The Deepening Solstice

That’s so interesting, Ella.

I’ve never heard of that Taoist idea of the heart being a lake. I think it might be quite literal in a way that I cannot understand, actually. The day after I had my OBE to the source, I had another strange experience when meditating on my heart that I’ve never read anything of; I encountered myself contemplating an enormous body of still water with no shore to be seen. I had this 360 vision that’s often described in NDE, which makes me think it might have been an OBE, but I’m not sure. I was seeing this ocean from above, from the sides, from underneath, but at the same time, I was this body of water. This experience was not overwhelming or confusing (to me), as the source OBE; it was very relaxing, and relaxing might be too little of a word to describe it 😅

I’m going to look into this heart vortex thing. Thank you very much for sharing.

That sounds like a really nice, spontaneously emerging focus Tina. I have also been “depressed” (not a real depression, but more like a feeling of intense dissatisfaction and sadness about the days that seem to go nowhere, as well as the myriad of small daily duties that take almost all my time and energy) lately, feeling that burning desire for spiritual and yet feeling stuck here, in the life of matter, with its millions of activities. In the same time, I am aware of the fact that maybe its not the activities themselves, but my inner state with its overpowering mind and identification that’s a problem. I have read in the past, that it is possible to somehow just “let my hands, my feet, etc., to work and do whats needed, but not to be internally attached to the activities.” I mean, is it at all possible, on our level here, to be connected and perceive heaven/divine during the day, while our bodies work and move and do whats needed? That’s something I would love to do. To “escape” here, while still seemingly being here and fulfil my duties, but being somewhere else internally.

Reading your comment, Lucia, a thought came to my mind about how many people are aware of this mundane existence and how there is something else behind it but they don’t really know what it is and how to break free from it. Perhaps they came across information that could solve this mystery but somehow it doesn’t reach their innermost part, whatever the reason is they don’t recognize it and so they stay stuck in this reality.

On the other hand here we are knowing this secret and not just that, we recognized it as a great tool to break free from this mundane world and yet we can still feel stuck. The word gateway presented to me when reflecting on this and how these activities serve me as such because when i am there with it – concentrated and present a whole new world opens up – maybe this is what you have read about. When sufficient focus and feeling of our own presence in any activity or in any situation of our daily life is deployed over time we can truly live in a magical world although seemingly being here.

I remember a time when i got a job that i really didn’t like and thought – how this has nothing to do with me. Over time I started to realize that I am not here to develop my human self essentially but that i am here to develop my spiritual self and saw this job as a perfect match for me in that sense. So I would say there is this magic and a possibility of connection to the divine in every step of our daily life but that we need to fight to this effect.

Thank you for the inspiring comments Marco. I still have no idea how you learned to move the joints of your fingertips though! haha

One of those useless talents, Owain 😂

It’s my pleasure, Lucia. It so interesting how reading The Good Books changes with our inner state. Gotta love it when you can read it wiht a humorous tone to it.

GLN:15:27 “…If the end is great beyond man’s conception, it is no less true that the task before man is arduous and difficult in the extreme. To master himself and gain complete self-control is no more than the first step along the path.”

GLN:15:28 “Though men may despair because I am veiled from them, though they may seek without finding, I am not indifferent to their needs and desires. Doubt and uncertainty are essential earthly conditions serving a definite end. I have not surrounded men with perplexities and obscurities unnecessarily. The climate of unbelief and materialism, strange though it may seem to men, is best for his spiritual health. I know better than men themselves what is best for them, for I alone can see the broad design spread over the ages, I alone see the end and objective…”

– Book of Gleanings: Chapter Fifteen — The Voice of God

Sorry Marco, the Book of Gleanings you refer to is from The Kolbrin – I realised after posting… hee hee (giggle)

I’ve seen The Flight of the Feathered Serpent brought up a few times here, so I’d thought I’d share some information I’ve learned about that book while researching into its background. I have already spoken with Lara about this before and we thought that now would be a good time for me to share what I found. I was pretty surprised to discover what I did, and what I’m about to share might be a bit unexpected, but please bear with me.

Like many others I was very inspired by FFS by Armando Cosani. I still appreciate it for what it is, including the very positive impact it had on me back in the day.

That said, I feel that people should know that it is a work of fiction, written with a lot of artistic licence—and I believe with the best of intentions—by Cosani. That’s not a criticism of the book; I just want people to know that is it is not a true historical account, or coming from a spiritual source like Judas, in case anyone is studying it or referring to it on those grounds. Claims of that nature were not made when the book was first published, but were added to it later.

The background to this book is that Cosani was part of the first Fourth Way school in Mexico, which is the system based on Gurdjieff’s teachings that Ouspensky introduced to the English-speaking world. After Ouspensky died, one of his British students, Rodney Collin, went to Mexico to spread this teaching there—although what he believed and advocated did not fall strictly within that system and was broadly described by him as esoteric Christianity.

Armando was among the first members of this group, which formed sometime around 1948. Collin founded a publisher in Mexico (Ediciones Sol) which began releasing Spanish translations of English-language Fourth Way books. This translation work apparently started around 1949. They also published new works, including original works by Collin and the first edition of the FFS by Cosani in 1953.

Armando was also a translator. One of the books he translated from English to Spanish was ‘The New Man’ by Maurice Nicoll, who was a British Fourth way teacher who’d spent time with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, but took a more Christian direction. In that book Nicoll makes the case, among other things, that Judas must have had the most difficult part to play when it came to enacting the drama of Jesus’ life, and had played his part as he was supposed to do by enabling the betrayal.

Armando also translated ‘A New Model of the Universe’ by Ouspensky which makes the case that Jesus’ life was an enacted drama (although he didn’t share the same positive view of the disciple Judas as Nicoll). In another chapter Ouspensky writes about the Eternal Now, which is a term appearing in FFS. Nicoll also wrote about the now in another book Cosani translated, ‘Living Time’.

In another work Nicoll uses language found elsewhere in FFS. For example, he talks about “I’s” (the preferred term for “egos” in the Fourth Way) sucking one’s blood, meaning energy. We see references to I’s sucking blood in FFS too.

The way the narrator in the first part of FFS meets and interacts with the spiritual figure is somewhat reminiscent of how Ouspensky tells of meeting and interacting with Gurdjieff in his autobiographical book ‘In Search of the Miraculous’. That book was also translated and released by Ediciones Sol too. Another book it released by Ouspensky was ‘The Strange Life of Ivan Osakin’, a work of fiction, in which the protagonist meets a magician. This is a novel that explores Ouspensky’s own ideas about eternal recurrence.

I think Armando was drawing on these kinds of influences, which he was closely familiar with, when he wrote FFS, and weaved spiritual and esoteric ideas which influenced him into it, including a different perspective on Judas.

There may be some autobiographical elements weaved into it too. It seems Armando perhaps did flee political upheaval somewhere in South America to live in Mexico. It looks like he embellished this part of his own life story, using it as a backdrop to convey spiritual ideas and a more elaborate story. It is not uncommon for writers to draw on parts of their own life experience like that when writing a fictional work.

It is also worth keeping in mind, that the first edition of FFS does not directly claim to be a true story or to contain a true account of the life of Judas as far as I can tell—on the cover or blurb for instance. At the same time though, it did not clearly disclaim that the contents were NOT a true account either. It did have a clear link to the Fourth Way though, as Ouspensky is quoted at the beginning, and it was published by a Fourth Way publisher. So its links to that system would have been fairly apparent at the time it was first released. However, that publisher only released one edition, and closed not long after. Future editions were not released by a Fourth Way publisher.

It seems that the direct claim that FFS contained a true account of Judas and Jesus arose within modern Gnosticism, which as a movement grew out of Mexico in the mid-50s, not long after the Spanish editions of Fourth Way books began circulating. It was when this book was later picked up by modern Gnosticism, that the explicit claim that the book contained a real account of Judas began circulating, from what I can tell. Because the story is written in first person narration, it seems to have been taken as a true account. At the same time, it appears the book’s links to the Fourth Way were obscured or just not recognised. So its origins as a book from a Fourth Way publisher would not have been so apparent to anyone coming across it later by this route.

But outside of the Gnostic orbit, the direct claim that the book contained a true account was not made originally, or even now, as far as I can tell. A current Spanish language edition on sale states, in the author bio: “The only known book by Cosani is THE FLIGHT OF THE FEATHERED SERPENT, a work that is the fruit of his studies on the philosophy of the cultures of Pre-Hispanic America and its relationship with the Fourth Way school.”

For the record, I still think the idea that Judas was an advanced disciple who played a difficult role is the right idea (we see this supported by The Gosepl of Judas too); I just don’t think FFS is an actual true historical account of this but a fictional imagining of events written with artistic licence by someone with a background in esotericism.

Given that the book is a largely fictional interpretation of events, and contains a lot of Cosani’s own ideas and interpretations, I don’t think it should be viewed as conveying factual history, or as a spiritual teaching coming from a spiritual authority like Judas himself or anyone of that stature. I personally believe that Armando had some understanding and good intentions, but what he produced was a fictional work at the end of the day, and should not be seen as more than that.

That said, I personally still have some appreciation for FFS as an at times inspiring and engaging work of fiction containing spiritual themes, inspiring passages and moments, as well as various quirks and flaws. I’m just sharing this information because I wouldn’t want anyone to view it as being something it is not.

I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with reading fictional works with discernment that one enjoys and finds inspiring, I just don’t think they should be taken as being more than what they are. I find that fictional works with spiritual themes, whether books or movies, can be quite inspiring in their own way, and I personally appreciate works of that nature taken in their own context. With FFS that context was missing though, which is why I’m sharing this information. We all get to decide what we choose to read at the end of the day, but I personally feel it is important to read with discernment, which includes understanding the context of whatever it is I am reading.

I hope that wasn’t too much to digest! It was quite a lot for me to get my head around when I discovered this, but in the end I’d rather have the truth, and I figured other people would want to know this too.

How interesting, thank you very much Matthew, this is why we need professional journalists! I wonder if you were maybe guided on some level to dive into this, in order to clarify the matter.

I still find it very intriguing though, how this idea that Judas played a difficult role as an advanced disciple came into the fore BEFORE the Gospel of Judas was discovered. From your writing, it looks like the first one to mention this idea was Maurice Nicoll in his book “The New Man”. But whoever was the first, I personally believe that there exist certain “inspired works of fiction”, which may have been inspired by the Divine in order to bring certain ideas to public consciousness (the same is true about dark ideas of course), and therefore its positive in this way. Its still good to keep in mind its fiction as you said, to see its true context, but it does not necessarily mean there is no truth in it. For example one of the scenes in FFS that I found especially touching was how Judas swallowed “the morsel” that blurred his psychology and helped him to carry out the mission. Armando Cossani definitely needs to be given credit for the way he described the events in such a touching way (again, things may have happened differently in real life, but I think still this dramatic description helped people to really feel things deep in their hearts and therefore open themselves to the real spiritual dramas that happened so long ago.)

In any case, this is a very important discovery I think, which helps to put the book in its true context and also to discover historical inaccuracies (as Lara mentioned), which we would not normally search for in the book. It seems Armando Cossani didn’t know much about Talmud or Judaism, otherwise he would not have made those mistakes, and he most likely didn’t know much about other historical facts either, like the case of Mary Magdalene.

Also wanted to say, Marco, don’t feel bad for bringing up the book here again and again, as you can see, its served a good purpose!

Wow. That’s… totally unexpected!

Thank you for sharing this, Matthew. I appreciate you digging into the matter and being thorough in your explanation. While, on one hand, I feel like a little kid who was just told that Santa isn’t real, it is important to know the truth and to not conflate fiction with teachings of the Religion of the Sun. And it’s still a very inspiring book, even if it is fiction.

Thank you very much Matthew for sharing your research on the FFS, and thank you Lara for confirming that this book is not connected to, nor is it a part of, the Religion of the Sun. It shows how important it is to stand on one’s own experience and how easily we may believe something if it fits our worldview. I am writing not so much about the way Judas was portrayed in that book, but about the way the content of the book was presented by the author. And if, as Olga wrote, there is a lack of transparency about the nature of the book from the start, then perhaps the quality of its content is also lacking. The outcome of Matthew’s research was quite a surprise to me, but I am also very grateful for this clarification and redirection towards the truth.