We can imbue things around us, including objects, sounds, thoughts, and emotions, with other qualities.
We can read their natural qualities, like produce in a grocery store or the flavours of emotions rolling through us.
Some objects can be quite “dead” with very little expression. They have a form with few qualities, like an ignored piece of furniture. At the other end of the spectrum are life forms that have an energy system for life force. They express many qualities. In between are objects that may carry an array of extra qualities.
Those extras can be of several types.
Storage: we can imbue objects with our unfinished business. Clothes take on the wearer’s energy over time – for good or not. Some people tuck away their repressions and resistances energetically within. But some people also store them in their possessions. I’ve met a few people who pack their homes with stuff, overtly carrying their load. Full rooms blocked off in aversion.
Similarly, we can imbue treasured objects with memories, like a memento of a trip or of a lost loved one.
Presence: more deeply, things can be imbibed with presence, the silent alertness or Shiva quality. A mantra gains presence after some transcending (samadhi), drawing us directly home. A place where a very awake sage spent time gains some of their presence. Works by someone awake can become saturated by their attention.
Shakti: frequencies can also imbibe things with qualities like healing, inspiration, or any other law of nature. For example, Malika adds frequencies to our meditation sound. These do their job whenever we meditate, in addition to the qualities of the mantra. There are also light codes or devata that can be called on to create specific effects as required.
Astras and other celestial objects would be another example of objects imbued with special qualities that can be activated.
Both Presence (alertness) and Shakti (liveliness) add qualities of aliveness to the object. Blessed items can be either or both. Awake artists often add some of that awakeness to their work.
Do your possessions possess you? Are they part of your “body”? Or are they blessed by your warmth and being?
Davidya
Last Updated on February 13, 2024 by Davidya
Re-reading the late Jay Latham’s Galaxy of Fire (not “approved” by the Movement, so you know it’s good). He talks about the process of selecting one’s own Shiva Lingam, how it’s a very personal thing that can’t be done well by others; people have to look around, “experience” many different lingams until they connect with one that resonates with them. Sounds related to what you say here. Either way, it’s a nice story, and probably applicable to most things in life, extending to even personal gifts. That’s what came up here. Thanks, D, as always.
Hi George
I used to get emailed a quote from that book every so often, when he described going through higher states to Maharishi. What the quote left out was that it was a transitory experience that happened during a drug trip,. He spent the rest of his life trying to get it back. Much easier to wake up now.
Yes, there’s what I call resonance. It’s good to choose objects we have resonance with, especially if they’re used for devotional practices. That’s primarily the natural characteristics but some such things are blessed. It took me awhile to find a singing bowl I liked.
The trick with gifts is giving what they resonate with, not us. Adding our love helps. 🙂
Hi David,
Interesting information. I once read great book once called ” Buddhahood Without Meditation” where the concept of refining phenomena is discussed. The phrase “redeeming matter” impressed me a lot at the time; seems relatable to what your discussing.
I also heard a funny tale which your outro reminded me off: A man was sitting at the edge of a river fishing and dozed off. He got a bite. Startled he fell into the river. A young boy watching the scene turned to his father and asked ” is that man catching a fish or is the fish catching him?”
I think you might have meant to use the word ‘imbue’ rather than ‘imbibe’. 🙂
Hi Scott
Yes, it is possible to awaken through refining perception of the objects of experience. Then that falls back to the subject. However, this tends to be a harder path due to all our entangled associations with perceptual objects. It’s easier to wake up to the subject within, beyond the mind. Then you can wake up to the objects (Unity).
🙂
Thanks – in the first instance – Storage – you’re right. Fixed. However, for Presence and Shakti, either word works. It’s experienced both ways. After the Unity shift, we experience ourselves as the object of experience. This is like imbibing it. That’s how it’s qualities are read. (Some may experience this well before that.) But yes, the other perspective of this is reading what it is imbued with.
Oops – had to fix the opening sentence too…
Hi David
Interesting – but I’m a bit confused… do you mean imbue rather than imbibe? Imbibe means to consume, like imbibing a drink.
You raise a good point, Jennifer. I wasn’t careful with meaning. I explain in the prior comment.
Does the chair continue to transcend after we meditated in it? Interesting article on considering this phenomena of how places as well as objects can hold the vibrations people imparted to them. A church or a prison do have a different vibe. A saint’s relics can feel inspiring to the devotee. Remember how MMY recommended we replace old clothes after a long rounding course? And decluttering never fails to impart a good feeling. I just cleaned out my garage last weekend. Now it’s my office’s turn. Smiles.
Hey Harrison
It’s not so much the chair experiences transcending (although we may assist in that), but that it becomes imbued/ imbibed with it. The chairs experience may not change as it’s not built to experience that. But our experience of the chair and it’s effect on the environment around it changes.
Right – places take on the vibe of the activities present. Long abandoned prisons can still radiate the suffering there. Moving to another home may necessitate clearing the space. Or the lodge where many retreats happened takes on that vibe for awhile.
(laughs) Right – throw the clothes in the Atlantic. I wasn’t going to toss my custom-made French suit though. I was actually fashionable for a brief part of my life. 🙂
Decluttering moves that stuff off, but it also brings space and order.
There was a small-shop custom tailor in Vittel named Willi Princl in 1976. I got three suits made from Willi, and some friends got a few, too. Sad they don’t fit anymore, especially around the middle. Good days, those.
I was in Vittel, George. They had a tailor come in and measure us. The suits came later, in a yellow bag. I used the bag later to carry my Guru Dev picture around in. I don’t think it was the same source. hmm – don’t seem to have a record of the name nor a picture of me in the suit. There’s no way it would fit now.
The suit was 3-peice with padded shoulders and very pointed lapels. Waist hugging. Used to wear a pocket watch with a chain and a sapphire with it. The pants were very snug to the knees, with large bell bottoms. You didn’t see suits like that in N. America much…
A very related quote:
“It’s funny how the nature of an object — let’s say a pair of socks — is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or as a commodity. At the store, I have paid for them and our reciprocity ended the minute I handed her the money. But what if those very same socks, red and gray striped, were knitted by any grandmother and given to me as a gift? That changes everything. A gift creates ongoing relationship.”
–Robin Wall Kimmerer