extracts from the 1972 series "The Fine Art of Goofing Off" as well as a couple of animations produced by SouthPark creators and animators. The reel has met with joyous laughter and standing ovations at recent film showings and is not to be missed.

"Why Not Now" follows the life of one of the most inspiring philosophers of our time -- Alan Watts -- as told though none other than Alan Watts himself accessing a wealth of material and lectures that were left behind after his passing.

"Why Not Now?" was created by Alan Watts' son, Mark Watts, who has given TragedyandHope exclusive rights to create the trailer for the documentary. More (alanwatts.org)

PART 2: The Platform Sutra (Red Pine)

Red Pine (translator); Sixth and Last Patriarch Dajian Huineng; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly, Roshi Jeff Albrizze (PasaDharma.org)  MAHAYANA/HINDUISM

Tian Tan Buddha, a massive statue of Buddha Amoghasiddhi, completed in 1993, located at Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, Hong Kong (Robert Montgomery/flickr.com)

 

Kwan Yin Bodhisattva (Avalokitateshvara/Wiki)

[PART 1] The Platform Sutra occupies a central place in Zen (Ch'an) Buddhist instruction. It is often linked with The Heart Sutra and The Diamond Sutra to form a trio of texts that have been revered and studied for centuries.

 

Delivered at Tafan Temple in Shaochou by the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng, compiled and recorded by Fa-hai, recipient of the Formless Precepts and advocate of the Dharma.

 

The Platform Sutra

...This nature of ours in which the ten thousand dharmas [literally, "things," "phenomena," or Dharmas, "teachings"] are present is what we mean by the pure dharma body. Those of you who take refuge [sarana actually means to "seek guidance"] in yourselves, if you get rid of bad thoughts and bad practices, this is called taking refuge.

What do we mean by the myriad-fold transformation-body? If we didn't think, our nature would be utterly empty. When we think, we transform ourselves. If we think evil [i.e., unskillful, unprofitable, motivated by greed, hate/fear, or delusion] thoughts, we turn into the denizens of hell(s). If we think good [skillful, profitable, wholesome, motivated by nongreed, nonhatred/nonfear, or nondelusion] thoughts, we turn into the deities of heaven(s).

Malice turns us into beasts. Compassion turns us into bodhisattvas [beings-bent-on-enlightenment]. Wisdom transports us to the higher realms, and ignorance sends us into the lower depths. Our nature is constantly transforming itself, but deluded people are unaware of this.

Once we think of goodness, wisdom arises. One lamp can dispel a thousand years of darkness, and one thought of wisdom can end ten thousand years of ignorance. Stay in the present (rather than wasting this precious moment, which is all that ever exists, by casting the mind back to past events). Keep thinking about what's next. 

 

When your next thought is always good, this is what we call the realization body. One bad thought results in the destruction of a thousand good ones. But one good thought results in the annihilation of a thousand years of bad ones. In the face of impermanence (अनित्य), if your next thought is good, this is what we call the realization body. CONCLUDES IN PART 3

Buddhism's "Mind Only" School (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Vsauce (Twitter)/Collab; Barbara O'Brien (Buddhism.About.com)

(Vsauce) How can we know anything? Epistemology is the serious study of this question.

 

Aggregates (heaps) are not-self!

The Mahayana philosophy of Yogacara (Sanskrit, "application of yoga") teaches that the reality we think we perceive does not exist except as as a process of knowing. 

 

Phenomena [dharmas], anything that can be experienced, have no reality in themselves. At the same time, there is no "experiencer" who experiences except as a process of mind.

 

If there is no experiencer and nothing to experience, how can anything seem to be? What is it that knows? This "knowing" is explained by alaya-vijnana, "store consciousness," which is a function of the fifth aggregate (skandha) of clinging [namely, "consciousness" or viññāna]. 

 

Very briefly, it is in this "storehouse" that mental phenomena are tied together to create the deception of external existence.

• [Hinduism was worked into Mahayana Buddhism to maintain that somewhere, somehow there really is a timeless self (atman, atta), a "higher self," an eternal soul, something to identify with or cling to, such as consciousness itself. But consciousness is an impermanent process, not a self. Clinging to assumptions, to long held misperceptions, must be seen through and replaced with the "perfection of wisdom" (prajna-paramita), which means directly perceiving not-self (an-atta or shūnyatā, suchness, thusness, voidness, emptiness) as epitomized in the famous Heart Sutra.]

Yogacara emerged in India in the 2nd or 3d century and reached its zenith in the 4th to 6th centuries. Originally it was a rival to the philosophy of Madhyamika, but eventually the two philosophies merged.

Both philosophies were enormously influential in the development of Mahayana Buddhism. It is a school or tradition also known as Vijnanavada (Sanskrit, "The School That Teaches Knowing" [literally, "Teaching of Consciousness"]), Chittamatra (Sanskrit, "Mind Only")