Gold Plated with Wisdom

A couple of years ago, the Egyptian archaeologists discovered a colossal ancient statue of the Pharaonic deity of wisdom, Thoth, in the shape of a baboon. The four-metre tall statue, dated back to the 18th Dynasty, which ruled Egypt until 1292 B.C., was discovered in four pieces along with two statues. Plunging into the dimensional depths of the genuine wisdoms that this statue figure represented had made me jump into some conclusions.

Just as I myself believed that the capacity for self-regulation is a critical first step on the path to ’perfect’ life. I spent many years visiting the Pharaonic temples and visualizing the monuments and relics to learn highly disciplined techniques to control my mind as well as my body. Adhering myself to the orientation emerged from the Pharaonic wisdom described the mystical path that I had gone through. That path is the control of the modifications of mind. It is a system of comprehending one’s own nature becoming the master of that nature and using that mastery for self-elevation. But there discipline was required .No self-mastery can be acquired without discipline.

Nonetheless, I deduced after several years that neither my years of meditation nor his knowledge had prompted me to transcend my ego or to get free of my everyday personality conflicts. If I coincide my mystical path with spiritual path, I will unleash energy, whether positive or negative. The problem, from my point of view, was that the Pharaohs did not realize that if the personality was not relatively cultivated, tuned and understood, the ego could go totally out of control. I felt that I never integrated that part of my nature. I had some high teachings to share, but I could not have brought the pieces of myself under control.

No doubt that there are some symbols and factors related to the Pharaonic civilization that assists me in concentrating and arousing imagination while meditating. For instance, in Egypt, the blue lotus appears on the earliest wall paintings of the 6^th Dynasty at Saqqara’s pyramids and in all funerary stelae. They are granted to the deceased and held in the hand as thought they possess the power to revitalize them: to bring the deceased back to life. Carved out of blue lapis, along with the golden falcon and the sun that are the symbols of the god Horus, the lotus is vitally essential object among the funerary treasures in the tomb of Tutankhamen. Hence, the lotus, becomes a leitmotiv, a symbol most appropriate since its links the water with the sun, the earth with sky which signify fertility and regeneration in Egypt. Moreover, it is the seed of the plant which spells out the cycle of birth-decay-death and rebirth that constitutes the indispensable pattern of belief in these two-riverine and agricultural societies.

Presently, as I transcend gradually into higher level of meditation since I have started spending much time examining the Pharonic wisdom, I feel unusually relaxed and quite free of any conscious thoughts. I visualize some images passing before my eyes, but I do not pay much attention to them. I am taken instead with the loose pleasurable feeling that pervades me, and with the evidence from the tones that I am deeply in some other state of consciousness. I could vary the loudness and frequency of the tones almost at will. I am not sure how exactly I am doing it, but I feel a quiet exhilaration and an unusual sense that while no thoughts are running through my head, I am fully in charge of my state of mind. During the mystical sessions that I am going through, I have begun to feel that it falls into like ‘yoga’ activity where I struggle with the need to maintain control, physically and mentally. As I intermittently flit out of the meditation state and become more conscious, I am seized with apprehension. How, I wonder, am I going to hold on to this vicarious experience I have? As it turns out, I retain a strong sense of what I have done to get there in the first place. It has nothing to do with control or effort. To the contrary, I simply let myself drop toward sleeping while remaining alert. The experience is brief, but I emerge from it convinced that I have discovered a wholly new and potentially useful state. Gaining more facility at shifting states of consciousness is not equivalent to finding wisdom. In effect, flexibility is a means for broadening and deepening consciousness, and ultimately for experiencing a ‘perfect’ life.