Part 11: Diagrams and Drawings, Cont.

In any era, a man’s psychological problems usually arise from his wanting to be loved and from his trying to impress or please people in order to obtain that love. For the better part of his life a man identifies himself as someone’s son or brother or friend or husband or neighbor or employee or father; and finds that in each of these relationships a high standard of performance is demanded of him. But always, as he tries to please one person he invariably displeases another. The Samsaric Factor multiplies both his failures and his regrets until he one day finds himself standing alone amidst the smoking ruins of his life. The great ontological mystery is upon him. Who am I? What am I? How did I get here? He bites his knuckles and whimpers, suspecting that his life will end in that awful place.

Version of the Chakra system popularized by Sir John Woodroffe. Muladhara, the perineum. The sulphur colored cube represents Earth, the residence of Yin force. Svadhisthana, the bladder chakra, is a white Lunar crescent and represents Water. Manipura, the solar plexus, is a stylized red cauldron and represents Fire. etc.

The man is now ready to turn his attentions inward in an effort to discover who he is in relation to himself and just what his locus is in the cosmic scheme of things.

Alchemy’s spiritual regimens were specifically designed for this purpose: to engage a man’s introspective abilities, to help him develop an interest in his own soul for the sake of that soul and no other.

The Zodiac also contributed its arcana to the great opus, the work of attaining the divine marriage of sun and moon (artifex and bodhisattva) and producing the Mercurial Child. The following illustrations exemplify:

The sign for Cancer the Crab originally indicated female breasts. The ominous association of carcinoma (cancer) metastasizing as a crab, especially in the breast, has caused some modern astrologers to call cancer "moon children" - a not entirely arbitrary designation since the sigil for cancer is said by many to indicate an entwining male and female "seed". From Angelus’ Astrolabium Planum. 1488 edition.

By correspondence, by sympathetic "magical" suggestion, and by the effective means of yantra and mandala, the artifex kept his mind on his psyche and, when assisted by grace, effected spiritual healing through achieving altered states of consciousness. Strict adherence to an ethical code was considered a prerequisite.

Before commenting on the Baiyunguan stone rubbing which depicts the adventures of the Oxherder and the Spinning Maiden, we ought to make mention of the cryptic nature of alchemical documents. Especially as regards monastic alchemy, that the Art was so occult was not necessarily due to fears of profanation or persecution. True, secrecy helped to preserve the Art’s mystique and also to lessen the danger that a student would proceed too rapidly. Then as now, the regimen had to be passed down from master to pupil on a progressive "need to know" basis because certain techniques, such as the physical methods of restraining ejaculation, were too difficult to describe and had to be demonstrated. A more potent need for secrecy was the grievously misunderstood state of androgyny.

Pisces is the sign of two fishes which swim in opposite directions and are connected by a cord. The esoteric meaning is of the Union of Opposites or the union of spirit and soul. Stained glass. Chartres Cathedral.

This knowledge is still guarded today and those who broadcast it are invariably warned to be circumspect. It simply is not possible to tell the uninitiated man, no matter how pious he is, that if he works very, very hard he will one day wake up hallucinating that he’s a woman... and then to expect him to be enthusiastic about the prospects.

Given that samadhi is orgasmic ecstasy, the inherently sexual nature of the work’s entire scope had also to be disguised. Incomprehensible names were accordingly assigned to the Opus’s setting, props, and dramatis personae. The problems in nomenclature are more than frustrating. They are stupefying.

Consider the problems in deciphering, for example, the Chinese code. Calling a penis a "jade stalk" or a woman’s sexual parts a "lotus" or "peach" is cute but confusing, conjuring up as it does celery and daffodils, race cars and compotes.

Beside the slushy coyness lies the problem of directional confusion.

A westerner who sits at a table on which he has spread a map will locate North up, i.e., farthest from his belly and South down, closest to him; and, therefore, West will be on his left hand and East will be on his right.

Many oriental maps, however, are drawn so that East is in the position which South normally takes in occidental maps. Without knowing this, making any kind of directional sense of maps, mandalas, body diagrams and stupa site plans is often an impossible task. Unfortunately, a simple ninety degree rotation does not necessarily rectify the problem.

Further complications arise from confusing the various colors assigned to the directions. White, for example, is assigned to the East and red to the West, but for several reasons black and yellow, the remaining colors are not always in the expected positions of North and South.

Two errors appear in this Sri Yantra reproduction. There are two yellow directions. The directional color at the bottom should be red (west) as opposed to white (east) which is unaccountably at the top. The photographic plate has clearly been reversed since north and south are on the wrong sides.

Sometimes fading or other problems in reproducing color are compounded by the reversal of photographic plates.

North (A), South (G), East (D) and West (J) are scrambled. From Taoist Yoga, Alchemy and Immortality by Charles Luk.

Especially in the case of body diagrams, it is often said that the adept assumes the role of a sky god and looks down upon his creation. Now, from the sky god’s point of view, North and South, i.e., up and down, will be reversed but this explains nothing when East and West are not also reversed.

We are also told that human beings are not two-dimensional Flatlanders lying on a map. No, they are upright; and we’re now confronted with a three-space kind of problem with x, y, and z coordinates and we all know how confusing that can be.

As far as Chinese directional peculiarities are concerned, se11 sm is a frequent offender. The primary meaning of Yin, for example, is dark. Secondary associations are feminine, moist, earth and the direction North. Yang, then, is light and is further associated with masculine, dry, sky and, since the sun is most evident in the sunny South, with that direction. Now, the brain is obviously the locus of enlightenment, so South has therefore got to be up in the cranium. This discomfits us with the thought that a man’s groin must be down in Yin’s northern area. What to do? What to do? How can a macho groin be feminine? The dilemma is ingeniously solved by the simple expedient of Yin absorption. To gain the necessary "balancing" quantity of Yin energy, the practitioner’s groin presses down upon the feminine earth and it is this contact point that is "northern" in character. Of course, the need to mount the earth occurs only in solo, "single-cultivation" forms of Chinese yoga. In "dual-cultivation" forms of Yoga an actual female human being must be employed to tap this energy source. This is considered an acceptable substitute.

The best advice anyone can give about diagram directions is to ignore them completely.

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