T.N.G. SIGNS
OF THE TIMES - N.M. March 29,
2006 (#155)
Greetings from
Russell's Remnant: www.oocities.org/dkone_us
A
serendipitous event occurred in the Tuesday Night Group meeting recently. One of Dr. Russell Whitesell’s disciples was
reading an E-mail he had received from a former astrology student who now was
working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
She had sent an e-mail asking her former astrology teacher what he
thought about the recent discovery of the farthest-known object in the solar
system which appeared to be one and a half times larger than the ninth planet,
Pluto, discovered 75 years ago.
While
presenting the data she had included in regard to the new tenth planet, she
asked her teacher what he thought about the new sighting. He refrained from responding just yet, but
he was rather playful as he disseminated the latest information about what some
astronomers thought the new planet’s name might be. The name she suggested that might be used was Lila.
She
stated “Lila is a concept from Hinduism that explains the universe as
a cosmic puppet theater or playground for the gods. “Lila” literally means “play,” but in religious texts refers to “divine
play” – life as a spontaneous game played by lighthearted forces beyond our
understanding. In Vaishnavism Lila
refers to life and activities of God and his devotees.”
“It
is an important idea in traditional worship of Krishna (as prankster) and Shiva
(as dancer), and has bee used by modern writers like Stephen Nachmanovitch,
Fritjof Capra, and Alan Watts.”
“The
nearest Western equivalent is the line from Shakespeare: ‘As flies to wanton
boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.’ The Hindu version is substantially more
hopeful.”
***
Later
that night during the class meeting, the disciple was reading excerpts from a
one hundred and thirty four year old Masonic book entitled Morals and Dogma. In a chapter entitled “Knight Rose Croix”
the class heard the following quotation in regard to a comment made by a Knight
Temblor. It read as follows: “What
are we,” the Temblor asks, “but puppets in a show-box? O Omnipotent destiny, pull our strings
gently! Dance us mercifully off our
miserable little stage!”
At
that moment in the class there was silent pause followed by hilarious laughter
by the members present. The connection
between the two separate presentations to the class almost took our breath
away. We say that the Will of some higher
Teacher had tested our faculty of making this fortunate and unexpected
discovery by accident – serendipity. We
laughed and each shared our finding this event at the same moment. It was a marvelous event shared by the
class. Maybe we all saw “spontaneous
game played by lighthearted forces beyond our understanding.”
The
Masonic Temblor decades ago was describing the puppet show of our lives, and
our astronomers are now considering Lila, the cosmic puppet theater in today’s
heavens. Is it all set in the
stars? Maybe so!
***
And
as Russell Whitesell used to say very often, “You don’t live life. Life is living you. If you think you control your life, you are
like a straw floating upon the ocean thinking it controls the tides.”