The One Who Inhabits Eternity
The one who inhabits eternity keeps watch over me and mine. “He who neither slumbers or sleeps” forever keeps watch over all. I will rest in the assurance of love and protection. Great overshadowing presence, I am conscious of your care; I am aware of your loving kindness. I rest in you. Be still and know.
-Ernest Holmes
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
“Friendship is the only cure for hatred, the only guarantee of peace.”
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
From the remote ages of antiquity, remarkable teaching has existed which is universal in its application and ageless in its wisdom. Traces of the teaching have appeared in almost every country and religion as far back as ten thousand years.
The Sevenfold Path of Peace, derived from the ancient Essene teachings, offers a strong foundation in essential lifestyle philosophies and practices in the art of conscious living. A consciousness based on the core vision of the unity of all life and a passionate commitment to the noblest aspirations of humankind this lifestyle model supports and empowers the individual in a balanced, happy life in accordance with the laws of Nature.
The teaching appears in the Zend Avesta of Zoroaster, who translated it into a way of life that was followed for thousands of years. It contains the fundamental concepts of Brahmanism, the Vedas and the Upanishads; and the Yoga systems of India sprang from the same source. Buddha later gave forth essentially the same basic ideas and his sacred Bodhi tree is correlated with the Essene Tree of Life. In Tibet, the teaching once more found expression in the Tibetan Wheel of Life.
The Essenes lived on the shores of lakes and rivers, away from cities and towns, and practiced a communal way of life, sharing equally in everything. They were mainly agriculturists and arboriculturists, having a vast knowledge of crops, soil and climatic conditions which enabled them to grow a great variety of fruits and vegetables in comparatively desert areas and with a minimum of labour.
They had no servants or slaves and were said to have been the first people to condemn slavery both in theory and practice. There were no rich and no poor amongst them, both conditions being considered by them as deviations from the Law. They established their own economic system, based wholly on the Law, and showed that all man’s food and material needs can be attained without a struggle, through knowledge of the Law.
They were great scholars who studied man’s relation to the universe. They considered that we had three roles: one of individual evolution; second, a function in regard to the planet on which we live; and the third, a divine purpose as a unit of the evolving and expanding universe. All three of these acting bodies are related to each other and affect each other. Bodily health and well-being are consequently of the utmost importance both to the individual and to all other beings on Earth. The Essenes were taught how to adapt to the rhythms and cycles of nature and the changing fields of energy that surround each person.
Through study and keen observation, they mastered the art of knowing how the elemental forces of wind, sun, rain, and nutrients in the soil affect different foods and how these foods will affect the individual – body, mind and emotions. They did daily morning and evening practices using the Elements to purify their bodies such as cold water baths and exposing the skin each day to the rays of the sun. Much of what they learned was through experience by being in their organic herb and vegetable gardens and fruit orchards.
The word Essene means healer or ‘therapeutie’, which they were well known for; they healed many people. They knew that disease is created when one deviates from the law of nature. By living in harmony with the Elemental forces and the cycles of nature, health and happiness return. Weekly, monthly and quarterly fasting and cleansing practices were used to regenerate and rejuvenate the body, and to develop the will to increase and move the energy to a higher spiritual level. They sent out healers and teachers from the brotherhoods, amongst whom were Elijah, John the Baptist, John the Beloved and the great Essene Master, Jesus.
The Essenes are described as charitable, devout, totally honest, and trustworthy. They based their decisions on majority consent, pooled their wealth and possessions together, made no wars, were peace-loving and were frugal. The results of this approach to life were extraordinary. In contrast to the short lifespan of the surrounding peoples, historians of the time have recorded that it was common for the Essenes to live to an average age of 120. They walked gently upon the Earth learning from nature and observing the natural cycles. They planted trees, tended to their gardens, vineyards and orchards, and lived a peaceful community life. It is known that the Essenes, with their pacifist tendencies, ate no animal flesh, honouring all life as sacred. There is much evidence, in the recently found Dead Sea Scrolls, that indicates Jesus was raised and educated in the Essene community.
“From its antiquity, its persistence through the ages, it is evident the teaching could not have been the concept of any individual or any people, but is the interpretation, by a succession of great Teachers, of the Law of the Universe, the Basic Law, eternal and unchanging as the stars in their courses, the same now as two or ten thousand years ago, and as applicable today as then.” Edmond Bordeaux Szekely
Gabriel Cousens M.D., says this about the Essenes, in his book The Sevenfold Peace: “There were no rich or poor among them because of the alignment of their economics, lifestyle, and society with Divine Law. The Essenes considered Divine Law to be the sum total of all the laws governing all manifestations of the forces of nature and the cosmos. This Divine Law is perhaps best summarized as the Living Law of Love and Harmony With All Creation. Although the Essenes lived in the harsh conditions of the desert, each person’s material needs, food, and shelter were easily and abundantly met because of that person’s alignment with the essential harmony of the universe. The Essenes were vegetarians; they avoided any form of alcohol except ceremonial wine; and they daily fed their bodies, minds, and souls with the contemplation of the earthly and cosmic forces that they poetically called angels. In the morning they contemplated the forces (angels) of Nature. In the evening they contemplated the cosmic forces. At noontime each day they contemplated one aspect of the Sevenfold Peace. Through this weekly cycle, the balance and practice of peace would be reviewed continuously.”
There still is a modern Essene movement in motion. This modern Essene thought still holds fast to a Natural Conscious Living Lifestyle, replete with a vegan live-food diet and regular fasting. The story of the Essenes offers us inspiration and insight into how to live balanced, harmonious lives. The Wisdom of the Essenes is re-emerging in our time to teach the basic oneness of all life and reawaken people to the Ageless Wisdom tradition that the Essene Kinship guarded for all humanity.
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
by Jayaram V
Do you know whether your knowledge is helping you and guiding you rightly or obstructing your progress?
Knowledge is the compass of life. It gives you the vision to know, to anticipate, and prepares you for the events in your life. Your knowledge gives you the power and the ability to be and to become what want to achieve in your life. You are endowed by Nature with a great tool, your mind, which can accumulate knowledge and process it, which you can use to your best advantage. However, not all are able to use it effectively because of various inhibiting factors.
The problem with the knowledge is, it cuts both ways. Therefore, to put the knowledge to right use, you must know whether you have the right knowledge and whether you have the right conditions for using the knowledge. The same fact holds true for every action in your life. If you have dreams and goals, you must know whether they are right for you and whether you have the right means to reach them. To expect otherwise is to lose direction in your life and lose your way.
Knowledge is important. You cannot deny that. Even to make simple decisions in your life, you need knowledge. You need it to make your way through the forest of life, negotiating the dangers, and reach your desired destination. Whether you pursue spiritual goals or material goals, you require right knowledge.
However, like any other tool you use in your life, you cannot just do with any knowledge or any type of knowledge. You must have right knowledge and know which knowledge is required to reach your goals. You should also know how to use such knowledge and when to use it. You must also have the discretion to know its limitations and what you cannot do with it . There are many barriers to right knowledge, such as the following.
1. Desires
2. Attachments.
3. Attraction and aversion
4. Wrong influences in life
5. Prejudice
6. Irrationality
7. Carelessness
8. Environment
9. Education
10. Past life samskaras
The distinction between knowledge and ignorance is very thin. Ignorance is not absence of knowledge but absence of right knowledge. You may possess knowledge, but if it does not serve the purpose or help you to realize your goals, you cannot consider it a right knowledge. Therefore, intelligence is also important to know which knowledge you require, when to use it, how to use it and when to keep quiet. If you are not careful, or if you lack discretion, you may end up accepting ignorance as knowledge.
Today a lot of ignorance is in circulation. We have many misconceptions about ourselves, our lives, goals and Wellbeing. These misconceptions are created either by vested interests, who want to divert our attention to inconsequential matters or exploit our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. In most cases, the dangers are not apparent until we are exposed to them.
The best way to arrive at right knowledge is through self-study and introspection. If you have more knowledge and information, you are more likely to make better decisions. With right knowledge, you develop the ability to discern things. We already have a vast amount of knowledge accumulated through generations of wise people who lived in the past and left behind their wisdom as teachings. This vast reservoir of knowledge can help us to cultivate right knowledge and discernment.
When the Buddha suggested right living on the Eightfold Path, he did not invent new knowledge. He pointed to a value system, or a system of morality and humanity that was rooted in the wisdom of the ages. He reinvented it to make his followers to cultivate discernment and know the difference between the right and wrong approaches to life. Without knowing such distinctions, you cannot make much progress in any field.
The same holds true for yoga. The traditional yoga system begins with a reference to the Yamas and Niyamas. They are based on the wisdom of the past. If you perform certain actions and if you avoid performing certain actions, your suffering mitigates and you become ready for the inner transformation. It is the message. The rules and restrictions prescribed in classical yoga are important for establishing the mind in equanimity and stability and let the inner Self come to the front and surface itself.
A disturbed mind is a suffering mind. So is the case with the human body. Therefore, the knowledge of yoga is geared to create right conditions within ourselves for peace and inner harmony. Yoga is not about doing asanas and meditation. It is about silencing the mind and the senses, so that you can experience that state of your consciousness, which usually remains hidden behind the activity of your mind.
Right knowledge is important to make right decisions, choose right goals and pursue right methods in your worldly life. Today in many countries people are pursuing wrong goals and making wrong decisions about their careers lives, beliefs, lifestyles, the products they use, the religions they practice, the values they uphold and the relationships they build. A lot of it can be attributed to lack of pure common sense, and absence of discretion. When you do not have knowledge, you will choose wrong leaders, pursue wrong ideologies, make wrong turns in your life and end up in situations you may dislike. Therefore, pay attention to the knowledge you have and whether it is the right one for you. Are you ready for the journey of life? Do you have the right knowledge? Have you learned to use your discretion and make right decisions? Think about these. If you do not have the right knowledge, you will be stuck in the forest of your life.
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
from I, Lalla – Poems of Lal Ded translated from the Kashmiri by Ranjit Hoskote
I locked the doors of my body,
trapping the thief of life and held my breath.
Chaining him in my heart’s dark cave,
I stripped off his skin with the whip of Om.
A thousand times at least I asked my Guru
to give Nothingness a name.
Then I gave up. What name can you give
to the source from which all names have sprung?
Whoever chants Shiva’s name as he walks the Swan’s Way,
planting trees with no thought of the fruit,
he’s won the grace of the Teacher
who is first among the Gods.
I can’t believe this happened to me!
I made a mess of everything, no shore in sight.
A klutz of a mason plastered my ceiling to the floor.
Serves me right: it’s time I got to know myself.
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
“The time has come when merely reading about the mystical life has lost its value. We must become involved and dedicate our lives to some useful purpose or the opportunities of a cycle will pass us by. Whatever our goal in life, whatever our desires for achievement might be, the mystical life can make these possible. Living in harmony with the Cosmic reveals talents and abilities we little realized we possessed. We find that our minds and consciousness are uplifted and charged with a power and desire to succeed in all we do, and our hearts and total beings will be filled with a spiritual love for all humanity. Our thinking will be broader and our sympathies and feeling of compassion will grow stronger. Life will bring greater joys and happiness and we will sense a divine purpose for our mission in life which will bring the greatest gift of all.”
-Rosicrucian Manuscript
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
Meditation
As leaves fall to the earth
And surrender to the soil,
So I, too, move my attention
from my outward stance
To my inner Buddha nature.
The life in me flows back and forth
from exerting my will
To flowing with the Will of All.
And in this season of stillness,
My direction is clear
As I return unto my source.
The stillness calls to me.
The Blessing
The whispering of the candle flame
Invokes the peace within,
Reminding me of the quiet journey
That I seem to be on.
I have been given a peaceful heart.
And a path to take me there.
May I joyfully take up this task
To reach the core of me,
And there to find all beings
Residing in my heart.
-Danaan Parry
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
Free Spirit Within Me
Free spirit within me, unbound and perfect, teach me your ways and make known to me your limitless completion. Divine spirit of life, control my every action and thought. Compel me to follow your light that I too may be free and complete. I will follow your footsteps and learn of you all the wondrous secrets of life. I will follow your light into them perfect day. Free spirit within me.
-Ernest Holmes
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”
*****
May God bless and protect you and…
May you always be
Healthy, Happy
Safe and Comfortable
Seth Kelly Curtis
June 30 2019
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality.”
Carl Sagan
It’s amazing how science and spirituality tie in together. Quantum physics string theory, the law of attraction. Many and more scientists are discovering this truth. The more we learn about the universe, the more spirituality emerges.
I quote Alber Einstein –
“Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”
I’ve often heard religious zealots argument for creationism dismissing all that science has learned about the universe. They dismiss Darwin’s theory of evolution; natural selection. The pseudo-scientific intelligent design argues against natural selection. They use evidence from two arguments. The first – Irreducible complexity – is the idea that biological systems shouldn’t be able to evolve by a series of small modifications to existing systems through natural selection. The second – Specified complexity – argues that some of the complex patterns seen in nature are unlikely to occur by chance.
We all know about Darwin’s natural selection: That over vast spans of time, small, random mutations change the lifeform. If the change is beneficial, that lifeform has a better chance of survival. If the change is not beneficial, the lifeform has less chance of survival, and the mutation doesn’t catch on so to speak. To these two groups of people there can only be one way. Their way. The religious believe God created it all. The scientists, that the universe and its lifeforms are evolving. Apparently, there are no religious persons with an interest in science, or any scientists that believe in God.
Honestly, has anyone thought beyond their beliefs long enough to realize that perhaps the universal intelligence that is God created the universe to evolve by natural selection? I believe that God created the creatures of this beautiful planet (including humans) to evolve but not haphazardly, relying on random mutations, but by design. If, as Darwin observed at the Galapagos Islands from the deck of the Beagle, certain creatures that were isolated evolved different features that better helped that species survive, wello, that has God written all over it.
We need to think outside the box, think things over. If you do, you might see that things that you were taught in childhood might make sense, or, just maybe, you see that something else makes more sense.
God created these beautiful minds so we could navigate the universe. Let’s not waste them.
May you always be
Healthy, happy
Safe and comfortable
Namaste
Kelly Curtis
Kelly's Quest 