Homenagem a Paracelso, nos 487 anos da sua partida da Terra, com breve biografia e alguns dos seus ensinamentos e discípulos.

 Paracelso, pintado por Quentin Matsys, que também já retratara Erasmo e Thomas More, na cópia antiga do Museu de Louvre, pois o original desapareceu há muito.

 Um dos génios mal acolhidos pelo seu tempo, Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus nasceu a 17-12-1493, no Inverno, no signo do Escorpião, na zona de Ernsielden, Suíça, numa casa situada num desfiladeiro, junto à ponte do Diabo e à passagem de peregrinos para Etzel, e próxima dos píncaros dos Alpes, o que o terá talvez "psicomorfado" para toda a sua vida de itinerância.  Recebeu o nome de baptismo de Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenhein, o resto sendo acrescentado por ele próprio, do seu pai, um médico da Suábia mas desterrado para aquela região inóspita, Wilhelm von Hohenhein, com quem veio a aprender muito, nomeadamente nas viagens que este fazia, seja em busca de plantas para mezinhas, seja de minerais em minas, já que foi de professor de química na Escola mineira de Villach. Frequentou depois  escolas conventuais e episcopais (onde  dialogou e aprendeu, entre outros, com Nicolas Kaps e o famoso abade Tritémio, ou Johann Tritemius, alquimista), e as universidades de Basileia e Viena, até se doutorar em Medicina, em 1516, em Ferrara, Itália, viajando em seguida  sete anos para «com entusiasmo e diligentemente encontrar e investigar as artes médicas mais confiáveis» (passando em 1518 por Granada e Lisboa), por vezes como médico militar, outras como alquimista (em Schwaz, Tirol), até estabilizar em Basileia em 1527 (convidado pelo município, sob recomendação de Froben e Erasmo), mas apenas por um ano, por oposição dos professores da Universidade aos seus métodos, uso da língua vernacular alemã e afirmações, pois a proclamação de início do magistério,  num discurso revolucionário a vários níveis, e acompanhado da queima de alguns livros de medicina, porque pouco valeriam, exacerbaram de tal modo os mais escolásticos e conservadores,  que recusaram a sua nomeação e vieram a atacá-lo anonimamente numa linguagem verdadeiramente execrável, invejosos das suas capacidades científicas, intuitivas e curadoras.
                                     
       Hans Holbein, para o Elogio da Loucura de Erasmo: os insidiosos e invejosos
Esses incidentes aconteceram em mais três ou quatro cidades, pelas invejas e conflitos que criava pela sua independência, sinceridade ou linguagem médica nova, e por desmascarar os embustes médicos e farmacêuticos da época, e num dos casos dos próprios grandes banqueiros Függer. De Basileia passou à Alsácia, Suábia, Nurenberg, onde em 1529 esteve em valiosos diálogos com Sebastian Frank. Mas aí de novo, por oposição de médicos e farmacêuticos associados na Universidade de Leipzig, teve de partir. Era contudo uma época de ouro, e de busca dialogante da conhecimento e verdade, do Humanismo europeu, embora já  desde 1517 começasse a fractura da Reforma e depois a Contra-Reforma, assombrando a Europa, com censuras, perseguições, guerras, algo que ele sentiu bastante na pele e alma, embora mais por professores, médicos e farmacêuticos conservadores. 

Os doutores escolásticos, por vezes os casmurrões sorbónicos (da Universidade de Paris), caricaturizados por Hans Holbein, para o Elogio da Loucura, de Erasmo, um amigo de Paracelso.

Notabilizou-se pela sua erudição, coragem e mente prescrutadora e optimista («Deus quer que experimentemos toda as suas obras, que penetremos nos segredos da Natureza e que nada disso nos permaneça desconhecido», in De Prognosticatione), e por ter sido um dos  descobridores na medicina experimental e laboratorial em vários campos e terapêuticas, nomeadamente na ginecologia, sífilis e doenças psicosomáticas, socorrendo-se ainda nas suas curas do conhecimentos das subtis correspondências (as assinaturas, ou sinais de Deus nas natureza, nomeadamente no paralelismo de vegetais e partes do corpo humano) de propriedades entre os reinos e elementos da Natureza visível e invisível, destacando-se na utilização de tinturas metálicas, dos minerais, com suas propriedades químicas, tal o ouro, o zinco, o bismuto. Deixou vários tratados médicos, filosóficos, teológicos, astrológicos, alquímicos e de prognósticos, e vinte oito livros foram publicados em sua vida, entre 1527 e 1538. 

A segunda figura das trinta  e duas do enigmático livro Da Prognosticação, na edição de 1549, impressa  na contracapa da Poesia Profética, Mágica e Espiritual, de Fernando Pessoa, que dei à luz em 1989, nas Edições Manuel Lencastre.

Sucederam-se várias edições, as dos impressores Theodor Birckmann (1564) e Peter Perna (1575 e 1581)  e as  obras todas até então descobertas, mais de 300, foram reunidas diligentemente e dadas à luz entre 1589 e 1591 pelo médico Johannes Hauser em dez grandes fólios, onde encontramos a Grande Cirurgia, o Paramirum e o Paragranum, De Natura Rerum, o Labyrintus Medicorum Errantium, a Astronomia Magna, os tratados sobre a peste, as cãibras, os cálculos ou pedras, as doenças dos mineiros, a epilepsia e a loucura, etc. E ainda os escritos das suas visões antropológicas, filosóficas, teológicas, ocultistas e espirituais, o seu credo (muito poderosamente afirmado),  intuições, prognósticos (estes com grande circulação) e teorias, nomeadamente quanto aos sinais ou assinaturas da Natureza (a forma corresponderia à essência), as três substâncias (enxofre-fogo espiritual, mercúrio-energia anímica e sal-matéria corporal)  e o uso e eficácia dos talismãs, estes desenhados nas formas geométricas adequadas aos influxos e posicionamentos dos astros, sendo acompanhados de palavras e orações.

O ser humano zodiacal, numa gravura impressa entre 1530-1540, em Estraburgo, por Jacob Cammerlander, na obra Eine newe Badenfart...

Teve algumas crenças exageradas nos poderes da alquimia, que conhecia bem, tendo trabalhado por exemplo em 1529 com o alquimista Bartolomeu Schobinger, no laboratório do castelo de Horn, em St. Gallen. E nos poderes de certos remédios preparados a partir do partes do corpo humano e animal, e sobretudo de minerais, dos quais nos chegaram várias receitas, por vezes algo estrambólicas, nas linhas da alquimia, espagíria, astrologia e magia operativa, sob o céu das ideias filosóficas pitagóricas, neoplatónicas e herméticas que circulavam no Renascimento e que ele procurou experimentar e sintetizar bastante enciclopedicamente. Foi amigo do grande impressor Froben, e  dos humanistas Erasmo (e sobreviveu correspondência),  Oekolampad, os irmãos Amerbach, e Vadianus, tendo tratado mesmo os dois primeiros.

Erasmo, pintado por Quentin Massys, num altar lisboeta.

Talvez o bom e profícuo relacionamento com o teólogo e místico profundo Sebastian Frank, que o acolheu no ano de 1529, possibilitando-lhe bons escritos teológicos e onde especulou com bastante originalidade, tenha contribuído para se intitular professor ou  "Doutor das santas Escrituras", algo que contudo só pode manifestar a escassas almas ou pequenos grupos de espirituais que ia encontrando ou atraindo, em especial nos Alpes e em Meran no Tirol em dificultosas e fabulosas satsangas itinerantes, hoje quase ignoradas mas na época vividas com grande fervor e provavelmente íntima eficácia na clarificação curativa e espiritual, que o iluminado Paracelso, pelo seu astra, ou espírito santo próprio, sob a graça divina, transmitia.
Em 1537 e 1538, convidado por Johann von Leipnick, marechal da Boémia aberto ao espiritual, esteve em Kromau, de novo com bons diálogos, meditações e escritos filosóficos e teológicos, tais como a Astrologia Magna, a Philosophia Sagax, que inclui o Tratado das Ninfas, silfos, gnomos, salamandras e outros seres e os Escritos de Caríntia, Caríntia onde esteve até 1540, seguindo depois para Salzburg, o seu último abrigo terreno.

Gravura de Paracelso, por Romeyn de Hooghe, para a valiosa História da Igreja apartidária e  dos Hereges, de Gottfried Arnold, 170o.

Do seus ensinamentos, escolheremos brevemente um, tendo em conta que, estudando e investigando bastante as ligações entre corpo, a  alma  e a alma Universal, a partir duma visão em geral tripartida do ser humano como corpo, alma e espírito (nous), e face ao saber antigo livresco, valorizou muito a vivência, o experimentalismo, a  magia tradicional popular milenária,  segundo as quais a imaginação, a fé e a vontade exercem efeitos fortes nos corpos e no mundo: «O ser humano tem uma oficina visível que é o seu corpo e outra invisível que é a imaginação. O Sol emite uma luz que ainda que impalpável e não agarrável, pode por concentração [dos seus raios] aquecer ao ponto de acender um fogo; de igual modo, a imaginação exerce os seus efeitos sobre a esfera que lhe é própria e faz germinar, e depois desenvolver, formas tiradas dos elementos invisíveis. Assim como o mundo é apenas um produto da imaginação da alma universal, assim a imaginação do ser humano pode criar formas invisíveis e estas materializarem-se. Quando um mulher grávida imagina algo fortemente, a criança que nascerá pode manifestar algum traço disso. A imaginação extrai toda a sua força do desejo. (...) A imaginação das mulheres é mais forte que a dos homens e pode, durante o sono, levá-las para outros lugares, onde pessoas no estado vibratório semelhante as podem ver. Elas  posteriormente podem lembrar-se do que viram, se bem que o seu corpo não se tenha sequer  movido na cama.» De Virtute imaginativa.

Gravura de 1503, por Albrecht Dürer, na obra Prognosticationem des Stabius, Nuremberg, representando a Anima mundi, a Alma universal, a grande Deusa.

Era o reconhecimento do psicosomatismo, da unidade do corpo, alma e espírito, do poder metamorfoseador da psique humana, seja na sua capacidade, em corpo subtil (o evestrium, na sua linguagem),  de projectar-se para fora do corpo físico, seja na sua capacidade de visualizar e obter o que pede ou deseja, o que no séc. XX, por exemplo, mestres como Paramahamsa Yogananda, Peter Deunov, Omraam Aivanhov e Bô Yin Râ realçaram nos seus ensinamentos, denominando-se mesmo galvanoplastia à arte de modelar a forma da alma e corpo da criança nascitura,  de acordo com os ensinamentos sacralizadores do matrimónio e nascimento, nos quais a união corporal é acompanhada e dirigida pela imaginação visualizadora bela, a realização espiritual e a invocação divina. Para alguns espirituais, e que na época seriam considerados heréticos,  tendo por isso de disfarçar bastante, tal seria provavelmente a razão da narrativa evangélica simbólica da virgindade de Maria e da sua gestação  pelo Espírito santo, por José e pelo Anjo ou Arcanjo  Gabriel.

Vénus, um dos arquétipos da mulher e, como planeta, muito influente na vida humana. Gravura da Practica Teutsch aufs 1537. Jahr durch den hochgelerten Doctorem Paracelsum beschriben und gemacht. 

Paracelso, talvez levemente frustrado na sua aspiração ou mesmo ânsia de transmissor da Luz e curador, no dia 24 de Setembro de 1541, em Salzburg, na albergaria do Cavalo Branco, partia para o mundo celestial, apenas com 48 anos, intensos e muito fecundos e polémicos,  bem preparado, redigindo o seu testamento dos escassos bens que tinha a favor dos pobres e firme no corpo espiritual que tanto teorizara  e alquimizara na fornalha da sua vida que fora Caminho e Verdade...

Oswald Crolius, em 1609, incluía no canto inferior direito, do frontispício, da sua Basilica Chymica, Paracelso, com Hermes Trismegisto, Geber, Morienus Romanus, Raimundo Lúlio d Roger Bacon.

A sua fortuna com o tempo foi crescendo, não só cientificamente e como filósofo da Natureza e médico como sobretudo pelos seus aspectos ocultistas, alquímicos e espagíricos, atraindo sucessivos admiradores, discípulos e estudiosos importantes, dos quais mencionarei Jacques Gohory ou em latim Leo Suavius (1520-1576), Leonhard Thurneisser (1531-1596), Valentin Weigel (1533-1588), Giovanni Battista Della Porta (1535-1615, dando à luz em 1578  a célebre Phytognomonica), Petrus Severinus, isto é, o médico dinamarquês Peder Sørensen (1542–1602, com a valiosa Idea medicinae philosophicae), Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605), Michael Maier (1568-1622), o iluminado místico e filósofo Jacob Böehme (1575-1624), J.B. Van Helmont (1580-1644), os autores rosicrucianos dos séc. XVII-XVIII, nomeadamente Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), Tobias Hess (1568-1614) e outros do círculo de Tübingen, bem como os rosicrucianos posteriores (de que fiz menção no livro no livro de inéditos de Fernando Pessoa, Rosea Cruz, que publiquei em 1989). O beneditino, alquimista e maçon D. Antoine-Joseph Pernety (1716-1796), no seu Dicionário Mito-Hermético, elogia bastante Paracelso e explica muitos dos termos misteriosos ou cifrados dos seus escritos. Já no séc. XX  Carl Gustav Jung teceu três reflexões valiosas em 1934, 1941 e 1942, Paracelso, Paracelso como médico, e Paracelso como figura [erscheinung] espiritual, a mais longa e bastante psicanalítica (a falta da mãe, como fonte de intensa compaixão) e alquímica. Mais recente é o contributo valioso de Patrick Riviere, La Medicine de Paracelse, 1988. 

Dos críticos, um dos mais fortes foi Nikolaus Hunnius (1585-1643), que reconhecendo o seu valor como médico e aceitando a altura a que as pessoas o queriam elevar, critica fortemente os seus aspectos teológicos que estavam em desacordo com as Escrituras, tanto mais que Hunnius era um fervoroso luterano. Ora, muito lúcido e independente, tal como o era  seu amigo Erasmo, Paracelso distanciara-se bastante da adesão às religiões, justificando-se mesmo:«Quer sejam papistas, luteranos, baptistas, ou zwinglianos, todos estão prontos a glorificarem-se de possuírem só eles o Espírito Santo, e cada um grita: Eu estou na verdade, a verdade está comigo». Sua era uma visão mais celestial, cósmica ou se quisermos mesmo panteísta, duma vida divina na Natureza, que dispensava os intermediários, tanto mais que pouca realização espiritual e macrocósmica tinham.

O  mote ou lema de Paracelso, o seu testamento anímico, tão lúcido e tão importante nos nossos dias de arregimentações e manipulações, e que sintetiza bem o seu Credo, foi, é e será : Alterius non sit, qui suus esse potest. "De outro não seja, quem seu pode ser".

A gravura mais antiga e fidedigna de Paracelso, desenhada por Augustin Hirschvogel, em 1538, com o seu famoso lema ou mote, "De outro não sejas, se podes ser teu."

In actualization: Boris Johnson, is the most criminal politician involved in the war in Ukraine? Yes. But Macron is not less warmonger and slave of World Economic Forum, against Russia. And Victoria Nuland is also at the same level

Is Boris Johnson the most criminal politician involved in the war in Ukraine? Yes, it seems so.
Why? Because there is now more than one million of Ukrainians death, as a consequence of his diplomatic activity  dissuadating the Ukrainians from negotiating peace with Russiain, what was done on behalf of the darkest forces of the planet, of which the World Economic Forum is the chief, with Wall Street and Rothschilds, and Boris Johnson a top executive enslaved.

                                                      
After hindering and stoping the treaty beetween Russia and Ukraine to stop the military intervention, in March 2022, Boris went many times to Kiev and was the main instigator of the constant sending money and arms to Kiev regime, and it was noticed by Reuters in January 2023, what he said at Davos:

Some of the main terrorists of the World Economic Forum

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 19 (Reuters) - «Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday urged allies to double down on sending military equipment to support Ukraine and speed up an end to the war with Russia.

Johnson, who left office in September 2022 amid a wave of scandal, was leading Britain when Russia invaded Ukraine in February and in subsequent weeks sought to position Britain as the Ukraine's number one ally in the West.
"There is nothing to be lost by doubling down on the material, equipment that we are sending to Ukraine and there is nothing to fear in escalation, and the best thing for the world is to get this thing done, and done fast," Johnson said in an interview as part of the Reuters Impact Arctic Warning series on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.»

Out of the British government functions,  now is a full time employee of the dark forces of the planet the oligarchy of Soros, Swcab and Walt Sreet, traveling all over the world to corrupt politicians and governments to their objective: to defeat Russia, to stop BRICS and the dedollarisation that is happening now, putting a bit more of justice on their USA-Zionists unlimited printing of dolars and euros to control Mankind....

Let's hope that all these  monsters will soon be removed and re-educated...

 

 

 

 23.10. The last mouvement of Boris is a proof of its role, and paradigmatic of its enslavement to the oligarchy: It has just giveb  some more billions to Zelensky and its criminal, as we can listen in Alex Cristoforis channel, a good and reliable one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds1D45uoVog

 The commentaries to this video and Boris Johnson desesperate criminal actions are very syntomatic how lucid people see that clown: "Time Russia putge ICC on Johnson" - "The mawkish irony of BoJo calling this a "hideous war" in as nauseating and hypocritical as anything I have ever heard in my entire life." - "The Americans have Hillary Clinton, the British have Boris Johnson, I am sure the "love" for these personalities is at a high level." - "As a Brit I could not be more ashamed of Boris.. But the feeling that is keeping my moral up is that on his deathbed he will leave this existence knowing that he was a failure." - Boris certainly used the term “we” a hell of a lot considering “we” are not involved or at war with Russia." - "Boris certainly used the term “we” a hell of a lot considering “we” are not involved or at war with Russia" - "Boris is not stupid, just downright evil and greedy; people to him are just pawns to be exploited for his gain."

 22-10 Another slave of World Economic Forum and of the Rothchilds is the arrogant, treacherous and vanitous Emmanuel Macron,  also a extreme warmonger against Russia. Let us listen to him and we will see how himself and Boris are just working for the dark forces, devilish ones, of oligarchy, zionism and anglo-american imperialism.

 In 15 March 2024, a newspaper (Press.tv) wrote:  «French President Emmanuel Macron says his nation is prepared to make sure that Russia does not emerge victorious in the conflict in Ukraine, noting that sending troops to Ukraine was "possible."
"If the situation should deteriorate, we would be ready to make sure that Russia never wins that war," Macron said on French TV on Thursday, 14, warning that anybody advocating "limits" on aid to Ukraine "chooses defeat".
While claiming that European security was at risk amid the Ukrainian conflict, Macron cautioned allies against imposing any restrictions on the support provided for Kiev.
Reacting to the French opposition leaders' condemnation of his recent comments as bellicose, Macron said "if Russia wins this war, Europe's credibility will be reduced to zero", and would mean that "we have no security."
Criticizing the opposition leaders, he said that he "deeply" disagreed with them, and called them the reason behind Ukraine’s defeat on the ground.
"Today, deciding to abstain or vote against support to Ukraine, it's not choosing peace, it's choosing defeat. It's different," he said.

Probably an acurate image of Macron in the astral level..

 Let's hope that the two little monsters will soon be removed and re-educated...

Esperemos que brevemente os dois monstrozinhos sejam removidos e reeducados...

Breve apresentação dos livros de Pedro Teixeira da Mota, dados à luz nas Publicações Maitreya.

Alguns dos meus livros: os editados pelas Publicações Maitreya e um em edição privada: 

                                               

       ASTAVAKRA GITA- O Cântico da Consciência Suprema.

A Colecção “Luz do Oriente” quer trazer aos leitores da língua portuguesa tanto textos clássicos como ensaios ligados à tradição religiosa, filosófica e metafísica do Oriente e em especial da Índia.
A Astavakra Gita, a que demos o subtítulo de Cântico da Consciência Suprema, obra anónima indiana da tradição Advaita Vedanta, é um ensinamento profundo de grande força iluminadora sobre a essência do Espírito, do Homem e do Universo, comparável em certos aspectos aos tratados de Shankara, na desvendação da Consciência, individual e do Ser Primordial, e da sua relação.
Este clássico da literatura espiritual, traduzido pela primeira vez do sãoscrito para o português pelo Dr. Pedro Teixeira da Mota, um conhecedor das vias de realização indianas, e em particular do Yoga Vedanta e da meditação, que aliás tem compartilhado ao longo dos anos, está enriquecido pela introdução, notas, comentários, posfácio e um glossário dos vocábulos e conceitos sãoscritos mais importantes utilizados.
Numa época de síntese de conhecimentos e de redescoberta da Unidade subjacente às várias religiões e tradições espirituais, só podemos congratular-nos por passarmos a ter acesso a um texto de grande força libertadora e de abertura à não dualidade, um daqueles que, segundo a expressão tradicional, quem o assimilar não provará a morte, ou seja, estará mais identificado ao espírito imortal...
Possa a presente obra contribuir  para dissipar as trevas da ignorância, dos preconceitos, manipulações e excepcionalismos, revelando e fortalecendo a Unidade de todos os seres, povos e tradições, para que surja um convivium mais justo, luminoso e universal, propício ao Conhecimento e Realização da Consciência Divina numa Humanidade fraterna e sábia.

                                 MODO DE ORAR A DEUS

Tradução de Álvaro Pereira Mendes e Pedro Teixeira da Mota, que a contextualiza e anota.
Título original: Modus Orandi Deum. 1ª edição em 1524, acrescentada em 1525, impressas ambas por Ioannes Froben em Basileia.
Entre o Céu e a Terra ergue-se, no fogo da oração intensa, a alma que se liga ao espírito, aos anjos, às santas e santos, ou que aspira ao bem, ao amor, à verdade e, sobretudo, à Divindade.
Erasmo, o mais sábio dos estudiosos das primeiras décadas do séc. XVI, foi convidado pelo espírito do tempo, tal como Jesus e outros grandes seres foram, a aprofundar a sabedoria perene e os ensinamentos de Jesus, e  a valorizar a ética viva, o livre-arbítrio, a comunhão mística da Humanidade, os modos de oração e meditação.
O que emanando da Ideia e Palavra eterna se pronunciou na sua fina boca chega-nos hoje às mãos e almas, numa tradução fiel de Álvaro Pereira Mendes e Pedro Teixeira da Mota, enriquecida por valiosas anotações, bibliografia e uma biografia do suave pedagogo da piedade douta e da união da sabedoria pagã com a cristã, o impulsionador da vida criativa, independente e solidária.
Passados 500 anos, em que o nome de Erasmo não pereceu antes pelo contrário é o santo protector da dinâmica estudantil da Europa, esta obra, lúcida nas críticas aos costumes e mentalidades, e luminosa no discernimento e nas revelações, é um colóquio acerca da religação  espiritual e divina, transmitida por Jesus à Samaritana, que lhe deu água a beber, a Maria Madalena, a mais amada, e aos Discípulos, que o acompanharam no seu curto e trágico percurso, e constitui uma valiosa aproximação à essência e dinâmica  do Cristianismo, a que Erasmo chamava a philosophia Christi.

                                   

                                          DA ALMA AO ESPÍRITO

Com a idade, a alma ou psique de cada um, o mar imenso de milhões de partículas e ondas que formam o conjunto das suas tendências e emoções, sentimentos e pensamentos, vai-se caracterizando e definindo e, ao fortificar as suas ligações com o Espírito, com a Centelha Divina e individualidade íntima, torna-se uma alma já não meramente animal ou racional, mas também e primacialmente estética e ética, ecológica e compassiva, sábia e espiritual, aberta ao Cosmos e aos seus seres, com os sentidos espirituais e o discernimento mais despertos e lucida e libertadoramente actuantes.
A tal passagem peregrinante se chama o Caminho que se vai fazendo e este livro, dividido em trinta e três capítulos ou ensaios, testemunha essencialmente tal demanda, em alguns aspectos, com meditações e reflexões, intuições e desvendamentos partilhados com o objectivo de inpirarem outras almas no Caminho a compreender melhor os sentidos da Vida, a conhecer alguns ensinamentos e realizações tradicionais e a receber ou a despertar mais a Luz, o Amor e o Poder nas suas peregrinações ou vidas. 

Pode ouvir alguns dos capítulos lidos e levemente parafraseados no canal: https://www.youtube.com/@petrustella

‘The Conference of the Birds’, (Manteq at-Tair), by Attar, with spiritual hermeneutics by Pedro Teixeira da Mota, and drawings and paintings by José Pinto Antunes.

Simurgh, by José Pinto Antunes. Much light and love in his soul, in the subtle worlds.

The beautiful metaphorical poem by Attar, alias Farïd al-dîn ‘Attâr (1142-1221, in Nichapour, Khorassan, Iran, and who was a perfumer, herbalist, healer), entitled Mantiq al-Tayr, the Colloquy or Language of the Birds, or Conference of the Birds, more than four thousand six hundred verses long, was the most successful of all Attar's works over the centuries, and some versions have been known in different languages since those early days. In the West, in France, there were translations in 1819 and 1863, and in the 20th and 21st centuries they were expanded.
One of the abbreviated and bad versions of the work is in circulation in Portugal and Brasil, under the name Conferência dos Pássaros (Conference of the Birds), published by Cultrix. It is a translation of the English version by C. S. Nott, who translated it from Garcin de Tassy's French translation of 1863, carrying out the feat of shredding and substantially altering it in the USA in 1954, removing much of the work's spirituality. A pity. Today there are other versions in Portuguese language of better quality.
After having been a perfume and herb apothecary, impressed by the detachment and command of the body and soul of a dervish, Attar was initiated into the spiritual path by Sheik Mudj al-din of Baghdad, and from his quest we have about a dozen works left, the most valuable of which are Pand-Nama, Book of Advice, Asrar-Nama, The Book of Secrets (his last work, and of which there is an excellent annotated translation by Christiane Tortel), Elahi-Nama, the Divine Book and Tadhkarat al-Auliya, Memoirs of the Saints, the latter containing the stories and teachings of 142 Sufis from Iran, Egypt and Arabia, including Jafar Sadiq, the Iraqi Rabia Basri, Junayd, Hazrat Abdul Jilani, Mansur al-Hallaj, all of whom truly surrendered ardently to Divine Love.

 The great specialist in Islamic and Persian mysticism Louis de Massignon was a scholar and admirer of Attar, and emphasised the statement of the famous Jalâl-ud dîn Rûmî: two centuries after the disincarnation of al-Hallâj, his light (nour), or spiritual soul, manifested itself in Farîd ‘Attar, becoming his spiritual master.
We don't know for sure if this was the case, but the communion of the friends of God, the community of saints or Sufis, the auliya, is known, it is real, all those who meditate more deeply and intensely experience it in one way or another by grace, so naturally Attar was blessed by the High and the Divine, by the Sufis, and Mansur al-Hallaj, a martyr in Islam for the affirmation of non-duality between the human and the divine, was certainly a potential inspiration for him and, who knows, his invisible master or guide. Rumi, who according to some versions would still have met Attar, forty-five years older than him, would also say that Attar was his inner soul, just as Sana'i was his spiritual eye.

Attar in pilgriamge and dialogue with other spiritual master and probably poet...

Attar, in the  Dialogue of the Birds, which is now among us inspiring the painter José Pinto Antunes [and much light and love to him, who died prematurely in the meantime] to illustrate it in more than a hundred drawings, compiles numerous traditional stories and adds some new ones, adding above all comments of a moral and spiritual nature, and proposing the traditional asceticism and renunciation of the world and its pleasures and beings (a methodology that is perhaps debatable in is rigour: ‘Until we die to ourselves and are indifferent to creatures, our soul will not be free. A dead man is worth more than one who is not entirely dead to creatures, because he cannot be admitted to the other side of the curtain"), in exchange for or in favour of an ardent love for the Divine, the only one that deserves and endures.
Love for God (bhakti, prema, in the Indian tradition) is then the ultimate goal and need, and many examples are given of extraordinary or very intense love between human beings, and how we can draw from this impulses for our journey of love towards God, in this 21st century that is less and less prone to devotional love as it once flared up in medieval or even later Christianity and Islam.
Among the weakest parts, for us with the 21st century eye, is the idea of the superiority of Islam, especially over Christianity and also Hinduism, because they worship idols, so there are some amusing stories but warped in that disapproving sense of them, what is not ncessary correct, as God can be felt and worshiped in infinite ways...
There are beautiful stories, there are valuable reflections, and it would be good to better discern what came from the Sufi tradition, what he himself generated, or even what al-Hallaj inspired him, although the final part, being the most unitive, should be the most relatable to him and the one that will deserve the most meditation and deepening, as it deals with our encounter both with our own spirits and with Divinity and Unity.
The Conference of the Birds then brings together thousands of birds in the quest to access the mysterious being, Simurgh, which will lead them, with doubts and enlightening dialogues, along a long and arduous path of individuation and initiation (per aspera ad astra) to Simurgh, where only thirty of them arrive, those who have believed in the master sparrow and in themselves and have kept alive the flame of aspiration and unitive Love strongly.
                                                           
José Pinto Antunes, appreciating this work, decided to take inspiration from it and draw it in watercolours and oil paintings, and his painting of Simurgh is particularly excellent, and the Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada decided to host the exhibition in its bookshop, in partnership with the Hélder Alfaiate Gallery, for there could be no better place than the gallery of a bookshop linked to Psychology, the Logos da Alma, to exhibit and evoke Attar's legendary work. [This revised article in english is a translation from the one published in 21 Marchj, 2018:  "A Conferência dos Pássaros", de Attar, desenhada e pintada por José Pinto Antunes. E sua hermenêutica espiritual por Pedro Teixeira da Mota, as I was invited by Helder Alfaiate and José Pinto Antunes to write a text on Attar's work and the paintings].

                             
The one who guides and advises the thousands of birds in their quest for individuation or fulfilment is the hoopoe, with its almost royal characteristics ("it had on its chest the sign that testified to its entry into the spiritual path and on its head the crown of truth. In fact, she had entered the spiritual path intelligently and discerned good and evil"), and she tells them stories from the Sufi tradition, full of psychology and morality, ethics, asceticism and discernment, which will help them to free themselves from the ignorance, illusions and traps of their nafs or instincts and of the world, and to reach the distant but also intimate Simurgh.
So we're on a pilgrimage, an inner quest for disidentifications, qualities and living realisations, in which patience, detachment, determination, light, truth and unity are unveiled. And so each bird will expose and see its inner specificities and difficulties clarified. Likewise, in this sense, whoever draws them will have to exercise almost the vision of a Hieronimus Bosh in order to discern when one of them is carrying a dog or a snake inside, which ones are more divided and tied up, and which ones reflect more the limitations of humans and their struggles and aspirations, or love, freedom and unity.
The path presented by Attar is simple and pure, or one of the possible etymologies of Sufi would not be the white wool worn by such ascetics and mystics: it is the love of God, of the primordial Source and Unity underlying everything, which is the most important because it is the only one that always lasts and is the final destination or goal; therefore, we must aspire to it, not letting ourselves get too involved in the world and its people and activities, detaching ourselves from them and from our desires and egos and unifying our soul forces in a single will for reintegration or divine union, undoubtedly a Herculean task, even then but especially in the 21st century.
In these senses of the multiple forces that constitute us, José Pinto Antunes also captures and in fine overlays draws in the birds and the stories involved or in symbiosis with the elements of nature, with the environmental conditions, with the mysteries of the subtle soul worlds, in the immense and infinite space of the pilgrimage in the divine manifestation of life, which in the poem is crossed in seven valleys, stages or phases of the Path of souls and birds, called successively Talab, the valley of Demand, Eshq, that of Love, Marifat, that of Gnosis or spiritual Knowledge, Istighnah, that of detachment, Tawhid, knowledge of Unity, Hayrat, admiration, Faqr, denudation and, finally, Fana, extinction or transmutation of the ego and union (more or less...) with Divinity or Primordial Unity.
In many of the drawings (and there were 120 of them), more strongly or more softly traced and watercoloured, or else painted more fleshly or intensely in oils, we feel that they are windows into such valleys and states, common to other traditions although with other names, of the poem's birds-souls and of us, who pilgrimage through them, experience them and aspire to the deepest or highest in them. 

                                     
Perhaps if we have a good discernment, or even a good intuition, we can discover which bird, valley or soul state is represented in the successive drawings by José Pinto Antunes, when he is questioning, painting and glossing with Attar the marvellous human dialogic pilgrimage of self-realisation, towards the supreme mystery, of the end that is also the beginning, because the Simurgh sought is the Source of which we are a mirror, a bird, a song, a part, metaphors for the mystery of our quest and historical participation in the Divine and Cosmic Unity, so lived and proposed by the Sufi and Persian Islamic tradition and so potentially current today, for example, in the scientifically proven notion of the unified field of energy-information-Consciousness.
Let's focus on some of the best teachings, the first two relating to conscious psycho-spiritual breathing:
End of Ch. XXV: ‘Each of the breaths that measure your existence is a pearl and each of your atoms is a guide for you towards God. The benefits of this Friend of yours cover you from head to toe; they manifest themselves visibly and marvellously in you.’
End of chapter XXIX: ‘He whom his desires subjugate, he cannot breathe for a moment in the company of his soul.’ So, conrol more yourself, and breath deeply....
What the master hoopoe, at the beginning of chapter XXXV, conveys to a questioning bird is very practical and effective, and illustrates the practice common to various religious and spiritual traditions of persistent or repetitive prayer or remembrance of a name, mantra, dikr or phrase:
‘As long as you live, replied the stern one, be content to remember (dikr) God recognisably, and avoid superficial talk and words. If your soul possesses this contentment, worries and sorrows will fade away. In the two worlds of the visible and the invisible, this is what is most appropriate for the contentment of human beings. It is for him that the heavenly vault is in motion. Remain content in the Divinity and move like the sun out of love for it’. So simple and straigt teaching...
Or the beautiful story told in the same chapter: ‘A wise man said: ’For seventy years I have been constantly in an ecstasy of contentment and happiness, and in this state I participate in the sovereign majesty and even unite with the Divinity. As for you, who are preoccupied with finding the faults or mistakes of others, how can you rejoice in the beauty of the invisible world? If you look for faults with a scrutinising eye, how can you ever see invisible things? First rid yourself of your faults so that you can truly be king over invisible things. You split a hair in two to see the faults of others, but you are blind to your own faults. Take care of your own faults: then, even if you have obscurities or faults, you will be honoured by God...

About the valley of Gnosis, of esoteric knowledge, Ma'rifa, or Irfan, chapter XL, Attar advises us to eat and sleep less and wake up more, indeed always fruitful:
‘If you deprive yourself of sleep during the night and if you don't eat during the day, you may find what you are looking for. Search until you lose yourself in the search by refraining from eating during the day and sleeping at night. Don't sleep if you're looking for spiritual things, but if you're content to talk about them, then sleep is good for you. Guard well the way of the heart, for there are thieves all around. The path is surrounded by thieves of the heart, so preserve the jewel of your heart from these bandits.
As soon as you have the virtue of knowing how to guard your heart, your love for spiritual science will readily manifest itself. This knowledge will undoubtedly come to the person who watches in the midst of the ocean of his heart's blood. He who has long endured wakefulness has his heart awake when he approaches God. Since it is necessary to deprive yourself of sleep in order to keep your heart awake, sleep little in order to keep your heart faithful. You must repeat to yourself when your existence is shattered: ‘He who is lost in the ocean of beings must not let out a moan of complaint. True lovers have all gone off to sleep intoxicated with love. Hit the nail on the head, for the excellent beings have done what they had to do. He who really has a taste for spiritual love holds in his hand the key to both worlds’.
And let's end with the final chapter, which encourages us not to fear the mysterious, fana, extinction, and with the beginning of his epilogue, in which he bids us farewell:
‘When the sun of poverty or spiritual nakedness shone on me, it burnt both worlds more easily than if it had been a grain of millet.
When I saw the rays of that sun, I wasn't isolated, the drop of water returned to the ocean. Although in my game I sometimes won and sometimes lost, I ended up throwing everything into the ocean.
I was erased, I disappeared; nothing remained of me; I was no more than a shadow, not the slightest atom remained of me. I was a drop lost in the ocean of mystery and today I can't even find that drop. Although it's not in everyone's nature to disappear like that, I was able to lose myself in annihilation, along with many others who were like me. Is there anyone in the world, from the fish to the moon, who doesn't want to get lost here?

 

Tomb of Attar, in Nihapur, Iran. May he inspire us!

Epilogue, beginning:
‘O you who are advancing on the spiritual path, do not read my book as a poetic or magical production, but read it as relating to spiritual love, and judge, by a single sensation of your love, what my hundred love pains might be. Whoever reads this book, enlivened by this love, will throw the ball of happiness to the finish line. Forget abstinence and vulgarity; all that is needed here is love, yes, love and renunciation. Whoever possesses this love has no choice but to renounce his soul’ and move forward in love in order to see or find Simurgh.
Asked by a bird what one could offer, or with what one should reach the divine Simurgh, the master hoope, replied: ‘Take the ardour of the soul and the effort of the spirit, because no one should give anything else.’

The ascensional path to Simurgh

                                         

Of the trascendent and immanent Divinity in Iran: Ahura Mazda, Saoshyant, Madhi, Fravashi. The lucid Earth. Small contributions.

 Iran, which in ancient times, under the name of Persia, stretched over vast territories and had successive kingdoms and empires of great brilliance in the history of civilisation, owes many valuable spiritual aspects that any scholar of humanity and particularly of religion, art, ethics, philosophy and spirituality should know at least a little about.
This short text is an invitation to study the religiosity and spirituality of this historic civilisation and its people, and will briefly and almost superficially, given the complexity and subtlety of Mazdeism or Zoroastrianism, touch on a few aspects: the conception of Divinity in its transcendence, immanence and qualities, the vision of its manifestation, or descent to Earth or avatarisation, and the presence of heavenly spirits among us. Although many centuries have passed since the hymns, texts, dialogues and rites shone in their genesis, transformations and splendour, since Madzeism is one of the oldest historical religions, probably born between the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, we believe that whenever, in a sincere quest, we study, think and meditate on the Divinity with aspiration and love, and from a good conception, some openness or connection between It and us is re-established, which is very beneficial, amid the superficialisation and dispersion of modern day-to-day life, both for us immortal spirits and for Humanity.

                                       

 The Persians achieved a vision, or came to a conception, of God or the Supreme Divinity, called Ahura (Lord) Mazda (Wisdom), for some better translated as the Sublime Wisdom, also called Hormazd, and expressed it in various hymns and texts, surviving well expressed in one of the gathas, or hymns of Zoroaster, or of whoever wrote in his name:

 When I conceived You, O Mazda,
As the First and the Last,
As the Most Adorable,
As the Progenitor of Good Thought,
As the Creator of the eternal Law of Truth and Light,
As the Lord Judge of our actions in Life,
Make room then in my vision for You.
Gathas: Yasna, or ch. 31-8.

They also discerned that Ahura Mazda had his holy or kindly aspect or spirit, Spenta (beneficent, increaser) Mainyu (spirit), and was the creator and preserver of a cosmic order (Asa, or asha), which was based on certain principles and qualities of his, the Amesha Spenta, explained as good mind (vohu mana), righteousness (asha), self-control or mastery (khshatra, hence the kshatryas in India, the other Indo-European branch, the warrior caste, and hence the strong presence of a spiritual cavalry in Iran), serenity (armayti), fulfilment (hauvartat) and immortality (ameratat, the same as the Indian amrita). These Amesha Spenta can therefore be identified both as six divine qualities and as great individualised celestial spirits, and it is believed that Jews and Christians formed the notion of Archangels from them. 

                                  

It wasn't until later, as they weren't mentioned in Zoroaster's primordial hymns or gathas, that the participation of the celestial counterpart of every human being, the Fravashi, was added to Divine Providence on Earth.
 Originally, Zoroastrianism was not a dualistic religion and it was only later that it was considered that the Divinity, with its emanations of light and good, was opposed by a being and mental state called Angra Mainyu, or Ahrimam, so that Life had to be seen as a struggle between good and evil, in the heavens, but not so much with Ahura Mazda, but between Spenta and Angra, and even more so, of course, on earth between evil beings and those who are just or kind, and this kind of Guardian Angel, Fravashi, then came into play.
It's therefore not surprising that the Iranians have never liked or accepted the name given to them by US or Western imperialism: the axis of evil. For them, for well-founded and constantly proven reasons, the source of evil on Earth is ignorance, arrogance, ambition and violence, and in recent times especially Western imperialism, which has caused so much conflict and suffering.

                               

Although the impact on the three Religions of the Book (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is more widely recognised, the ever-changing Iranian religion also influenced Mahayana Buddhism, taking hold in the first centuries in the area of the Indo-Scythian kingdoms in eastern Iran, and from there spreading to Chinese Turkestan, China, Korea and Japan.
The first translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese were the Parthians from Persia, and through their influence the figure of Sakya Muni (Buddha, the silent sage of the Sakya clan) diminished, while that of the luminous beings and future Buddhas, the bodhisattvas, such as Amitabha Buddha, of the Infinite Light and who presides over the paradise of the West, sukhavati, similar to the land of Light or lucidity of Manichaeism, the religion that succeeded Zoroastrianism, grew.
Now it will be another bodhisattva Maitreya or Ajita who will correspond to Mitra invictus, the invincible Sun, and above all to the Saoshyant of Zoroastrianism, that divine manifestation who will come to bring the full Light to Earth, something that Jews and Christians, with the idea of the Messiah, and Islam, with the final coming of the prophet, especially the Shi'a, the majority in Iran and Iraq, who most believe in such a coming, through the unveiling of the hidden 12th imam, the Madhi.

                             

The coming of the divine envoy promised by Zoroaster had a correspondence in human beings, and nothing racist but universalist, as he explained in Yasna 48, 12:

‘The saviours (Saoshyants) who will come from the peoples
are those who, through good thought (vohuman),
commit themselves by their actions to fulfil
the duties that you, Mazda, Sublime Wisdom,
have transmitted as true justice. ’

Capa de livro trazido da Índia quando estive em Bombaim em diálogo com um sacerdote madzeísta ou parsi: Zoroastro resplandecente

 This aspect of the avatarisation or descent of the Divinity, in the dimension of initiatic Zoroatrism and the Perennial Wisdom, and which touches or is incumbent upon all of us, was explained in an even more spiritual way by a notable scholar and connoisseur of the sacredness of Iran, Henry Corbin, by the following phrase and idea:
‘The bond that unites each believer with the Saoshyant to come, the bond that makes him also a Saoshyant in this world, results from his realising or fulfilling the pre-existential choice [in the primordial emanation or before incarnating] of his fravarti or fravashi (his angelic counterpart, his heavenly Self): to make manifest, or to be, the world of Light.’ 

- Ó Fravashi, Fravashi...

How many of us are faithful to the call, the inspirations, the illuminations of our Guardian Angel, our Fravashi, our Spiritual Self, the divine face (or conception) that we love and adore the most? How many times during the day do we cultivate these connections, through prayer, breathing, giving thanks, meditating, sacrificing, loving?
Let's be more lucid in what forms and disinforms us, let's fight more creatively for the Light, the Good and the Truth and let's courageously radiate them in encounters with the forces of ignorance, lies, hatred, cruelty and therefore Evil that surround us so much today, so that we can deserve to feel the spiritual, celestial and Divine presence or connection in our heart and true being, and thus generate more lucid, peaceful and loving Earth in Humanity and  the Cosmos in solidarity and multipolarity...»
This text was written in portuguese, and today 0.9.24, translated to english.