8th May – The White Lotus Day & Vaisakh Full Moon
Today, like in the previous years, I would like to remind of the great spiritual messenger, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, whose day of passing-over is celebrated as the White Lotus Day, the white lotus being a symbol of highest spiritual striving. The White Lotus Day coincides today with the Vaisakh Full Moon, which is commemorated as the day of birth and of enlightenment of Buddha. It is a good time to commemorate both of them in meditative alignment to the great Messengers of Light. So here are two poems, the first I got today from a friend, the English version of Rainer Maria Rilke‘s “Buddha in Glory”, and the second H.P. Blavatsky’s “Golden Stairs”.
Buddha in Glory
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
Buddha statue in the Planetary Healing Centre, Visakhapatnam, India, 2003
And these are the verses by H. P. Blavatsky
Golden Stairs
A clean life, an open mind,
A pure heart, an eager intellect,
An unveiled spiritual perception,
A brotherliness for all,
A readiness to give and receive advice and instruction,
A loyal sense of duty to the Teacher,
A willing obedience to the behests of TRUTH,
Once we have placed our confidence in,
And believe that Teacher to be in possession of it;
A courageous endurance of personal injustice,
A brave declaration of principles,
A valiant defense of those who are unjustly attacked,
And a constant eye to the ideal of human progression
And perfection which the secret science depicts-
These are the golden stairs
Up the steps of which the learner may climb
To the Temple of Divine Wisdom.
H. P. Blavatsky (1831 – 1891)
