<return to Bookstand Archive main page

SUMMER READING CORNER

Drinking of the Holy Grail, by Iana Lahi

Order: www.kobocapublishing.com
www.amazon.com

©2007
Published by Koboca Publishing
Reprinted with permission

From Chapter One: What is the Holy Grail?

Within the cells of our body lives a calling, the memory of a pain-free state of consciousness. It is sweeter and more lasting than the joy that hums in our bodies in the best of time. Some of us have felt it sitting in a row boat fishing, walking through the woods on the perfect day, gazing out to the ocean, swimming, meditating, making love, baking a pie, or holding a loved one. Feeling the divine in our body is intoxicating and life feels complete. Some of us would call it union with the divine and others would say nothing in their life could be better. How do we find the link creating union rather than separation? If, in these joyful states, we are so close to attaining that final state of divine joy — and living in the aliveness of our cells — why can’t we take the final step?

Throughout many past eons of our existence as spiritual human beings, we have tasted divine union — the merger of heart, soul and spirit. It is a sanctuary of bliss in the heart where there is no time but the eternal present. Everything is right here, right now. It stirs a desire to love so deeply that we embrace our own life spirit — and thus walk through the doorways to eternal love.

However, we’ve forgotten this simple, ineffable truth about ourselves. We turn to Buddha, Allah, Christ, Mary, and/or God to relieve our discomforts. We go through our day trying to comfort ourselves, filling up with whatever creates that comfort. “I will drink from the cup of life, we proclaim.” But the cup is often empty, we conclude there is no way to fill it except to shop, eat, take on someone else’s problems, work out, seek sexual pleasure, or indulge in our myriad quick-fix habits.

For the vast majority of us, the portal to this cup of eternal life closed a long time ago. When you track the roots of South American, African, Asian and Egyptian cultures, you will find ceremonies, dating back to the most ancient times, that keep the portals into the source of life open. Unlike them, we in our culture dropped the veil to the source of true power, love, and creativity by following our mind’s desires to control the forces of creation rather than to co-create with them.

When we let go of the desire to control, we will find the portal into our inner Holy Land. Here, the milk and honey-flow from the cup of eternal life, for we’re drinking from the divine land of our eternal feminine that is our birthright.

The battles we presently experience between our mind and heart, spirit and soul, and body and soul create the pain and suffering that we consider normal. Unfortunately, it has been that way for a long time. Two thousand years, we were at a crossroads between living in truth or in lies. The battle of keeping the Holy Grail alive began; it is the same battle we are still living today. For the last millennium, we have been counseled and warned that practicing direct connection with God was a sin. Some who defied this edict chose to hide; others were killed. Small sects of individuals openly practiced direct communion with God. How could such simple, direct devotion become the greatest sin on earth? Futhermore, in the midst of this organized sacrilege, how was the Holy Grail preserved? Some used their power to hold on to outer riches, land and position. Others composed music, wrote or sculpted. Many sustained spiritual practices in a secretive manner, thus becoming the threats and renegades of their respective societies. These individuals could not live in any other way other than the truth of their soul. They would not permit anyone to shut their souls down. They were driven by a passion and often did not know what directed them.

We still see that now. The major difference between those brave souls of the past two millennia and us is that we have become numb to the repression and silencing of our spirit. Nor do we know how to use the awesome power of the divine feminine, the Holy Grail. Ready examples in our modern, entertainment-based culture include rock stars and movie icons, many of whom are caught in the dark side of their own prodigious creative flow. When I went back and listened to the lyrics of a few progressive rock groups of the 1970’s, some 25 or 30 years after I’d first heard them, I was deeply impressed by the level of spirit and wisdom in those words. What happened? How was it that these sensitive, attuned, creative giants could so readily engage in the flow of the universe — then turn away from that flow, which could kill them just by the degree to which they misused it? Many artists, writers, healers and visionaries awaken to the Holy Grail moving through them; more accurately, they retain what they intrinsically know as children. They utilize it in their craft, but are unable to live fully in it.

Unfortunately, we are not taught in school how to appropriately use the power of this God force. Instead we are instructed and directed how to use our mind to feed, clothe, and build a capitalistic, industrialized and technology-driven society, not to develop the powers of the soul. We are trained to be cogs in the machine, factory workers building the engine of an empire that casts its long shadow over the entire world — including our souls, bodies and hearts. Our intuitive faculties, those innate abilities to know, see feel and tap the forces of life, are the tools that sustain, create and build our lives and cultures.

As long as we keep the soul, body and heart in separate compartments, we are sleeping in spirit. Once those walls between the compartments are down, the Holy Grail pours through to be received. This requires courage. Among those who have carried the power and magnitude of the Holy Grail, in their lives and works are Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Richard Wagner, Beethoven, Claude Debussy, Chopin, Mozart, Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Joan of Arc, Michelangelo, Sarah Brightman, Babaji, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Plato, David Bowie, Tori Amos, Justin Hayward, Sai Baba, John Lennon, George Harrison, John Anderson of the rock group Yes, Krishnamurti, Cat Stevens, Clara Schumann, Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Chief Seattle, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Nikola Tesla, Rimsky-Korsakov, Bill Douglas, Tchaikovsky, Catherine of Siena, Ruth St. Denis, Rumi, Shamiz Tabriz, Lalla, Ramana Maharshi, Lahiri Mahasaya, Gandhi, Milarepa, William the Conqueror, and Paramhansa Yogananda. And who can forget the music that poured out of Julie Andrews and connected us with beauty and divinity when she made Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music?

These spiritual and creative giants are among many who have lived in co-creation with the One. They tapped into the Holy Grail; some in a single performance or magical composition, others in their entire lives. They found it right where Christ admonished his followers to find the Kingdom of God — within themselves. All took the risk to live in it. Some battled with their forces of light and dark, and others ended the battle. The ones who concluded their battles did so by giving themselves over completely and surrendering to their higher Self, who lives in love! They latched on the supreme deity of creative and intoxicating light within. Check for yourself. Put on a piece of music by any of the musicians listed above, and see if it doesn’t touch your deepest being.

These souls focused upon the courage and power of their will and explored the relationship of dark and light. Some fell into their own unresolved matters of sexuality, power, denial, and fear and created “dramas” to distract their lives, while others knew why they were here and gifted it without creating personal distractions, living out their lives and dying feeling complete

The forces of light and darkness pull us into arrogance, pride, greed, ego, vanity, humility, selflessness, beauty, tenderness, truth, deceit, transcendence, radiance — and eventually oneness. Each emotion and thought is connected to currents of spiritual energy which flows into the physical body and creates wholeness or separation. The nucleus of a cell can either be split or joined. Our minds and emotions have the power to split or unify the God power. When a creative being, politician, world leader, spiritual aspirant or everyday Joe follows a current but never chooses to align the rest of themselves to it, chaos, split intentions, failure and loss rule. One way to interpret the present administration in the United Stated is to see it as our collective shadow side brought to bear, because it outlasted our collective spirit side in the polls. When shadow prevails, chaos, disorder, and suffering manifest along the entire reach of that shadow.

Take the time to find your highest spiritual current — Enter it fully! Instead of following the rules, beliefs and dogma of a particular religion or particular order, discover for yourself what Christ, Krishna, Buddha and the other great masters knew: All religions flow from the same wellspring of truth. Find the contradictions within yourself, they will exist between your body and sexuality, power and disempowerment, losing and “owning” yourself, direct or indirect connection to source, fearing the dark and the light. Honor the fear but connect it to the truth that lives in the union of your heart and belly. Connect it to your light.

Not taking a stance leaves you nowhere.

All of us connect to a religious and/or cultural lineage that was originally rooted in the harmony of spirit and source. The ancient cultures of the Essenes, Greeks, Hopi, Lakota, Gnostics, Shivaites, Sufis, Tibetans, and oldest Egyptians and societies found in Africa, Australia, India, the Middle East, Atlantis, and Lemuria all lived in union before eating the apple of materialism, worldliness and and sensuality and losing their connection. Their lives were once filled with practices of purification, devotion and wisdom. They honored God within and listened to that voice, instead of their minds. They knew whether they were attuned to their divine source or not.

The power of God can be heard in the heart. To keep the channel open, the ancients would feed and nourish their bodies with loving attention to temples of the divine — that they were. They used water, fresh herbs and fruits and vegetables to cleanse and heal their body. They prepared for and practiced sex as a sacred ritual of God attunement rather than for seeking immediate pleasure or temporarily quenching deep inner pain. The women knew they were vehicles of light and carried the mysteries of creation. They knew how to move the vital currents of their bodies with the forces of the universe and nature. Their spiritual practices maintained their connection to the source of light enabling them to heal, give birth, attune to the planets and stars to prophesize, strengthen their men through sex and maintain harmony among their peoples.

While the men presided over the gathering of goods, building and transporting tribes from place to place — owing to their superior physical strength — women ruled the inner roost, from the inside of the dwelling to the inside of the heart. It was a perfect balance, and both man and woman honored each other’s power fully.

Then something happened. It began (and continues) with the way women were treated. Through the course of time, women were degraded and killed for their powers. Turning against their own souls, women forgot who they were. Their own pain and hurt tore the threads of their remembrance. The knowledge of how to stay connected was erased from their memory.

When this happened, the Holy Grail was lost.

• Drinking from the Holy Grail Lead
• In the Author's Words